A review of THE TOUR OF DR SYNTAX In Search Of The Picturesque by William Combe, illustrated by Thomas Rowlandson Edited by Dr Ben Wiebracht and sixteen of his Stanford online High School Students.

The title page of ,"Doctor Syntax in search of The Picturesque."

This is the second volume of a series of  18th century books edited by Ben Wiebracht and his students. Ben’s idea is that his  pre university students, are as capable of serious  research as an undergraduate or post graduate student. In the process Ben has taught his students how to research, reading original documents to support their ideas,provide information and illustrate their viewpoints. Negotiating a university library and being able to find the texts you need for your research, reading the texts and making notes and then turning them into clearly explained text and presenting their ideas are valuable skills preparing his students for academic research when they do attend a university in the future. His approach to teaching and providing problems and  purposeful tasks is a brilliant way of engaging his students which can only enthuse  and make their studies meaningful.

The first volume in this series Ben and his students edited was, “Bath: An Adumbration In Rhyme by John Matthews.” That piece of research started life as an article written by Ben and his students published in Vic Sandborn’s blog, Jane Austen’s World. The idea for this second volume came from an article, again in Jane Austen’s World,written by Brenda Cox about, Dr Syntax and Jane Austen. Brenda has written a book about the clergy in Jane Austen’s time entitled,”Christianity in Jane Austen’s England. Fashionable Goodness.” Her knowledge of the 18th century clergy has informed Ben and his student’s research. 

This new edition has two essays that provide in depth analysis , firstly a ,”Biographical Essay:William Combe (1742-1823),” and secondly a contextual essay explaining,”The Picturesque,”in the 18th century, primarily described by William Gilpin. The article also explains how the narrow and sometimes inhuman view of The Picturesque that Gilpin promoted in his writing was sometimes mocked  by Combe. Jane Austen has a more nuanced  viewpoint about the picturesque than Combe that includes the economic and lower class aspects of the countryside. Both adapt Gilpin.

William Combe 1742-1823.

William Combe was a bit of an oddball. He was the son of a tradesman, an ironmonger.  He himself wanted to be a leisured gentleman which he tried to portray to the world.He made people think that he  wrote occasionally and went to great lengths to portray a leisured  image to the world. To earn enough money he actually wrote an enormous amount. He didn’t put his name to most of his writing so that he wouldn’t be found out.  Journalism , stories and this long poem about the adventures of Dr Syntax, which because of its enormous popularity, made him a lot of money. He was very successful. 

It seems to me a shame that he denigrated his background. His father being an ironmonger, must have been a member of the Ironmongers Guild , one of the great livery companies of the City of London. His father would have completed a seven year apprenticeship which did not only focus on ironmongery but would have taught him to be a businessman and an adventurer and sometimes a diplomat, having to negotiate trade in foreign countries. It was the livery companies such as the Ironmongers who financed the Parliamentarians during the English Civil War ending in the execution of Charles Ist. They wanted to get rid of the monarchy and make England a more egalitarian country. Members of the guilds invested in the East India Company, which traded in the Far East with all the domineering elements of colonialism. They invested  and became traders in the Levant Company which traded in Northern Europe for furs and timber and also the Royal African Company which traded in slavery from West Africa and hence also traded in sugar and many other commodities. A senior member of one of the livery companies could become very wealthy, many of them did. The Lord Mayor of London was elected from among their numbers. Some were knighted by the King. Many charitable establishments such as almshouses , accomodation for the poor, were set up by members of the livery companies. For instance ,Robert Geffrye, the head of the ironmongers in the late 1600s, after The Great Fire of London, had the Ironmongers almshouses built just north of the City on the Kingsland Road. There appears to be no need for William Gilpin to underplay or reject his past. The United Kingdom is a class based society even today. In William Combes time it would have been more so.  But it  was the  tradesmen who created the wealth of the nation. The aristocracy , with their individual wealth could not support the modernising and development of Britain. Attitudes trailed behind the reality. There was a double standard.  It was still esteemed to be a nobleman , a member of the gentry, or a gentleman as Combe felt and believed he wanted to be. Jane Austen however shows her  admiration for those in trade. There is a sub plot in  most of Jane Austen’s novels where those in trade are shown their importance. 

William Gilpin 1724-1804.

The second essay discusses ,”The Picturesque.”

William Gilpin  describes ,”The Picturesque,” as scenes of rugged beauty, often with ruined castles, cottages and abbeys within the scene. He shows no sympathy for the human cost of suffering that might have been connected to those places. He suggests  the artist , if those types of ruins were not in his view, adding them creatively and imaginatively to get the desired affect. Gilpin   advocates leaving any sign of the workers in the fields, for instance, and their abodes out of the picture.Combe ridicules this doctrinaire approach within his book but mostly agrees with the principles Gilpin advocates about the picturesque. Jane Austen on the other hand, who incudes picturesque scenes within her novels, has a more revolutionary approach to the picturesque. In one scene from Emma, that Ben mentions in his essay,  Austen describes the picturesque scene from Donwell Abbey and  includes the sight of Abbey Mill Farm in the distance. The lower class Mr Martin  farms there. She  wants to combine within the picturesque Gilpin’s rugged and well formed scene with the reality of the working people. In essence she is saying its all part of the whole. I think there is another angle to the picturesque too. William Wordsworth is known along with his friend Samuel Taylor Colerdige as the instigators of Romanticism in art and poetry. In Wordsworths poetry and the diaries of his sister Dorothy we have the Gilpin rugged scene and we have Austen’s inclusion of the working man but Wordsworth goes further he wants to recognise and explore the poverty and hardship of working people’s lives. He noticed, minutely, the  poor people of The Lake District (Syntax’s Cumberland) and it really affected him. Like in all things when you make the world aware of the plight of others that’s when action begins. What of the Enlightenment then, occuring at the same time,, the apparent antithesis of The Picturesque and Romanticism, it’s offshoot. Science, mathematics and the study of nature,  the emotions of the Picturesque and of Romanticism, are just different parts of the whole. 

So we come to Dr Syntax our comic curate who we can empathise with and enter into his travails as well as his travels. He too was in search of ,”The Picturesque,” an innocent, an idealist in search of Gilpinesqueness. Combe based his story on a series of drawings that Thomas Rowlnadson had sold to the publisher, Rudolph Ackerman.

Thomas Rowlandson 1757- 1827.

Syntax is a poor curate who teaches pupils alongside the duties of his parish. He is often berated by his wife who seems to bully him. The cause of this familial aggression is the dear Doctors lack of wealth. This story is a journey in search of The Picturesque and using  drawings and writing the dear Doctor does along the way he wants to publish  a book about The Picturesque. He intends to make his fortune.

Doctor Syntax by Rowlandson, lost on his journey in search of The Picturesque.

I started reading the text of the poem and I almost immediately was hit by a warm emotion of recognition.  The gentle rhythm of rhyming couplets took me back to my childhood. Rhyming couplets are a simple technique that have a lightness about them. They carry the reader along on a gentle wave. You may ask what this sudden nostalgic feeling was all about. Rupert Bear. A children’s story set in the rural England of the 1920s. It  is still being published by the Daily Express Newspaper today. Rupert and his friends come across criminals, magicians, Chinese scientists, and many more diverse characters. The characters are generally anthropomorphic although some of the characters are human. The connection between Doctor Syntax and Rupert are that both are adventurous, take chances, befall mishaps and are generally loveable. The rhyming couplets and themes are extraordinarily similar in both. 

Doctor Syntax being rescued by some fair maids after being held up and tied to a tree by highway robbers.

The pages of this edition of Dr Syntax text are  laid out with the original text of the story on the left hand page with annotations on the right hand page. The annotations often come in two columns. The first column provides extensive detailed definitions for archaic words and phrases in the text. There is often  more detailed information about a historical place or institution included too where it is necessary. A second column makes  connections with moments, and characters in Jane Austen’s novels. This format makes understanding and making connections easy to follow. Many academic texts put foot notes either at the bottom of a page or in a glossary at the end of a book. Finding the notes to a particular reference can then sometimes be laborious. 

The notes are impressive and show the thorough detailed research Ben’s students have done. An example of the annotations include, in canto IX 

rick:Stack of hay or corn. 

The definition is next to the line with the word in it. This makes for more fluent reading of the text. Also found in Canto IX an explanation of the text is also given for the following phrase,

A castle, and a ruin too: Castles and other architectural ruins were common destinations in picturesque tours.

The phrase itself can be understood easily enough but its deeper meaning connected to the theme of this poem, The Picturesque, might be lost without the further explanation. There is , in this case a further column on the right which makes the connection to Jane Austen’s writings  about abbeys and ruins. Ben and his students here make the link to Jane Austen’s juvenile History of England where she mentions the dissolution of the monasteries but there is also of course Catherine Morland’s expectations of Northanger Abbey.

These are  two examples of the research carried out that deepens our understanding of the text.

The Tour of Doctor Syntax, has connections with other literature. Within the story of this journey there are references made to Don Quixote , his horse and Sancho Panza which was written by Cervantes, first published in 1605. Reading the ,”Tour,”I also thought about John Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress, a journey of a ,”Christian,” through the hardships of the world. Later on in the 19th century there was of course Charles Dickens ,"Pickwick Papers," a humorous account of a group of friends travelling around Southern England and all the mishaps  and joys and pains they encountered along the way. Dickens took the genre to another level. He in essence invented situation comedy.

Doctor Syntax having trouble with The Picturesque.

The journey that Doctor Syntax goes on around a large part of England provides experiencess that cover the whole gamut of 18th century life. He goes horse racing in York.He attends art galleries and the theater in London, where Syntax encounters a critic. Combe and Syntax give critics short shrift. Highway robbers and landladies in inns, quack doctors and lords and squires are all encountered.He meets mad bulls in fields and gravediggers in graveyards, ruined castles and attends military reviews. He visits Castle Howard in Yorkshire and most pleasantly for Syntax, The Lakes in Cumberland. Auspiciously he makes friends with Squire Worthy while in The Lakes

Doctor Syntax loses money on the races at York.

Loosely connecting Doctor Syntax to the area around Chawton where Jame Austen lived  in Hampshire for the last eight years of her life ,  the Reverend Gilbert White, also a curate like our dear Doctor Syntax, lived in a village called Selborne.He of course is famous as a naturalist who wrote the Natural History of Selborne. In connection with them both being curates it is interesting to point out that it was curates and local country vicars who were often the historians, writers of journeys and the innovative scientists of the 18th century. Doctor Syntax was in good company.

The part of the story I found most engaging is the  surreal, Battle of The Books,  Canto XXV.Doctor Synatx has a dream or it could be described as an hallucination. Syntax in his dream sees devils and angels in the forms of the  books  of the learned at war against the ledgers of the bankers and the tradesmen. The books of philosophy and learning win out just as he has won by selling the book of his ,"Picturesque," journey, to the publisher who at first rejected him. A friendly Lord put a word in for Syntax. The London Iinstitute, in Syntax’s tale, where  the books of learning and philosophy are destined  to be housed, is close to the financial heart of the city in Coleman Street. The heart of learning set within the heart of trade.This is not lost on Ben and his erudite students. The London Institute today has become The London University of The Arts set over six campuses around London and one of the foremost Art colleges in the world.

Syntax dreaming The battle of The Books.

Syntax is near the end of his journey and things have worked out for him. The book about The Picturesque he has been writing on his long journey has been sold for £300 (£24000 in todays money  using the National Archive currency calculator). He is rich. 

In a kind of not so hidden subtext this tale is about marriage. At the beginning of the tale Syntax is a poor clergyman who does some teaching to make extra money and is beaten by his wife. 

The relationship with his wife does not appear to be good at times. When he has the lightbulb idea to go on a journey in search of the picturesque and to write a book about his experiences he firmly believes that he will make money from the venture. Off he goes  and his wife doesn’t apparently give him another thought. A city curate is engaged to carry out her husbands duties and she gets on with beating the school boys. Syntax sends his wife letters on occasion during his journey. He hints at his fondness for her. Towards the end of the tale Combe, rather abruptly tells us that Syntax has sent a letter to his wife informing her of his return. 

Syntax arrived back at home to his sensorious wife.

When he arrives home Doctor Syntax says nothing at first of the wealth he has made from selling his book. She berates him for laziness and wasting his time and informs him of all the bills he has to pay. He sits there calmly and nonchalantly produces a £20  note . She is amazed. Her attitude changes immediately. He tells her that more £20 notes are where that comes from. Suddenly she becomes the doting wife. Right at the end of the story he is provided with his own parish by Squire Worthy from Cumberland, who he has befriended on his journeys and impressed by his knowledge and humility and love for his fellow man. The parish role will provide him and his wife with a good income. Cumberland is an area of the country that Syntax loves. It is the quintessential picturesque landscape of course, the home also of William Wordsworth.Their relationship becomes amorous and there is talk of their sexual appetite returning and desire for a child is discussed. A complete transformation. Syntax is a happy man even though he knows the harsh unforgiving side of his wife. Money has made all the difference. You wonder if William Combe is saying that a husbands income makes for a happy marriage? When you look at the marriages at the end of a Jane Austen novel all the happy couples are well off. Some more than others but all are  in a good financial situation. Only George Wickham and Lydia are in straightened circumstances and that is mainly because of Wickhams profligacy. So Jane Austen is probably saying the same thing. A happy marriage is a marriage based on good finances.  

The map showing the route through The City of London where, The Battle of The Books, took place.

There are two maps included in the text. One shows the journey around England Doctor Syntax makes showing a circuitous route from Syntax's home near Bath on to Oxford, then northwards to York and across to Cumberland and The Lakes then south to Liverpool and onwards to London before returning home. The other,  a map of London shows the route the books in The Battle of the Books take.Today you or I can follow that same London route along the same roads and streets. It is a part of London that  covers at least two thousand years of history and events. But to keep it to the time of William Combe and Doctor Syntax  we can explore those places.  Doctor Johnson, William Blake, Lord Byron , Jane  Austen and a little more recently Charles Dickens are all connected to this same part of London. I can’t leave out mentioning Dickens because The City , the Inns of Court such as the Inner temple,  are integral to so many of Dickens novels. The Battle of The Books, would make a great walk in London today. There is so much to discover., streets and alleyways to explore, hidden courtyards, all mentioned in Doctor Syntax.

As an aside,the Corporal punishment Doctor Syntax and his wife administered to their pupils was regarded as a legitimate way to get pupils to learn in the 18th century. As a 21st century teacher that approach is obviously anathema. It is difficult to imagine the type of human being corporal punishment would help develop. Maybe , as always, the politicians and the famous of the time might be examples.

This book is an informative and very entertaining read. We can laugh and cry  along with Doctor Syntax. Although on the surface it appears to be a comedy, like all comedy it has pathos,  and makes deep observations about life.

You can buy the book in the UK on Amazon: 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tour-Doctor-Syntax-Search-Picturesque/dp/1737033054

JANE AUSTEN and THE ROYAL NAVY

1787 portrait of Admiral Edmund Afflech.

Jane Austen knew a lot about the Royal Navy of her time. Her novel Persuasion, is often referred to as her naval novel because of the three key characters Captain Wentworth, Captain Harville and Captain Benwick. There is also of course Captain Wentworth's sister who is the wife of Admiral Croft. The Royal navy pervades the novel. Jane also had personal experience with two of her brothers Francis and Charles becoming Post Captains and later in their carreers , Admirals

 Jane Austen began writing her novel, Persuasion, in 1815. 

“ Captain Wentworth, after being unseen and unheard of at Uppercross for two whole days, appeared again among them to justify himself by a relation of what had kept him away.

A letter from his friend,Captain Harville, having found him out at last, had brought intelligence of Captain Harville’s being settled with his family at Lyme for the winter.” 

Captain Benwick, also an acquainatance of Captain Wentworth, was  staying with the Harvilles at Lyme.

Our three captains would have been in action during the years previously to Jane writing Persuasion.

The British were in many Naval engagements in 1813. They were blockading the American coast .Foremost amongst the the actions were:

April 3rd battle of Rappahannock River in Virginia.

Battle of York April 27th

Battle of Fort George May25th-27th

Action off James Island may28th

Battle of Sacketts Harbor May28th-29th

The capture of USS Chesapeake off Boston

Action off Charles harbour July 14th 1813.

In 1814 there was the battle of Lake Champlain in the North American war of 1812

“Captain Harville had never been in good health since a severe wound he had received two years before (rendering him lame)  and Captain Wentworth’s anxiety to see him had determined him to go immediately to Lyme.”

We never hear what action Captain Harville was engaged in. Perhaps captains Wentworth and Benwick were also engaged in one or some of those actions listed above? They appear to be a band of brothers and have a very close friendship probably forged in the heat of battles and training and the patronage system. Patrionage was the way Royal Naval promotions worked in the 18th century.

As well as her fictional Royal Naval Officers Jane had two brothers, Francis and Charles, who were also in the Royal Navy and rose through the ranks from Midshipmen to Admirals at the end of their long careers. Then of course there were the wives.  Captain Harvilles wife was called Mary. By the end of the novel Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth marry and  Captain Benwick marries Louisa Musgrove. The wives of 18th century Royal Naval Officers wives have been termed, "Shore Wives."

CAPTAIN WENTWORTH’S WOUND

We can wonder what Captain Wentworth's wound may have been that rendered him lame. 

HMS VICTORY Portsmouth harbour.

When I was a child,  at the age of nine, my Mum and Dad took myself and my brother Michael, nineteen miles along the coast from Southampton where we lived, to Portsmouth to visit  HMS Victory, Nelsons flag ship at the Battle of Trafalgar (21st October 1805.)

We were mesmerized by the sight of The Victory, an 18th century 104 gun first rate ship of the line. There were two things that have aways stayed with me about the Victory from that first visit and I have visited it a number of times since over the years. Firstly the surgeons cabin with  his amputation instruments laid out was quite a shocking place to be. It was both shocking and thrilling to learn how fast an arm or leg could be amputated, how the amputation  was performed and the effects on the patient. The second thing that always has stuck with me was a tour of the gun decks with all their massive cannons lined up with muzzles sticking out of the gun ports. Each cannon is roped down with pulleys and tied to anchor points in the deck. Our guide told us what this gun deck would have been like when in action. Each gun would have had a crew. Each gun crew member would have bandaged their heads and arms and torsos with thick linen bindings. You might wonder why the bindings. When an 18th century cannon is fired at an opposing ship it is rare for a cannon ball, a heavy round lump of iron, to pierce and enter the opposing ship. What it did do, travelling at the speed of sound, yes that fact wowed me too, was to smash into the thick wooden side of a ship. The thick oak planks would splinter and send large pieces of sharp wood exploding  inside of the gun deck. With sometimes forty or fifty of these cannon balls hitting the side of a ship at the same time in a broadside, the whole space inside the gundecks would have been filled with flying shards and splinters. The splinters of wood caused catastrophic injuries to the gun crews. Hence the bandage protection.

Somehow  I cannot imagine Captain Harville being on a gundeck during a battle. The ships captain would have been directing his ships action from on the top deck. On the Victory there is a small brass plaque screwed into the upper deck. It marks the spot where Nelson received his fatal wound from a French sniper high in the rigging of the ship The Victory was attacking. The bullet  was fired from a high angle. It entered Nelsons body from near his collar bone and passed down through his body going through his lungs and emerging near the base of his spine. If the sniper had been a fraction to one side or the other he may have hit just an arm or a leg. Could Captain Harville have been shot in a similar way, standing on the upper deck and being hit in the leg? Something to consider.

MENTAL HEALTH

Captain Wentworth

“…in a small house near the foot of an old pier of unknown date, were the Harvilles settled.”

“ (Capt. Benwick) ..had been engaged to Captain Harvilles sister and was now mourning her loss. They had been a year or two waiting for fortune and promotion. Fortune came, his prize money as lieutenant being great,-promotion too at last; but Fanny Harville did not live to know it, she had died the preceding summer while he was at sea. Captain Wentworth believed it impossible for man to be more attached to woman than poor Benwick had been to Fanny Harville, or to be more deeply afflicted under the dreadful change.”

I think this is a strange introduction to another human being. Captain Benwick is obviously suffering the death of his fiance. But even Anne Elliot seems to give him short shift ,”get over it” she thinks. He’s obviously a young man who has expectations of marriage now he has obtained some wealth through the prize money he has gained from attacking and capturing enemy ships. That is what prize money means. The morality of that is questionable. By defeating and perhaps killing an adversary he has improved his own lifes prospects. Survival of the fittest comes to mind. But has he dreamed too much? Are his expectations based on what he thinks society owes him rather than a true deep relationship with Fanny Harville? Is he really mourning what he thought was love? He thought he had it all, promotion, prize money, marriage. Is it all in his head?The other thing, and Anne notices this , his overly emotional reaction to the things not quite going his way. He couldn’t have known Fanny Harville that well. He was at sea all the time setting himself up for life and Fanny Harville was merely a piece in that structure.

Were our three capatains suffering post traumatic stress? Look at the way they live.

…”they all went indoors with their new friends, and found rooms so small as none but those who invite from the heart could think capable of accommodating so many.”

“Captain Harville was no reader; but he had contrived excellent accommodations, and fashioned very pretty shelves, for a tolerable collection of well bound volumes, the property of Captain Benwick.”

“…he drew, he varnished, he carpentered, he glued, he made toys for the children, he fashioned new netting-needles and pins with improvements; and if every thing else was done, sat down to his large fising net at one corner of the room.”

Those small rooms are reminiscent of the officers cabins onboard a man of war. Captain Harville, Captain Benwick and Mrs Harville all live in a small confined cottage together. And those hobbies of Captain Harville; putting up shelves, carpentry, making fishing nets. Are these preoccupations of a Royal Naval Captain or are they a means to counter post traumatic stress? Captain Harvilles severe wound could all lead to that assumption.

Even without being in a sea battle could the life and training of a naval sea captain cause psychological disorders? The punishment regime carried out at sea was severe. It is not only the receiver of punishment such as whipping who is damaged. The giver of such punishments must suffer psychologically too. It was a hard regime aboard ship and our three captains were trained or forced to carry out that regime. From what we as a reader can tell of the personalities of the three captains they seem gentle, self reflective, kind people. Could these three really command with full authority and strict discipline the crew of a Royal Naval battleship? I struggle to see that they could, any of them.

A lot has been written about Jane’s brother Francis as a pious man. A letter from his father George Austen to his son Francis early in his carreer promotes a Christian approach to life. Francis himself was known for his sincere Christian practice of prayer aboard his ship.But how much was religion a psychological support to get him through a strict education at the naval academy to begin with, the dangers of engaging in battle at sea and the strict discipline he must have had to keep among his crews. The mental and psychological pressure must have been immense. Was religion a psychological crutch for him to get through this sort of life? 

A  definition for Post traumatic stress and other anxiety problems form the National Health Service  is:

Anxiety is a feeling of unease, such as worry or fear, that can be mild or severe.

Everyone has feelings of anxiety at some point in their life. For example, you may feel worried and anxious about sitting an exam, or having a medical test or job interview.

During times like these, feeling anxious can be perfectly normal.

But some people find it hard to control their worries. Their feelings of anxiety are more constant and can often affect their daily lives.

 Jane Austen only has admiration for her brothers but were they damaged? From a young age their father George Austen had sent them off to the The Royal Naval Academy at Portsmouth. What sort of life was that? Was there abuse? I am sure there must have been cases. They would have had a strict regime imposed on them, the same regime they were later to impose on the men they commanded.

SHORE WIVES

Anne Elliot at Lyme.

I wonder at the relationship between Captain Harville and Mrs Harville and also that of Mary Austen and her husband Francis Austen.

 Jane had knowledge of her own two naval brothers Francis's and Charles's relationships. After quitting Bath following their fathers George Austen's death, Francis  asked his two sisters Jane and Cassandra and his mother to live with his new wife Mary, married in 1806, and their new born child in Southampton.   Francis had wanted to make sure he had a son for the purpose of inheritance. 

Life as a naval officer was precarious and fraught with danger. Mary was made, early in her marriage, a ,"shore wife." She was thrown together with her new relations who she hardly knew, to live   in a house in Castle Square Southampton while her husband was away at sea aboard HMS Canopus.Mary must have become Francis’s financial and business proxy? Was she the one in charge? We are told that Jane did not particularly like her sister in law. In all the letters from Southampton that Jane wrote to Cassandra, Mary is not often mentioned. You get the impression from Jane’s letters that her sister, her mother, her friend Martha Lloyd , who was also living with them and Jane did their own thing. Mary must have been in charge of paying the rent, ordering the food and keeping her husbands interests going.There appears to be a joint decision about getting rid of their gardener at one point. Maybe Jane and Cassandra felt as though they couldn’t say much and had to keep their mouths shut. 

So what of Mrs Harville. How were things really for her? It is also important to remember that Anne Elliot will eventually marrying Captain Wentworth, and that means she too will become a shore wife, a proxy for her husband while he is away at sea. Louisa Musgrove and Captain Benwick will  be in the same situation. One of the many side affects was  the fear of their husbands dying at sea.

The situation of Mrs Harville is interesting. Some wives usually of high ranking officers could go to sea with their husbands such as  Mrs Croft decided to do but most wanted to stay at home. They became proxies for their husbands. They paid the bills, looked after the money, made investments, educated their children, bought property and  did all the work and took on all the responsibilities  their husbands would have had. When husbands came home for any length of time there must have been a distance between partners and their children especially if they had been away for years. There must have been resentment if a wife had been a capable, successful manager of everything and then suddenly been reduced to merely, the wife, the mother with all duties taken away from her again. The shore wives were only doing what was expected and required of them by their husbands, the admiralty, and society. However, in taking on these responsibilities, they proved that women were capable of managing money, purchasing property, rearing and educating children, working the patronage system, being political activists, dealing with bureaucracy, and networking. To a modern perspective, this amount of independence and responsibility seems like it would have been welcome. However, their letters suggest that to many of these naval wives, this responsibility was instead a burden.  Nevertheless the majority of the shore wives were quite successful, financially and politically. 

Women and the Royal Navy in the 18th century.

These ordinary women who lived at a time when women did not have equality with men  were left with the responsibilty of not only running their homes but managing their husbands finances participating in the Royal Naval patronage system, a system whereby it is who you know not what you can do, gets you promotion. , using power of attorney to invest their husbands money and keeping up a correspondence with their absent husbands which strangely required  a knowledge of the worlds wind systems and a good knowledge of geography to be able to get their letters to the right place. 

In the letters written from Castle Square by JaneAusten to her sister Cassandra very little of Mary is mentioned. We get the impression, if neither sister was called away by Edward to stay at Godmersham, his house in Kent or by one of their other brothers to help with child care, they did their own thing, dealing with their own finances. We do not hear whether Francis gave his sisters and mother an allowance. They spent their time  receiving visitors, making local acquaintances and on occasion attending balls and the theatre.  Jane mentions Mary in her letters referring to her as Mrs FA. 

Wednesady 7th January 1807

..we changed it for the “Female Quixote,” ( a novel by Charlotte Lennox published in 1752)which now makes our evening amusement, to me a very high one, a I find the work quite equal to what I remeberd it. Mrs FA, to whom it is new, enjoys it as one could wish.

Thusrday 8th January 1807

“ Mrs FA has had a fainting fit lately, it came on as usual after eating a hearty dinner, but did not last long.”

Referring to her as Mrs FA sounds impersonal and almost rude if a little sarcastic. There is a feeling that Mary is merely tolerated.

Meanwhle Mary Austen, Ms FA,  dealt with her husbands business. We do not hear from Jane or Cassandra how capable Mary was but as there is nothing derogatory about her management capabilities mentioned , or rather in the letters that survive nothing bad  is said, we can only surmise things went well. 

There is evidence from the letters sent between naval officers and their wives there was a great amount of trust and pressure put upon these women. In the 18th century, it showed that women were capable of managing money, purchasing properties or in the case of Mary Austen, renting property, rearing and educating her child and working the patronage system. More about the patronage sytem and how it worked for both Francis Austen and later his younger brother Charles as far as their carreers in the navy went. 

We don’t hear how Mrs Harville performed as a shore wife.  There is a  nod towards the abilities of women in the Lyme Regis  episode. When Louisa Musgrove falls form the Cobb and strikes her head becoming unconscious it is Anne who takes charge. Captains, Wentworth, Harville and Benwick are rendered helpless. Three naval captains used to keeping strict discipline and control over a war ship and its crew do not know what to do.

During the late 18th century the Seven Years War between most of the great European powers took place between 1756 -1763, the American Revolution 1776-1783, the French revolution 1793- 1802 and the Napoleonic wars 1803 -1815. Francis Austen, for one, was kept very busy and possibly away from his wife for large periods of time. 

PATRIONAGE IN THE 18thCENTURY ROYAL NAVY

Portrait of Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) by John Francis Rigaud, 1781. 

By 1794 both of Jane Austen’s seagoing brothers, Frank and Charles were at sea.

“Charles left the naval academy in September 1794 and shipped as a Midshipman aboard HMS Daedalus, under the command of his cousin’s husband  Captain Thomas Williams.”

 There seems to be more than a hint of patrionage  where Charles is given a posiiton aboard HMS Daedulus by a family member, somebody he knew.

Frank, the elder borther meanwhile was in the sloop HMS Lark stationed in the North Sea. He seemed to be getting noweher with a distinct lack of opportunity. So his father the Reverend George Austen wrote to the families old friend Warren Hastings to get Frank moved to a larger ship with more chance of active service. The enagemnet in active service was beneficial if  dangerous. There was a chance of gaining prize money from taking enemy ships and of course with promotion up the ranks the chance of getting a larger share of the prize money available. 

The Reverend George Austen wrote,

“I… must ever acknowledge myself much your debtor, for the friendly manner in which you have undertaken our cause, and the application you have made in behlkaf of my son. As to the event of tiI am not very sanguine convinced as I am that all patrionage in the Navy restes with Lord Chatham however as ot may be of material serviceto us to have a warm Friend at the borad I am very thankful you haver procured us one in Admiral Affleck. If I mistake nothe had formerly some acquaintance with my family and  perhaps his recollection of that may be an additional motive with his regard for you toedeavur to assist us.”

It is a begging letter and I think it gives a poor reflection of how promotion worked in the Royal Navy of the time. Its who you know not what you know. But patrionage could be interpreted in a better light.The system of patrionage the navy used did actually work reasonably well. Patrionage did not always mean you were promoted because you had a relative or friend of the family who could get you promoted. Research has shown that those promoted in that way anyway could end up with a mediocre or average career. The other view of patronage was the promotion of those with ability. Admirals or those in the hierarchy often gave those with obvious abilities their patronage and helped them get promoted. This happened particularly during the time of war. Those with ability were promoted through the patironage system. This fast tracking system  only benefitted the navy.Whether Frank Austen could be regarded as somebody with ability it can be left open to speculation. He reached the position of admiral by the time he was 90 years old partly because his contempories had all died off.

In Persuasion Captain Wentworth is the brother of Admiral Crofts wife.We can imagine his career path smoothed because of this connection. We do not learn in the novel whether he was a man of naval ability or not.

When Anne goes to Lyme with Captain Wentworth and the Musgroves 

“ Captain Wentworth turned in to call on his friends ; the others walked on and he was to join them on the Cobb.

…..Louisa seemed to feel that they had parted with Captain Wentworth long when they saw him coming after them, with three companions, all well known already by description to be Captain and Mrs Harville, and a Captain Benwick who was staying with them.

Captain Benwick had some time ago been first Lieutenant of the Laconia; and the account which Captain Wentworth had given him, on his return from Lyme before; his warm praise of hm as an excellent officer, whom he had always valued highly, which must have stamped him well in the esteem of every listener, had been followed by a little history of his private life, which rendered him perfectly interesting in the eyes of all the ladies.”

If we put Captain Benwick's  personal life and  ,"the interest in the eyes of all the ladies," that he attracts to one side  part of this description reveals one officer highly regarding another officer. Presumably Captains Wentworth and Harville are senior to Captain Benwick. It seems that.Jane Austen is describing  the patronage system at work.  Captain Wentworth with his connection to the Crofts and in particlar Admiral Croft  his praise and good reports of Benwick can  promote Benwick  through a mix of who you know and also the  meritocratic side of the patrionage system. 

The Old Royal Naval Academy (1733- 1837) building Portsmouth. 

THE ROYAL NAVAL ACADEMY PORTSMOUTH

Francis Austen joined the Royal Naval academy Portsmouth in April 1786. He was twelve years old. Later ,in 1791, Janes other seafaring brother Charles joined the academy. He was thirteen years old.

In 1733, a shoreside facility was established in the dockyard for 40 recruits. A comprehensive syllabus provided theoretical and practical experience in the dockyard and at sea. Graduates of the Academy could earn two years of sea time as part of their studies, and would be able to take the lieutenant's examination after four years at sea instead of six. The Academy did not, however, achieve the objective of becoming the preferred path to becoming a naval officer; the traditional means of a sea-going "apprenticeship" remained the preferred alternative. The vast majority of the officer class was still recruited in this manner based on family ties, and patronage. Family connections, "interest" and a sincere belief in the superiority of practical experience learned on the quarterdeck ensured that the officer class favoured the traditional model. William IV summed up this view when he remarked that "there was no place superior to the quarterdeck of a British man of war for the education of a gentleman".

They also had an education in mathematics, the science of the day, navigation,negotiating skills, leadership skills and learning about foreign diplomatic relations. All of this was all part of the education.Those skills were needed by a Royal Naval Captain

There was a clear prejudice against graduates. The then rating of midshipman-by-order, or midshipman ordinary, was used specifically for graduates of the Royal Naval Academy, to distinguish them from midshipmen who had served aboard ship, who were paid more. After two years at sea, graduates of the academy were eligible to be promoted to midshipman. 

In 1806 the Academy was reconstituted as the "Royal Navy College" and in 1816 was amalgamated with the "School of Naval Architecture".

The college closed as a young officer training establishment on 30 March 1837, meaning that from that date all youngsters setting out on a naval career proceeded directly to sea. The closure of the college created a gap in officer training, and in 1857 the two-decker HMS Illustrious undertook the role of cadet training ship at Portsmouth. In 1859 she was replaced by the three-decker Britannia, which was removed to Portland in 1862 and to Dartmouth in 1863. 

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT AT SEA.

A flogging at sea on a Royal Naval ship.

Can we imagine Captains Wentworth, Harville, Benwick Charles Austen and Francis Austen overseeing a strict regime that included corporal punishment?

There are the punishment records for some of the Roayl Naval Ships of the time that can be perused. HMS Daphne" The 6th-rate frigate Daphne (twenty guns; 160 men) was built at Woolwich Dockyard in 1776. The commander was Captain St. John Chinnery, and the frigate's first commission was for the North American station. 

There is a substantial corporal punishment list for HMS Daphne. There were ninety-nine floggings in just over seven years, giving a total of 1464 lashes and an average of 14.8 lashes per flogging. Most of the floggings were of twelve lashes, but nineteen were of twenty-four; one of thirty-six; and one of forty-eight. A total of ninety-two individuals were flogged. The fifty-seven men flogged in the period 1776-1780 comprised 11.2% of all seamen and marines who passed through the ship in that period. There were eleven repeat offenders in Daphne: six men received two floggings each; four had three floggings each; and one, John Mahoney, was flogged four times over two years, receiving a total of seventy-two lashes. On each occasion Mahoney's offences were drunkenness and neglect of duty. 

The main cause of punishments was the  neglect of duty. There is not really a definition for neglect of duty but one exception is Richard Tokley who received twelve lashes on 19 February 1777 for "losing a Dutch flag overboard." The next punishable offence was caused by  alcoholic drink,  often when the ship was in port. Most of the drink-related offences in 1778 took place while Daphne was at New York. The next main offence was insolence (fou followed by quarrelling. 

I am sure jane Austen was aware of this strict punishment regime when writing her ,"Naval Captains," in Persuasion, and she was all too aware of what the life of a naval officers wife would have entailed. Like  much  of what Jane writes in her novels it can pass  the modern reader by. Somebody reading her novels in the 18th century, just after they were first published, would have known what Jane knew.

References:

Jane Austen A Family record by Deirdre Le Faye 

2008 Shore Wives: The Lives: The Lives Of British Of British Naval Officers' Wives And Widows, 1750-1815 Amy Lynn Smallwood Wright State University

Portsmouth Royal Naval Academy : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Naval_Academy

Patrionage in the Royal navy 18th Century (published 2022): Guo Xu ( University of California) Hans Joachim Zoth ( University of Zurich) 

Jane Austen;  PERSUASION: Penguin Classics (pub 1998 reissued 2003) 

THE NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE definition of stress including post traumatic stress.

https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/generalised-anxiety-disorder/overview/

JANE AUSTEN the PUNK ROCKER.

 

It’s strange how various things can come together to get you thinking along a new track.I had read something about Edmund Burke and his extreme conservative views that believed traditon and the status quo was a natural way of existence.  Burke believed in continuity. He thought that we are born into a class and that is where we should remain.He had a particular anti view of the enlightenment that was taking over the world. 

Recently too I have been listening again to some of my favourite punk music from the 1970s. I’ve been reading up about the philosophy of punk.  In a mad moment I Googled ,”Jane Austen and punk rock.” Why not? Wild thoughts come to all of us. 

Reading a definition of Punk Rock you can begin to see Jane Austen in that light. 

Punk Rock is a group of varied social and political beliefs associated with the punk subculture and punk rock. It is primarily concerned with concepts such as mutual aid against selling out hierarchy, white supremacy, authoritarianism, eugenics, class and classism, gender equality, anti-homophobia, racial equality, animal rights,  free-thought and non-conformity.

These ideas are similar to those Burke and Austen dealt with. Burke didn’t want change. Jane Austen in a subtle way by revealing the realities of people and relationships made the 18th century reader reflect and reflection is always the first step to change.

Autumn de Wilde

Surprisingly. there are T shirts with a punk rock version  of a Jane Austen portrait on the front.  I also came across an interview with Autumn deWilde who produced the recent film version of ,”Emma,” with   Anya Taylor Joy who starred as Emma, Mia Goth who played Harriet Smith and Jonny Flynn as Mr Knightly. You can’t get much more rock and roll than those. Autumn de Wilde is quoted as saying,

 

“Emma is such a lead singer, man! And you’re like, ‘Oh god, you’re such a jerk – but I am obsessed with you’.

She said: “I think Jane Austen has punk DNA. They weren’t even allowed to  be funny in that time period.

“Women weren’t allowed to be funny or witty in that time period and God, was she funny.

“She created the first female anti-hero… I could be wrong about that but it seems pretty legendary to have created a character like that.

“I think women are very punk rock - we have to hide a lot - we’re not allowed to say we have periods in public. Somehow we’re still not OK with that.

Speaking about her own background in bringing this story to life, there was a sense, for de Wilde, that doing something almost unexpected was the essence of “punk rock.”

(Daiy Express interview.)

A Punk Rocker

Were Elizabeth and Darcy the punk rockers of their era? Elizabeth stood up to Darcy’s pomposity, his pride and his prejudice. In many ways by writing about those two Jane Austent was putting her own life, livelihood and. future happiness on the line. Autumn de Wilde would agree that is a punk attitude without a doubt.

Some of those listed points about punk rock you can apply to Jane Austen.  I would say however,  Jane Austen does not blatantly express her political or social views. Her family and the society she lived in would have more than just disapproved. Jane would have  been roundly censured and maybe never published again if she had complained overtly. 

Recently I have been reading Helena Kelly’s, ”Jane Austen The Secret Radical.”

She refocuses our views of Jane Austen. She didn’t just live in a country village shut off from the wider world nationally and internationally. Kelly argues that Jane’s writing often is a response to the wider world politically, socially and philosophically.

“Jane was born five years after the poet William Wordsworth, the year before the American Revolution began. When the. French revolution started; she was thirteen. For almost all of her life, Britain was at war. Two of her brothers were in the navy; one joined the militia. For several years she lived in Southampton, a major naval base. It was a time of  clashing armies, warring ideas, a time of censorship and state surveillance. Enclosures were remaking the landscape; European empire building was changing the world; science and technology were opening up a whole universe of new possibilities.

We’re perfectly willing to accept that writers like Wordsworth were fully engaged with everything that was happening, and to find the references in their work,  even when they are veiled or allusive. But we haven’t been willing to do that with jane’s work.”

That is a great description of punk attitudes and Helena is saying why shoudn't Austen be the same?

Coincidently, before reading Helena Kelly’s book and unconnected to what Kelly wrote I wrote an article for my blog ,"London Calling," ( a punk title if ever there was) entitled ,”Understanding George Wickham.” I could see that the  ,”Enlightenment,” views that were the force behind the French Revolution and the American War of Independence and along with Mary Wollstonecraft’s ideas about the equality of men and women I made an argument explaining Wickham from the point of view of mans ,”equality,” and in his case his inequality.  I argued that Wickham’s personality and anti establishment actions was formed in a society that was unequal. He suffered  inequality with Darcy and the upper classes. This brought disastrous consequences  upon himself and others because he was formed in the class riddled society he was born into. He wanted to smash it all. The Sex Pistols lyrics  come to mind.

Austen describes the warts of society. The Bennet sisters struggles to find suitors, the ineffectiveness of the Bennet mother and father, Lady de Bourgh's aristocratic rigid views and Mr Collins smarmy. oily personality seeping around the social rules of the time in Pride and Prejudice. Emma's terrible put down of Miss Bates and Mr Knightly's rebuke  and the need for secrecy in the relationship between Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill. You can feel Jane Austen itching to show the absurdity of the need for that secrecy.The way Anne Elliot has to negotiate life with her terrible father and sister in Persuasion. The awful treatment of the Dashwood sisters and mother by their half brother when he inherits their estate in Sense and Sensibility.The plight of Fanny Price a poor inconsequential young girl and the Bertram family in Mansfield Park and of course Catherine Moreland and Henry Tilney  and the Thorpes in Northanger Abbey. Jane Austen is saying, this is how they are, this is how they treat each other, this is how they behave.Often it’s not very nice. Austen’s strong female characters usually come through though and are often triumphant. This strength of character is definitely a punk rock trait. 

So does this all add up to jane Austen being a punk? She doesn’t change society. I would argue she is more for  organic change.What she describes in her novels is not sudden change,its not revolution she is arguing for. She would have been  guillotined (metaphorically of course, in Britain) if she had asked for revolution no doubt. Her revolt  is a more organic approach. She is a realist not a bomber or assassin. From her family loyalties and the socialisation she went through she doesn’t want a French Revolution or an American War of independence. The Austen family would most definitely not approved.

Did punk rock itself  change society drastically? What it did do was make us all think and look at our world with the blinkers taken off. That’s Jane Austen in a nutshell.  Punk Rock with its clothes, record deals , Tv appearances and so forth was drawn into the mainstream of society. It became another acceptable important art genre. Without a doubt that describes Jane Austen today, films, spin off novels, ball reenactments, dressing up.  She is definitely part of main stream society now. She is a commodity like punk has become a tourist attraction in Camden lock in north London. What punk rock did was make it more acceptable in a democratic society to complain about things which seemed sacred and needed complaining about, often with an angry snarl admittedly and with a studded forehead and a safety pin through the nose. If being aware makes us change then punk rock helped. Being aware is how Jane Austen helped develop society from her house in a country village in the 18th century. 

No matter how much the Sex Pistols wanted anarchy they weren’t really advocating it.   Jane shows a disgust for  Lady Catherine de Bourgh , Mr Collins and the John Thorpes of her world but she didn’t ,”execute,” them. So Jane Austen is a punk rocker. She makes us aware of what life, family, community the class system was really like. When you turn attention to things and examine them you begin to ask questions, you are, Punk Rock. 

THE CLASH , a band at the forefront of the Punk Rock movement in Britain were

“formed in 1976 in the vanguard of british Punk. The Clash would soon become the most iconic band of their era, a symbol of the intelligent protest and stylish rebellion in the turbulent years of the late 70’s and early 60’s.”

A quotation from the Website dedicated to The Clash. https://www.theclash.com/biography/

We could almost say that Jane Austen’s novels are 

“ ……a symbol of the intelligent protest and stylish rebellion in the turbulent years of the late ,(1700s and early 1800s.)

Here are some of the lyrics from,  “Hate and War,” by The Clash.

Hate and war…

I have the will to survive

I cheat if I can’t win

If someone kicks me out

I kick my way back in

An’ if I get aggression

I give it to them two time back

Everyday it’s just the same

With hate an’ war on my back

Hate and war- I hate all the English

Hate and war- I hate all the politeness

Hate and war- I hate all the cops

Straight out of the mouth of George Wickham.

References:

PUNK ROCK:    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_rock

THE CLASH  Lyrics; https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/clash/hateandwar.html

Kelly Helena :  Jane Austen The Secret Radical. (2016)  ICON BOOKS LIMITED 

The novels of Jane Austen.

Edmund Burk: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/burke/

Mary Wolstonecroft: https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/wollstonecraft_01.shtml

UNDERSTANDING GEORGE WICKHAM

 

George Wickham and Lydia Bennet

Is George Wickham, in Pride and Prejudice, more complex than we thought?

Wickham is one the most loathed characters in a Jane Austen novel. 

He first appears in Meryton High Street, an associate of Mr Denny.

“His appearance was greatly in his favour; he had all the best part of beauty, a fine countenance , a good figure, and a very pleasing address.The introduction was followed up  on his side by a happy readiness of conversation- a readiness at the same time perfectly correct and unassuming;…”

The Bennet sisters, with Mr Collins in tow and along with their aunt MrsPhilips had been encouraged by their father to walk to Meryton. Mr Bennet being eager to have a respite from the attentions of Mr Collins. In the high street they came across  an unknown young man in the company of Mr Denny who they do know. This was their first meeting with George Wickham.  They were to dine at their aunts, Mrs Philips’s house the next day. At the behest of the women Wickham was later invited to dine with them too by Mr Philips personally.

As soon as he arrived all the young females were immediately enamoured of him. He had a smooth relaxed way of talking. He came across as being a handsome, confident, assured young man with impeccable manners. Wickham had learned how to ingratiate himself, especially with young ladies. He had learned to come across as the perfect example of the male species. Is this acting , a learned habit, a way of getting others to like him? Probably all of these. What is surprising is how Elizabeth Bennet herself was enraptured and attracted by him. Lydia, of course, is completely taken by him too. The uniform was all to her.

 Somebody who has this sort of charisma and practiced charm is all surface. It cannot possibly be their whole personality, their whole character, but it takes experience to know that.

While talking in the high street Darcy and Bingley happen to ride past and acknowledge the ladies. Darcy and Wickham, their eyes meet, and a strange atmopsphere descends between the two of them. They obviously know each other. Darcy stiffly acknowledges Wickham who stiffly acknowledges him in return.Elizabeth notices the exchange. Obviously everything is not as first appearances make out.

At the Philips’s dinner the next day Elizabeth and Wickham talk. Elizabeth is keen to ask about his acquaintance with Darcy but she dare not. Wickham however begins a conversation about Darcy himself, wondering how long he has been in the area. Elizabeth relates the rumours that Darcy has a large estate in Derbyshire and that he has a large fortune.

“ Yes,” replied Wickham;-‘ his estate there is a noble one. A clear ten thousand per annum. You could not have met with a person more capable of giving you certain information on that head than myself- for I have been connected with the family in  a particular manner from my infancy.”

Then Wickham reveals his close connection to Old Mr Darcy and to Darcy himself. Wickham’s father had been the estate manager for Mr Darcy. He and Fitzwilliam Darcy had grown up together. Old Mr Darcy out of his attachment to Wickham’s father and a liking for the son had provided an education at Cambridge,  for Wickham, the same he provided for his own son and had left Wickham  not only £1000 in his will but also the promise  of a rich parish when one came up on his estates. Wickham explained to Elizabeth that he had been brought up to be a clergyman. He also added that how ,after the death of both his own father and also Old Mr Darcy the youmger Darcy, Fitzwilliam had provided the money but when a rich living did come up Darcy had refused him. Wickham describes Darcy  as proud and jealous. And Wickham himself opines,

“ I have been a disappointed man and my spirits will not bear solitude..” 

  Truth but untruth and Elizabeth because of her own initial aversion to Darcy believes it  and we as the readers, perhaps, believe it too.

But there is the alternative explanation of events later in the novel, Darcy’s take on the same events and facts. In an empassioned letter to Elzabeth he explains,

“ With respect to that other more weighty accusation, of having injured Mr Wickham, I can only refute it by laying before you the whole of his connection with my family.”

And so Fitzwilliam Darcy begins. He relates  how Wickham's father was a loved and respected estate manager, and Darcys father’s liking and fondness for George Wickham, the son. He describes how they had a close associationin in their youth and he saw him at unguarded moments.

Darcy goes on to explain.

“ George Wickham, who was his (Old Mr Darcy's) godson,his kindness was liberally bestowed. My father supported him at school, and afterwards at Cambridge;-most important assistance.......My father was not only fond of this young man’s society, whose manners were always engaging he had also the highest opinion of him ……..As for myself, it is many many years since I first began to think of him in a very different manner. The viscious propensities- the want of principle which he was careful to guard from the knowledge of his best friend, could not escape the observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself and who had the opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments…”

Wickham had turned down the offer of a parish living when it did come up but had asked for a further £3000 in its stead which Darcy gave him to follow a career in the law. Wickham instead lived a dissolute life. He spent very little time in following the law which he found himself unsuited for and instead spent the money on gambling and drinking.

Old Mr Darcy had in effect tried to raise George Wickham above his birth status. He provided all the means for him to move upwards in society and as such change his class. He was a man of Enlightenment views. So why would Wickham turn out like this when he had been offered so many advantages in life? 

 Britain has a class system which even today is still extant. Many governments over the decades and centuries have talked about making a more equal society but, we still have an aristocracy that owns a large part of the landmass of the United Kingdom, we have a two tier education system, state and private and we have a massive wealth divide. Those divisions in society were much more stark in Jane Austen’s time. She herself was writing  about the gentry and the aristocracy, privately educated men and wealthy landowners.  The serving class , the poor people ,are viritually erased from the world that Jane Austen creates. Where they appear they are generally nice people. We have Mr Martin the farmer in Emma and  some servants who appear briefly in the novels. The Springers,father and son, in the unfinished Sanditon come to mind and have some connection to the situation of Wickham and his father but of course that novel never develops beyond  introductions so we will never know their role in the entirety of the novel.

The difference between those others  compared to Wickham, is that they  are portrayed as honest, hard working and likeable characters and George Wickham is not. They all remain apparently happy  within their strata of society and in relation to the gentry. They have no ambitions to move upwards in society.

Wickham seems to be an experiment where Austen is saying, if you try and move upwards in class, get above yourself, there are terrible consequences. You will destroy yourself and damage others around you. She is making a case for the extant societal structure and the status quo. Maybe she sees it as a natural way of existence as Edmund Burke the philosopher and statesman, believed.  

We have heard from both Wickham himself and Fitzwilliam Darcy. His father was obviously a talented  estate manager and may well have earned a good salary from Old Mr Darcy but he was still of a lower class. The Old Mr Darcy seemed to have attempted, because of his fondnes for the father and the boy, to move him out of his class into a higher class through education, encouraging and allowing an association with his own son and by providing money and a future position in life. Nowadays we think of education as the answer to a fulfilling life and in many ways it is but in a cruel twist, the education of the masses, as we have today ,still leaves us with a world of poor and rich, the upper classes and the lower classes. 

The effect of this attempt to raise George Wickahm in society, in Jane Austen’s mind, was to create a  monster.

Darcy had noticed the bad side of Wickham as they grew up together. Can you imagine a boy from one class trying to be the equal of somebody in a higher class? Surely in the 18th century it was impossible. He must have felt torn between his own father and Old Mr Darcy,  what advantages and socialisation  Fitzwilliam Darcy received as a natural course  and was heir to and what he himself was being offered out of generosity in what must have seemed an unatural way. He must have felt an imposter. He must have felt bitter, mixed up and vengeful. All of which is apparent in Pride and Prejudice. His way of coping was to copy the actions and demeaner, of a member of the upper classes but he had become neither one nor the other. And so his response was to sink into dissipation.

Examples of his dissipation are his attempted seduction and elopement in Ramsgate,  of Darcys young sister Georgiana aided by, probably  just as bitter a person, Mrs Younge,who was put in charge by Darcy and his cousin, to run the establishment set up for her . Then of course there is his later elopement with Lydia and unhappy marriage. In the final chapter Darcy has accepted the situation and he keeps Wickham financially viable, financing his dissolute ways for the sake of his wife’s sister and perhaps his own conscience. It’s a mess and It’s all very sad and in many ways a grotesque life for Wickham.

 Austen portrays throughout her novels society changing and developing in an organic way.  Much of the plot of each of her novels is about human and societal development but as a gradual process. Wickham stands out from all this because he is an experiment outside of  the  process of gradual change.  Wickham’s effect on society is sudden and brutal.

“The Enlightenment,” which dominated Europe in the 18th century was centred around  the idea that reason is the primary source of authority and legitimacy. Modernisation, scepticism and liberty were its main traits and influenced much of the political and social thinking of the 18th century either  agreeing or  opposing those ideas.

Pride and Prejudice was published in January 1813.   The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783) ended thirty years before.  Jane had been working on the novel since the 1790s. There is the famous statement in the American Declaration of Independence, a version of enlightenment thought, that says,

“we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”

The Declaration of Independence..

All of this statement is important but with relation to Wickham and his predicament the bit which says ,”all men are equal,” is the pertinent phrase. Equality with Fitzwilliam Darcy and the gentry was impossible  for him. So from a young age he became, bitterand twisted. 

A Vindication Of The Rights of Men.

Mary Wollstonecraft had written, by the time Pride and Prejudice was published, both her enlightenment statements including The Vindication of the Rights of Men 1790. A long letter counteracting the  views of Edmund Burke who  believed that sexual, social and other inequaliies were a natural order of things.The French Revolution begun in 1789 was reverberating around Europe and the World with its cry for,”Liberty , Equality and Fraternity.” Charles James Fox (1749-1806), the great Whig politician was sympathetic both to the American cause and the French Revolution. Wordsworth the poet was sympathetic to many of the ideas espoused by the French too. There were many others in high positions. 

Britain and the British monarchy were nervous to say the least. The Austens were traditionalists, they supported the monarchy, the church, were friends with members of the gentry, Edward Austen being part of the gentry and Mrs Austen descending from a gentry family,  they joined the navy and the military and so supported the traditonal social norms.

The new French Republic continues with the Girondists.

Wickham can be seen as a fictional metaphor  for Jane Austen’s view of ,The Enlightenment.  In many ways he is Austen's emotional reaction to the revolutions of France and America.

Perhaps if Wickham had been born and brought up across the Atlantic he would have had different opportunities in a different social climate and turned out differently? 

References:

The Declaration of Independence 1776,

 https://history.state.gov/milestones/1776-1783/declaration

Wollstonecraft Mary, The Vindication of The Rights of Men, 

Online Library of Liberty, https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/wollstonecraft-a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-men

The French Revolution, https://www.swansea.ac.uk/history/history-study-guides/the-long-and-short-reasons-for-why-revolution-broke-out-in-france-in-1789/

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Penguin Classics 1996. (First published 1813)

THE CLUB

 Dr Johnson and the first members of The Club meeting in a second floor room of The Turks Head Tavern.

In 1764 , two friends, Sir. Joshua Reynolds and Dr Johnson gathered a group  who called themselves The Club. They were to meet once a week, at number 9 Gerrard Street, The Turks Head Tavern, just north of The Strand and Leicester Fields ( Leicester Square). The intention was to form a group,

“made up of convivial and interesting friends.”

 It is worth looking at how Dr Johnson defined the word, club, in his dictionary.  In his dictionary he always wrote the definition first followed by quotations from various sources, poets, playwrights, The Book of Common Prayer and so on ,that include the word. Johnson gives five definitions of ,club, including the name of a suit of cards, a stout stick, a dividend paid by a company and a contribution, as well as the use we are concerned about.

4. An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions.

What right has any man to meet in factious clubs to vilify the government?

Dryden’s Medal. Dedication. 

An 18th century print of The Turks Head Tavern.

There was a practical purpose for forming the club. It was more Reynolds idea than Johnsons who nevertheless took to the idea with alacrity. Reynolds as a good friend had noticed the terrible mental state that Johnson had fallen into. He had  become impoverished since completing his great dictionary and had to move from the reasonably grand Gough Square house where he had compiled the dictionary. He was living alone, in one sense, since his wife Hetty had died  a few years previously. Now he was living in a small house in Temple Court just south of the Strand, allowing all sorts of waifs and strays to stay with him there. Many of these characters did not get on and there were often arguments and fights. 

His living conditions and lack of money were among a number of reasons he had fallen into this mental state. Since childhood he suffered from ,”melancholy.” In the eighteenth century the term meant clinical depression. He once described to James Boswell what it was like for him at these times. 

“he felt himself overwhelmed with a horrible hypochondria, with perpetual irritation forgetfulness and  impatience and with a dejection, gloom and despair which made existence a misery.”

The word ,” hypochondria,” in the eighteenth century  meant suffering from a very real mental disorder.

Johnson had terrible pangs of guilt for not being able to complete a Shakespeare edition he had been working on for seven years by that time. He also  suffered what might be described as religious paranoia. He worried that he could not fulfil his God given talents so was destined for hell. He had sexual fantasies which also made him extremely neurotic. Henry Thrale , a good friend who, together with his wife Hester  had a big influence on his life, reported to his wife,  who kept a journal, some of the terrible things that Johnson had told him that troubled his mind. Probably a psychiatrist today would delve into his childhood experiences and find all sorts of damaging events. 

Forming a club in the way Reynolds envisaged was, in a way, a means of taking things off Johnsons mind . Johnson loved discussions. He saw them in an adversarial way. He competed to win.

Joshua Reynolds lived in a house on this site, now in Leicester Square (Leicester Fields in the 18th century).

The Turks head Tavern, where they were to hold the club appears in the ,”Survey of London: Volumes 33 and 34 which covers St Anne SOHO.  Gerrard Street is described as such.

“During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many artists lived in Gerrard Street, and there was also from an early period a number of metal workers and jewellers, the most notable being Paul de Lamerie.”

Gerrard Street has a complex history not least house number 9 where the Turks Head Tavern was located .

The London Survey states:

“The site of No. 9 was one of the two largest on the north side of Gerrard Street, having a frontage of thirty-eight feet. The present building was erected in 1758–9.

The earliest known occupant of the first house was a Lady Wiseman, who lived here from c. 1685 to 1697.  From 1701 it became the Romer Tavern which held musical evenings. By 1737 the tavern was called the Bear and 'Rumer'.

 

The house survived, presumably as a tavern, until 1758, when the freehold was bought by John Spencer of St. George's, Hanover Square, carpenter. Matthew Fairless of St. James's, carpenter, was a witness to the conveyance.   Spencer's first tenant in 1759 was Christopher Winch, a victualler who had previously kept the Turk's Head in Greek Street. He transferred the name to the new house in Gerrard Street which remained in use as a tavern under that name until 1783.”

To begin with ,The Club, comprised of nine people. The number nine being decided on because if anybody could not attend for any reason there was still enough for a broad and diverse conversation assured of a broad spectrum of viewpoints. They also thought that if any two members should meet they would still be able to have  an interesting and invigorating discussion. There were Johnson and Reynolds,who  both had public reputations. The rest , to begin with, were mostly starting their careers. The main criteria for membership were intellectual capabilities, to be able to think and be entertaining. Things such as wealth or poverty were not taken into consideration. There were wealthy members such as Reynolds and there were impoverished members such as Johnson himself. The other seven members were Edmund Burke, the great political thinker whose influence is still felt today, Dr Christopher Nugent, Anthony Chamier,a stockbroker, Oliver Goldsmith,the author and journalist, Topham Beauclerk,an old friend of Johnson’s from Oxford who was very wealthy and who was entertaining but could be acerbic, Bennet Langton another wealthy friend who was learned in the classics and Sir John Hawkins magistrate and musicologist. Hawkins was stuffy and humourless and didn’t last as a member. As the years progressed more members joined. James Boswell, Johnsons biographer, was not elected a member until1773 at the insistence of Johnson. Other members thought he was a lightweight. Later on Dr Burney, the composer and church musician and father of Francis Burney the author, joined too. Burney was an avid social climber, getting to know the right people and had a creepy tendency to ingratiate himself on those with influence, power and money.  

Burney wrote about The Club, that Johnson wanted a group 

"composed of the heads of every liberal and literary profession" and "have somebody to refer to in our doubts and discussions, by whose Science we might be enlightened."

It is Boswell, with his insatiable appetite for recording Johnson’s and others conversations and actions that we have to thank for an example of a conversation held in the second floor room at The Turks Head on April 3rd 1778.

“On Friday April 3, I dined with him in London in a company where were present several eminent men, whom I shall not name, but distinguish their parts in the conversation by different letters. 

 (many of the members did not want  Boswell to record their conversations at first but were happy that he record them anonymously.)

F:  I have been looking at this famous antique marble dog of Mr Jennings, valued at a thousand guineas, said to be Acibiades’s dog.

Johnson: His tail then must be docked. That was the mark of Alcibiades’s dog.

E: A thousand guineas! The representation of no animal whatever is worth so much. At this rate a dead dog would be better than a living lion.

Johnson: Sir, it is not the worth of the thing, but of the skill in forming it which is so highly estimated. Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do is valuable.” 

This discussion about the value of things, the enlargement of human powers and an understanding of the classical world gives a sense of the depth of conversation and the  relaxed atmosphere and the friendly exchanges, even if the members were not always agreeing. 

There was conversation but there was also the eating. James Boswell does not record what they ate at these gatherings but at the same time as The Club met, two cooks, who worked at the nearby Crown and Anchor, in the Strand, a short walk from the Turks Head,published, 

“ The Universal Cook and City Housekeeping.”

Here is a list of possible dishes and choices the Turks Head Tavern would have served up. 

MEAT: beef, mutton, veal, pork, lamb and rabbit.

POULTRY: geese, ducks, widgeon, chicken, turkey, pigeons, woodcock, partridges and pheasants.

FISH: turbot, smalts, gudgeon, eels, sturgeon, sole,carp, cockles, mussels and oysters.

Vegetables were served in the summer but not in the winter.

Drinks might include bourdeaux wine and port. Beer and ale was not served because they were drinks for the lower classes.

The above is not an exhaustive list but it gives you a, “flavour,” of what was on offer.

The Westminster Reference Library in St Martin's Street.The site of the house where Dr Burney and Francis Burney lived with their family.

Everybody who was a member of The Club lived reasonably close to Gerrard Street. Dr Burney,who later joined The Club  , once he and his family had moved to London from Kings Lynn on the Norfolk coast,  from 1760 lived in a house in Poland Street,just off Gerrard Street,  in SOHO. By the time he joined The Club he and his family had moved to a house, once owned by Sir Isaac Newton, in St Martin’s Street just off Leicester Fields to the south, a short ten minute’s walk to Gerrard Street. In Leicester Fields,around the corner and a few yards from the Burneys lived Sir Joshua Reynolds. Dr Johnson, of course lived in Temple Court not far away . Edmund Burke was the closest. Burke lived in Gerrard Street on the opposite side to the Turks Head. Garrick the actor and theatre manager , the greatest actor of his century, became a member. He had been a school pupil of Johnson’s growing up in Litchfield. He lived just off Covent Garden close by. 

The house in Gerrard's Street ,on the opposite side to The Turks Head Tavern ,where Edmnd Burke lived.

Francis Burney the famed daughter of Dr Burney and author of the novels,  Evelina, Cecelia, and Camilla and a number of plays, became famous in her life time. She was friends with Hester Thrale, a close friend of Dr Johnson and a socialite who gathered the famous of the time around her at parties and dinners held at her Streatham home. Francis Burney is more important now for the journals she kept. She provides an insight to many famous people of the time including the King and Queen. She knew Dr Johnson very well.  Her description of Dr Johnson the first time she met him is somewhat alarming.

From a letter written at St Martins Street to Samuel Crisp ,  friend of the Burney family,  on the 28th March 1777, 

"...and in the midst of this performance ( a duet by Hetty and Suzette) Dr Johnson was announced.

He is indeed very ill favoured,- he is tall and stout, but stoops terribly, he is almost bent double. His mouth is almost constantly opening and shutting, as if he were chewing;-he has a strange method of frequently twirling his fingers and twisting his hands, his body is in continual agitation, see sawing up and down; his feet are never a moment quiet and in short his whole person is in perpetual motion."

London is very different today. Johnson and his friends would not recognise it. A few buildings such as The Turks Head Tavern and one or two streets such as Meards Street in SOHO still retain their 18th century character and atmosphere. 

 

I walked to Leicester Square( Leicester Fields) the other day and walked along Orange Street ,behind the National Gallery, past  Orange Street Congregational Church towards St Martins Street.  The church was founded in 1693 by Huguenot refugees. In 1776 it became part of the Church of England. It eventually passed to the Congregationalists in 1787. It is located right behind the site of the Burney’s house. Where the Burney’s house once stood is an elegant building now housing the Westminster Public Library. It often has small display’s telling the story of the sites illustrious past inhabitants. There is a plaque inside the Westminster Public Library  which reads.

 “Here stood the house  of Sir Isaac Newton in which he lived from 1710 to 1727 and was visited by his friends Addison, Burnet, Halley, Swift, Wren and other great men. Later it became the home of Dr Chares Burney and his daughter Francis and was the  resort of Johnson, Reynolds, Garrick and many others. The library covers the site of the Leicester Fields chapel built for the Huguenots in 1693.”

The Chinese supermarket located inside the building that was ,The Turks Head Tavern.

I found myself walking along past the library, through Leicester Square, noting the plaque showing where Joshua Reynolds lived and on to Gerrards Street and The Turks Head Tavern, now a Chinese supermarket. I was very much in the 21st century but thinking myself back to the18th century. It’s quite easy to do.

The Orange Street Congregational Church founded in 1693 by the Huguenots. The Burneys house which was nearby,  was built in 1710. 

The Club, begun in February 1764 lasted for ten years with new members being elected along the way. It eventually grew to thirty five in number. Johnson attended less and less towards the end. 

Note: Leicester Square , as it is known today, was called Leicester Fields in the 18th century.

References:

Leo Damrosch: THE CLUB Johnson, Boswell and the friends who shaped an age, YALE University Press 2019.

James Boswell: The Life of Samuel Johnson, Penguin Classics 2008 ( first published 1791)

Francis Burney: Journals and Letters, Penguin Classics 2001

Claire Harman: Fanny Burney A biography, Flamingo ( an imprint of Harper Collins) 2001

Dr Johnson's online dictionary: https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/

Survey of London: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vols33-4/pp384-411#h3-s4