Lady Archer, make-up and gambling

In the latter part of the eighteenth century, a number of aristocratic ladies opened their houses for gambling, one of the best known, probably, being Lady Archer. It is the lady whose toilet regime is immortalised in this 1792 print by Thomas Rowlandson when she was 51. Lady Archer's commitment to "beauty" can also be judged from the following extracts from the Morning Post.

"Jan.  5, 1789. The Lady Archer, whose death was announced in this paper of Saturday, is not the celebrated character whose cosmetic powers  have long been held in public estimation." 

"Jan.  8,1789. It is said that the dealers in  Carmine and dead white,  as well as the  perfumers  in general, have it in contemplation to present an Address to Lady Archer, in gratitude for her not having  DIED  according to a late alarming report."

The Exaltation
of
Faro's Daughters
by James Gilray
depicting
Lady Archer
and
Lady Buckingham

Lady Archer's gambling business featured the card game Faro indeed, she and her "sisters" were satirised as Faro's daughters. Faro houses were notorious for bilking their customers. Indeed, the odds of the game (see below) are such that the house could only ensure profits by cheating in some form or other.

The sort of money that could be made from this game by Faro house operators can be illustrated by a court case reported by the Bath newspapers in 1787.

Gambling was always central to the entertainment that attracted the Ton to Bath and repeated attempts by the law to regulate it failed in the face of the Georgian obsession with gaming and the large amounts of money to be made by catering to this obsession.

As the Bath Chronicle of 12th April 1787 reported:

"Yesterday Mr. John Twycross and Mr Richard Weternall were convicted before the Mayor, on several counts, of keeping a Faro and other Gambling Table and sentenced to pay, Twycross four hundred, and Wettenall fourteen hundred pounds"

The article goes on to say:

"Eighteen hundred pounds [approximately the equivalent £100,000 today] is a seemingly large sum; but when the various arts of seduction to support this Faro Table, and its immense profits, are considered, it will appear a mere trifle. Every allurement of expensive eating and the richest wines are ever speciously ready, to invite the convivial. The hounds are principally, if not solely, supported to take in country gentlemen; and the present culprits are only the ostensible members of a numerous co-partnership, amongst whom the money may be easily raised; and who, like the Syrens of old, are unceasingly employed to draw devoted victims into this dreadful vortex of destruction."

Twycross and Wetenall ran their rooms in Alfred Street, which runs alongside the Upper Assembly Rooms and were therefore well placed to exploit the well-heeled crowds attracted there in the season.

The game of Faro originated at the court of Louis XIV. The game quickly spread to England. Because it is relatively easy for the banker to rig the cards, Faro became very popular with the proprietors of gaming houses.

Faro is a game of pure chance played on a baize table with a board of 13 cards enamelled into it and used to place bets. These cards are traditionally spades, but it is the rank of the card that matters in the game, not the suit. One player is selected as the banker, as with all games of pure chance, even an honest banker enjoys a considerable advantage. The role of the banker was usually decided by auction or fixed by the house. Players bet on which rank will win or lose the next round. A shuffled deck of 52 cards is then dealt from a specially design box. The first card revealed by the bank is called the soda and placed to the left of the banker and plays no role in the game. The second card is placed to the right of the banker is the losing card. The third card placed on top of the soda is the winning card. The game continued until there were just three cards left in the box, at which point the players bet on the order in which they would appear. The players knew which cards remained because the banker used a device known as a casekeeper to record the cards that had been dealt.