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Category: Research

Posts in which we talk about research

West Galleries –Singing in the Choir (Quire)

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STC26400 Village choir (see also 12274) by Webster, Thomas (1800-86); Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK; The Stapleton Collection; English, out of copyright

One of my weekly joys is singing with my church choir. Our church is small, and so is our choir, often only six or eight people, just as I imagine a small rural parish church choir in Regency times might have been. But did you know that music in the country parish churches of Regency England was very different from what you find in churches today? I fell down this fascinating rabbit hole while doing research for my not-going–to-be finished-for-Christmas-after-all holiday story, The Lord of Misrule.

Since the heroine of LOM is a vicar’s daughter, I’ve done a lot of church-related research for that story, and am now familiar with the reforms that came with the Victorian era and the Oxford Movement in the Anglican Church. Many of those Victorian era changes have lasted into our times, and they can be a roadblock when one tries to recreate an earlier time. In a country parish church of the Regency era, it would  be rare or unlikely for you to find an organ, or hymnals, or even a choir in exactly the same sense we hear today.

“West Gallery Music” evolved in response to the need for guided singing in local church services, where there were few organs, and no trained musicians or choirs to lead the music. During the Reformation of the 16th century, organs in churches were destroyed as part of the rejection of Catholicism. Under Cromwell, English churches continued to suffer abuse, and organs were not replaced. Organs did not become popular in churches again until the middle of the 19th century!

In country Anglican churches 1700-1850, and in non-conformist churches even later, to 1860, the joyful and vibrant traditions of the West Gallery music reigned. A relatively modern term, the name comes from the galleries where the choirs sat. During the Georgian era, population was expanding and in the villages, church attendance was a major part of life. Galleries were added to the interiors of the small churches to provide additional seating, or at least open seating not owned privately, as most pews were. These were sometimes built along the sides, but the west end was usually the province of the choir.

Essentially, these untrained choirs consisted of a band with instruments and singers, and while their music could sometimes feature complex harmonies, most of the time the pieces (psalms most commonly, but also anthems and even Christmas carols), were simple, for many in the choir could not read music –even if they could read words. Instruments included whatever strings, woodwinds, or brasses might be available among the village folks or that the church was able and willing to purchase. Each instrument might anchor a section of voices, the treble parts and bass parts, for instance. The bands that played Sunday mornings also were called into service for village festivals and assemblies or any other special occasions.

Women were not allowed to sing in standard Anglican church choirs. The practice of fulfilling the high range voices with boys and young men led to the formation of many “boy choirs” who sang in the cathedrals and large city churches. However, the painting of “A Village Choir” by Thomas Webster (shown at the top) dates from 1840 and definitely shows women participating. Is it because the choir depicted sings in a non-conformist (non-Anglican) church? Or because it is from a later date? (maybe both?) I have not been able to confirm if women would have been singing in a Regency choir, at least on a regular basis. One argument made against it was simply that it would be improper for young women to be isolated away from the rest of the congregation with all the choir men up in the gallery!! By the 1850’s the West Gallery music was starting to decline, falling into disfavor because it was not considered “solemn” enough, and the trend to restore churches back to their “original” state was beginning to gain traction. Galleries were torn down and removed. Much of the music was lost or destroyed. However, in the 1980’s, a revival of this musical form started in Britain, and has spread into the U.S. and Australia. Local “quires” have sprung up, devoted to performing this unique music. Britain’s West Gallery Association provides a sort of loose central organization and resources. If you’d like to learn more about these groups, and/or the music and history, here are some good website and article links:

http://www.wgma.org.uk/Articles/intro.htm   (West Gallery Association site with a good overview)

http://www.rodingmusic.co.uk/info/wginfo.htm

http://www.immanuelsground.com/wgmusic.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_gallery_music

I am disappointed and also offer apologies that I won’t be able to offer The Lord of Misrule to my readers for Christmas!! It was rolling along quite well, but a double whammy of health issues for myself and for my husband has slowed me down too much to make it feasible. I will keep folks posted about when it will actually be finished and available!

In the meantime, had you run across the West Gallery music tradition? My heroine in LOM (along with her married friend) actually gets drafted to sing in the choir to substitute for a missing choir member, but normally women would not be allowed, in that village and that church. I always say that research is imperfect at best, and a writer can make anything happen as long as it seems logical and believable.

Best wishes to everyone for the holidays, and Happy New Year! (Sending these now since I won’t be blogging again until January –and we are anticipating making some changes here at Risky Regencies, so who knows?? Thank you for visiting us here and for reading.

Posted in Gail Eastwood, History, Regency, Research, Risky Book Talk, Writing | Tagged , , , | 12 Replies

Artistic License and 12th Night Traditions

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The English count the 12 days of Christmas as starting on Christmas Day itself, so Christmastide, or the Twelve Days of Christmas culminate tonight with Twelfth Night, ushering in the Christian season of Epiphany. Which customs did people follow to celebrate this during the Regency?

The more research you do to answer this question, the less of an answer you will find, for sources contradict each other and assumptions are made where information is lacking. Twelfth Night itself is ages old, and in earlier times eclipsed Christmas as a major holiday. The rituals and customs associated with it, and with the twelve days, are myriad.

Did people exchange gifts? On Christmas? On Twelfth Night? All through the Twelve Days? Evidence (newspaper ads for instance, and lists of gifts received kept by individuals) would suggest “all of the above”, despite some accounts that say the practice had faded out by late in the Regency. Did they still dress up as “12th Night characters” to entertain each other at parties? Jane Austen mentions this. Still celebrate with 12th Night cake, or choose a King and Queen of the Bean? Perhaps at least in the early Regency, and of course it depends on class, location, and other variables.

“…these venerable customs are becoming every year less common : the sending of presents also, from friends in the country to friends in the town at this once cheerful season, is, in a great measure obsolete: ” nothing is to be had for nothing” now ; and without the customary bribe of a barrel of oysters, or a fish, we may look in vain for arrivals by the York Fly, or the Norwich Expedition….” –Kaleidescope of January 1822.

Elsewhere in his article the writer says: “During the period which elapsed, between 1775 and the close of the 18th century, the periodical observance of old customs, festivals, and holydays, was much more attended to than at present. The recurrence of the time  hououred festival of Christmas, was commemorated in Liverpool, to an extent much beyond what is now the usage, though in a degree inferior to the manner in which it was observed in the age which was gone by.”

Were the old customs celebrated in Washington Irving’s fictionalized account of an English Christmas in “Old Christmas” from his larger work, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.(published serially 1819-20) truly inaccurate, as claimed by the same writer?? His complaint about Irving’s work: “It is true that the Sketch Book is merely a work of imagination and not of history, and that it describes Mr. Bracebridge as an eccentric elderly gentleman, who was fond of keeping up or reviving ancient customs and old pastimes, but it is so expressed that a stranger to English habits, on reading it, can scarcely avoid falling into the error of imagining that such a mode of celebration, was observed at Christmas, in some parts of England, at the time when that book was written, or at least, in very modern times. Even if all the ceremonies, sports and observances which are there described, ever were commonly practised at Christmas, in English families, it was in an age long since past, and there is no reason to believe that the mode of observing or celebrating Christmas, described in the Sketch Book, ever occurred in England, within the last hundred years.”

The writer seems to ignore Irving’s own words in the piece itself: “I felt an interest in the scene, also, from the consideration that these fleeting customs were posting fast into oblivion; and that this was, perhaps, the only family in England in which the whole of them were still punctiliously observed.”

My belief, as always, is that –humans being humans– not everyone did the same thing, so what may be true for one area of England, or even one village, or one family, might not be true for another. We also know that, especially in the countryside, memories in England were very long and tradition revered.

This is good news for us as fiction writers. We try to recreate an accurate sense of the time period we set our stories in –otherwise, why choose that period? But at the same time, we have a story to tell. Do we have leeway to bend the facts to serve our story?

I would say no, when the facts are definitely known and established. To me, that just undermines the believability the story needs to create. I’m a firm believer in the importance of research! But when the facts are not so definite, when sources disagree or are vague? When the variable eccentricities of human nature come into play? Then I say, bring it on!

I admit to creating a setting –a backwater village that clings to old traditions –in my yet-unfinished 12 days tale, The Lord of Misrule. Even the predicament of my hero, who is stranded in said village and quite accidentally (perhaps) selected to be the Lord of Misrule, is an anachronism, since for the most part as far as we know that custom of having a Lord of Misrule was abolished in the 17th century (and even that is subject to all sorts of variations, from ruling for 3 months, October-December, to the 12 days of Christmastide, to only ruling on the also abolished Feast of Fools, or only on Twelfth Night itself).

What do you think? Does a lack of solid information give us license to do what we please for the sake of a story? Whatever your opinion on this, I wish you a Happy New Year “and many of them” as one 1805 newspaper encouraged people to say. Happy Twelfth Night, too!

Posted in Gail Eastwood, History, Regency, Research, Writing | Tagged , , , , | 2 Replies

Deportment, Courtesy and All That

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Manners maketh man. William of Wykeham, Motto of Winchester College and New College, Oxford

Company Shocked at a Lady Getting up to Ring the Bell, by James Gillray (1805)

By odd coincidence, both my actor son Graham and Elena’s daughter Gaile are in rehearsals for theater productions of Jane Austen works going up in March. Did someone declare March to be Jane Austen Theater month? Watching one of Graham’s rehearsals recently made me realize one of the greatest challenges these young actors face in trying to capture the historical flavor is bridging the gap between modern and period social graces.

I was asked to attend the rehearsal to share my so-called “expertise” with the cast members about titles, incomes, what constitutes a “gentleman” and who are and aren’t peers, etc. We had a good conversation about the characters in Pride & Prejudice, including things like why Darcy would be friends with Bingley, and why we should have more sympathy for Mrs. Bennett, comical as she is. But once the rehearsal began, I was vividly struck by how modern everyone was on stage, evidenced by the small matters of deportment, manners, and courtesy. I lump those together in the category of “social graces.” Does anyone learn those things anymore? 

For example, the cast members needed coaching in how to stand and how to move. The girls needed to learn not to sit with their legs apart or crossed at the knees, and not to stand with a hip thrust out while talking. The young men needed to learn not to slouch, whether sitting or standing, and not to sit down when the women around them were still standing! At the end of the rehearsal, to her credit, their young director made them all practice walking with good, straight posture and a consciousness of how they placed their feet and made their steps. A few of the behavioral “faux pas” I saw seem to have been written into the script –perhaps not the best adaptation of Austen’s P&P out there.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, by Wm. Hoare

In past centuries, aristocratic children were taught the rules of society and polite behavior from an early age. Knowing when to show emotion, how to dress and move elegantly, the rules for when and how to make proper calls, behave at a ball, conduct graceful conversation and act courteously proclaimed them as members of upper society. In his famous series of letters to his illegitimate son on how to behave and succeed in society, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield wrote: “I would heartily wish that you may often be seen to smile, but never heard to laugh while you live. Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill-manners; it is the manner in which the mob express their silly joy at silly things; and they call it being merry.” (Full text of 400 letters: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3361/3361-h/3361-h.htm Edited version of “best letters”: https://archive.org/details/bestlettersoflor00chesiala)

High Change in Bond Street, James Gillray (1796)

Failure to master these codes of conduct could mean failure to make a good marriage, failure to be successful in government service or failure in other opportunities both social and practical. Such failure betrayed a lack of “good breeding.” The young learned from parents, tutors and governesses, dance masters, and schools. Of course, that doesn’t mean when they were among their friends that they always toed the line. Most of us have heard of the highly rude behavior of young bucks loitering on Bond Street in Regency London.

In considering our Regency period, it makes sense to recognize that those who were then teaching had learned their social graces in the late 18th century, influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment era. One examiner of those ideas was the 3rd Earl of Shaftsbury, who wrote a series of essays on the subject in the early 1700s. He wrote: “Politeness’ may be defined as a dext’rous management of our words and actions, whereby we make other people have better opinion of us and themselves.” Even across the pond, such worthies as Ben Franklin and George Washington wrote guidelines for proper deportment and courtesy. (Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation by George Washington). A well-known but later resource was The Mirror of Graces (1811) by A Lady of Distinction.

Gaining entrée to this world of special social rules was the ambition of many middle class hopefuls as they gained in wealth but not status. This ambition helped to fuel the popularity of such periodicals as The Spectator, which regularly published advice on polite behavior. The unauthorized publication of the Earl of Chesterfield’s letters in 1774 was something of a scandal, not only for the breach of privacy, but also for exposing to the general public the information it contained. Samuel Johnson, who had a jaundiced view of Chesterfield anyway, claimed the letters “taught the morals of a courtesan and manners of a dancing master.” However, because they were never written for publication, they are all the more valuable for reflecting the reality of the social codes of the time, moral double standards and all.

As Regency writers, we have to be careful not to overlay our period with the increasingly restrictive codes that evolved during Victorian times and are better documented. One such resource was “The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness: A Complete Hand Book for the Use of the Lady in Polite Society” written by Florence Hartley, published in 1860.

I am old enough that I was sent to “dancing school” as an after school activity, where we were indoctrinated with many of the same rules of behavior and courtesy more than a hundred years later. Did anyone else here suffer through doing that? I think it was during 6th and 7th grade. We generally hated it, but we not only learned how to waltz and cha-cha, we learned how to go through a receiving line, how to properly be asked to dance and how to respond, and a million other small tidbits of polite social behavior –much of which is outdated now, quite reasonably.

Yet I wonder, in becoming so relaxed, informal (and egalitarian) in our modern age, in tossing out many of the old rules of behavior, have we lost something that mattered? Or have we simply “leveled the playing field” socially by removing barriers and distinctions that in the past helped to separate classes (and enforce inequality between sexes)? I would love to know what you think!

Posted in Gail Eastwood, Jane Austen, Regency, Research, Writing | Tagged , , , , | 3 Replies

Appreciation, or How Princess Charlotte Saved My Life

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If this were Regency times, I wouldn’t be putting my thoughts into writing today. Given the medical misfortunes I’ve suffered recently, I would be dead. Sobering, right? Let me tell you, right now my appreciation for a certain Regency doctor and his contributions to modern medicine is boundless. I’ll get to the part where Princess Charlotte fits in shortly. Bear with me!

Diane’s March 5th post about the Brontes and the ways disease decimated their family was a vivid reminder of how far modern medicine has come in the understanding, prevention and treatment of diseases. I am thanking God and the stars right now for the similar advancement in medical tools and techniques, and understanding of the human body. In particular (and also most appropriately in this year of 2018), I am grateful for Dr. James Blundell, who was so horrified by the frequent deaths of women from bleeding after childbirth that he managed to re-open the medical world to studying the possibilities of blood transfusions.

To really understand what he accomplished we need to briefly look back further. You see, medical researchers in the mid-1600’s had tried to investigate and study the idea of transferring blood to help save lives. Unfortunately, most of their results had been pretty disastrous. This led authorities in France (the Chamber of Deputies), England (the Royal Society of London), and even the Pope (Papal Edict of 1678) to formally prohibit any further experimentation or study on the transfusion of blood.

Fast forward 150 years, and enter our hero, Dr Blundell. Born in 1790, he became a prominent London obstetrician, studying under Sir Astley Cooper, known for his achievements in vascular surgery, and also under his uncle, Dr. John Haighton, focusing on midwifery and physiology. He attended the University of Edinburgh, obtaining his medical degree in 1813. He returned to London to begin his medical practice and was recognized as a lecturer with his uncle on the topics of physiology (1816) and midwifery (1817) at the combined schools of St. Thomas’ and Guy’s Hospital in London.

Post-partum hemorrhage was a common cause of death for women after childbirth and the lack of remedy for it horrified the young obstetrician, sources say. I believe it is no coincidence that Dr Blundell was moved to break the 150-year-old taboo on studying blood transfusion after such a much-loved and very public figure as Princess Charlotte died from post-partum hemorrhaging in November of 1817 while her physicians stood by helplessly.

With his star on the rise, at the age of 27, Blundell had perhaps both more to lose and more potential for success than more established physicians of the period. All in the following year, he performed the first known successful blood transfusion, using a husband as donor for his wife, published an important paper titled “Experiments on the Transfusion of Blood by the Syringe” and was named a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians.

Blundell modestly claimed he investigated the transfusion of blood “with a view of keeping this valuable option before the profession in the hope of adding something to the body of facts.” He performed 10 blood transfusions between 1825 and 1830, with a 50% success rate.

Throughout the Regency period and beyond, Dr Blundell continued to have a major impact on the field of medicine, and not just in the area of blood transfusions. Frustrated by the limited tools he had to work with, he devised new tools and methods, and his research also opened up new areas of study, particularly that of abdominal surgery. He became the sole lecturer on his topics at St. Thomas’ and Guy’s upon his uncle’s death in 1823. His lectures were collected and published in several versions during the 1830’s, culminating with “The Principles and Practices of Obstetricy as at Present Taught by Dr. James Blundell” (1834).

Two years later, however, the doctor had an “irreconcilable” dispute with the administration at Guy’s Hospital and retired from teaching at the age of 46. He did continue his private practice, and was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1838.

The biography of Blundell by Stacy L. Adams at the Healio.com website has this to say about Blundell’s later life: “Often referred to as eccentric, in his later years Blundell had both interesting and unusual sleeping patterns. He rose midday and saw patients in his home in the afternoon hours. After dining he began a round of house calls as late as 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. He carried many books with him, which he read between calls by the interior light affixed to his carriage. Blundell retired in 1847 and moved to a large house in Piccadilly, London, where he lived in relative anonymity. He died on Jan. 15, 1878.”

Would Dr. James Blundell have been inspired and horrified enough to pursue his “forbidden” research in 1818 without the public tragedy of Princess Charlotte’s death? Who can say? I am eternally grateful that he did. When a “simple” surgical procedure I had at the beginning of March went horribly awry, I was able to have five blood transfusions over about as many days until my doctors were finally able to stop my internal bleeding. Without Blundell’s discoveries about many aspects of transfusion (which I’ve not gone into here), doctors who came after him would not have made the discoveries they did, including the typing of blood (c. 1900) or the importance of matching donor/patient blood types, or even the development of blood banks. Do you think Dr. Blundell could ever have imagined his work leading to anything like those?

I do want to give a shout out to all the people who donate blood to blood banks around the country. Are you a blood donor? What do you think about that? You never know when the life you save could be that of someone you know. Someone’s gift of blood saved me –along with all these other historical matters! If you are healthy and able to give blood, I hope each of you reading this post will consider donating the next time a blood drive happens in your area. Think of poor tragic Princess Charlotte and heroic Dr. James Blundell, forging ahead where no one dared to go for 150 years before him. Thank you!

Posted in Gail Eastwood, History, Regency, Research | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Replies

Teaching Urchins: Another Unsung Hero, or Regency Roots of Educating the Poor

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My last “unsung Regency hero” (Dr James Blundell, May 2) was aware that his pursuits could have a huge impact on the future, and indeed, he was right. Today’s hero, a cobbler named John Pounds, also had a great impact on the future, in the area of education, but he seems to have been completely unaware that his efforts were significant beyond the immediate benefit, even when he became famous and famous people came to see what he was doing. I believe his story is celebrated in Britain, but here in the U.S. he is pretty much unknown. Have you ever heard of him?

Education for the poor was a controversial idea during the Regency years. In my Christmastide Regency story The Lord of Misrule (not finished yet, working on it!!), my heroine’s father, a rather enlightened vicar, belongs to the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor, which was a real organization. Education for the masses had supporters among the aristocracy –most famously the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, although he became active post-Regency. Many in the upper classes, however, still feared the kind of upheavals that had happened in France only decades earlier, and strongly opposed the concept of educating the poor. They felt education would only make the masses dissatisfied with the conditions of life in Britain and could lead to the same kind of tragic horrors that revolution had caused across the channel.

A split existed along religious lines as well: most of the support for poor education came from the non-conformist churches, and the established Anglican Church would not condone cooperation with them.

 Against this background of contrasting opinions we find John Pounds, a simple cobbler who had a shop in Portsmouth. Did John Pounds have a stake in this fight? Not directly, but indirectly he definitely did.

Known in his time as “the Crippled Cobbler of Portsmouth”, John Pounds was born in 1766. In his teen years he was apprenticed as a shipwright at the Portsmouth Dockyard, but just 18 days after the death of his father and just before his 15th birthday, he was crippled by a fall into a dry dock at the shipyard which nearly killed him. After a rather miraculous recovery but unable to continue in that line of work, he learned the cobbler’s trade which sustained him until his death in 1839.

 Pounds was apparently simply devoted to the idea of doing good –a humble man improving the lives of the many poor children who roamed the streets of Portsmouth. Armed with warm baked potatoes with which to entice them, he would seek out destitute, often homeless children to invite to his small shop, where he ran a school of sorts and also made certain they were clothed and fed. As he made and repaired boots (no re-soled  dancing slippers, as his was not an upper class clientele) he taught these neediest of children, often homeless, to read, write and do sums. He taught them moral values and trained them to live good and productive lives. Sources say that at times he would have as many as 40 children in his shop at once, along with assorted birds, cats and dogs for whom he also cared.

Not surprisingly, his customers took note. Word of his good deeds spread. Supporters tried to give money to help the cause, but the humble yet independent cobbler would only accept donations of clothing or food that directly benefited the children. Famous people including quite probably Charles Dickens (who grew up in Portsmouth) came to see him, and no doubt left inspired by his selfless example.

Pounds did not set out to become the originator of the Victorian concept of “Ragged Schools”, but he has eventually become recognized as such. The prominent Scottish preacher and philanthropist Thomas Guthrie who is often credited as a founder of the movement, himself credited John Pounds as the originator in the 2nd edition of his influential pamphlet “Plea for Ragged Schools” published in 1849, ten years after Pounds’ death.

It is unlikely that John Pounds had ever heard of the London tailor Thomas Cranfield, who started a free day school for poor children near London Bridge in 1798. Another unsung Regency hero, Cranfield established more schools and by his death in 1838, just a year before Pound’s death, had created 19 schools serving London’s poor for free. Certainly his efforts also contributed to the movement toward the Ragged Schools, but his story is less documented, sadly for us.

Pounds never considered what he was doing to be a “school” or ever tried to establish an institution to offer what he did. From all accounts, the personal love and care he lavished on the children that benefitted from his ministry could never be duplicated in a formal setting. Yet it is estimated that over his lifetime the humble cobbler educated more than 500 children.

The most vivid account of John Pounds’ life and achievements is the book written by The Rev. Henry Hawkes, “Recollections of John Pounds”. Hawkes became acquainted with Pounds during the last six years of the old shoe mender’s life and his first person narrative includes descriptions by many other people who were contemporaries and Portsmouth residents. The book has been reprinted in its original form (ISBN: 978-0-9573951-0-7), published by the John Pounds Memorial Church.

Don’t you think one of the fascinating things about history is the parts left out? Do you suppose that grief played a role in John Pound’s fall at the dockyard? He started teaching children about ten years after he opened his shop on St. Mary Street. What do you suppose got him to start when he did? Perhaps a special child who triggered the desire to help? Or a practical need to be established enough in his trade before he could begin to make a difference? He was apparently a devout man who would bring the children to church with him once they were decently clothed. His church helped support his mission –was there an influential minister who helped inspire John? I haven’t read the Hawkes book about him. I wonder if any of these questions are answered in it!!

Posted in Gail Eastwood, History, Regency, Research, Risky Regencies | Tagged , , , | 4 Replies
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