"Just fit to Be Quality at Lyme"

Writing to her sister Cassandra from Lyme on Friday 14th September 1804, Jane Austen recounts her experiences at a ball at the Assembly Rooms, which were at the end of Broads Street and had a sea view.

"The Ball last night was very pleasant, but not full for Thursday. My Father staid very contentedly till half past nine - we went a little after eight - & then walked home with James and a Lanthorn, tho' I believe the Lanthorn was not lit, as the Moon was up. But this Lanthorne may sometimes be a great convenience to him. My mother & I staid about an hour later.  Nobody asked me the two first dances - the two next I danced with Mr Crawford Mrs Granville's son - whom my dear friend Miss Armstrong offered to introduce me - or with a new, odd looking Man who had been eying me for some time, & at last without any introduction asked me if I meant to dance again. - I think he must be Irish by his ease, & because I imagine belong to the Honble Barnwalls, who are the son & son's wife of an Irish Viscount - bold, queer-looking people, just fit to be quality at Lyme."

Lyme Assembly Rooms 1815

Two Dances from the 1730s

Taken from "Twenty-Four Dances for the year 1738 with proper tunes Figures or Directions for each Dance." published by Benjamin Cooke in 1738.

Benjamin Cooke (? - 1743) was an organist, music publisher and music seller based at the Golden Harp in New Street, Covent Garden, from 1726 to 1743. Cooke had, in 1723, married the widow of John Jones, who had operated as an instrument maker and music publisher at the Golden Harp until 1720.

His second wife, Elizabeth Wayet, was the sister-in-law of Lancelot (Capability) Brown, the legendary garden designer, who gave birth to the composer Benjamin Cooke(1734 - 1793).

As well as collections of dance music, Cooke's production included a seminal edition of the collected works of Arcangelo Corelli in study scores comprising all five books of sonatas and the twelve concerti grossi. Indeed,  Cooke was in many ways a pioneering music publisher with his insistence on sourcing music from composers or their agents rather than other publisher's material.

Dance and Satire

The Spectator was a daily publication founded by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in England, and published from 1711 to 1712.

In May of 1711, they claimed to have received the following letter from someone they described as a "substantial tradesman".

'Sir,

I am a Man in Years, and by an honest Industry in the World have acquired enough to give my Children a liberal Education, tho' I was an utter Stranger to it my self. My eldest Daughter, a Girl of Sixteen, has for some time been under the Tuition of Monsieur Rigadoon, a Dancing-Master in the City; and I was prevailed upon by her and her Mother to go last Night to one of his Balls. I must own to you, Sir, that having never been at any such Place before, I was very much pleased and surprized with that Part of his Entertainment which he called French Dancing. There were several young Men and Women, whose Limbs seemed to have no other Motion, but purely what the Musick gave them. After this Part was over, they began a Diversion which they call Country Dancing, and wherein there were also some things not disagreeable, and divers Emblematical Figures, Compos'd, as I guess, by Wise Men, for the Instruction of Youth.

Among the rest, I observed one, which, I think, they call Hunt the Squirrel, in which while the Woman flies the Man pursues her; but as soon as she turns, he runs away, and she is obliged to follow.

The Moral of this Dance does, I think, very aptly recommend Modesty and Discretion to the Female Sex.

But as the best Institutions are liable to Corruptions, so, Sir, I must acquaint you, that very great Abuses are crept into this Entertainment. I was amazed to see my Girl handed by, and handing young Fellows with so much Familiarity; and I could not have thought it had been in the Child. They very often made use of a most impudent and lascivious Step called Setting, which I know not how to describe to you, but by telling you that it is the very reverse of Back to Back. At last an impudent young Dog bid the Fidlers play a Dance called Mol Patley, and after having made two or three Capers, ran to his Partner, locked his Arms in hers, and whisked her round cleverly above Ground in such manner, that I, who sat upon one of the lowest Benches, saw further above her Shoe than I can think fit to acquaint you with. I could no longer endure these Enormities; wherefore just as my Girl was going to be made a Whirligig, I ran in, seized on the Child, and carried her home.

Sir, I am not yet old enough to be a Fool. I suppose this Diversion might be at first invented to keep up a good Understanding between young Men and Women, and so far I am not against it; but I shall never allow of these things. I know not what you will say to this Case at present, but am sure that had you been with me you would have seen matter of great Speculation.

I am

Yours, &c.'

Note: the dances mentioned are taken from editions of Playford's The Dancing Master

Feet Positions in Beauchamp Feuillet Notation

The notation was commissioned by Louis XIV (who had founded the Academy Royale de Danse in 1661) and devised in the 1680s by Pierre Beauchamp. The notation system was first described in detail in 1700 by Raoul-Augur Feuillet in Chorégraphie. Feuillet also then began a programme of publishing complete notated dances. It was used to record dances for the stage and domestic use throughout the eighteenth century, being modified by Pierre Rameau in 1725, and surviving into at least the 1780s in various modified forms.

First Position

Second Position

Third Position

Fourth Position

Fifth Position

Love Forever a dance of the 1790s

From "The scholar's companion: containing a choice collection of cotillons & country-dances" by M.J.C. Fraisier 1796.

'The second gentleman allemande with the 1st lady, the 1st gentleman does the same with the 2nd lady, lead down the middle, up again and cast off one couple. 6 hands round and cast off one couple one couple on the right hand and right and left at the top.'

Miss MacDonald's Fancy a dance from 1808

Goulding’s Select Collection of Twelve Favorite Country Dances for the year 1808, published by Goulding, Phipps and D’Almaine

Goulding & Co, a firm of music publishers, sellers and instrument makers, was created in 1785 by George Goulding.

Thomas D'Almaine (c.1784-1866) and Phipps joined George Goulding's existing company in 1789. The company was subsequently known as Goulding, Knevett & Co (1803-1816 in Dublin), Goulding & D'Almaine, or Goulding, D'Almaine & Co. and several other varieties(until 1823). They entered a partnership with James Wood and Potter. The firm specialised in woodwind instruments and pianos. The name changed in 1834 to D'Almaine & Co. In 1847, D'Almaine retired to be succeeded by his nephew Thomas Macinklay, who had joined the firm in 1840. In 1866, D'Almaine and Mackinlay died, effectively ending the company's operations. The firm's name continued until 1934 under different patronage, mainly producing pianos.

This great firm was commenced initially by George Goulding, who was probably in business before 1784. He issued sheet songs from the pantomime of Don Juan, acted in 1787, and other sheet music prior to and contemporary with this.

His address at this time was at “The Haydn’s Head, No. 6. James Street, Covent Garden,” and shortly afterwards, an additional one at 17 Great Turnstile, Holborn. About 1790, this latter gave place to one at 113 Bishopsgate Street, but while keeping his principal place of business in James Street, these two latter addresses must have been only in force for a short time.

From James Street, he issued annual sets of twenty-four dances in oblong octavo. One of these is for 1792, and on it is advertised a collection by Mr Carter for the year 1788. Another yearly set of dances from James Street is for 1797. Early in 1799, he moved to 45 Pall Mall and took others into partnership.

The new firm was styled Goulding & Co., or Goulding, Phipps, & D’Almaine, and they became music sellers to the Prince and Princess of Wales. In 1803, they took additional premises at 76 St. James Street, and in 1804-5, they gave both these addresses up and removed them to 117 New Bond Street, with an agency at 7 Westmoreland Street., Dublin.

In 1808-9, the number in New Bond Street was changed to 124. Phipps retired from the concern about this time and probably commenced business on his own account. The firm was now Goulding, D’Almaine, & Potter.

At the end of 1811, they removed their London address to 20 Soho Square, and 124 Samuel Chappell took the shop at New Bond Street. The firm remained at 20 Soho Square till 1858. Sometime between 1830 and 1837, Goulding’s name was dropped from the firm, which was then D’Almaine & Co., and in 1838, they advertised a catalogue of 200,000 engraved plates.

In late years, the name of the firm was D’Almaine & Mackinlay, and in 1867, the whole stock and plates were sold off by auction, owing to the death of Mr D’Almaine, which occurred in 1866 in his 83rd or 84th year.

The Darker Side of the Assemblies - The Sex Trade

Walcot Street, Avon Street and the Holloway district of Bath were notorious as centres of the sex trade.

Such was the problem that in 1713, the Corporation agreed on building a constables' prison in the Market Place to secure night walkers and other disorderly persons.

The famous courtesan Fanny Murray was born in Bath around 1729. Orphaned at age 12, she worked as a flower girl until she was seduced by John Spencer, a grandson of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. According to her memoir, she had become a mistress to Beau Nash by 1743, at the age of just fourteen, and soon moved to London, where she became an indentured prostitute. [1]

In August 1779, the clergyman James Woodford noted in his diary how he met two "common prostitutes" one aged about 15, the other17, as he walked in the fields around Bath.

Many young girls came from the country to Bath and other cities in search of employment. Once they discovered that jobs were not always easy to come by and only those living in the city for five years were eligible for Poor Law relief, they were easy prey to brothel keepers.

This was such a common fate that even Jane Austen alluded to it in correspondence with her family in a letter dated 18th September 1796, written to her sister Cassandra. Jane Austen makes this remark, referring to her plans to visit the Pearsons, the family of Henry Austen’s then-fiancée, unaccompanied:

“I had once determined to go with Frank tomorrow and take my chance, etc., but they dissuaded me from so rash a step-as I really think on consideration it would have been: for if the Pearson’s were not at home I should inevitably fall sacrifice to the arts of some fat Woman who would make me drunk with small beer…” [2]

She is referring to the first picture of Hogarth’s series “The Harlots Progress”, which portrayed the arrival in London of an innocent country girl who is befriended by, in Jane Austen’s own words, “a fat Woman.” This was none other than one of the most notorious procuresses of the Georgian era, Elizabeth “Mother” Needham.

Sex workers plied their trade in all the places of public amusement – the theatre, outside the Assembly Rooms and pleasure gardens, and in the vicinity of local inns. Once a customer had been found, he could be taken to any number of local houses.

In her novel Persuasion, Jane Austen chose the White Hart Inn as the setting for Captain Wentworth’s proposal to Anne Elliot. The White Hart was a well-known Bath inn, and the stables at the rear were particularly popular with local sex workers. Mary Musgrove enjoys looking out the window at the White Hart spies, Mrs. Clay and William Elliot. Mrs. Clay is about to elope, and he is trying to ‘buy’ her services so that she won’t marry Sir Walter Elliot.

Garrick writing from Bath in the 1790s says in passing “I have gain’d two inches in the waist, & the Girls at Night call me Fatty!” 

John Skinner, rector of Camerton near Bath at the start of the nineteenth century, recorded in his journal, ‘I was not a little astonished, as I walked through Bath, to observe the streets so crowded with prostitutes, some of them apparently not above 14 or 15 years of age’.

 In 1802, the Society for the Suppression of Vice was formed. One of its objects was ‘the Protection of Female Innocence, by the Punishment of Procurers and Seducers’.

In 1805, the Female Penitentiary and Lock Hospital was established in Walcot Street, some of the building still exists, to rescue 'fallen' women and treat venereal disease.

One local paper estimated that in the 1820s, there were 300 sex workers in Avon Street alone.

In 1825, the Reverent Skinner recorded:

March 21: I was occupied in visiting the sick in Colliers Row. Mrs Biven seems going very fast. This woman, now at the point of death, is the eldest daughter of Sarah Somer of Red Hill, and has been a prostitute from her earliest years; her mother brought her up in the vocation, as she has done all her daughters.

1. Queen of the Courtesans: Fanny Murray 2nd June 2014 by Barbara White

2. Osborn, Melanie Erin. "The Bitter Relicks of My Flame: The Embodiment of Venereal Disease and Prostitution in the Novels of Jane Austen." 2012,  https://core.ac.uk/download/235716853.pdf.