The Georgians: Shop to Live, or Live to Shop?

            I love history, especially the 18^th century and the more I learn about the Georgians, the more it appears they oversaw the birth of many things familiar to us today. Take shopping for example.

            Before the 1700’s most trade was done direct, straight from producer to customer. If you needed a chicken, you went to a farmer to buy one and if the farmer produced surplus stock, then he took those chickens to market. Likewise craftsmen produced to order and had no need of shop premises because customers approached them directly. People shopped out of necessity, rather than for leisure – perhaps with the except ion travelling pedlars hawking more unusual goods such as tea, tobacco, spices and ribbons.

1734 - people visited fairs (Southwark Fair featured here) to
spend money and enjoy themselves

            But in the 18^th century London expanded at a tremendous rate. Money was poured into building grand terraces, opulent squares and imposing town houses –all of which needed fixtures, fittings and furnishings. A demand for merchandise was born that distanced the consumer from producer. Canny merchants spotted the opportunity to buy good and supply them to towns and cities – the demand for goods as luxuries, rather than necessity had started.

            These shops were often open from 8am to 11pm and as more shops opened so competition for custom grew and window displays became important to entice the shopper inside. Bow fronted windows gave a larger stage on which to showcase goods.

An 18th century shoe shop

But this fledgling consumer society was not without disadvantages for the shopkeeper. The majority of goods did not have a fixed price and could be bargained over (a hark back to haggling in the market) and it was considered ‘odd’ to marks items with a price tag and not haggle. When a purchase was made, it was usual to put goods on account, rather than pay up front. Often a customer ran up an account for a year before settling what he owed – and if he didn’t feel like paying in full, there was little a shopkeeper could do about it.

            As the century deepened, so shopping became an entertainment in itself, with people idling away the hours at different shops but with no intention of making a purchase:

"I have heard, that some Ladies, and those too persons of good note, have taken their coaches and spent a whole afternoon in Ludgate Street, or Covent Garden, only to divert themselves in going from one mercer's shop to another, to look upon their fine silks, and to rattle and banter the shopkeepers, having not so much the least occasion, much less the intention, to buy anything; nay, not so much as carry any money out with them to buy anything if they fancied it."

Daniel Defoe – The Complete Tradesman

Buying a new muff

            Indeed, shopkeepers were expected not only to put up with having their time wasted, but to be cheerful about it!

“[The shopkeeper] must never be angry, not so much as seen to be so, if a customer tumbles him £100 worth of goods and scarce bid for anything” 

Daniel Defoe – The Complete Tradesman

            So you see, in the 18^th century people stopped shopping to live, and lived to shop! It was also a time when people with spare income spent it on entertainments such as the theatre or visiting a pleasure garden (as featured in The Ringmaster's Daughter). 

"Paradise for Women and Hell for Horses": Sexism in the 17th and 18th Centuries

“[England is] a paradise for women and hell for horses.” Robert Burton 1651

A woman's role was to marry and have children.

            The above quote is from the 17^th century, but the underlying sentiment remains true a century later in Georgian times. Just in case the word ‘paradise’ confuses you – consider that women are being put in the same category as horses, that is, both subject to men, their lord and master. In effect Burton is saying that women should consider themselves jolly lucky to be coddled and generously looked after by their menfolk. Puts a different complexion on the term ‘paradise’ doesn’t it?

            If you aren’t convinced, then consider this quote by Judge Buller, in 1782, who ruled on a point of English law concerning women and concluded:

            “[It is] perfectly legal for a man to beat his wife, as long as he used a stick no thicker than his thumb.”

Wealthy and leisured...but at what price?

 In the upper classes there the prevailing attitude was of men ‘owning’ women – almost as though the men were intimidated and needed to keep women firmly under the thumb! Men subjugated women by linking learning, knowledge, politics and career to a loss of feminine charm. A ‘honey trap’ was created where a woman looked to marriage for security, and if she tried to be independent she was labelled as having loose morals. This is illustrated in this quote written in 1757 by Jean Jacques Rousseau:

            “there are no good morals for women outside of a withdrawn and domestic life …any woman who shows herself off disgraces herself.”

A laundress at work - one of the few 'honest' occupations
open to women

But of course, many lower class women had no choice but to earn a living and there were few jobs were considered 'decent' - and surprise, surprise, they paid poorly. Interestingly, the 18^th century saw the birth of consumerism and some women stepped into roles as seamstresses (helping the wealthy keep up with the latest fashion), writing for magazines and pamphlets (more lofty literary ambition was frowned upon), decorating ceramics and indeed, serving in the new shops. But as for actresses and singers, those females who might consider entertaining for a living were labeled as being sexually available…

A maid at work.

My latest release, The Ringmaster's Daughter, features a heroine, Henrietta Hart, a performer, who has to balance entertaining men without compromising her morals. This is easier said than done, especially when her livelihood depends on pleasing the amorous Lord Fordyce....

Georgian Gambling: Loaded Dice

Thomas Rowlandson: 'A Gambling Table at Cavendish House'

‘A thousand meadows and cornfields are staked at every throw, and as many villages lost as in the earthquake that overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii.’

Horace Walpole.

The Georgian era heralded many changes in society, including the blossoming of leisure activities. It was an era when the aristocracy liked to show off their wealth, to entertain and hold house parties. At the latter, card games were especially popular and the host would set up tables for guests to play faro, quadrille, piquet or whist. But where there was gaming, there were wagers to be made, and money to be won or lost. For those less scrupulous members of society, cheating was one option to get-rich-quick.

 

The Drawing Room in the Queen's State Apartments,
Hampton Court Palace.
Note the gaming table on the right

Dice were an integral part of many games, and key to cheating. Most of us have heard the expression, ‘loaded dice’, meaning that the dice have been tampered with so as to land a specific way up. Also known as ‘gourds’, these were altered dice were the stock in hand of cardsharps or ‘blacklegs’ (more them in another post.) 

To make a gourd, a die was partially hollowed out and mercury added, so that when thrown, the die favored either low, or high, numbers. Dice that always threw a low number were known as low-fullams, and those high, as high-fullams.  The latter term goes back to Elizabethan times and the London suburb of Fulham, where all the most notorious cardsharps liked to gather.

 

A Georgian gaming table

Another method of cheating was with bristle-dice. These involved making a die with a short, firm bristle in one corner, such that when the die was thrown, it couldn’t settle on that corner and tip over. The technique is described in some detail, but Charles Cotton, in The Complete Gamester (1726)

‘By Bristle-Dice, which are fitted for that purpose, by sticking a hog’s bristle so in the corners, or otherwise in the Dice, that they shall run high or low as they please; this Bristle must be stonrg and short, by which means the Bristle bending, it will not lie of that side, but will be tript over.’ 

Are black cats unlucky?
That'a a whole different blog post!