King William's private place

Loretta reports:

State apartments are all very well, and I can be easily awestruck by, say, a magnificent painted ceiling, or candle stands that tower over my head.

But the most fun for me in touring a historic site is looking into the less public spaces:  kitchens, for instance.  Wine cellars.  Bathrooms.

Not too long ago we looked into Queen Caroline’s (Caroline of Ansbach 1683-1737) bathroom at Hampton Court Palace.

Nowhere in my perambulations, however, did I come upon the King’s bathroom.  I did find his lavatory, though.

King William III (1650–1702) was not an extrovert.  He liked to be alone or with small groups of friends.  One of the places where he could have some privacy was what’s called the King’s Closet.  Here he’d meet with the privileged few and work at his modest-looking walnut desk.  His long-case clock nearby needs to be wound only once a year—highly advanced technology for the time.

And in this private area, not far away, and in plain sight between the jib doors* is King William's own actual close stool.  According to the brochure, “the Groom of the Stool was a senior courtier who not only ran the Bedchamber department but also had to personally attend the king on his ‘stool.’”

I leave you to surmise what attendance entailed.

*In architecture a jib door is a door made flush with the wall, without dressings or mouldings, often as a disguised or concealed door.—Probert Encyclopaedia of Architecture.

"Few virtues are of more importance to society": Cleanliness & Dr. Buchan, 1769

Susan reporting:

Seeing Queen Caroline's bath yesterday reminded me of Dr. William Buchan (1729-1805), left, last mentioned on this blog here discussing the importance of healthy perspiration. This Scottish physician became a household name in 18th c. Great Britain by writing one of the earliest bestsellers of medical advice, a straightforward volume that became the standard reference in thousands of homes. Domestic Medicine: or, A Treatise on the Prevention & Cure of Diseases by Regimen and Simple Medicines was first published in 1769, and went on to be reprinted over and over throughout the 18th and 19th c., selling an estimated 80,000 copies. Dr. Buchan was a firm believer in cleanliness and washing as promoting good health, as this excerpt demonstrates:

"Frequent washing not only removes the filth and sordes which adhere to the skin, but likewise  promotes the perspiration, braces the body, and enlivens the spirits. How refreshed, how cheerful, and agreeable does one feel on being shaved, washed, and shifted, especially when these offices have been neglected longer than usual!.... Cleanliness is certainly agreeable to our nature. We cannot help approving it in others, even though we should not practice it ourselves. It sooner attracts our regard than even finery itself, and often gains esteem where that fails. It is an ornament to the highest as well as the lowest station, and cannot be dispensed with in either. Few virtues are of more importance to society than general cleanliness. It ought to be carefully cultivated everywhere; but in populous cities, it should be almost revered."


Did all of Dr. Buchan's readers follow his excellent advice regarding cleanliness? Probably not. But then, how many modern readers of doctor-written bestsellers are following similar excellent advice regarding diet, exercise, and plenty of sleep?

Above: William Buchan, M.D., frontispiece from 1805 edition of Domestic Medicine.

Queen Caroline takes a bath

Loretta reports:

Susan & I have posted extensively about bathing. In our Annals of Bathing, We’ve looked at historical hygiene from various angles. (If you missed that investigation, you can get caught up by checking out Episodes One, Two, Three, Four, Five, and  Six.)  In the process of answering our readers’ questions, we learned that finding extant  pre-Victorian bathrooms is tricky—mainly because so many of the houses were modernized.

Luckily for us, Hampton Court Palace (I last blogged about it here) fell out of royal favor after the death of King George II’s (1682-1760) consort, Queen Caroline (1683-1737).

She, it seems was the life of the party, a cultivated, socially adept woman who amply compensated for her spouse’s unsparkling, reclusive personality.  After she died, the grieving king lost interest in Hampton Court Palace.  His successor, King George III, hated it.  Since the second George was the last British monarch to live here, it didn't undergo much in the way of transformation.  It's had a few restorations, but the rooms are much as they were then, with many of the same furnishings in their original places.

This means that, among other things, we can see a not-modern bathroom—if one takes a peek through the doors at the back of the Queen’s Dressing Room.

Queen Caroline liked to bathe—and here’s evidence that for her, this meant full-body bathing—to an extent that wasn't usual at the time in England and was considered rather strange.  The wooden bathtub is a replica.  (Note the linens lining it.)  The marble thing at the back is a cistern for cold water. 


Photos courtesy me.

The Royal Waterloo Bath

Loretta reports:

~~~

Plate 34.—ROYAL WATERLOO BATH.

This very elegant floating bath is stationed near the north end of the Waterloo-bridge, and has recently been built and completed with entirely new and substantial materials, in a style of superior accommodation, at a very considerable expense: it contains a plunging-bath, 24 feet long by 8 feet wide, and two private baths, 10 feet long by 8 feet wide. The depth may be regulated at pleasure by machinery, which raises or depresses the bottom as required, secured by cross timbers, and bound with iron. To each of the baths are attached small dressing-rooms, commodiously fitted up, with proper persons to attend upon visitors. These baths are so constructed, that the water, being a running stream, is changed every two minutes. The advantage of bathing in a flowing stream is obvious, and gives a decided preference over a cold still bath, which is frequently dangerous from the violence of the shock. The terms of bathing, as our readers will see, are extremely moderate: they are—

                                             £     s.    d.
In the plunging-bath .  0     1     0
For the season . . . . . .  1    11    6
In the private baths .   0     1     6
For the season. . . . . .    2     2     0

Constant attendance at Waterloo-bridge to convey visitors to and from the bath.

Bathing is so essentially connected with health, that we cannot but congratulate the public on this new establishment. It is singular that so few of the kind should be known in London, while there is scarcely a street in the French metropolis that has not its cold, warm, vapour, Chinese, and Tuscan baths, with a variety of others, suiting the capricious tastes of the inhabitants. Yet how deficient they are in the most important article connected with bathing everybody knows, while we have a noble river filled with the purest and most wholesome waters in the world. The want of baths in London has led to the incommodious and indecorous practice of public exposure in the Thames.
—Ackermann's Repository, 1819 (June)

Men's hair care, 1830

Loretta reports:
~~~
The chief attributes of hair should be curl, strength, and gloss. All three of which, however sparing nature may have been in her gifts, art can make up. Hair, which in itself depends for nourishment upon the head, when refused that requisite supply by a dry habit of body, and turns of deadish hue, should be oiled every morning. The way to apply oils or grease of any kind to nourish the hair, is to rub it well in at the roots, when its essential virtue can only be of service, and then brush it well. Brushing is as absolutely required by the hair, as washing by the face, it is this that bestows that fine gloss which so much improves the appearance of the hair, at the same time excluding all dandriff. This ever forms and renders the hair of a dead and unanimated appearance, when not well brushed. A hard penetrating, and a soft brush should be alternately used. The former strengthens the roots of the hair by impelling a brisker circulation of the blood, while the latter bestows the shine or polish.

Oils in general, I am by no means partial to. There are, indeed, scarcely any, besides the Macassar, upon which much reliance should be placed. Bears' grease, when genuine, there can be no doubt, is very nourishing to the hair, and greatly promotes its growth, as well as strength. But neither oil nor bears' grease should be applied to the hair without a good brushing. In fact, if rubbed softly on the top of the brush, and so applied, it is quite as well. The hair should never be suffered to grow long uncut, as it seems to fade and droop, and the ends split; for this reason, to have it in perfection, it should be trimmed at the least once every month. I likewise recommend washing it once a fortnight in the summer, and half as often in winter. This should be done with water, hot as you can bear it; and if soap be used in winter, in summer it never should. Care should be taken in washing it well out, as it is pernicious in the extreme.
—The whole art of dress! or, The road to elegance and fashion, at the enormous saving of thirty per cent!!!, by a cavalry officer,1830

Illustration:  Thomas Rowlandson, Macassar Oil, an Oily Puff for Soft Heads, courtesy Oregon Health & Science University

The Lady in the Riding Habit & the Worsley Scandal

Loretta reports:

Susan's recent blog about 18th C riding habits elicited some comments about the subject of the portrait she posted: Lady Worsley, who was at the center of a famous scandal in 1782.  I blogged on this subject a while ago, but it's such a funny scandal, I couldn't resist returning to it.

It was in all the newspapers and written up in pamphlets and zestfuly caricatured in satirical prints.

It seemed simple enough.  Sir Richard Worsley had sued Captain Bissett for "criminal conversation"* with his wife.   In times when divorce was insanely expensive, requiring an Act of Parliament, this was a common way for a cuckolded husband to get revenge.  In this case, though, it was one of those "What was he thinking?" incidents.

“The court heard that while [Sir Richard] Worsley was quartered in the military camp at Cox’s Heath, Lady Worsley had often used the nearby bathhouse at Maidstone. On one occasion her husband had tapped on the bathhouse door, saying ‘[Captain] Bissett is going to get up to look at you.’ Hoist Bissett up to the window Worsley duly did, for him to gaze on her nakedness.”

Worsley ended up with a one shilling reward from a disgusted court, and his wife became Society's big joke.  Horace Walpole, a great gossip and letter writer (about whom I've also blogged) wrote to his friends that "'thirty-four young men of the first quality had enjoyed her favours.'"  And one of them, the Marquis of Graham, had given her the clap.

Excerpts from Vic Gatrell, City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London.

You can read the court proceedings here.

And more about Lady Worsley here. And here.

Here’s one of the satirical prints.

*Adultery.

Men & Women Swimming Together...in 1810

Susan reporting:

With summer winding down, I thought I'd post a print that's appropriate for the last days of August. It's going to be a case of "one picture is worth a thousand words", too, because I can find very little to share about its history.

Called "Les Nageurs" ("The Swimmers"), this image is No. 15 in a rare series of early 19th c. French prints called Caricatures Parisiennes: Le Supreme Bon Ton. The prints show the pastimes of fashionable young people in Napoleon's Paris. While they're called "caricatures", they have none of the bite of their English counterparts, and more of the hand-tinted elegance of fashion plates.

But consider what a racy scene this must have been at the time. Swimming had long been considered good manly exercise (recall Charles II, swimming in the Thames outside Whitehall in the 1660s) and ladies, too, had been known to dabble in the water, but I can't recall seeing any other picture from this early date showing the two parties in the water together. They're clearly swimming, too, not just splashing about. That one guy hopping into the water with his pointed toes is showing off his chiseled, beach-boy physique (as well as his woolly sideburns), hoping to be scouted for some long-distant episode of Jersey Shore.

Even more interesting is that they appear to be wearing stylish costumes designed specifically for the activity. No skinny-dipping for these folks! The men's drawers are based on breeches or drawers, with button-front falls (that flap-like fly) in the front, and the hems are trimmed with a natty contrasting border, much like the trunks worn by 1950s lifeguards.  The ladies are a little harder to figure out, but they, too, seem to be wearing specific swimming "dress," with caps over their hair and knee-length, sleeveless garments. There are buttons under the arm that have become unbuttoned (?) and I'm guessing the fabric is linen by the revealing way it's clinging to the lady's body. For that matter, the men's drawers aren't hiding many secrets, either, which makes this co-ed swim party all the more extraordinary.

Was this kind of easy, athletic freedom common in Paris at the time? Or was it only an invention (or wishful thinking) by the artist?

Above: Les Nageurs (The Swimmers), from the series Le Supreme Bon Ton, No. 15; artist unknown; published by Martinet, Paris, c. 1810-1815

Department of Quotation: The Worsley Scandal

Loretta reports:

“The court heard that while [Sir Richard] Worsley was quartered in the military camp at Cox’s Heath, Lady Worsley had often used the nearby bathhouse at Maidstone. On one occasion her husband had tapped on the bathhouse door, saying ‘[Captain] Bissett is going to get up to look at you.’ Hoist Bissett up to the window Worsley duly did, for him to gaze on her nakedness.”

Vic Gatrell, City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London.

You can read the court proceedings here.

And more about Lady Worsley here.

Here’s one of the satirical prints.

Annals of Bathing 6: The Last Word (For Now)

Susan reports:

From the Diary of Samuel Pepys, written between 1660-1669:

"My wife being busy in going with her woman to a hot-house to bathe herself, after her long being within doors in the dirt, so that she now pretends to a resolution of being hereafter very clean. How long it will hold I can guess. . . .

"At night late home, and to clean myself with warm water; [now] my wife will have me, because she doth [wash] herself, and so to bed."

Above: The King's Bath and the Queen's Bath at Bath 1675, by Thomas Johnson (1634-1676 fl.) from the collection of the British Museum; copyright The Trustees of the British Museum.  The King's Bath is the oldest of the baths, dating from at least the 13th c.  This drawing from the 17th c. shows a lively scene worthy of a modern swimming pool, with bathers of all ages (and of all dress and undress) and both genders, plus many spectators gathered along the rails and watching from the windows of surrounding houses.  To learn more, click on the title of the print.  

Annals of Bathing 5: Tepid bath

Loretta reports:

From The New Female Instructor or Young Woman’s Guide to Domestic Happiness (first published in the 1830s):

"Hence tepid* baths are of eminent service where the body has been overheated, from whatever cause, whether after fatigue from travelling, or severe bodily exercise, or after violent exertion and perturbation of mind; as they allay the tempestuous and irregular movements of the body, and frequently, in the strictest sense, invigorate the system. By their softening, moistening, and tumefying power, they greatly contribute to the formation and growth of the bodies of young persons; and are of a singular benefit to those in whom we perceive a tendency to arrive too early at the consistence of a settled age; so that the warm bath is particularly adapted to prolong the state of youth, and retard for some time the approach of full manhood. This effect the tepid baths produce in a manner exactly alike, in the coldest as well as in the hottest climates."

* “about the temperature of the blood, between 96 and 98° of Fahrenheit”

This book review Susan found offers a nice summary of the complex subject we've tackled this week.

Above is a detail fromThomas Eakins's The Swimming Hole.

Annals of Bathing: Episode 4

Susan reports:

No matter whether an English gentleman or lady believed in full into-the-tub bathing, or more cautiously followed popular medical advice and washed rather than bathed, there was one area in which both sides were in complete agreement: what they wore next to their skin was impeccably clean.

For gentlemen, a linen shirt was an all-purpose garment well into the 19th century. Whether fine Holland linen or coarse homespun, the shirt was always voluminously cut and always white.  It slipped over the head and hung nearly to the knees, with buttons at the throat and the cuffs.  (It's only romance cover artists who make a historical hero wear a silk tux shirt open to the waist.) 

A shirt served as underwear as well as a nightshirt, and was the one "layer" that lay directly on the skin, absorbing sweat and preserving coats and waistcoats. A clean shirt was a point of pride for men of every rank. Even laboring men tried to have at least two, one to wear and one being washed.  Fine gentlemen might change their shirts several times a day; some might own as many as fifty. But as long as a gentleman's shirt was clean, then he was considered clean as well.  

It probably worked pretty well, too.  Linen is a soft, absorbent fabric, and by the time a laundress had washed and rinsed it repeatedly with strong soap, dried it by the sun, and pressed it with steaming-hot irons, a linen shirt would have been clean and fresh-smelling enough to please even a fastidious 21st c. nose.  Wealthy Londoners sent their linen to the country to be washed, in cleaner water far from the sooty air of the city.

The same thing applied to a lady's smock, shirt, or chemise; the name changes over the centuries, but the billowing square shape doesn't. It, too, was invariably white linen, though it could be trimmed with lace or discreet embroidered initials.  The smock went beneath petticoats, stays or corsets, and gowns, and protected those costly pieces from sweat and dirt.  (Again it's only on book covers or in Madonna videos that corsets are worn next to the skin.) Shifts were changed at least daily, and as with a man's shirt, a clean shift meant a clean lady.  

Above left: Woman Doing Laundry, by Henry Robert Morland  (1716-1797)

Annals of Bathing 3: George & Caroline

Loretta reports:

Anybody wondering whether people were concerned with cleanliness before Beau Brummell’s reign might want to consider the Prince of Wales and his bride, Caroline of Brunswick.

The Earl of Malmesbury, charged with bringing Caroline to England, had grave misgivings about the pair’s compatibility. In his diary he wrote, of his attempts to encourage her to bathe: “‘I endeavoured, as far as was possible for a man, to inculcate the necessity of great and nice attention to every part of dress, as well as to what was hid, as to what was seen.’”

“‘I knew she wore coarse petticoats, coarse shifts, and thread stockings, which were never well washed or changed often enough,’” and he asked her dresser to explain to her “‘that the Prince was extremely fastidious and would expect from his wife a long and very careful toilette, which at present she neglected sadly--‘and is offensive from this neglect.’” (From Caroline: A Biography of Caroline of Brunswick by Thea Holme).

Since Malmesbury made these observations before Brummell’s influence was being felt in London, it’s clear that cleanliness was in fashion at least in some circles by the late 1700s.

The era is deeply misogynistic, and I’ve learned to view the caricatures and negative characterizations of women with a jaundiced eye. Still, it seems pretty clear that Caroline fell well below court standards of personal hygiene.

“In fact she frequently stank,” writes Kenneth Baker in George IV: A Life in Caricature. “She seldom washed her hair or feet.” This was a marriage made in hell, obviously: “George was fastidious in his clothes, his manners and his life. He did not want a wife who smelt.”

The Baker book contains a marvelous collection of caricatures. One, by Isaac Cruikshank, shows the Prince standing in his nightshirt next to the bridal bed, holding his mouth and looking as though he’s gagging. The caption is “Oh! Che Boccone! (Oh, what a mouthful!)

Oddly enough, this caricature of her with her lover Bartolomeo Pergami, shows her bathing.

Annals of Bathing: Episode 2

Susan reports:

I think Loretta pretty well established yesterday that historical cleanliness was often more a matter of class, convenience, and personal preference than any wide-spread cultural mandate. 

While very few people had the fantastical luxury of this 18th c. French lady, left, with her large tub and half-dozen attendants, most people of every rank made some effort to wash at least their hands and face on a regular basis. By 1790, theologian John Wesley (1703-1791) was sternly preaching that "Slovenliness is no part of religion. Cleanliness is indeed next to Godliness", and most Englishmen would have agreed.

It's the total-immersion part of bathing that wasn't universal. Even among the wealthy who could afford to have servants heat and carry water to fill a tub,  it was often considered a suspect practice, even unhealthy. Early science maintained that the pores "opened" when the body was relaxed (such as when lolling in a warm tub), admitting all kinds of dangerous poisons. Far safer to wash piecemeal with a damp cloth.  And despite all those recipes for lovely scented soaps, it seems that soap, being made from lye and animal fat, often irritated the skin more than it helped clean it, and most people went for water alone. (This from one of the NHG's absolute fav books, Emily Cockayne's Hubbub: Filth, Noise, & Stench in England.)

There was another dreaded danger, too, as described by diarist James Boswell (1740-1795) in 1763: "A warm bath is, I confess, a most agreeable kind of luxury, but luxury is very dangerous....Above all things a young man should guard against [its] effeminacy. I would advise him to avoid warm baths and accustom himself rather to the cold bath, which will give him vigour and liveliness." Cautiously Boswell restricted his own warm-water bathing to his feet, which he admitted gave him "a kind of tranquility."

But there was no doubt that outward cleanliness was perceived as a sign of gentility. In his oft-quote letters to his son, Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773) stressed the importance of clean hands for gentlemen, for "nothing looks more ordinary, vulgar, and illiberal than dirty hands, and ugly, uneven, and ragged nails."  Or, as one popular proverb went: "Wash your hands often, your feet seldom, and your head never."

More to come. . . .

Above left: The Bath, by Jean-Baptiste Pater, 1730

Annals of Bathing: Episode 1

Loretta reports:

Liz said,
“I have read in books by other authors that no gentlemen took baths before Beau Brummell made it fashionable. I would be interested to know from you ladies if this is true."

In a word, no. While bathing, at the time, usually meant sea bathing--which King George III is doing in the picture above--that wasn't the only kind.

A wonderful book by Mark Girouard, Life in the English Country House, shows photos of bath houses and plunge baths dating to the 18th century. Many country houses before Brummell's time had them, although Christina Hardyment’s Behind the Scenes reminds us that these “should be regarded as roughly the equivalent of the modern domestic swimming-pool--having a bathhouse in the grounds did not preclude having a plumbed in bath in the house itself. Fixed baths, equipped with hot and cold water, were installed in the Palace of Whitehall in the 1670s and at Chatsworth in the 1690s.”

Not all houses had them, inside or out. Just because one had a bath, didn't mean one took a bath.

Ian Kelly’s Beau Brummell tells us “Brummell bathed in hot water, and this was considered remarkable. Almost as remarkable as the fact that he bathed every day 'and every part of his body.'”

This would have been remarkable only a generation or two ago in the U.S. Let’s remember that Brummell may have made it fashionable in his time but that doesn’t mean no one did it before he did or that everyone afterward--even every one of his devotees--bathed as religiously as he did. He attracted attention because he was a celebrity.

Many people, including doctors, well into the 19th century, regarded bathing in hot water as unhealthy. In most cases, it was simply impractical. Brummell’s house had, Kelly informs us, "an unusually large coal cellar"--which simplified heating all the gallons of water required daily.

Look for more about bathing this week from both NHGs. Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with this food for thought: “A survey in the 1950s showed that one Londoner in five never took a bath . . . . in 1958, over the whole United Kingdom, ‘about one third of the old dwellings’ were bathless.”
--Lawrence Wright, Clean and Decent