Yorkshire

I was lucky enough to spend almost a year in Yorkshire back in my younger days, and I blame Disney for that. Due to having seen The Horsemasters at a young age (I think I was nine), I wanted to go to

England to a riding school. The Yorkshire Riding School outside Harrogate gave me my BHSAI (that's British Horse Society Assistant Instructor) certificate, and then I went on to live with a family, training a couple of hunters (horses for fox hunting, not folks with shotguns) and a carriage horse. But I think part of my fondness for Yorkshire also goes back to a grandmother who came from Sheffield.

Yorkshire became the setting for my first Regency romance--A Compromising Situation--both due to my familiarity with the region and it's romantic setting. There are the moors in the north, wild and harsh lands used in Wuthering Heights (and did you know that wuthering is a variant of whithering and comes from the Old Norse for strong wind--there's a strong Viking influence in Yorkshire). There are the vales with their green fields and stone walls and dottings of sheep. There are ruins everywhere, some of them dating back to well before the Normans even arrived, others the result of Henry VIII's dissolution of the abbeys. Yorkshire is the land of Robbin Hood--yes, I know, legend puts him in Nottingham, but Yorkshire historians say he was really a Barnsdale man from the area  between South and West Yorkshire near Doncaster. Yorkshire has always loved its rebels.

The area has seen its share of battles, both with Vikings for control of the land, and later when the north chose not to submit to William I and the Normans, and then on through the War of the Roses and even more uprisings. Castles rose and fell--do did great houses.

In the 1800s, Yorkshire was at the center of the Industrial Revolution, with manufacturing springing up in Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds. And, of course, revolution brought trouble in the Luddites who objected to the loss of income and jobs as machines replaced workers. 

The rich history of Yorkshire is in its houses, ruins, and even its land. You literally cannot step foot anywhere without being someplace where the history is close by. From the winding streets of York, to the rugged coastlines, to the now quiet battlefields. Folks are still digging up Roman relics, or even earlier tools and barrows that date back much further.

And those who hale from Yorkshire are a hardy lot, used to the cold winters and a rather hard life. The dialect can be hard to follow, and a bit bloody-minded (the saying is that a Yorkshireman is a Scotsman with all the generosity squeezed out):

'Ear all, see all, say nowt;

Eyt all, sup all, pay nowt;

And if ivver tha does owt fer nowt –

Allus do it fer thissen.

The translation for those not used to the Yorkshire dialect is: 'Hear all, see all, say nothing; Eat all, drink all, pay nothing; And if ever you do anything for nothing – always do it for yourself.'

But where would we be without Yorkshire pudding, and Terry's of York and the other chocolate companies that grew up in this area, and Wensleydale cheese, a cheese as delightful to say as it is to eat. There is also Betty's, one of the best tea room's in England, in York, Harrogate and other locations, which has been a tea house since 1919.)

Yorkshire also gives us the coach horse, the Cleveland Bay (from the Vale of Cleveland), the Great North Road (you have to go through Yorkshire to elope to Scotland), and some of the most beautiful of England's Great Houses--Castle Howard, Harewood House, and Barley Hall. And Yorkshire lays claim to many ghosts and things that do more than bump in the night, ranging from monks to lost Roman legions. And Yorkshire is a land where the folk tales seem to be close to those who live here, and the old ways are still observed. Perhaps it's because so much of the language also dates back to ancient times, to the Vikings who settled here.

In the Regency, Harrogate was a place to go to 'take the waters.' It was both a social scene for those not wanting the expense or bustle of London (or even Bath), but who wished good company and a touch of a more elegant era, for Harrogate had reached its most popular time in the Georgian era. And that is perhaps the real attraction of Yorkshire--the blend of old and new, which existed in the Regency era and and still exists. It's a place where it is easy to transport yourself back in time.


For additional reading:

http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2012/07/a-glimpse-of-york-during-regency-era.html

https://regencyredingote.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/yorkshire-coach-horse-the-regency-aston-martin/

http://castlesandgardens.co.uk/historic-houses-gardens

https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/yorkshire-coaching-inns-illustrated-by-joseph-appleyard/

http://www.viking.no/e/england/e-yorkshire_norse.htm

https://yorkshiremixture.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/hello-world/

https://www.bettys.co.uk

The London Post

          Posting a letter in Regency England was not as simple as walking down to the local post office and dropping off a stamped letter. Prior to January 10, 1840, stamps did not exist. Inked hand stamps applied to the letter indicated such information as whether it had been sent POSTPAID, UNPAID, PAID AT (city), PENNY POST, TOOLATE, 1dDUE or FREE, or what post office had collected the letter and what mileage it would cover.  The 'letter box' itself only came into use after 1794, and did not become compulsory until after 1811. (The box consisted of a slit in the wall of the receiving house, which opened into a locked box.  Private boxes could be hired in some towns for as little as 1/2d per letter to 4d per letter.)

          The letter itself differed from its modern form. The letter usually comprised a single sheet (sometimes folded once in the middle to make a booklet-like page). This was folded in thirds, then the ends were folded together, with one end tucked inside another. Hot wax dripped onto the joining ends sealed the letter. The address or direction would be written on the front and rarely went beyond Name, Town (or house name), County. In London, a street might be indicated.

          To save money, correspondents often wrote down the page, then turned it and wrote across their previous writing. Thrifty souls would turn it yet again and write diagonally across everything else, producing a nearly illegible mess. This was called crossing and recrossing one's lines. The postmaster receiving the letter would write on the envelope the postage due by whoever received the letter.

 
          On Monday August 2, 1784, the Post began to change when John Palmer's first Mail Coach left the Rummer Tavern in Bristol at four o'clock PM, carrying the mail and four passengers (which later became seven passenger, with four inside). Palmer had long advocated postal reform and expansion.  Increases in commerce, industry and population demanded it. After his friend William Pitt became Prime Minister, Palmer got authority to try his reform ideas.

          Palmer's Mail Coach reached Bath at five-twenty PM, and arrived in London at the Swan with Two Necks well before eight o'clock the next morning to deliver mail to the Chief Post Office in Lombard Street. The coach had traveled 119 miles in under sixteen hours, an incredible feat. Palmer received public acclaim and bureaucratic stone-walling, including a record of criticism which ran to three volumes of copperplate. However, Palmer's Mail Coaches began to take hold.

          By 1811, approximately 220 mail coaches ran on regular schedules from London to various major cities. These coaches used the post roads and cross post (post roads that did not pass through London), which could support the light, fast coaches. The Post Office continued its custom of farming out the job of postmaster, and letters still had to make their own way between post towns. Coffee houses, inns along these routes, and even carriage makers, held contracts to provide both horses at each stage, coaches and coachmen.

          The Post Office did use its own, scarlet-liveried employees as guards.  These men had to read and write to fill out their time sheets (Way-bills).  Each carried a timepiece set each evening before leaving the Chief Post Office at eight PM.  As compensation for sounding the horn at toll gates, seeing the mail safely to its destination and carrying out the unpleasant task of reporting the misbehavior of any sub-contracted coachmen, guards earned an excellent wage-- half a guinea a week, plus sick pay and pension.  Tips were allowed and could average as much as 2/- a passenger.  As the Chief Superintendent of Mail from 1792 to 1817, Mr. Hasker also allowed his guards to carry personal goods and newspapers, provided this did not interfere with the mails.

  

          London had had its own General Post with local delivery since 1635 when Charles I opened the Royal Mail. In 1680, William Dockwra began his private Penny Post, named for the penny charge to mail any letter up to a pound. Two years later, the government took over and continued operation of the Penny Post. It comprised the cities of London and Westminster and the Borough of Southwark, covering letters received and delivered within ten miles, while the General Post serviced both London and the country side.
 

          From 1680 to 1794, letters for London's General Post had to be prepaid 1d. This relaxed after 1794, with the condition that letters put into the Penny Post for delivery by the General Post still had to be prepaid. Letters from the General Post for Penny Post delivery were charged 1d on delivery, plus the General Post charge. In 1794, Parliament also lowered the weight limit to four ounces for any 1d letter.

          The General Post and Penny Post remained separate organizations with their own letter carriers and receiving houses (a large number of which happened to be stationers' shops). The only point of exchange came at the Chief Post Office.

          In 1792, Parliament gave letter carriers for the General Post uniforms of scarlet coats with blue lapels, a blue waistcoat and a tall hat with a golden band.  Walking back from a delivery, the carrier rang a large handbell to indicate he could collect letters for an extra charge of 1d postage. The letters went into the slit of a locked pouch for delivery to the Chief Post Office.

          In 1794, London's five post offices (Lime street, Westminster, St. Pauls, Temple and Bishopsgate) became two:  the Chief Office in Abchurch Lane, Lombard Street, and the Westminster Office in Gerrand Street, Soho.  All London mail now passed through the Chief Office.  In addition, service expanded to cover the seven rides surrounding London:  Mortlake, Woolwich, Woodford, Edmonton, Finchley, Brentford and Mitcham.

          London post offered six collections (at 8, 10 and 12 AM; 2, 5 and 8 PM) and daily deliveries.  The clerk stamped letters received after seven o'clock PM with that time or a TOO LATE stamp, for the window closed at seven forty-five so that mail could be shorted and bagged by eight for the last collection.  The Chief Office charged an extra sixpence for such letters, with other receiving offices setting their own fee.  Letters received at the Chief Office on Lombard Street on Sunday were sorted and posted on Monday as there were no Sunday deliveries.

          From the Post Office on Lombard Street, the blue and orange Mail Coaches departed every evening at eight. Passengers assembled at various inns throughout London for departure at half past seven. The coaches then stopped in Lombard Street to collect the mail and the guard, and departed London at eight PM.  Lombard Street became so congested that by 1795 the six Western Road coaches began to leave from the Gloucester Coffee House in Piccadilly at eight-thirty, with the guard and mail traveling to this point from the Post Office.

          In 1812, Cary's Itinerary listed 37 inns with stage and mail coach departures. By 1815, this grew to 44, with inns having as few as 3 or as many as 35 coaches departing. In 1815 alone, of the 20 coaches leaving the Angel Inn, St. Clement's, Strand in London, five are daily post coaches and four are daily Royal Mail coaches.

          The Bull and Mouth, Bull and Mouth Street, boasted the record of having thirty-five coaches departing, including the Royal Mail to Edinburgh, while the Swan with Two Necks, Lad Lane, listed the original Bath and Bristol coach, the Royal Mail to Bath, the Brighton Post Coach, and the Prince Regent coach to Dover and Paris.

POSTAL RATES - LONDON

                                               1794   1801   1805 - 1831

Within Town Area                      1d      1d      2d

Town to Country,

          or within Country              2d      2d      3d

Country to Town                         1d      2d      3d

Town to General Post                1d      1d      2d

Country area to General Post    1d      1d      2d

General Post

          delivered by P.P. in town   free    free    free

General Post

          delivered in Country free    1d      2d

 
          Since the post office's beginning, its revenues went to the crown, which held the right to grant the privilege of signing a letter and having it posted for free.  This practice, known as franking, extended to both Houses of Parliament and certain officials.

          In 1764, postal revenues were given to Parliament in return for the crown being able to submit a Civil List to award honors.  Thereafter, Parliament authorized Free Franking.  Letters were stamped FREE when franked.  Nearly everyone abused the privilege.  Most considered a stack of signed blank sheets from a Member of Parliament's to be a common present after a short visit.  Franks could also be issued, by law, by certain public offices both in London and abroad.

          To curb abuse, Parliament made forgery of franks a felony, punishable by transportation for seven years.  As of 1784, reforms required all franked letters to have the signature, as well as the place and date of posting written at the top by the person franking it.  Limits on the numbers of letters that could be franked were imposed, but how could a lowly postmaster tell an undersecretary not to frank more than ten letters a year?

          During these years, 1780's to early 1800's, it became a hobby among some well-bred ladies to collect franking signatures from letters. Rather the Regency equivalent of collecting autographs. Some ladies strove for a broad collection, while others specialized in particular friends, MPs or relatives.

          Prior to 1836, newspapers and some other printed material such as charity letters and educational materials could be also franked for free postage to postmasters by the six Clerks of the Road.  A tax of 4d had been imposed to cover the cost to handle newspapers.  However, publishers were not shy about franking their own newspapers.  Booksellers, after Parliament imposed higher postage rates in 1711, also wrote the names of Members of Parliament for free postage, with the approval of the postal Surveyors appointed in 1715, who administered function and facilities of the postal roads.

          In addition to franking, from 1795, Parliament granted privileged rates to those serving in the Army, Navy and Militia, with no letter charged a rate higher than 1d.  Over the year, this extended to every branch of military service, including, in 1815, the soldiers and seamen employed by the East India Company.

          While privileged rates continued for the armed services, all free franking was abolished with the introduction of the penny postage stamp in 1840, which marked the beginning of the modern post office as we know it.

REFERENCES

The Postal History of Great Britain and Ireland (1980)

R.M Willcocks & B. Jay  ISBN: 0-9502797

English Provincial Posts (1633-1840) (1978)

Brian Austen  ISBN:  0-85033-266-4

England's Postal History to 1840 (1975)

R.M. Willcocks   ISBN: 0-9502797-1-4

British Postal Rates, 1635 to 1839

O.R. Sanford and Denis Salt   ISBN: 0-85377-021-2

The Postal History Society

United Kingdom Letter Rates 1657-1900 Inland & Overseas

C. Tabeart  ISBN:0-905222-58-X

Regency Habits of Economy

     Farthing, guinea, crown, shilling and pence. To an American, the monetary system of 1800's England can seem a foreign language.  But a Regency housewife--a responsible, frugal housewife--had to know where the pennies went and how to keep household accounts.

     Maria Rundell in her book Domestic Cookery notes, "Instances may be found of ladies in the higher walks of life, who condescend to examine the accounts of their house steward; and by overlooking and wisely directing the expenditure of that part of their husband's income which falls under their own inspection, avoid the inconvenience of embarrassed circumstances." She goes on to state that a "great readiness at figures" is one of the most useful things a woman can know.

     So what did a woman know about money?

     The basic values were known by everyone, and included:

·         Half-farthing - eighth of a penny

·         Farthing - quarter of a penny (4 farthings to a penny)

·         Halfpenny (or haypence) - half of a penny, or 2 farthings

·         Penny (or pence) - twelfth of a shilling

·         Shilling (or Bob) - 12 pence, or one twentieth of a pound

·         Half-crown - 2 shillings, 6 pence

·         Crown - 5 shillings (60 pennies)

·         Pound (quid, or sovereign) - 20 shillings (240 pennies)

·         Guinea - 21 shillings (252 pennies)

     Gold coins had values of five guineas, sovereign, two guineas, guinea, and half-guinea, but gold was also in shortage and so there were not many of these coins minted in the late 1700's and early 1800's. Silver coins values were crown, shilling, sixpence, fourpence, threepence, twopence, and penny. Copper coins included the halfpenny and farthing.

     When noting expenditures pence would be marked as "d" for denarius or denarii from the Latin, and shillings written as "s" for solidus. Denarius has been a small value Roman coin, and twelve denarii made up one solidus. Solidus is also the name of the slash used in fractions, and so "/" was also used to mark shillings. The pound symbol '£' also came from the Latin word libra for pound. So six shillings could be marked as 6s or 6/ and six shillings and two pence could be 6s2d or 6/2.

     About now the American system of pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollars begins to seem wonderfully simple by comparison.

     Paper money existed in the 1800's as Bank Notes, but many preferred to deal with coins for the amount of copper, silver or gold minted equaled the face value. You actually had a guinea's worth of gold in your hand, a concept lost in our modern world in which coins are made of alloys.

     Today we regard ten pounds as pocket change, but in the 1800's that sum could be a year's wages. What £10 bought in 1800 would have cost £395.39 in 2002 (conversion from Economic History Resource.)

     Rapid inflation until 1812 also had prices rising drastically in England, but wages remained low. The cost of wheat alone went up from between 47/ to 54/ a quarter in the early 1790's to between 114/ to 160/ by 1800. England's population was also moving from the country, where food could be grown and household items made, to cities, where everything had to be bought.  As noted by Reay Tannahill in Food in History, "In 1800 Manchester had 75,000 inhabitants; fifty years later, 400,000....The number of people living in London multiplied by four in just over a century."

     A woman in 'embarrassed circumstances' might well have to focus only on how to stretch her pence for food. In the city she would have to buy meat scraps rather than full roasts. There would be no funds for luxuries such as butter. The cheapest bread would be coarse, adulterated with alum, which cost less than flour. She might be able to afford wool for knitting gloves and scarves and undergarments, and fabric to make clothes, or she might have to make do with purchasing used clothing from a street fair. Feathers to go inside pillows would come from the ducks and chickens she bought and plucked, if she could afford the luxury of a whole hen. Shoes would need to be bought, and tinkers paid to mend pots and sharpen knives. With the added expense of rent, anything such as costly tea would be a luxury, as would any servants or services.

     In the middle class, a woman could count on more luxuries. She would have staff to do the work, and could afford beeswax candles that did not drip (or smell of beef fat), and fine milled soap.  There would be funds for silk shoes at 10/, sarsnet for gowns at 7/ a yard, and a fancy cap for a pound and six. Entertainment could be had: 10/6 for the rent of an opera box, 5/ for a concert ticket, another 10/6 for a book seller subscription, and 2 guineas for ball subscriptions in Bath.

     Of course, there would also be the washer woman to pay, school fees for her children, coal and wood to buy to heat her house, servant's wages, money for charity, and coins to hand out as tips when she visited.

     For a woman of great income, all this jotting down of expenditures could be left to a house steward, a secretary, or a housekeeper. A woman with a rich family or husband might not even handle any money for items could be purchased on account, and bills would be sent to the father or family. However, there are numerous stories of servants who filled their pockets by padding the household account books, writing in more than was paid to the merchants and keeping the difference.

      Women could also loose fortunes at the gaming table. Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire, died with well over ten thousand pounds of gambling debt, which would have ruined a lesser family than the powerful Cavendish clan.

     Of course other costs could ruin a family. Coming of age parties might cost from £300 to £6,000. Board and tuition at Eton or Harrow cost between £175 to £250 a year. While a London season would demand at least £1,000 to rent a house in Mayfair and then another ten thousand or more for food, drink, a suitable wardrobe and parties.

With such budgets to handle, launching your children into the world could be rather like managing a small corporation. No wonder parents expected such investments would pay off with alliances that brought influence and money back into the family. No wonder, too, at the appeal of living quietly in the country where such demands were not made upon the purse.

In the country, a large estate was expected to produce. This mean not just income from farms let to tenants, but milk, butter and cream from a dairy, ale from the ale house, fruits and vegetables from gardens and hot houses, herbs from a kitchen or herb garden, meat from pigs, beef, pigeons in the dovecotes, eggs and meat from chickens, wild game from the woods, fish from the local streams, and even wool for weaving fabrics. All of this, of course, takes a huge staff for management, but it means that an estate could provide for itself.

The lady of the estate would be expected to know how to use her still room to dry herbs, create ointments, cures, cleansers, and more. These recipes were often included in the very popular cookbooks of the era.

A smaller manor might lack extravagant lands for hunting, but even a few acres provides land for farming, growing, and raising live stock. The smaller manor would also have staff to handle these outside chores: a groom, a gardener, a cook, and so on.

Produce from an estate also provides goods that can be sold, allowing for the purchase of luxury items such as chocolate, sugar, tea and coffee (all imports).

In this era when we purchase so much of what we need, we have to stop and remember this is a modern habit. Two hundred years ago the habit was really to grow and make what was needed. To mend and reuse. At one time, only the very rich could waste money on spending for every whim.

A Regency Road Reference

So often when writing a novel set in the Regency, a writer has to rely on references that come second, third, or even fourth-hand. We read diaries and letters that are often edited by children and grandchildren—meaning the children mention the scandal and decry it, but the grandchildren simply want to moralize or white-wash events. We scan biographies--some brilliant and some shabby beyond belief. And we read books written about the Regency. But sometimes a novelist needs more.

When writing about characters that live in the Regency, I’ve often needed to get into those character's heads. We need to see how they lived. We need first-hand experience. I've been known to read by candlelight—truly an eye-straining experience—brandish a sword, which came into handy in several novels, and even try a pen and ink to see what it's really like.

One book that offers a first-hand experience into the Regency is Cary's New Itinerary.

At the end of the eighteenth century, John Cary was commissioned by the Postmaster-General to survey all the principal roads in England. He did this by walking these roads, pushing a wheel connected to a counter, which kept a tally of the number of rotations and then produced an accurate mileage.

Between 1787 and 1831, Cary put his knowledge to use and published, among other books, the New English Atlas, The Travellers' Companion, the Universal Atlas of 1808, and Cary's New Itinerary. The maps and surveys have some of the most accurate and valuable data about the structure of the Regency world. They also provide an insight into how people traveled in the Regency. It was a terrific book that helped with my novella Border Bride, which had an elopement to Scotland, and several other stories ended up with travelers, and I needed the details to bring life into the books.

Published in 1815, the fifth edition of Cary's which I own goes on to explain that it is, "an Accurate Delineation of the Great Roads, both direct and cross throughout, England and Whales, with many of the Principal Roads in Scotland, from an actual admeasurement by John Cary, made by command of his Majesty's Postmaster General."

There's more detail provided at the front of the book in an ‘advertisement’ that's really more of a preface.

The information alone on roads and distances, with fold-out maps provided, has helped me sort out the practical problems that face any Regency writer—such as, how far is it really between London and Bath? And what roads might one take? However, Cary's offers much more.

Cary's divides into neat, organized sections. The man was obviously methodical. The first section lists the direct roads to London—as in all roads lead to this metropolis. The next section gives a list of principal places—i.e., larger towns, that occur along the cross-roads. A cross-road is a road that crosses one of the direct roads into London. At this point, you begin to see how London-centric this world really was. As someone living outside of London, it would be your goal to get to a major town, and then you could get to London. Cary, living in London, wrote his book for outward-bound Londoners, and that is how the book is organized.

The next section is as important to a Regency writer as it would have been to someone traveling in the Regency—it is a list of coach and mail departures. This includes the name of the London inn from which the coaches departed, the towns each coach passed through, the mileage, the departure time, and the arrival time. It's an utter godsend if you have to get your heroine to Bath at a certain hour on the coach. I can also picture Regency Londoners pouring over this information, planning short trips to the seaside, or to watering towns.

The next section lists all direct roads, as measured from key departure points in London, but this is not just a dry list of mileage. Descriptive notes are tucked into various columns to describe houses of note and distinctive sights. For example, if you're going to Wells from London, then, "Between Bugley and Whitbourn, at about 2 m(iles) on l(eft) Longleat, Marquis of Bath; the house is a Picture of Grandure, and the Park and Pleasure Grounds are very beautiful." This was an era in which slower travel meant taking the time to look at surroundings.

Another section provides a similar treatment for cross-roads, and not to be overlooked, Packet Boat sailing days are listed for England's various sea ports, just in case an intrepid traveler whishes to travel abroad.

Finally, Cary's provides an index to Country Seats, or as Cary's notes, "In this Index the Name of every resident Possessor of a Seat is given, as well as the Name of the Seat itself, wherever it has a distinctive Appellation." This is actually a list from the 1811 returns to Parliament, as noted in the book. In the Regency, this actually would have been a much used feature, for it would allow a traveler to look up and visit various great houses and country seats. It was a time, after all, when visitors expected the great houses to always be open for show, and to be gracious in their hospitality.

Overall, Cary's is not a book that will give you insight into the politics of the Regency, nor into the social structure of that world. However, between its worn covers lays the description of the Regency world that can put you back into that era, just as if you were traveling the roads of England.