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February 12, 2010

Burking and Body-Snatching: The Deadly Side of Medicine in Georgian London

Some time ago I noted in a blog post about Bart's Hospital that the hospital's methods of obtaining bodies for anatomical study would bear further scrutiny, ideally as a PhD thesis (not by me, I hasten to add).  Last weekend, an article appeared in the Guardian regarding Don Shelton's latest paper in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, where he posits that surgeons William Hunter and William Smellie had women at their full-term of pregnancy murdered or 'burked' to provide bodies to further their obstetric studies.  He's right in that the numbers don't add up, and that it is rare for a woman to die at full-term but without having begun labour, which seems to be their favoured choice of subject.  However, whilst he has made a valuable study and some very salient points, I stall at his inference of murder.  If you care what I think (and why should you?), this is why I don't agree.

There is no argument that both Smellie and Hunter were unscrupulous when it came to acquiring subjects for study, or for Hunter's medical 'museum' of freakery.  Hunter in particular behaved appallingly over the corpses of various subjects he had his eye on, bribing family and friends to bring the body to him after the final illness, whatever the wishes of the person in question.  Most famously, he paid the friends of Irish giant Charles Byrne five hundred pounds to supply him with Byrne's body, despite the fact that Byrne hated Hunter and specifically requested that he be buried at sea to avoid the anatomist's knife <this is an error on my part - it was actually John Hunter, William's younger brother who did this>.  Being utterly ruthless and sanctioning murder are not the same.  At one point, Hunter noted against Smellie's study of twins in utero that Dr MacKenzie, Smellie's assistant had procured and dissected the body without Smellie's knowledge 'was the cause of a separation between them, as the leading steps to such discovery could not be kept secret'.  This indicated that the woman had been obtained by methods not sanctioned by Smellie and that he did not want to be associated with such methods.  Hunter and Smellie were rivals medically, and both were aware that the whole business of procuring subjects would not bear scrutiny in polite society, but it doesn't mean they were turning a blind eye to the possible murdering of pregnant women.

Shelton examines the mechanisms of burial and arrives, quite rightly, at the conclusion that most 'resurrected' bodies were obtained from the poorhouses, either pre or post burial.  He also asserts that people in a paupers' cemetery were placed in large pits and left uncovered until the pit was full.  Nowhere in any of my studies have I found this to be true.  Yes, destitute people were placed in communal graves in burial grounds throughout the city, but they were placed there with a bit of dignity and covered over with earth, even if others were later to be added to the grave.  They were also prayed over by the incumbent.  The pragmatism displayed by Georgian Londoners in the face of death and illness is not the same as being callous or unfeeling.

The rarity of death in women at full-term is a fact that cannot be argued with.  However, in this we are largely influenced by modern statistics and the success of modern obstetric medicine, but pre-eclampsia is a dangerous condition still common now, affecting up to ten percent of pregnancies.  Characterized by very high blood pressure, pain in the chest, damage to vital organs through raised blood protein levels, seizures and possible cerebral haemmorhages, there was no effective treatment for this condition in the 18thC.  Sufferers describe the attendant pains of pre-eclampsia as unbearable, and medicate accordingly which may have resulted in overdose.  If untreated, pre-eclampsia can prove fatal to both mother and child, and in Georgian London, would have meant many more mothers died when heavily pregnant, but without loss or damage to the body that would prevent an anatomist making a detailed study of the gravid uterus.

My last point is upon Shelton's light treatment of the 'resurrectionists'.  Obtaining corpses for anatomical study wasn't an obvious career choice, granted.  It would require a strong stomach, both morally and literally and a network of connections with like-minded individuals.  Nevertheless, it was a job, perhaps coupled with another part-time occupation, but one taken seriously by those who engaged in it.  They would know the poorhouses and those who supervised, they'd watch to see who came and went.  Scoliotic, palsied, deformed or otherwise 'freakish' subjects were all required, as well as pregnant women.  No doubt palms were heavily greased for word of a death.  I don't believe for a moment that resurrectionists simply disinterred corpses 'randomly'.  Most were probably never even buried.  Vultures may be abhorrent creatures, but they let nature do the killing.

From the study of Smellie and Hunter's extant works, it appears they obtained 32 full term corpses in 13 years.  I believe this number of women were available through natural death, but their bodies were obtained through fairly creepy and suspect supply chains, rather than murder.  The woman pregnant with twins was clearly too much for MacKenzie to resist, and I am sure there were indeed murders associated with the study of anatomy, but I disagree with the condemnation of Smellie and Hunter as serial-killers and the sensationalism is both unpleasant and inaccurate.  The inference that the men also worked on women rendered unconscious but still alive has no basis in fact whatsoever.<to further clarify this point: women were not 'anatomized' whilst still alive, although there are cases where C-sections were undertaken with little hope of the mother's survival.  This does not make the operating doctor a monster.>  Smellie and Hunter were at the top of the medical tree, doing valuable work.  Associated with them were a large number of 'worker bees', from the artist Jan van Rymsdyk, who produced the astonishing images in the gallery to the poorhouse supervisor who shuffled the bodies out of the back door, to the grave-digger who after dark disinterred a body he had only just covered over.  For my money, Rymsdyk is the scary one: he sat with these bodies for hours, studying them in minute detail and there is an adoring beauty to his renderings of these unfortunate women and their children: the sitting posture of the gravid woman, with her knees covered by a blanket, but her internal organs displayed by the neat flaying of the anatomist, and the baby curled snugly inside her, a stray wisp of its hair escaping the womb.  There is a liveliness and humanity to the drawings that eludes the photographer's lens in post-mortem photography.

It is too easy to look back at history and attribute cruelty and inhumanity to people who lived in a time when death was a closer companion than it is now.  As I hope this blog has shown, the 18thC is an interesting enough place to spend time even without sensationalism. 

         
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February 1, 2010

Princess Serafina: London's First Recorded Drag Artist

This post is the first in a short series on the history of homosexuality and transgender people in 18thC London to celebrate LGBT History month.  I like to think the blog constantly celebrates every individual who contributed to making London one of the greatest European cities of the 1700s but this is my small addition to an excellent cause.  

On the 5th of July 1732 Thomas Gordon was indicted for robbing one John Cooper, of Number 11, Eagle-court, the Strand.  The two men had taken a walk together in Chelsea Fields 'to a secret place', and Gordon had threatened Cooper with a knife unless he gave up all his clothing and his jewellery and changed it with Gordon's.  At first, it appeared to be one of those robberies that happens late at night on Clapham Common, between two previously unacquainted gentlemen.  The vast majority of such crimes are never even reported let alone prosecuted even in these 'enlightened' times, so the fact that John Cooper brought this to trial in 1732 is quite astonishing.  The trial that followed was to be even more incredible.

Gordon had left Cooper with the words that if he 'charged him with Robbery, by and by', he would in turn tell the authorities Cooper had given him the 'Cloathes' as payment for 'Buggery'.  (Cooper's clothes are closely detailed as fine masculine apparel, and this fact was to become central later on.)  Bizarrely, the two men walked back to Piccadilly together, where Cooper shouted for two passing men (it must have been about dawn by this point) to restrain Gordon.  Bundling him into yet another all-night pub, they had a shouting match in which Cooper accused Gordon of theft, and Gordon made good on his threat to announce to his detainers that he had been paid for services rendered.  

Modern readings of this minutely-documented trial are based around Cooper's outrageous alter-ego, but there are valuable insights to be gleaned from the reception the news of male prostitution garnered in the Piccadilly pub: the two men who had detained Gordon were unfazed, but told Cooper that if he were proved a liar and if it was simply a sex transaction gone wrong, then he would be liable for their time.  Cooper agreed to reimburse them if he was not successful in prosecuting Gordon.  From the quality of his clothing, and his confident demeanor, Cooper was neither poor nor ignorant, and was certainly not fazed by the threat of being outed, even if he was aware that his temporary employees were not quite on his side, as they would later trip him when Gordon escaped.

The case came to trial, and both stuck to their stories.  Such tales were not uncommon in the 18thC, but it was a rare for them to have their day in court, and those present watched avidly as an odd tale unfolded.  The keeper of the Piccadilly alehouse testified that the men arrived in his establishment and argued about the loose change that had been in the pockets of the clothes they had exchanged, and drunk at least four pints of beer together.  Edward Pocock, who had stumbled upon the pair at their 'secret place' in Chelsea Fields testified that the two were putting on their clothing when he chanced across them, and behaved very 'loving'.   He also begged some forgiveness for his accuracy as he had been drinking and was so drunk upon returning home that he fell asleep in his clothes.  Well, it had been a public holiday after all.

Tom Gordon was widely acknowledged by the witnesses as a bad lot, and this is probably why he ended up at trial.  John Cooper was a fixer for the richer members of Gay London when they desired an assignation: when they fancied a drummer boy, or a market labourer, Cooper was the man to 'smooth the way', with fine words and the soft clink of a guinea or two.  I think there is little doubt he was homosexual, although his gender-specific behaviour is more interesting in context.  Jane Jones the laundress came to the witness box, and casually referred to Cooper, the prosecutor, as 'Princess Serafina'.  The adoption of female names was not unusual in the gay subculture of Georgian London.  Jones agreed with the general opinion of Gordon as a bad lot, but was sad that a simple case of 'Sodomity, what ever that is' had to come to court.  

On a different note, Mary Holder was the proprietress of the alehouse where the two men drank together, and Mary Poplet was the landlady of the Two Sugar-loaves in Drury Lane where they finally ended up after their quarrel.  Poplet, who was a neighbour to John Cooper and his official employers, the Tulls, gave this account of his character:

I have known her Highness a pretty while, she us'd to come to my House from Mr. Tull, to enquire after some Gentlemen of no very good Character; I have seen her several times in Women's Cloaths, she commonly us'd to wear a white Gown, and a scarlet Cloak, with her Hair frizzled and curl'd all round her Forehead; and then she would so flutter her Fan, and make such fine Curt'sies, that you would not have known her from a Woman: She takes great Delight in Balls and Masquerades, and always chuses to appear at them in a Female Dress, that she may have the Satisfation of dancing with fine Gentlemen. Her Highness lives with Mr. Tull in Eagle-Court in the Strand, and calls him her Master, because she was Nurse to him and his Wife when they were both in a Salivation (salivation was a mercurial cure for syphilis); but the Princess is rather Mr. Tull's Friend, than his domestick Servant. I never heard that she had any other Name than the Princess Seraphina.

Three more women of the neighbourhood were to give evidence, and all knew John Cooper as Princess Seraphina, and all knew he had fallen out with Tom Gordon.  It seems little more than an argument about sex that got out of hand, so to speak.  Tom Gordon was known to turn a trick or two, and the Princess was known to enjoy the company of a gentleman, or two.  The case is quite unique in terms of the 18thC, and one can only imagine the sniggering upon the sidelines.  There are however, some facts that stand out in this case, and are worth serious consideration in terms of 18thC attitudes towards transgender individuals.  The female witnesses uniformly refer to the Princess as 'she'.  John Cooper earned his official living as a nurse, an exclusively (as far as history is concerned) female occupation.  He regularly wore women's clothes, and was clearly tolerated, if not wholly accepted within his home community.  He was certainly sufficiently at ease in female clothing to sally forth in such to balls and social events, where he hoped to meet the 'fine gentlemen'.

 

Tom Gordon was acquitted, but I think this is more to do with the fact that it was almost certainly a sexual engagement that had ended in a quarrel.  That John Cooper felt secure enough within his own environment, and the justice system, to pursue a conviction is telling.  He may well have felt forced into a corner, but I think it unlikely he would have taken the case to court over a suit of clothes if he had felt his life were at risk.  After the trial, John Cooper drops out of sight, something for which I think he was probably very grateful.  Apparently he was fond of the masked balls in Vauxhall Gardens, where it was the rage for the men to dress as women and vice versa, and that's where I like to think of him, with her curls and her fan, taking a break from his day job of nursing London's sick.

 

p.s. I would advise anyone interested in the primary texts of 18thC LGBT history and its scholarship to visit http://rictornorton.co.uk/ as a valuable and free online resource for the study of history and sexuality.  More details on the things going on this month to raise awareness can be found at www.lgbthistorymonth.org 

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January 31, 2010

The Warwick Vase: The History Behind the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup.

Today Roger Federer, the most successful male tennis player ever to grace an international court raised a solid silver trophy.  It's big, handsome and just a little bit ugly; it's the Warwick Vase.

Most sporting trophies started life as the nearest big lump of cheapish and suitably gaudy silver that came to hand, but the Warwick (as it's known) is a little different.  The 18th century saw the heyday of the Grand Tour, and the English enthusiasm for the antiquities of the ancient world.  Rome was a particular focus for the young men who travelled to the Continent and whilst there they met up with various people who both showed them the sights and acted as agents for procuring a little, or a large piece of history to take home with them.

 

One of these fixers was Gavin Hamilton.  Ostensibly an artist, he was a skilled negotiator and succeeded in getting some astonishing antiquities out of Italy during the late 18thC.  The marble Warwick Vase was found in marshy ground on the site of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli in 1771, and Hamilton rapidly secured permission to excavate it.  It was in a poor state of repair and mostly smashed, but it has the diameter of a modern paddling-pool and was exceptionally rare.  Hamilton got it out of the ground and with the help of the famed artist Piranesi and a large block of Carrera marble, reconstructed its original appearance (see the image in the gallery).

 

Sir William Hamilton, husband of Emma, was the buyer of the pieces and he had it repaired, with the replacement segments hewn from a block of Carrera marble.  William Hamilton was not only a collector, he was a speculator and he wanted to sell the vase when it was restored.  He hoped to raise some interest from the recently established British Museum but they could muster neither funds nor enthusiasm for the gigantic piece.  In the meantime, Piranesi published his famous book of Classical designs in 1778, securing the reputation of the vase.  Still no buyer was found, and Sir William deemed it too large to sit in any house he could ever afford.  He sent it to his nephew, George Greville, Earl of Warwick.  George was cash-rich, but wasn't going to set the intellectual or artistic world alight.  He initially placed the vase on the lawn in front of Warwick Castle, where the fashionable set visited to see it.  He then had a faux-Gothic greenhouse built to house it, and described it as 'Grecian'.  

 

The Warwick Vase would remain at the castle for the next two centuries.  It came to symbolize the Grand Tour, early civilization and sophistication, and sheer grandeur.  The symmetry of the vase, its proportions and detail appealed to the Regency taste, and the aristocracy clamoured for George to allow them to copy it.  He finally agreed and the Royal Goldsmiths and Jewellers Rundell and Bridge were commissioned to create solid silver versions in varying sizes, to be used as ice buckets and wine coolers.  Paul Storr, the finest ever English silversmith created the most exceptional versions in the second decade of the 19thC.  The Vase was made in cast-iron, stone and also marble, for homes and also for gardens.  There are cast-concrete versions available in posh garden centres instead of gnomes.

 

During the Victorian period, many different versions, sizes and proportions of the Vase were produced, but only the most faithful and accurate are highly valued today.  In 1978, after a disastrous century for the Warwicks, the castle was sold to The Tussauds Group and many of its works of art were sold off.  The Vase was not highly valued enough for a London museum to raise the funds to buy it.  This was probably a grave mistake.  They allowed it to be sold to the Met in New York, but then the government refused to grant it an export license.  It was resold and it is now housed in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow.  

 

   
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January 13, 2010

'A tear in each note and a sigh in each breath': The Castrati

Castration has been used as a punishment, for religious purposes, and also for musical purposes.  By the 18thC, men were castrated only as a punishment for sodomy (and not in England), or to keep their voices high and sweet (and only in Italy).  Italian castrati were popular throughout Europe for the extraordinary quality of their voices, usually ranging from soprano to contralto but able to sing very high notes without the forced quality of falsetto.  

Music was very highly valued and anticipated in the 18thC, and almost every person receiving a rounded education was taught to appreciate music on a level not as common today.  Musical artists were superstars and their arrival in London was keenly anticipated.  The most famous of all the artists were the castrati, who were usually Italian born.  If their voices proved exceptionally sweet as young boys, they were given the option (I hope they were given the option) of retaining their voice at the expense of their testicles.  The operation was deemed most successful after the age of eight, but before puberty, and was carefully timed so as to allow the boy to develop some male characteristics, but to beat the voice change.  The centre for castration was apparently Naples, but this may little more than an old wives tale, and certainly Charles Burney, who roamed Naples in an attempt to find a surgeon who carried out the operation, was disappointed.  It is estimated that during the 18thC, three to four thousand boys were castrated every year in Italy, for the purpose of pursuing a musical career.

If you are still attached to your scrotum, in every sense, feel free to skip this paragraph. Imagine a pair of lobster crackers, with blades instead of grips; that's pretty much was a castratori looked like.  A quick incision would be made around the scrotum with a lancet to allow for some loose skin to close the wound, then the castratori would be applied to a no doubt drugged little boy and clamped down for a period of up to five minutes.  When it was decided that the bleeding had stopped and there was no risk of haemorrhage, the castratori and the testicles were removed together, and the remaining skin stitched back together.  There are no statistics on how many of the boys survived this operation, but I think the vast majority must have done, no matter how awful it sounds.

Growing up as a castrato couldn't have been much fun.  They grew tall, with long ribs, arms and legs, making them an unusual, gangly barrel-shape.  Even if their voice didn't break, there was no guarantee that it could be trained into a world-class opera 'voice' and most ended up singing in cathedral choirs. They were prone to weight gain, and had chubby, androgynous faces.  Their hair was thick and fine, as early castration prevents male-pattern baldness (the thing that works, but no one wants the cure) and they rarely wore wigs.  No facial hair, and little body hair spoiled the picture of smooth childhood grown to adult size.  Much is made of the ladies of the 18thC going wild for castrati, but whilst they may have been charming and talented company, their penis remained child-sized and their sex drive was low.  

The greatest castrati appeared in London in the 1720s and 30s, when Handel was at the peak of his influence.  The comparatively few numbers of properly trained female singers meant that castrati were in demand for the female roles.  I find the idea of a portly castrato playing a lead female part ridiculous.  This does not make me right, and the cognoscenti of the opera world went wild for the likes of Senesino and Farinelli.  

Senesino in particular was very popular in England as an artist, Farinelli more so as a heart-throb.  Senesino originated from Siena but loved the life of an English gentleman and made friends with the top artisans and designers of the day, such as William Kent and Paul de Lamerie.  He had waited until thirteen for castration, and was more facially and physically developed than many castrati, so often played the older parts.  Farinelli once played the young lead to Senesino's despot and there is a famous incident recounted by Charles Burney where Senesino became overwhelmed by Farinelli's singing, forgot his part entirely and embraced his young prisoner.  Velluti is thought to be the last of the great castrati to perform in London, in 1829, although Pergetti came after in 1844.  Both struggled with poor critical reception in England, largely due to changes in attitude amongst the audience.

The later life of a successful castrato was a solitary in 18thC terms, where family and extended family all relied heavily upon each other: they had no children but a great deal of money, so were often surrounded by hangers-on and toadys.  Prone to diva tendencies, they hadn't made life easy for their friends and many came to lonely ends.  Very few people suffer for their art in the 21stC.  They might equate brief poverty, or a squalid drug addiction as part of their artistic learning curve, but very few would be prepared to live with the consequences of such a life-changing surgery.  Thankfully, by 1800, the craze for castrati had all but died out, although the last castrato Alessandro Moreschi, was not to die until 1922.  His voice was recorded in 1902 and can be heard here.  Castration for musical purposes was made illegal in 1870.  

In recent years, an astonishing phenomenon in the form of Michael Maniaci has appeared on the opera scene.  His larynx developed only very slightly during puberty, and he retains an extraordinary soprano voice as an adult male.  He has been called 'the modern castrato'. You can witness part of one of his performances here.  I find it astonishing and rather unsettling.

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January 11, 2010

'Crowly, who is now grown a great lion and very tame': The Tower Menagerie

It has long been traditional for foreign dignitaries to make gifts of the exotic creatures of their kingdoms to the countries they visit.  In this way Britain acquired a polar bear from Norway in 1252.  He was at first allowed to roam about the Tower of London, but when he became huge his keeper was given a muzzle and a chain and they were sent to spend their days outside, fishing and bathing in the Thames.  Many of these animals were a burden to the recipient, and often quietly hived off to parklands where they lived out shortened lives.  However, by the time England had begun to squabble over a fair proportion of the globe under Elizabeth Ist, the animals were arriving thick and fast.  Ever the public relations guru, Elizabeth improved the menagerie and had it opened to the populace on high days and holidays.  

In 1603, James Ist overhauled the menagerie again, providing much larger cages for the animals, running water 'for the Lyons to drinke and wasche themselves in,' and a viewing gallery so that visitors could look down upon them in safety.  Lions were the obvious choice as a gift for England, being as fond of them as an emblem as we are. During the Georgian period the Tower contained up to eleven lions at any time, although sadly the cubs tended not to survive the shedding of their milk teeth for some reason.  As lions of similar origin (Bengal and Cape seem to be the two clearest labels) were housed together, the females were regularly pregnant, and therefore their temperaments were naturally changeable.  The male lions were regarded as the tamer of the two and Samuel Pepys records going to the Tower on the 11th of January 1660 to see 'Crowly, who is now grown a very great lion and very tame'.  When young, all the lions were allowed out to play in the Tower grounds, much to the amusement of the visitors, who patted and played with them.  The Duke of Sussex was particularly fond of a brother and sister who had been fostered by a goat, and he visited often to see them.  In 1729 the cost of 'seeing the lions' was threepence, a figure that rose to ninepence by the end of the century.  Dead cats and dogs were used to supplement the feed of the big cats and free entry could be had for anyone bringing one of either.  In 1741, the guide to the Tower included an introduction to the lion Marco, his wife, Phillis and their son Nero.  The lions roared at dawn, and before their feed arrived, which consisted of eight to nine pounds of raw beef daily, excluding any bones and any dogs or cats.  Given the acoustics of the Tower, this must have been quite a racket, and audible for some distance.  On Sunday, the Tower was closed to visitors, and the keepers noted that the lions would often roar all day until someone came and paid them some attention.  

Other big cats kept in the menagerie included tigers (Dicka was recorded as a cub in 1741), leopards (a single Willa in the same guide), 'hunting-leopards' as cheetahs were known, lynx and ocelot.  Visitors commonly agreed that the ocelot was the prettiest cat, but that the cheetah the most affectionate.  The cheetahs were led about the grounds on leashes in pairs for exercise and as a spectacle.  There appears to have been a great deal of respect for the natures of the animals, and 'responds to kindness' is regularly noted.  Animals that did not show any such response included the famous grizzly bear, Old Martin, who was an old man in 1823, but still regarded his keepers as 'perfect strangers' and would no doubt prove dangerous should he be allowed out.  Allegedly, Martin died in 1838, aged well over a hundred years old, but I imagine this was Martin mark two or three.  Other dangers included the hyena and the jackals.  I'd imagine they were pretty ripe in summer as well.  The disconsolate solitary mongoose was made happy by the addition of a friend, and the two slept together, interlacing 'their limbs and tails in a singular fashion' so that they can each see over the other's back, 'and like that fall comfortably asleep'.

The area I would happily avoid would be the monkey enclosure, or 'The School of Monkeys' as it was known in the 18thC, which lay in an outer yard near the Lion Tower.  Chimps occasionally cannibalize the young of their most vulnerable mothers for fun, baboons are vicious and the smaller the monkey, the more it looks at you as if it wants to kill you as soon as you turn your back.  A marmoset in a drummer jacket would not have been my pet of choice; I'd have spent all my time hiding from it.  The visitors to the Tower didn't always like the monkeys either, particularly the baboon, who 'becomes disgusting in habits as he advances in age.' In 1753, the guidebook issued a warning about one of the baboons had become expert in throwing missiles and would 'heave anything that happens to be within his reach with such Force as to split Stools, Bowls and other Wooden Utensils in a Hundred Pieces'.  Not only were the baboons disgusting in their habits, they 'were gay, playful and docile; but as he grows older he becomes intractable, malicious and ferocious'.  As far as I can discern, there were no apes in the Tower Menagerie.  The monkeys were removed in 1810 for 'one of them having torn a boy's leg in a dangerous manner'.

There was usually an elephant in the menagerie, and it was almost always an Indian one.  The English understanding of the temperament and requirements of the elephant seems to be very limited from the documents I have seen.  They were largely judged to be inferior to a dog or a horse in understanding, yet they were observed to play by spraying things with water from their trunks, and Mr Cops, one of the better, and later keepers at the Tower was convinced of their 'wisdom'.  Quite how they found out that elephants are 'fond of wine, spirits and other intoxicating articles' is probably best consigned to the past, but the elephant rations contained a gallon of wine daily until the closure of the menagerie.

The bird house must have been unspeakably noisy, with macaws, cockatoos, eagles, owls and all manner of ornamental and song birds and sadly, some seabirds, who must have suffered due to their large size and the confinement.  It was noted that few developed their full plumage in captivity.  

Kangaroos and emus wandered about in the grounds, sometimes confined and sometimes not.  The Royal Park at Windsor had quite a stock of freely roaming kangaroos, and they were breeding successfully at the Tower sometime before 1820.  An aside in an account of the Tower Menagerie of this period notes that there were various parklands around England where kangaroos were present in some quantity, so they were not quite as much of a novelty as I would have imagined.  

By far my favourite account of an animal in the Tower is from the 1820s, when a zebra was recorded in the menagerie.  Zebra are stubborn, and remain wild under all but the most confined circumstances (such as being bred in circuses), and the Tower zebra had retained her character, suffering the indignities of her confined state with a tolerably good nature, provided she got her reward:

The subject of the present article, which has now been about two years in the Menagerie, will suffer a boy to ride her aboiut the yard, and is frequently allowed to run loose through the Tower, with a man by her side, whom she does not attempt to quit except to run to the Canteen, where she is occasionally indulged with a draught of ale, of which she is particularly fond.  

The Menagerie was much improved by Mr Cops, and during his tenure, it became clear that it was no longer acceptable to house animals in such conditions as the Tower afforded.  The menagerie, housed 280 animals by 1832, mainly in the Lion and Tower was finally closed in 1835, when the animals left to form the basis of the collection for London Zoo.

 

               
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January 8, 2010

The Green Canister: Mrs Phillips's Covent Garden Sex Shop

Teresia Constantia Phillips's life is as extraordinary and outlandish as one can imagine of an 18thC courtesan.  She was born in 1709, the daughter of an army Captain who fell upon hard times and she came to London aged 13 to stay with family friends and to try and earn her living as a seamstress.  Lodging in the same buildings was the young Philip Stanhope, later the Earl of Chesterfield.  In her best-selling, and long-winded Apology in 1748, Con (as she became familiarly known) alleged that Stanhope became infatuated with her, and proclaimed himself her lover.  Far from claiming she put him off, Con admitted that she entertained any young girl's enjoyment of being adored, but later realised that Stanhope was fascinated with adolescent girls and virgins in particular.  She then alleged that Stanhope locked her in his room, tied her hands to a chair and raped her.  It was an allegation Chesterfield was to deny strenuously, but an odd one to make if there was no grain of truth in it.  He also admitted that he had kept her as a mistress for a few months when she was very young.  

Con went on to become the mistress of too many men to mention without it sounding like a roll call.  She kept getting married illegally, made money, spent money, travelled and safe to say, did a lot of entertaining.  She died in Jamaica in 1765 on yet another adventure.  Some of her liaisons lasted years, and appear to have been exclusive, yet around 1732, she was at something of a loose end, having broken with her long-term lover so that he could make a good marriage (he settled money on her).  During her time as a courtesan, Con had learned a thing or two, and so she set up shop (or had someone do it for her) in Half Moon Street, which is now Bedford Street in Covent Garden, and had handbills printed to advertise her wares which were given out in the street by link boys earning a few extra pence.  

By far the most well-recorded item of merchandise were Con's 'preservatives' or condoms.  Condoms, or 'cundums' (even worse!) had been recorded in popular use since around 1500.  They were made from a sheep's intestine, and the standard length was between seven and eight inches, secured with a coloured ribbon about the base.  This might sound gross, not to mention unwieldy, but the treatment process to make them thin and flexible was extensive, and the end of the condom was stitched and sealed, then tested, by blowing them up to check for leaks.  It was recommended they were soaked in water, then squeezed out before use, to keep them elastic and comfortable.  Gut of any sort is porous, which means these condoms weren't infallible, but they were also subjected to various treatments which one imagines must have made them less permeable.  They certainly had some degree of efficacy, and they were popular.  Casanova swore by them and sought them by the box whenever he found a reliable source.  They were marketed as preventing both pregnancy and disease. 

Much is made of condoms being expensive, and hence whores not carrying them.  Rubbish, rubbish, all.  If you had enough money for a whore, you had enough money for a condom.  Furthermore, if you wanted to use a condom with a whore, why on earth would you let her provide one when you didn't know where it had been?  You don't care if she gets pregnant after all, that's why you are going to her in the first place.  Besides, condoms had more than one use in them well into the 20th century, and so men carried them more often than street-walkers.  However, any decent brothel boasted of its stock, and the goods did not just include the girls, but 'every Device to restore old men and debauched youths.'  Con sold condoms wholesale to the brothels and bagnios, so if you wanted to use one, all you had to do was ask.

In addition to condoms, Con probably also sold other methods of contraception.  One of the most common ones for women was a piece of natural sponge with a length of ribbon stitched into it.  The sponge was soaked in a dilute solution of lemon juice, or commonly vinegar and worn internally to prevent pregnancy.  This was not just a method used by prostitutes, but common amongst ordinary women who wanted a break from child-bearing, and Con's shop provided a decent, if not respectable place to buy them.  This brings me briefly onto the subject of clientele.  In many of the printed sources referring to the sex trade, there are mentions of 'lady-clients' (Lady Loveit being one of my personal favourites).  Whether they attended the brothels in a hetero, homosexual or fetishistic capacity isn't clear, but they were there nonetheless.  Most brothels were run by women, and most whores were women.  Therefore I conclude that a decent percentage of the customers to The Green Canister would have been women.  

The 'Devices' employed by the brothels had to be purchased somewhere, and it appears Con sold just about everything, whatever your particular 'caprice'.  'Widow's comforters' were available in leather, ivory and wood. Flagellation machines could be made to order, and various brothels specialized in different types.  Literature on the education of young ladies was prolific and often alarmingly well-illustrated.  Although there are no records as to her stock, I can't imagine it would have been any different to a modern sex shop, only fewer batteries.  

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January 6, 2010

London on Ice

The English obsession with weather means we have one of the oldest sets of climate records in the world.  They reveal a very different London than the one we know now.  In the 21stC, London and particularly the City, possesses a distinct micro-climate created by the buildings, the heat and gases they produce and the underlying geography.  Why is it always windy in Farringdon, and at Bank?  Why is it bizarrely still in Paternoster Square?  Why is the air quality on Holborn regularly the worst in Britain when it has less standing traffic, and certainly fewer buses than the King's Road?  Who knows, but one thing we do know is that London is much warmer than it was three centuries ago.  Hundreds of thousands of centrally heated buildings and offices spill heat into the air, meaning if it does snow it doesn't settle and it never gets cold enough to really freeze.  Three hundred years ago, the City of London froze regularly between December and March, and the 1690s recorded six winters when the temperature was consistently below 3'C for more than three months; definitely the sort of weather when a man like Samuel Pepys would have worn two shirts, a waistcoat and a jacket.  

The streets weren't salted, but many were paved so they became treacherous in freezing weather.  Horses had sacks tied to their metal-shod feet, and 'slippers' fitted to the wheels of their vehicles to prevent dangerous sliding.  Working men wore hobnailed boots, sometimes with sacking tied over them (with the studs poking through) for a bit of extra grip.  Many gentlemen would resort to them in freezing weather, although the sacking was unlikely.  Women did not wear pattens in icy conditions (I have tried on a pair of pattens and attempted to walk around in them, and I am not convinced anyone wore them in the street let alone worked in them as they are lethal).  Where the streets and passages were just mud or dirt and on the banks of the Thames, duckboards were put down for people to walk over.  It was not uncommon to find vagrants, or unfortunates who had frozen during the night, including one man in the Fleet ditch, discovered standing upright, but dead and solid.  The price of coal rose, and the poorest Londoners had to cut wood from the common land, if they hadn't already.

Before Bazalgette's Embankment the Thames was a wider, slower river with gently sloping muddy banks, again covered in duckboards, which must have been very slippy in wet and icy conditions.  The bridges were shored up with wide wooden 'sparrows' which trapped debris and slowed the current, making it easier for ice to form.  Sets of stone steps jutted out to the water, where people could hop on and off the little boats plying their passenger trade.  When the Thames froze all river traffic stopped, but some people were not quick enough to get out of the water: in the hard winter of 1771 the Thames began to freeze and 'a waterman...had his boat jammed in between the ice and could not get on shore, and no waterman dare venture to his assistance.  He was almost speechless last night and it is thought he cannot survive long'.  The couple of days it took for the Thames to freeze completely must have been a dangerous time.  The watermen, some of London's poorest workers would have wanted to keep trading as long as possible and some traded their lives for the opportunity of one last fare.  

The Thames froze more often than is commonly thought, due to it being fairly shallow, but it froze in chunks as the picture in the gallery from 1677 shows.  Whilst dramatic and great fun, it meant that it wasn't easy to venture out onto the ice, and was unsuitable for one of the famous Frost Fairs for which the Thames is so well-known.  Frost Fairs have been recorded since Elizabethan Times, when it was customary to push a printing press out onto the ice as a test, and if it held, souvenir cards were printed off and sold as a memento of the occasion.  Booths and cook-stalls were set up, selling skates made from whalebone, puppets, gloves, hats and scarves as well as hot chestnuts and pork sandwiches from spits, along with sticky gingerbread and baked apples eaten from newspaper with a spoon.  There were street performers, puppet shows and other entertainments such as singing.  Sometimes, as in 1683, the freeze was so solid that the Thames became a miniature shopping village and the booths were arranged into 'streets'.  I'd imagine the overall feel was like that of the German Christmas markets with their covered, but portable wooden stalls.

The most famous Frost Fair is that of 1814, but I think the one of 1683 sounds more fun, despite the fug caused by the smoke of coal-fires hanging heavy in the air.  The souvenir card in the gallery records the following carried out on the ice (including booths set up as 'branches' of land-based businesses):

The Duke of York's Coffee House
The Tory Booth (?)
The Roast Beefe Booth
The Half way House
The Musick Booth
The Printing Booth
The Lottery Booth
The Sledge drawing coals
The Horne Tavern Booth
The Toy Shoppe
A boat drawn by a horse
A boat drawn on wheels
Bull-baiting and Bear-baiting
Boys sliding (proof that some things never change)
Nine-Pinn Playing
Sliding on Scates

You can see from both pictures there seems to be little or no snow on the ground (but lots of dogs and cats).  Even the earliest Frost Fairs had merry-go-rounds for children, boat-swings and pony-drawn rides, but life off the river probably wasn't quite so much fun. One of the greatest problems during freezes such as this is that the ground froze to depths of two or three feet, making the drawing of water from the wells in the streets difficult, if not impossible and ice had to be gathered and melted, then boiled for domestic use.  One group of people not complaining were the ice merchants who used this weather to fill their under-ground stores and cellars with the cold stuff, packed in straw so that it could be sold in warmer weather.  By the 1720s, the demand for ice had become great enough for dealers in 'ice and snow' to be making a living.  

The thaws, when they came, were sudden and terrifying.  I can find no accounts of booths falling through the ice, so the stallholders were savvy enough to realise when to get out, but there are stories of a ship, moored to the quay of a public house which pulled down both when it fell back into the thawed river in 1789.  There is also the piteous tale in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1763 of a wretch, 'with skaits on..found frozen to death upon some floating ice over against the Isle of Dogs.'

The Thames froze for the last time in 1814 and was solid for four days; solid enough to lead an elephant across the ice near Blackfriars Bridge and erect fairground rides.  The innovations of the Victorian period, such as the new London Bridge and the Embankment caused the river to become narrower, deeper and faster thus ending London's life on ice.

 

   
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January 2, 2010

A goodly, portly man: Daniel Lambert

Everybody has one too many mince pies over Christmas (or at least, they should), but when you end up weighing 52 stone, it's clear things have got more than a little out of hand.  

Daniel Lambert is the famous fat man of the Georgian period.  Born in Leicester in 1770, Lambert's father ran the a house of correction in an extremely rough district, and after an apprenticeship elsewhere, Daniel took over his father's job aged nineteen.  His teenage years had been interesting and he was a larger than life character in the parish already, having fought a bear, by accident, when it tried to kill his friend's dog, and narrowly escaping being crushed by a collapsing house whilst watching it burn.  He was a great breeder of sporting dogs, and his animals were much in demand locally.  Almost as soon as he took over his father's job, as a glorified warder, his weight began to increase.  By 1793, only four years later, he weighed 32 stone, and paid his first visit to London, walking from Woolwich to the City with no apparent difficulty.

In 1805, Daniel was relieved of his job in Leicester in an apparent re-ordering of the system.  He was granted a pension (not bad at 35), but it wasn't enough to live on.  He had little choice but to exhibit himself as a freak, even though he disliked the idea.  People from London who had heard of his impressive size and bulk had begun to call at the door under false pretences.  One man, having heard of Lambert's love of horse-racing, called on the pretext of discussing the breeding line of a particular horse.  Daniel realised he was being set up, and responded pertly that the mare 'was got by Impertinence out of Curiosity' and slammed the door.

He admitted that he must either lose weight, become a prisoner in his own home, or go out and look for work and be stared at.  When presented with these options, being paid just for being fat seems something of a lesser evil.  He arrived in London and took up lodgings in Piccadilly, where he was visited by a huge range of people, and advertised his sporting dogs for auction at Tattersall's.  They made an enormous sum, in no small part due to Daniel's fame, and the records show he sold Peg, Punch, Brush, Bob, Bounce, Bell, Charlotte and Lucy who were all small working setters and pointers, for nigh on two hundred guineas (poor Lucy was the runt on just twelve).  This amounted to almost five years of Daniel's pension.

Count Borulawski, the famous dwarf, who had retired to Durham, journeyed to visit Daniel and spent no small amount of time with him.  Borulawski had made his own fortune through exhibiting himself, and apparently the two talked extensively about how Daniel should conduct his career as showman.  The Count was a real character: the first time they met, Daniel enquired after the health of his wife, only to be told solemnly that she was dead.  When Daniel apologized, the Count replied, 'I am not very sorry, for when I affront her, she put me on the mantle-shelf for punishment'.

People who came to view Lambert and who were rude or insulting were ignored, and if persisting, told to leave.  He was apparently an able conversationist and very polite.  His weight was increasing all the time, but it seems he remained fit enough in mind and body to conduct these interviews with little trouble.  He was recorded as five feet eleven inches tall, and by the end of his successful six months in London, weighed fifty stone.  Fifty.  

Daniel lived in Leicester, travelling occasionally to exhibit himself until he visited Stamford in 1809 to view some horses.  He died, presumably from heart failure in a public house, where the wall had to be taken out to remove his body.  He is buried in Stamford.  

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December 8, 2009

Fleet Marriages

During the medieval period, all that was required to marry was that a man and a woman declared themselves bound to each other in front of witnesses.  No priest was necessary, although it was generally accepted that a wedding blessed by the church was beneficial.  As time progressed, this old-fashioned way caused problems: the main one being women and young people, both boys and girls being coerced or forced into marriage for the profit of their families, or future spouses.  The Marriage Act of 1696 made it impossible to get married without banns or a special license, except within the Liberty (or Rules as it is sometimes known) of the Fleet Prison.  This included the pubs and inns, some which specialized in services and had their own marriage certificates printed up (as in the image: the Ditch Side, what a romantic location).

The Fleet was a debtors' prison, and had many noble and famous inmates during its long history.  Various bylaws made prosecution of Fleet clergy impossible, and so the Liberty of the Fleet became the Elvis Chapel of London.  It was possible to walk in off the street and be married legally, at very little cost.  By the 1740s more than half of all London weddings were celebrated within the Fleet's boundaries.  Thomas Pennant's Account of London in the 1790s records on Fleet Street 'the frequent sign of a male and female hand enjoined with "Marriages performed within" written beneath.'  It was possible to be in, sign and get out in under fifteen minutes, as the mammoth number of records for the period shows: over a quarter of a million in fifty years.  Don't be fooled into thinking these people were impulsive children either: the average man was 29 and the average girl 23. Fleet marriages were particularly useful for a large number of couples, and for varying reasons. 

Immigrants were arriving from all over Europe.  Some of them had reached London with little or nothing.  They wanted to get established as quickly as possible, and had met a nice girl from the same community, but they were not yet part of the congregation of the strict French churches, who required serious attendance and commitment in order to conduct a marriage service.  In the rush to find lodgings, food and work, church-going had fallen by the wayside, but they still wanted to make sure their marital status was clear in their new country, and many of the names in the records are French, with their origins such as Normandy or Nimes, noted.  The Fleet was also handy for soldiers and sailors with limited time in which to get married and group weddings were common amongst ship-mates or poorer regiments, with local pubs such as the infamous Belle Sauvage holding set price receptions for the happy, and no doubt very raucous couples.  Lack of parental consent must also have been a driving force behind some of the Fleet weddings, but the Fleet priests did conduct services for abductors and their captives, for an inflated fee I'm sure.  

Another significant factor in these weddings is that people did separate from partners and spouses.  Many didn't bother to marry, but lived together and had children as if they had married.  When their differences became insurmountable, they moved on.  The idea that marriage was an inescapable trap during the 18thC is a modern one.  (Only the aristocracy were stuck with their spouses, who had usually been carefully chosen with an eye to investment and stability, rather than marital harmony.  They were not expected to stay faithful.)  Bigamy does appear in the courts, but usually only when a husband has deserted one partner for another, leaving the original one in financial trouble, and not moving far enough away to avoid detection.  In the Georgian period, it really was possible to leave one place and life behind, and start again.  A man of thirty arriving in London from Cornwall, Lincolnshire, or Stafford for example, would be completely untraceable provided he disclosed his parish of birth or marriage to no one, and that he was not recognised in the street.  Therefore, he would be 'free' to marry and start over again.  An appealing idea, from time to time.

In 1753, Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act was passed, bringing the rules about parental consent for the under 21s and stricter guidelines for the reading of the banns, licences and church celebration.  The Liberty of the Fleet was not exempt.  It did not come into force until the end of the day on 24th of March 1754, when the Fleet Chapel recorded 'near a hundred pair had been joined together' in a single day.  

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December 1, 2009

A Frotted History-

 

Samuel Pepys could bring himself to orgasm with the 'strength of his fancy alone', and did, on the ferry home from the Admiralty, in the street...you get the idea.  He is particularly proud of the achievement and notes it with no small satisfaction in his inestimable diary.  The only time he feels a little bit bad about his solitary climax is in the not so solitary venue of St Olave's Church, at Midnight Mass 1667, when he is so turned on by the prospect of the Queen and her ladies, he masturbates to completion whilst sitting next to his wife.

By 1720, there had been a huge shift in the way masturbation was regarded: it was no longer a part of the human experience to be noted along with diet, work or pretty pictures, it had become something furtive and filthy, to be resisted.  In the late 17thC, possibly as a backlash against Charles IInd's permissive reign, moralists began to get busy on the subject of sexuality.  Sodomy and masturbation were the two favourite topics, and an extraordinary amount of time and energy was given to the prevention of both.  

John Marten was a quack doctor, prosecuted for having obscene material printed in 1708 (a pseudo-medical manual).  Undeterred, in 1712, he produced the 88 page treatise Onania, or the Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution and All Its Frightful Consequences, in Both Sexes, Considered.  And boy, did John Marten consider it; writing in detail about how an individual might harm themselves through masturbation, and advocated his 'Strengthening Tincture' and Prolific Powder' to prevent the urges and repair the damage.  Onania is a vehicle to sell quack medicine, yet for some reason it became hugely popular, going through reprint after reprint: clearly hitting a 'nerve' at the time.  By 1724 it was being printed in Boston and masturbation became the secret scourge of God-fearing Americans.  

Viewed practically without the benefit of modern science, there is a certain logic to Marten's stealthy, opportunistic theories: sweet, pretty children hit puberty and become secretive, spotty and sometimes sick (cystic fibrosis sufferers who worsen during puberty anyway seem to have illustrated the decline of the chronic masturbator perfectly - not enough to be suffering a serious respiratory disease, you had to bear the burden of shame too).  The onset of sexuality and its attendant temptations towards masturbation is an obvious culprit, if not quite the right one and where he found blindness is a mystery.  

By 1760 Samuel Auguste David Tissot, eminent French surgeon, had written L'Onanisme; a more learned tract than Marten's but along much the same lines and just as much of a sensation.  The Enlightenment became rather less enlightened overnight.  After that, it was a free for all, with endless Victorian documents bearing such gems as bitten nails on a girl's right hand indicate that she is a secret despoiler of her own parts: her bitten nails are kept short for 'use', and because of the blisters 'acrid' female sexual fluids cause to the skin.  By 1890, there was almost no ailment masturbation could not cause, if applied frequently enough, and with sufficient vigour.  

In America things were arguably worse.  Two of the most popular American foodstuffs: Kellog's Corn Flakes and Graham Crackers are both inventions by men obsessed with the prevention of masturbation.  Their 'clean' starch-based foods were intended to direct energy away from the sexual parts.  It would be kind to say that both men had 'issues', but their creations remain popular, although their efficacy as anti-masturbation aids is in doubt.  

It wasn't until after WWII, when the famous Kinsey Reports exposed so much about human sexuality that masturbation ceased to be viewed as potentially health-threatening.  The famous statistic: 98% of the population masturbate and 2% are liars brought a secretive act into the public eye, but it took until the 1960s for the pall of shame to lift from solitary sex.  Some would argue the stigma remains, and in truth, there is a special and universally acknowledged quality to the derision encapsulated in the phrase, 'What a wanker.'  

 

   
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