The Gentleman's Daughter (65 page)

35
WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St 6/1/50 (31 Jan. n.y.), M. Barnardiston to Mrs Stanhope.

36
‘Forgery Unmasked’. This trial engrossed the viewing and reading public in 1775. Anne Pellet reported that ‘all conversation is I think turn'd now wholly on the infamous Mrs Rudd and her two accomplices. And may refer you to the Publick papers’: LRO, DDB/72/168 (13 July 1775), A. Pellet, London, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats. For her part, Mrs Shackleton was in no doubt as to guilt and innocence, noting in her diary the sufferings of the Perreau brothers at hands the of ‘that Infamous Vile Woman Margaret Caroline Rudd’: LRO, DDB Ac 7886/324 (1775–6), f. 31.

37
Trials for Adultery
, 1, title-page.

38
LRO, DDB/72/283–4 (1776), B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats.

39
See Borsay,
English Urban Renaissance
, pp. 336–49; ‘Leeds Intelligencer and the Leeds Mercury, 1777–1782’, p. 6;
Oxford English Dictionary
, ‘Assembly’.

40
Notes from the Records of the Assembly Rooms of Edinburgh
(Edinburgh, 1842), quoted in Morris, ‘Clubs, Societies and Associations’ (see n. 7 above), p. 403. See also H. G. Graham,
The Social Life of Scotland in the Eighteenth-Century
(1909), pp. 98–9; J. Ellis, ‘On the Town: Women in Augustan England’,
History Today
,
XLV
, no. 12
(Dec. 1995), P. 22; J. Timbs,
Club Life in London
(1866),
I
, p. 316 and 88.; P. Egan,
Life in London
(1821), pp. 295–6.

41
In Westmorland it was noted that assemblies included both tradesmen and gentry, while at Tunbridge it was reported ‘all ranks are mingled together without distinction. The nobility and the merchants; the gentry and the traders’: Langford,
Polite and Commercial People
, pp. 101, 102. But in Derby it appears that ‘trade’ (by which I imagine they meant retail) was excluded. Similarly, a protest was raised in Romsey when the Southampton organist (and reportedly a shoemaker's son) took out a subscription to the local assembly in 1769: Brewer,
Pleasures
(see n. 9 above), p. 549. On dancing-masters' balls, read Fawcett, ‘Dance and Teachers of Dance’, and also his ‘Provincial Dancing Masters’.

42
See WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St 6/1/50 (19 Jan. 1742), I. Crompton, Doncaster, to M. Stanhope, Horsforth; LRO, DDGr C1 (27 Sept. 1762), B. Wiglesworth, Townhead, to M. Greene; LRO, DDB/81/37 (1780), fos. 67, 69; and LRO, DDB/72/1490 (29 Oct. 1795), C. Dickson, Berwick, to E. Barcroft, Otley; LRO, DDB/72/687 (16 July 1807), E. Parker, Preston, to T. Parker, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/72/223 (n.d.), B. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats.

43
WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St 6/1/50 (1 Dec. 1740), M. Warde, Squerries, Kent, to M. Warde, Hooton Pagnell.

44
Haywood,
Female Spectator
,
I
, p. 298.

45
Quoted in Jackson,
Hull in the Eighteenth Century
, p. 269.

46
T. Smollett,
Advice: A Satire
(1746), p. 5, n. 30.

47
LRO, DDB/64/14 (
c.
1808), Ellen Barcroft's Journal, f. 25.

48
Ashton,
Old Times
, p. 217; W. Boulton,
The Amusements of Old London
(1901),
I
, pp. 93–4; Phillips,
Mid-Georgian London
(see n. 25 above), pp. 277 and 91. On the disturbing associations of the masquerade, see Castle,
Masquerade and Civilization
.

49
LRO, DDB/72/251 (30 Jan. 1772), W. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats.

50
LRO, DDB Ac 7886/218 (30 April 1748), J. Pellet, London, to E. Parker, Browsholme.

51
WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St 6/1/50 (4 Oct. 1742), M. Richardson, Bierley, to M. Warde, Hooton Pagnell; W. A. Abram,
Memorials of the Preston Guilds
(Preston, 1882), p. 81. The Richardsons of Bierley were an established county family in the West Riding.

52
On the Lascelles's masquerade, see G. D. Lumb and J. B. Place (eds.), ‘Extracts from the Leeds Intelligencer and the Leeds Mercury, 1777–1782’,
Thoresby Society Publications
,
XL
(1955), p. 73. For Pontefract, see LRO, DDB/72/445 (2 Jan.
c.
1755), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to E. Parker, Alkincoats.

53
Browsholme Letters, Browsholme Hall, Clitheroe, Lanes, uncat. (7 July 1743), J. Pellet, London, to E. Parker, Browsholme.

54
W. Wroth,
The London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century
(1896), p. 206.

55
LRO, DDB Ac 7886/273 (25 April 1749), A. Pellet, London, to E. Parker, Browsholme.

56
WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St 6/1/58 (29 Aug. 1749), J. Spencer, Middle Temple, to M. Stanhope, Leeds.

57
Wroth,
Pleasure Gardens
, p. 201.

58
Borsay,
English Urban Renaissance
, pp. 350–54.

59
Van Muyden,
Letters of De Saussure
(see n. 14 above), p. 48. For further commentaries, see Phillips,
Mid-Georgian London
(see n. 25 above), p. 45.

60
Girouard,
English Town
, p. 146.

61
R. Bayne Powell,
Travellers in Eighteenth-Century England
(1951), p. 180.

62
Van Muyden,
Letters of De Saussure
(see n. 14 above), p. 81.

63
Quoted Cruikshank and Burton,
Life in the Georgian City
, p. 23.

64
LRO, DDB/64/14 (
c.
1808), Ellen Barcroft's Journal, loose page.

65
LRO, DDB/72/308 (9 May 1780), E. Shackleton, Pasture House, to R. Parker, London.

66
Halsband,
Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
,
I
, p. 75. That in the 1880s women
contested established notions of the public and private, seizing urban pleasure in unprecedented ways, is the founding premise of Walkowitz,
City of Dreadful Delight
(see n. 8 above); E. D. Rappaport, ‘The Halls of Temptation: Gender Politics and the Construction of the Department Store in late Victorian London’,
Journal of British Studies
(1996), pp. 58–83, is also built on the assumption that shopping was not a legitimate public pursuit for respectable women before the 1880s. Doubtless the prospect of the female consumer out and about in the early to mid-nineteenth century raised considerable cultural anxiety, as female pleasure and consumerism had for centuries, but it would be mistaken to infer from this that respectable women had therefore abstained from shopping for fear of being taken for prostitutes. On the sophistication of shops in the eighteenth-century metropolis and the widespread recognition of shopping as a female cultural pursuit, see Walsh, ‘Shop Design and the Display of Goods’, and Bayne Powell,
Travellers
(see n. 61 above), pp. 60–61.

67
Tucker,
Instructions for Travellers
(1757); Berchtold;
Essay to Direct and Extend the Inquiries
. For elaboration, see Ousby,
Englishman's England
, and Andrews,
Search for the Picturesque
.

68
Consult LRO, DDB/81/4 (1765), f. 86; LRO, DDB/81/19 (1773), f. 59; LRO, DDB/81/26 (1775), fos. 132–7; LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), f. 191.

69
LPL, MS 8752 (1776), 11 Jan. and 26 March, LPL, MS 8753 (1778), 14 May, 2 June, 19 Nov.; LRO, DDPd/25/16 (
c
.1786), Margaret Pedder's Views, fos. 5, 6, 10, 15; LPL, MS 8757 (1793), 3,9, 15 Jan., 5 Aug.; LPL, MS 8758 (1796), 27 June, 30 July, 28 Oct.; and LPL, MS 8759 (1797), 25 Sept., 22 Nov., 31 Dec; LRO, DDB/64/14 (
c
.1808), Ellen Barcroft's Journal, fos. 8, 23 and loose sheets; LRO, DDWh/4/34 (1 Nov. 1813), A. Wright, London to E. Whitaker, Roefield.

70
Pennington,
Unfortunate Mother's Advice
, pp. 15–16. On the same topic, see Wilkes,
Letter of Genteel Advice
, p. 41. However, I do not deny the reality of piety for many and, of course, female religiosity is a subject in itself. Consider P. Crawford,
Women and Religion in Early Modern England
(1993); D. M. Valenze,
Prophetic Sons and Daughters: Female Preaching and Popular Religion in Industrial England
(1986); G. Malmgreem (ed.),
Religion in the Lives of English Women, 1760–1930
(Bloomington, Ind., 1986). None the less, the absence of religious fervour amongst northern Anglicans is striking and has been noted by experts in the field (personal communication Jan Albers). When Charles Whitaker reported ‘The Scotch appear uncommonly religious’, he betrayed an indolent Anglicanism common to many: LRO, DDWh/4/55 (7 May 1814), C. Whitaker, Edinburgh, to E. Whitaker, London.

71
See respectively WYCRO, Leeds, TA 22/1 (1 May 1731), S. Gossip, York, to A. Gossip, Bath; LRO, DDB/81/11 (1770), f. 71; LRO, DDB/81/32 (1777), f. 103; LRO, DDB/81/33B (1778), f. 34; WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St/6/1/50 (4 Jan. 1749), M. Warde to M. Warde, Hooton Pagnell; LRO, DDB/72/47 (n.d.), R. Parker, Little Harwood, to E. Parker, Alkincoats: ‘Miss Clayton … yet has hopes of Mr Faulkner and her sister … tells me he looks at her in church and very complaisant’;
The Connoisseur
, 43, 21 Nov. 1754, p. 255.

72
Henstock, ‘Diary of Abigail Gawthern’, p. 119; LRO, DDWh/4/49 (3 April 1814), B. Addison, Liverpool, to E. Whitaker, Roefield.

73
YAS, MD 3,35/Box 95/xcv/i (
c
.1773), B. Lister, Gisburn Park, to T. Lister, House of Commons. Although the unconventional governess Ellen Wee ton thought that women should be encouraged to study divinity, she herself wondered ‘who would listen to a female divine, except to ridicule? I could myself almost laugh at the idea.’ See Hall,
Miss Weeton's Journal
, 1, p. 197.

74
Andrew, ‘Female Charity in an Age of Sentiment’; Andrew,
Philanthropy and Police: London Charity in the Eighteenth Century
(Princeton, NJ, 1989); Heal,
Hospitality in Early Modern England
, pp. 178–83.

75
NYRO, ZBA 25/1. In York, a Mrs Faith Gray and a Mrs Catherine Cappe were
instrumental in the establishment and superintendence of a Spinning School (1782), a Grey Coat School for Girls (1785), and a Female Friendly Society (1788), see Gray,
Papers and Diaries of a York Family, 1764–1839
(1927), pp. 54, 60, 67. The Carlisle Female Visiting Society was set up in 1803, and members engaged to search out the abodes of the wretched and supply their inhabitants with comforts. An Infant Clothing Society was set up in the same town in 1811. Similarly, Workington had an Infant Clothing Society (1811), A Blanket Society (1819) and a Dorcas Society (1818) which distributed 600 garments a year ‘mostly wrought by the fair hands of the contributors to this excellent charity’. See W. Parson and W. White,
History and Directory of the Counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland
(1829), pp. 308–9. In Hawkshead, a Female Union Society was instituted in 1798: LRO, DP 384/8 Rule Book of Female Union Society. Whalley boasted a Sisterly Love Society active from at least 1818: LRO, DDX 680/2/3. A Female Sociable Society was active in Wadsworth from at least 1810: WYCRO, Bradford, Tong MS 6/6, Membership Certificate. A society was active in Leeds from at least 1801: WYCRO, Leeds, Leeds Female Benefit Society, 6, and in Wakefield from 1805: WYCRO, Wakefield, C 281/7/10, Rules of the Wakefield Female Benefit Society. Chester had a lying-in charity founded in 1798: CCRO, DNA/1, Minutes of the Chester Benevolent Institution. Liverpool boasted a Ladies Charity for the Relief of Poor Women in Childbed (1796), The Female School of Industry (1818), The Friends' Female Charity School (1818) and The Ladies Branch of the Liverpool Auxiliary Society (1818).

76
LRO, DDGr C3 (21 July 1819 and 6 April 1820), S. Tatham, Southall, to Mrs Bradley, Slyne.

77
HL, HM, 31201, Anna Larpent's Diary,
XI
, 1820–21, f. 2, facing f. 4, facing f. 7, facing f. 13, f. 45, facing f. 51, f. 71 and f. 130.

78
F. K. Prochaska, ‘Philanthropy’, in F. M. L. Thompson (ed.),
The Cambridge Social History of Britain, 1750–1950
(Cambridge, 1990),
III
, p. 386.

79
Kimber,
Life and Adventures of Joe Thompson
,
II
, p. 7. For further discussion, see Borsay,
English Urban Renaissance
, pp. 133–7; Morris, ‘Clubs, Societies and Associations’ (see n. 7 above),
passim
; Money,
Experience and Identity
, pp. 98–152.

80
Andrew, ‘London Debating Societies’, pp. 79, 383. Andrew finds that the societies of the 1770s concentrated on political and theological questions, with just a few topics of wider cultural concern. Morals, emotion and matrimony became more popular as debating topics later in the century, but the interest in religion and the state persisted.

81
The Times
, 29 Oct. 1788, quoted in Andrew, ‘London Debating Societies’, p. xi. On the suppression of political debate, see D. Andrew ‘Popular Culture and Public Debate: London 1780’,
HJ
, 39 (1996), p. 421, but see generally pp. 405–23.

82
Beverley Lemire notes that the wife of a middling Manchester family attended a conversation club in the 1770s, see id.,
Fashion's Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain, 1660–1800
(Oxford, 1991), p. 110, and Catherine Hall finds evidence of women's participation in debating societies in the Midlands, but sees this as a fleeting phenomenon: Hall, ‘Victorian Domestic Ideology’. In Bristol, ladies were known to prefer morning to evening lectures: Barry, ‘Cultural Life of Bristol’ (D.Phil. thesis), p. 135. In Bath there was a house by the pump room where the ladies could read the news and enjoy ‘each other's conversation’, a ‘female coffee-house’ where they could withdraw after general assemblies, plus lectures on arts and sciences laid on to amuse the ‘People of Fashion’, Goldsmith,
Richard Nash
, pp. 43, 45, 46. Smollett's Lydia Melford said the young were not admitted to the ladies coffee house at Bath, ‘inasmuch as the conversation turns on politics, scandal, philosophy, and other subjects above our capacity; but we are allowed to accompany them to booksellers shops, which are charming places of resort; where we read novels, plays, pamphlets and news-papers, for so small a subscription as a crown a quarter’: Smollett,
Humphry Clinker
, p. 40.