Jane Austen on drunkenness and adultery at the rooms

Jane Austen's letter to her sister Cassandra 12th - 13th May 1801. Jane was staying with her Aunt and Uncle in their home in the Paragon.

"In the evening I hope you honoured my Toilette & Ball with a thought; I dressed myself as well as I could, & my finery was much admired at home."

On Mondays, the Ball at the Upper Rooms was a formal dress ball. This was the last but one Ball of this season.

"By nine o'clock my Uncle, Aunt and I entered the rooms & linked Miss Winstone on to us."

The Ball started at 7 o'clock, so the Austens were probably timing their arrival to avoid the demanding and increasingly unpopular minuets.

"Before tea, it was a rather dull affair; but then the before tea did not last that long, for there was only one dance, dance by four couple. Think of four couple, surrounded by about an hundred people, dancing in the Upper Rooms at Bath! After tea we cheered up; the breaking up of private parties sent some scores more to the Ball, & tho' it was shockingly & inhumanly thin for this place, there were people enough I suppose to have made five or six very pretty Basingstoke assemblies."

Since the early 1790s, there had been an increasing fashion for attending private parties before considering moving on to the assemblies. This was one factor that led to the introduction of the much more informal fancy balls. The Austen party may have been particularly sensitive to numbers attending the Upper Rooms as her uncle had a financial interest in the rooms, having subscribed funds to their construction.

"I then got Mr Evelyn to talk to & Miss Twisleton to look at; and I am proud to say that I have a very good eye at an Adulteress, for tho' repeatedly assured that another in the party was the She, I fixed upon the right one from the first. A resemblance to Mrs Leigh was my guide."

The Twisleton family was related to the Austen family via the Leighs. Miss Twisleton was Miss Mary Cassandra Twislton, whose older sister Julie Judith Twislton married Jane's cousin, James Henry Leigh of Adlestrop, in 1786. Mary Cassandra had moved to Bath with her mother, Lady Saye and Sele, in 1800 following the end of a legal action that had made her notorious and allowed her cousin to brand her as an "adulteress."

At the age of 16, Mary Cassandra married Edward Ricketts. The marriage collapsed 7 years later when her husband discovered incriminating letters between his wife and Charles Taylor. The following year the Bishop of London granted Ricketts an Episcopal divorce. Not content with this, Ricketts applied to the House of Lords for a civil divorce. At the hearing, several witnesses swore they had seen Mary Cassandra visit her lover's house, and some commented on her dishevelled appearance on leaving. The most damaging evidence was provided by a maid who testified that Mary had boasted in graphic detail of Taylor's prowess as a lover compared to her husband's performance. Ricketts was granted his divorce in 1799.

Before this, the Twisleton name had already featured in a sexual scandal through Mary Cassandra's older brother Thomas's marriage to Charlotte Anne Frances Wattell, who was the daughter of John Wattell Esq and niece to Sir John Stonehouse. At about the age of eighteen, she had met, through a mutual love of performing in amateur theatricals, Mary's brother Thomas James Twisleton, the youngest son of Lord Saye and Sele. Twisleton was 18 and still at school, but within four months had eloped with her to Gretna Green. According to her husband, Mrs Twislton had very expensive tastes. She had "reduced him almost to poverty", and when he had attempted to remonstrate with her, she had "declared to go on the [professional] stage, where she knew she possessed the talent to support herself in affluence". He strongly opposed her plans, and when she went behind his back to meet Harris, the proprietor of the Covent Garden Theatre, he sought and obtained a deed of separation in 1794. At this time, the couple had five children, of whom only one daughter survived to maturity. However, before Twisleton got a divorce bill passed in 1798, Charlotte gave birth to a son as the result of an affair with a merchant named Stein. Stein acknowledged paternity and helped with his education.

Charlotte Twisleton around 1796

"She is not so pretty as I expected ; her face has the same defect of baldness as her sister's, & her features not so handsome; she was highly rouged & looked quietly & contentedly silly than anything else. Mrs Badcock & two young women were of the same party except when Mrs Badcock thought herself obliged to leave them, to run round the room after her drunken husband. His avoidance, & her pursuit, with the probable intoxication of both was an amusing scene."

This Mr Badcock may well be the young man mentioned in a letter preserved in the Bath library describing a ball in the Upper Rooms nine years earlier in 1792:

"It was amazingly crowded, although the minuets had not begun, so much so that we found some difficulty to get seats. I was very much entertained with the bad minuet dancers especially with a Mr. Badcock who was obliged to stand up with seven or eight Ladies successively, to the great diversion of the spectators. I believe there were twenty minuets which was rather tiresome, but at last the Country Dances began."

Making your dancing look effortless, smooth and steady.

In his 1822 book Elements of the Art of Dancing the Edinburgh dancing master, Alexander Strathy recommends the following exercise as a way of mastering this skill.

“PLACE your feet in the fifth position, keep the body upright, rest on the leg that is behind, raise the heel of the foot that is before, and slide the foot on the point slowly to the second position. The knee should be straight, as the foot arrives at the second position; place the heel of the foot which you have moved, keeping it forward; rest the body on it, and at the same time raise the heel of the other foot, which you now slide on the point into the fifth position before, keeping the knees straight, and the heel forward, that you may form the position closely; then do the same thing to the other side. This exercise should be also performed, by entering the foot behind in the fifth position.

Then, in the same manner;' from the fifth to the fourth position forward.-Place the feet in the fifth position, balance the body on the leg that is behind; raise the heel of the foot that is before, slide the foot on the point to the fourth position forward, keeping the knees straight; place the heel, and rest the body on the foremost leg, then slide up the foot that is behind, to the fifth .position behind.
Continue to do this several times forward, then backward. Do the same thing with the other foot before.”

Feet Positions

A tale of minuets and social climbing

On his arrival in Bath in October 1731, The Earl of Orrery's first port of call was naturally the Pump Room, but as soon as possible after he took himself off to the Terrace Walk and the shop of James Leake, the bookseller, who ran Bath's first circulating library and indeed one of the first circulating libraries in the country.

This is surprising as he had a very low opinion of Leake.

John Boyle, 5th Earl of Cork and Orrery
 by Isaac Seeman

"This Leake is a most extraordinary Person. He is the Prince of all the coxcomical Fraternity of Booksellers: and, not having any Learning himself, He seems resolved to sell it as dear as possible to Others."

His reason for visiting Leake's shop is interesting as it sheds light on the operation of Bath societies and assemblies.

Leake was a snob. As the Earl relates:

“He looks upon every Man, distinguished by any Title, not only as his Friend, but his companion, and he treats him accordingly: but he disposes of his Favours and Regards as methodically as Nash takes out the Ladies to dance, and therefore speaks not to a Marquiss whilst a Duke is in the Room.”

The mention of Nash is a reference to how the minuets were managed at balls. The Minuet was a couple’s dance where one couple danced at a time before an admiring or, more often, critical company. After the first couple had danced, the man retired, and Richard Nash, as the then Master of the Ceremonies, would bring the woman a second partner. The minuets continued until all the ladies who had stood up for them had danced with two men. The succession of dancers was governed by strict rules of precedence arbitrated by the Master of the Ceremonies.

This preoccupation with precedence and class motivated the Earl’s visit to Leake. Orrey’s Earldom was of the Irish nobility. Irish titles were considered inferior to their English counterparts.

He was anxious to discover if his secret was known in Bath and was relieved to discover:

“As yet he is ignorant that my Earldom lies in Ireland,”

This allowed him to implement a plan he had hatched

“to keep him so, I have borrowed the only Book of Heraldry He had in his Shop : by this method I shall be served many degrees above my Place, and may have a Squeeze of his Hand in presence of an Earl of Great Britain.”

Anne Bland music publisher

Anne Bland is an important figure for those interested in the dance music of the period of Jane Austen's life and novels. Anne Bland, who has no connection with the music publisher John Bland, began her music publishing business in London 1784. 

Anne Bland was established at 23 Oxford Street prior to 1790 and issued sheet music and yearly sets of dances.   Anne partnered with E. Weller in 1792, forming Bland and Weller. In addition to their publishing activities, which included a large number of country-dance collections, many of which survive, and the first English edition of three Mozart piano sonatas (k280, 282, 283), they were also piano and wind instrument makers. Anne Bland as "Music Seller, Oxford Street" is given in the Musical Directory for 1794. 

Early English pianoforte by Bland and Weller
23 Oxford Street

In 1805, the firm purchased from Dibdin, the composer, musician, dramatist, novelist and actor, the copyrights of 360 of his songs together with his musical stock, which they then reissued. Anne Bland retired in about 1818, and a sale of plates and copyrights took place though Weller carried on the business as Weller & Co. until 1820.

Typical surviving dance collections include:

24 Favorite country dances, hornpipes and reels with their proper figures for the German flute or violin as performed at court and all public assemblies 1807
24 Favourite Country Dances, Hornpipes and Reels with their proper figures for the German flute or violin. As performed at court and all public assemblies.A typical country dance tune and instruction book printed in London in 1803
Bland and Weller’s Annual Collection of Twenty-four Country Dances for the year 1797, with their proper Figures. For the Violin
Bland and Weller’s annual Collection of twenty-four Country Dances for the year 1798, with their proper figures, for the violin
Bland and Weller’s Annual Collection of twenty-four Country Dances for the Year 1799, with their proper Figures. For the violin and German flute, etc.

Bland and Weller
Clarinet

Bath Fashions Autumn 1761

Mid 18th century French Silk Brocade
with silver thread highlights

During this period, silks were often woven to order from a chosen pattern.

Galloway Buildings Today

 On the same page of the Bath Chronicle, Warren and company, the London perfumers, were advertising the wares they had on sale at their perfume shop at the upper end of Orange Grove in Bath. These included "Warren's true prepar'd [sic] French Chicken Gloves, for cleaning and whitening the Hands and Arms, for Ladies and Gentlemen, as usual, at 5s a pair." Chicken Gloves were made from a thin, strong leather derived from the skin of cattle fetuses or, as the name suggests, chicken skins.

Mr De La Main - Dancing Master

The European Magazine and London Review Volume April 1797 obituary  “Lately, at Bath, Mr De la Main, formally a wine-merchant and dancing master".

There is some evidence of Thomas De La Main operating as a dancing master in Bath as early as 1757.

Thomas De le Main opened a public dancing academy in his house in Westgate Street, where he taught both ladies and gentlemen in September 1768. Prior to that, he had been teaching private pupils and the students of a local boarding school.

By 1774, he was also trading as a wine merchant out of 4 Westgate Street. Sometime in early 1775, the wine business was in the hands of Robert De Le Main, probably Thomas's son.

By 1775, De La Main was organising balls at the New Rooms to show off his students' skills. These seem to have been held on Saturdays with a 6:30 start time.

By 1776, when the business was sold, Robert had acquired a partner in the wine merchants called Mr. Higgs.

In the winter of 1778, Thomas De La Main from Bath was running a dancing academy in Dublin.

Thomas was still running dancing classes in Bath as late as 1786.

In April 1797, the Chronicle announced, "died, in a very advanced age, Mr De La Main, formerly an eminent wine-merchant and dancing master of this city."

Artists and the Rooms

The Assembly Rooms were magnets for the rich and fashionable of the Georgian age. Consequently, those who made their living from the rich wanted to be close to the rooms.

This effect can be seen most clearly from moves by three famous Bath portrait artists when the Upper Rooms were opened and became the most fashionable of the Bath Rooms.

Thomas Gainsborough moved from near the Abbey to the Circus, where he lived at number 17; William Hoare moved from Queen Square to Edgar Buildings, and Thomas Lawrence's father brought his young genius of a son to live at 2 Alfred Street, where he built his reputation by painting small pastel portraits of the visitors to the Assemblies.

A pastel portrait by Thomas Lawrence from the 1780s

William Hoare was the first fashionable portraitist to settle in Bath, and he remained the leading portraitist there until the arrival of Thomas Gainsborough in 1759. He remained the favourite of his powerful patron, the Duke of Newcastle, his family, followers and political associates. Included amongst his other important patrons were the Earls of Pembroke and Chesterfield and the Duke of Beaufort. With Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds, he was a founding member of the Royal Academy.

Sir Thomas Lawrence was the second president of the Royal Academy. Lawrence was a child prodigy. He was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper. He moved to Bath at age ten in 1779, where he supported his family with his pastel portraits.