Nothing is as it Seems – Jane Austen in Bath

Rowlandson, The Comforts of Bath, The Pump Room. Wikimedia image.

Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” opens with the sentence, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” It is one of the best written and best known opening lines of any novel. It is also one of the best examples of “comic irony” because, as Austen makes clear throughout the novel, it is primarily the women (or more particularly their mothers) who are desperately in search of a rich single man as husband-material.

Historically Bath was undoubtedly one of the most favoured locations for such match-making, both in fact and in fiction. Though the city is relatively small today, it had grown faster than almost any other in Britain during the 17 ^th Century.  In 1801, when Jane moved to the city it was the ninth largest conurbation in England with a population of 35,000. Its spa facilities and entertainments were renowned throughout Europe and visitors flocked to the city for “The Season” (roughly from the beginning of May to mid-September). This was the ideal time for husband-hunting.

There were balls and gatherings, concerts and card games in the Upper and Lower Assembly Rooms. Each day people met in The Pump Rooms (see Rowlanson’s image above – Wikimedia) to see who was newly arrived in the city, to make introductions (and to be introduced) and perhaps most importantly to exchange gossip, and arrange social events. The theatre too, was well attended with a continually changing programme of popular contemporary productions, drawing some of the finest actors and performers of the age.

People also entertained at home, and yet one of the most favoured social events (weather permitting) was simply “promenading” in the popular shopping areas like Milsom Street, or the many purpose-built, Parades and Parks, like Jane’s favourite, Sydney Gardens. These were the places to see and be seen, the places where accidental meetings might be expected, or could be contrived. As Catherine Morland remarks in “Northanger Abbey”

“a fine Sunday in Bath empties every house of its inhabitants, and all the world appears on such an occasion to walk about and tell their acquaintance what a charming day it is.”

It would be easy to be swept away by images of “beautiful people” in a social whirl of high society events, set against a back-drop of some of the finest Georgian architecture in the world. Indeed that is the world that Jane Austen seems to present in her novels, yet that was not the whole truth, at least for Jane. The notorious British weather certainly often made promenading, or even attending events or visiting friends, difficult. As Jane said in a letter to her sister, Cassandra,

“We stopped in Paragon (a prestigious address where her wealthy uncle lived) as we came along, but it was too wet and dirty for us to get out.”

 It must also be remembered that Jane lived in Bath continuously (throughout the years) from 1801 to 1805, and the city was a very different place, out of Season. Being primarily a Spa, many of the resident population of Bath were of retirement age and not always in the best of health. As for eligible young men, only 39% of Bath’s population were male in 1801, and it is safe to assume that relatively few of these were eligible, and that even fewer were young. As Sir Walter Elliot observes in “Persuasion” –

“There certainly were a dreadful multitude of ugly women in Bath; and as for the men! they were infinitely worse. Such scarecrows as the streets were full of! It was evident how little the women were used to the sight of anything tolerable, by the effect which a man of decent appearance produced.”

Many of the eligible young men were of course in the army or navy and away fighting the Napoleonic Wars for much of the time that Jane was living in Bath. And while officers in the services were expected to be at least literate, they came from vary varied educational and social backgrounds. Contrary to popular opinion, although an officer was supposed also to be a “gentleman”, this usually referred to an expectation rather than a predisposition. And often officers fell short of those expectations, which perhaps accounts for Jane’s portrayal of characters like George Wickham, the ne’er-do-well seducer in “Pride and Prejudice.”

I’m sure there were lots of George Wickhams in Bath. It was, and still is, the perfect setting for a novel. It was a place where, given enough money or access to credit, all the trappings of wealth and position could be rented or hired or borrowed for The Season, and where people were often not who they appeared to be. As Jane observed in “Persuasion”

“Sir Walter had at first thought more of London; but Mr Shepherd felt that he could not be trusted in London, and had been skillful enough to dissuade him from it, and make Bath preferred. It was a much safer place for a gentleman in his predicament: he might there be important at comparatively little expense.”

Very few of Jane’s letters survive from her time in Bath and some say that she wrote very little while she was there. Yet it’s well known that Jane was a consummate editor; writing and re-writing, polishing and refining her work until she was satisfied it was good enough. She may well have been working on drafts of her later novels even then. She was certainly observing and remembering what she saw.

We do know that Jane wrote the beginning of her unfinished novel, “The Watsons” while in Bath. Some say it remained unfinished because it was a time of upheaval in her life (with the death of her father). Others believe it so clearly mirrored her own experience (particularly the financial precariousness of the family) at the time that she found it too painful to continue. And perhaps the chapters that she did complete lack some of the refinement and polish of her later novels, yet I find them very poignant and touching. I can’t help thinking that someone of Jane’s intelligence and sensitivity must at times have been hurt by a Society where people were judged so much in terms of title, wealth and appearance; as opposed to their true nature and accomplishments.

In my novel, “AVON STREET” I have tried to explore aspects of the City of Bath that lay hidden and forgotten behind its romantic Georgian image. Jane Austen recognised that all was not always as it seemed in the City. Perhaps it’s little wonder then that she makes such good use of comic irony.

This piece was kindly hosted on the Jane Austen’s World blog on May 11th 2013.

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Bridges Across Time

“A View of Pulteney Bridge” by William Noble Hardwick from the Victoria Art Gallery (Bath) Collection

Any author owes a big debt to their readers. Not just because they’ve chosen their book amongst so many others, but because they have spent time reading it. There are so many competing forms of more “instant” entertainment now, and time is precious.  The cover and blurb and opening page may be what initially appeals, but a writer has to earn their readers’  time by creating characters that they will care about and by devising a plot that will make them want to keep turning the pages.

But the historical novel, perhaps like science fiction, demands something more. It requires the reader to suspend their disbelief, to ignore everything around them, and to imagine that they are living in another place, another time. For a writer that’s where the research comes in. A writer has to understand what life was like in another time – fashions, transport, medicine, work, education, politics, crime and a host of other things. But as a novelist they also have to ensure that they include just the right amount of historical detail in the novel – Too little and it doesn’t feel real – Too much and it becomes a history lecture. It’s a difficult balance, particularly as reader-tastes differ.

What I love about historical novels is that they can help us challenge perceptions of the past, to better understand the lives of “ordinary” people and what it might have been like to have lived in another time. History often, seems to emphasise how different people were to us in the past, as in the famous opening line from L. P. Hartley’s 1953 novel, “The Go Between”

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

Yet it’s a poor traveller who visits a foreign country and has no interest in their culture. In historical novels you have to acknowledge those differences of culture, science, technology, education, religion, economics and all the other external influences that make us different. But while those “differences” cannot be ignored, neither should they be allowed to make caricatures out of characters. The author needs to make the culture of the past understandable and believable if the reader is to engage with it in their imagination.

The Victorian era particularly appeals to me because we know so much about it and because, perhaps more than any other era it mirrors our modern world. It was an era of great change and the first age of consumerism. The Industrial Revolution was in some ways the forerunner of our own Technological Revolution. New discoveries and inventions revolutionised manufacturing processes. Railways and steamships made travel faster and cheaper, rapidly shrinking the world. And it was the age of popular novels, which allow us, perhaps for the first time a real glimpse into the lives of “ordinary” people.

Perhaps more importantly the Victorian Era was the time when the struggle really began for democracy and basic human rights. Universal suffrage, equality under the law, safe working conditions, decent housing, education , basic sanitation and clean drinking water were not granted through the benevolence of governments – each was fought for over many years and usually stubbornly resisted by the powers to be. It is a struggle which is just beginning in many parts of the world as the process of  industrialision takes hold. It is a struggle which never seems to end. These things which many now take for granted, shape who we are, yet they were each fought for by people who we sometimes imagine to be very different to ourselves. It’s perhaps strange to think that the very changes they fought for and brought about now make them seem so very different to us.

My novel, “Avon Street” is set in Bath in 1850.  It’s a city whose image is defined even today by the novels of Jane Austen, and one of the reasons I wrote the book was to challenge (much as I love Austen’s writing) the romanticisation of the past.  I wanted to explore the darker side of the city that Jane Austen only ever hinted at – to go behind the Georgian facades – to show the streets of a city, where wealth and elegance were never far from poverty and squalor. To me, history is like a detective story. We have to sweep aside the images and pre-conceptions to truly understand the people of the past. And perhaps then we can better understand this foreign country, that we all came from.

(This piece is based on a post originally written for, and kindly hosted by Carol Hedges on her blog  on 5th April 2013.)

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Bookshops – Who needs ’em?

According to retailing and publishing experts and the Media, it seems that the future of the high street bookshop is at best uncertain. They say that bookshops can’t compete with internet retailers who offer cheaper prices and greater choice. I don’t know enough to argue with them, and nor can I claim to write on behalf of readers and authors as a whole, but I can give a personal perspective on the issue, for what it’s worth.

As a reader I would miss bookshops.  I’m not a great fan of shopping, but bookshops are one place I’m happy to be. I love the smell and feel of books. I enjoy exploring new titles and genres that I might not otherwise have considered – and you can’t do that in the same way with virtual books.

Discovering a new book should be an enjoyable experience in its own right, yet sometimes all the choice that the internet provides  seems to make choosing books, more like hard work. The better bookshops remind me how it felt, as a child, armed with a book-token or some cash, and the excitement of choosing from all those books. Don’t get me wrong. I’m as hypocritical as most and often buy books and ebooks on the internet, but I do try to follow the mantra – If I actively browse and find what I like in a bookshop – I buy it in that bookshop.

But it’s as a writer, that bookshops mean so much more to me.  As a relatively new author I know how difficult it is to get a book noticed and to reach readers. Hundreds of thousands of new books are published every year. In a presentation at the Digital Book World conference in New York on 25^th January 2012, the author and “futurist” David Houle, said,

“There were more books published this week than there were in all of 1950,”

And that’s without all the classics and the bestsellers of past years, and the back-catalogues of well known writers still in circulation and popular. It’s hard for unknown writers to compete with the Big Names. Most new writers will never be reviewed in national newspapers or magazines. Most publishers have limited promotional budgets for new writers. So the unknown writer increasingly has to self-promote to find readers and hopefully generate word of mouth. And every new writer is in the same boat, trying to get their book known in a crowded marketplace, trying to use the social media to promote. (One tip here for new writers – If you want an online presence that makes a difference – start building it long before your book comes out!)

The Internet is wonderful though.

This week I watched a couple of sessions from the “Author (R)evolution Day” conference streamed live from thousands of miles away in New York. One talk in particular impressed me. It was a joint presentation by Eve Bridburg (founder and director of the “Grub Street” writers centre) and publishing industry guru, Porter Anderson. They presented a scatter diagram with some of the many ways an author could promote themselves and their book. The sheer number of avenues for promotion was staggering. Some were familiar to me, others I had heard of, but didn’t fully understand or didn’t have the necessary expertise to exploit, some I had never even come across. The promotional band-waggon moves at one hell of a speed and is constantly changing. Facebook, twitter, blogs and websites are really only the tip of the promotional iceberg, and that’s without thinking about methods of generating or manipulating on-line traffic. Some have used them extremely effectively, but the vast majority (like me) I suspect have barely scratched the surface.

It was what Eve Bridburg said in conclusion though, that really made me think. It was like a moment of calm in a blizzard of concepts, initiatives and innovations. I can’t vouch for its accuracy, but this is what I took away from what she said in terms of self-promotion:-

• Don’t feel you have to do it all – it’s not even possible nowadays.
• Set goals, but do what makes you feel happy.
• Strive for balance between writing and promotion.
• Manage your expectations and don’t get sucked in by the hype.
• Be honest with yourself about what you want to achieve, and what is achievable.
• Never lose touch with what it is you enjoy about writing,
• Remember why you started writing, and what your goals were then.
• Decide what really matters in your writing, and who you want to reach.

And

• Celebrate the achievements that have really meant something to you.

My book, “Avon Street” was one year old this month. The book is set in Bath and my publisher (The Mystery Press) recommended right at the start that I should call into the main Bath bookshops and introduce myself.

It was good advice, though I was nervous initially about strolling in and introducing myself. My first visit was to The Oldfield Park Bookshop. They did not have my book in stock, but said that they would order it. They also made me feel welcome, boosted my confidence and gave me the encouragement to try other bookshops.  Toppings bookshop was also welcoming, as was Mr B’s Emporium. Toppings had copies of the book which they asked me to sign (a strange feeling) and they also took the couple of posters I offered them. Waterstones were less welcoming, saying (probably quite rightly) that I should have made an appointment to see the relevant person.

Celebrating three achievements that have really meant something to me.

1. I was amazed when, later that same day, I walked past Toppings bookshop again. There in the front window were copies of “Avon Street” complete with posters. In a couple of hours they had built a window display for a local, unknown writer.
2. A few months later, in the summer, I walked into Waterstones and “Avon Street” had a glowing staff review card under it. It was displayed cover-outwards and was included in their “Buy Two – Get Second half-price” promotion. Again, a largely unknown writer was sitting beside national bestsellers and household names.
3. Just before Christmas, my daughter texted me to say, ‘Hey dad, I’m in Oldfield Park Bookshop and your book is in the Top Thirty.’ –   I can’t claim “Avon Street” is a national bestseller – but in Oldfield Park it was – and that felt good.

And OK, most bookshops in Britain won’t even have heard of “Avon Street” let alone stock it. But looking back on the year, these are the 3 achievements that have given me the most joy – and they all came from high street bookshops. I’d just like to say a big thank you to all the bookshops in Bath, including the ones I haven’t mentioned. You’ve all helped and encouraged. And to all the other bookshops wherever you may be – Keep up the good fight.

So, Bookshops

Who needs ‘em? 

Writers do!  

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The Victorian Workhouse

‘And the Union workhouses.’ demanded Scrooge. ‘Are  they still in operation?’ 

Charles Dickens – A Christmas Carol

Layout of Bath Workhouse in 1848

 

Workhouses are thought to date back as far as the fourteenth century and the aftermath of the “Black Death.” The plague was merciless in Britain and outbreaks recurred at intervals throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As a result, the working population was decimated and the shortage of labour pushed up wages. To try and halt this, several Acts of Parliament were passed aimed at forcing all able-bodied men to work and to keep wages at their old levels, but their main effect was to create itinerant labourers who travelled around the country looking for areas where they could earn more.

The Poor Law Act of 1388 tried to stop this by introducing regulations restricting the movements of all labourers and itinerant beggars. No one could leave their own parish to seek work elsewhere without the written permission of the local Justice of the Peace, and the poor were prohibited from begging and could only receive help from the Parish in which they were born. Alms houses were built for the destitute but the earliest known reference to the term “Workhouse” dates back to 1631, when the mayor of Abingdon (near Oxford) records:-

“wee haue erected wthn our borough, a workehouse to sett poore people to worke”

A further Poor Law Act in 1597 governed the care of the destitute right up until the 19^th Century. This law required the local justices of the peace to appoint, annually, “Overseers of the Poor” to find work for those in need, to apprentice children, and to provide,

“the necessary relief of the lame, impotent, old, blind and such other being poor and not able to work”.

This Poor Law required poor rates to be charged as a local tax, replacing voluntary charitable funding. The rate of charge and arrangements for distribution were to be decided by the Overseers. Though most parishes had houses set aside for the old, infirm and destitute these were more like alms-houses than workhouses and most support was given in the form of subsistence payments known as “out relief.”

The real growth in workhouses took place in the nineteenth century, following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Hundreds of thousands of troops returned home to find there was no work for them. Most had been agricultural workers before the war and the new technology in farming had reduced the need for labour. At the same time a series of poor harvests had pushed up food prices and the Importation Act of 1815 had prohibited the importation of cheaper cereals from abroad. For most people, bread was the main part of their diet and yet they could no longer even afford bread.  So many had become destitute and were starving by the early 1830s that the system could not support them. The Government sought a cheaper alternative to “out relief.”

Its response was the Poor Law of 1834 which set up local Poor Law Unions with a view to actively discouraging the provision of relief to anyone who refused to enter a workhouse – and workhouses were intended to be harsh, to deter the able-bodied poor and to ensure that only the truly destitute would apply. They were often designed, like prisons of that time, in blocks which extended out like the spokes of a wheel from a central core (see illustrations of Bath Workhouse). Families were separated, with husbands, wives and children all sleeping in separate dormitories. During the day they all worked on breaking stones for roads, crushing bones for fertiliser, or picking oakum for packing the joints of timbers in ships. To pick oakum they used a large metal nail known as a “spike,” which may be how the workhouse earned its nickname of “The Spike“.

The City of Bath, though often associated with the wealth and elegance of the Georgian romantic novel, also had a workhouse. Bath Poor Law Union was formed in 1836 and the workhouse was  built between 1836 and 1838 (later to become St Martin’s Hospital). By the 1830s the city had a resident population of about 50,000, yet at times the population swelled by up to a further 20,000 itinerant people looking for work. In 1842, “The Report of the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain” cited Bath as an example to illustrate its thesis that a large part of the burden of Poor Relief was caused by the premature deaths of husbands leaving widows and orphans who struggled to survive.

Aerial photo of Former Bath Workhouse taken in early 20th Century

In practice the Poor Law Unions sometimes came into conflict with local magistrates. Such was the case with Anne Perry in Bath. She was old and increasingly infirm, and a friend, Mary Price, applied for “out-relief” on her behalf, so that she could stay at home. She was offered only admission to the workhouse. On appealing, the Magistrates made an order for “out relief,” but the Commissioner from London supported the Board’s decision. The case rumbled on for 3 months, until Ann Perry was eventually awarded “out relief.” Sadly she died 3 weeks later.

In 1848 an attempt was made to limit those classified as “beggars and tramps” from entering the Bath Workhouse. Many of these so called “tramps” were labourers who had worked on building the railways. The fact that there was no work for them now, and no other form of assistance was largely ignored. Their exclusion from the workhouse prompted a riot and the smashing of windows. The Bath Chronicle responded with an appeal to the public not to give alms to beggars or tramps:-

“The Magistrates and Guardians are still determined to prevent such an abuse of the public funds, attended as it is by no real kindness, but offering a premium to pauperism and vice, and encouraging a highly dangerous set of persons to travel over the country, passing their nights at workhouses and their days in begging, stealing and drunkenness. There is, however, a duty which the inhabitants of Bath have to perform. It is for them to exercise discretion in the disposing of such sums as they devote to the purpose of benevolence. It is for them to remember that so long as such persons receive encouragement the evil will continue, and may again return, in all its force.”

In “A Christmas Carol” the Spirit of Christmas Present reveals two children hidden under his robes. Scrooge asks him if they are his children and the Spirit replies that they are the children of Man – “This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.’

‘Have they no refuge or resource.‘ asks Scrooge.

‘Are there no prisons.‘ said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. ‘Are there no workhouses.‘”

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Tracing Austen’s Footsteps

Formal Ball at The Upper Assembly Rooms in Bath  – Painting by Thomas Rowlandson from  Victoria Art Gallery (Bath) Collection

In 1811 King George III was deemed unfit to rule and his son, the Prince Regent, ruled in his place. On his father’s death in 1820, the Prince was crowned King George IV. Coincidentally, Jane Austen’s novels were all published during the Regency period, between 1811 and 1818 .

So popular and enduring is Austen as an author, and so frequently have her novels been adopted for the screen that the images she created have now come to define the Regency era. Yet there is a danger that we begin to accept fiction as fact, to confuse the lives of her heroines with her own life, to interpret the lives of the few, as being the same as the lives of the many. And in that process there is also the risk that we lose sight of her skill and imagination as a writer. She was without doubt a keen observer, but the settings and people she describes, come as much from her imagination as from what she saw or experienced.

Jane chose to set two of her novels, “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion” in Bath. She lived in the city between 1801 and 1806 and it’s still possible to retrace her footsteps, to see some of what she saw. The pattern of roads is largely unchanged in the older part of the city. Many of the places she would have frequented are still there; The Royal Crescent, The Circus, Queen Square, Milsom Street, Pulteney Bridge, the Upper Assembly Rooms, the Pump Rooms, the Guildhall, and Sydney Gardens, to name but a few. It is easy to imagine these places as she depicts them in her novels, yet it is almost impossible to separate fact from fiction. For example, in “Northanger Abbey” we read;

 “They arrived in Bath. Catherine was all eager delight; – her eyes were here, there, everywhere, as they approached its fine and striking environs, and afterwards drove through those streets which conducted them to the hotel. She was come to be happy, and she felt happy already.”

Yet Jane also records in a letter to her sister, Cassandra, on May 5^th 1801, her own “first impression” of the city;

 “The first view of Bath in fine weather does not answer my expectations; I think I see more distinctly through rain. The sun was got behind everything, and the appearance of the place from the top of Kingsdown was all vapour, shadow, smoke, and confusion.”

Again in “Northanger Abbey” she describes a formal ball held in the Upper Assembly Rooms;

“The season was full, the room crowded, and the two ladies squeezed in as well as they could. As for Mr Allen, he repaired directly to the card-room, and left them to enjoy a mob by themselves. With more care for the safety of her new gown than for the comfort of her protégé, Mrs Allen made her way through the throng of men by the door, as swiftly as the necessary caution would allow; Catherine, however, kept close at her side, and linked her arm too firmly within her friend’s to be torn asunder by any common effort of a struggling assembly.”

Yet her own experience was somewhat different, as she reports in letter to her sister on May 12^th 1801;

“By nine o’clock my uncle, aunt, and I entered the rooms, and linked Miss Winstone on to us. Before tea it was rather a dull affair; but then the before tea did not last long, for there was only one dance, danced 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, and though it was shockingly and inhumanly thin for this place, there were people enough, I suppose, to have made five or six very pretty Basingstoke assemblies.”

They say you should write about what you know and Jane Austen certainly knew about people, but was her life really comparable to those of her heroines?  True, she attended dinner parties, suppers, formal balls and had some insight into high-society.  Yet that society was very stratified with rigid conventions and social etiquette. Those rules defined who was on a level with whom, and Jane was certainly not part of its upper echelons.  Though she was undoubtedly part of “Society” in truth she was fairly low down in the “pecking order.” Her Uncle and Aunt were wealthy and lived in the Paragon. They might have provided her with opportunities to glimpse their way of life, but they do not seem to have been over-generous to Jane or her family.

When Jane’s family moved to Bath they leased a house at 4, Sydney Place (now luxury apartments). It was a fine house in a good area, near the popular Sydney Gardens, but it was not a prestigious address in comparison with other parts of the city. And when the lease ended they moved to a house in Green Park Buildings. This was an area the family had dismissed when they first moved to the city and it’s easy to see why from Jane’s description;

“Our views on G. P. (Green Park) Buildings seem all at an end; the observation of the damps still remaining in the offices of an house which has been only vacated a week, with reports of discontented families and putrid fevers, has given the coup de grace. We have now nothing in view. When you arrive, we will at least have the pleasure of examining some of these putrefying houses again; they are so very desirable in size and situation, that there is some satisfaction in spending ten minutes within them.”

Before leaving Bath the Austen family also lived for a while in 25, Gay Street. (The Jane Austen Centre is nearby at 40 Gay Street). It was a “good address” but by then, after the death of Jane’s father, they were reduced to “taking rooms” as boarders, rather than occupying a house as owners or tenants. But by then the family were largely dependent on the charity of relatives.

It’s obvious too that Jane was well aware of the plight of the genteel poor. In “Persuasion” Sir Walter Elliot refers to Westgate Buildings as,

“Everything that revolts other people, low company, paltry rooms, foul air, disgusting associations.”

Westgate Buildings was by no means the worst of streets but it was situated on the border of the Avon Street slum area.  My own novel “Avon Street”  has an opening scene in Westgate Buildings and explores the darker aspects of the City.

Opinion is divided on whether or not Jane Austen actually liked Bath, but she certainly knew how to use it as a setting. Jane Austen created an image of Regency life which still survives today. That is a testament to her imagination and skill as a writer.  She chose to depict a way of life in her novels that did not always reflect her own everyday experience. Indeed it was not representative of the lives of most, yet it pleased her readers then, and still pleases many more readers today.

Bath is a beautiful city and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Many of the places Jane Austen visited are still there and remain largely unchanged – The Royal Crescent, The Circus, Queen Square, Milsom Street, Pulteney Bridge, the Upper Assembly Rooms, the Pump Rooms, the Guildhall, and Sydney Gardens, to name but a few. And it is still possible to retrace her footsteps and imagine the City she depicts in her novels. But it’s also worth imagining what life was really like for a country girl of limited means in a bustling city, where appearance was everything.

Much of this piece was first hosted at the “Jane Austen’s World” Website on September 8^th 2012.

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Bath – Behind the Facade

Bath – Guildhall and Entrance to Markets –by M. Gauci – Victoria Art Gallery Collection

Beau Nash made the city of Bath into the most fashionable resort in 18th-century England. In his role as Master of Ceremonies he organised the premier social events in the city and chose who should, and should not be invited. He established a select list of people who he defined as the cream of Society, and more importantly he changed the social conventions of the city.

Nash broke down the old order dominated by the nobility and gentry, and promoted the nouveaux- riches. Whereas in other cities the growing number of wealthy industrialists and tradespeople were still looked down on because of their background, in Bath, Nash welcomed them as elite members of society.

The affluent tourists rented houses and apartments and all the trappings that went with them; crockery and cutlery, silver-ware and ornaments, horses and carriages, servants and attendants. For years the city thrived on the wealth of visitors who stayed for the Season. Prominent architects designed fine buildings and the city grew. Milsom Street became one of the most prestigious shopping areas in the country. The City also had a fine theatre and there were regular costume balls in the Assembly Rooms and the Guildhall. Visitors “took the waters” in the spa baths and the social elite met daily in The Pump Rooms.

By 1801, when Jane Austen moved to Bath, the city was the 9th largest in England, with a population of 33,000. Yet the city’s fortunes had already begun to decline. Bath had changed in character and atmosphere. It was becoming less fashionable and the wealthy were visiting less often, and their stays were becoming shorter. Built in a bowl of seven hills, Bath’s ever-growing population became increasingly crowded into a relatively small area. It’s little wonder that when Jane Austen moved to the city, she wrote to her sister, Cassandra saying,

“The first view of Bath in fine weather does not answer my expectations; … the appearance of the place from the top of Kingsdown was all vapour, shadow, smoke, and confusion.”

Perhaps it is unsurprising that it seemed, “all smoke” when every household depended on coal fires for warmth, that it was “all confusion” when its roads were congested with carts and carriages. And in Georgian cities, once you set foot on the streets there was no escaping the bad drainage and lack of decent sanitation and sewerage systems. As Austen said in another letter to her sister,

“We stopped in Paragon (a prestigious address where her wealthy uncle lived) as we came along, but it was too wet and dirty for us to get out.”

By the time “Persuasion” was published in 1817, the larger part of Bath’s population was working class. Industry was thriving in the city, supplying the shops in Milsom Street and drawing people from the countryside to fill the jobs created. Yet the servants and the people who worked in the factories and sweat-shops, the costermongers and shop-assistants, the building labourers and hotel staff were, for the most part, poorly paid – and the poor did not fit neatly into the City’s image.

The only housing they could afford was overcrowded and poorly maintained, and the slum areas around Avon Street were increasing in size, as quickly as they were deteriorating in quality and appearance. By 1850, the rookery of hovels and cheap boarding-houses in and around Avon Street were home to almost a quarter of the Bath’s population though the City and its visitors did their best to ignore the area.

In “Persuasion” Anne Elliot visits a friend in Westgate Buildings, despite Sir Walter’s warning of its unsuitableness –

“Everything that revolts other people, low company, paltry rooms, foul air, disgusting associations are inviting to you.”

In my novel, “Avon Street,” I set out to explore the two very different aspects of the City of Bath that co-existed uneasilly in the Victorian era. Since Westgate Buildings is on the border of the Avon Street area it seemed only fitting that I set the first chapter of my book in the same location where Austen hinted at the dual nature of the city.

Much of this piece was originally hosted on the Jane Austen’s World Blog on June 10, 2012.

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Carrotty Kate meets Wombwell’s Menagerie – Going to Bath Fair

There was mayhem at the Bath Fair of 1839. For years the event had been held at Lansdown, high above the city on the flat-lands that abounded the Bath Road. They had been largely peaceable affairs and widely enjoyed. In the early morning farmers would congregate to buy and sell livestock. In the afternoon the local population all gathered to see the wonders of “Wombwell’s Menagerie.”

“Wombwell’s Menagerie” was essentially a travelling zoo with tigers and elephants and other exotic animals, together with merry-go-rounds and swings,  stalls and sideshows. But the fair always attracted a large number of more informal drinking-booths, dancing-tents, contests of skill, and games of chance.

At ten o’ clock on the night of the 10^th August 1839 the Sangers, owners of “Wombwell’s Menagerie,” decided to shut up shop earlier than usual. The crowd had been more boisterous than usual and from early evening fights had begun to break out around the showground. But as the Sangers began packing up the tents and stalls, “Carroty Kate” arrived at the head of a large contingent of already drunk residents of the Avon Street area of the city. George Sanger described her as:-

 “a red-headed virago, a big brutal animal, caring nothing for magistrates or gaol, who had long been the terror of every respectable person in Bath and its neighbourhood.”

Kate’s gang soon began looting the drinking-booths and beating their owners. Anything they could not drink or carry, they smashed. Booths and stalls were wrecked and burned. Many, including children, ran and hid in the surrounding fields and woods in fear of their lives.

Eventually Kate and her gang headed back to the city. But James Sanger loaded his blunderbuss, gathered the showmen together and set off in waggons, pursuing them. They caught a dozen of the fleeing rioters, including Kate. The men they tied together with tent ropes, like a human chain. Then as though it was a tug-of-war contest they dragged them back and fro through a deep pond. When they were half-drowned the show-men dragged them towards the waggons.

One of the rioters shouted,”Are you a-going to kill us? Ain’t you done enough?”

“Not half enough,” one of the showmen replied.

A captive called out, “Murder! Murder!”

“Shut it!” came the answer. “Save your breath for the next scene. You’ll want it then!”

Their captors tied them, two by two to the wheels of the waggons and flogged them with riding whips. After two dozen lashes each they sent them back to the city, barely able to walk. Then they turned to Kate.

The proprietor of a wax-works tent, a woman, shouted, “We’re not going to drag ‘ee through the pond, bad as you wants washin’, nor use the horse-whips to ‘ee, but you’re a-going to be made to smart all the same.” Four of the women in the party then held Kate over a trestle while two others beat her with canes before releasing her.

The rioters who escaped capture by the show-folk fared little better. They were met by the police as they entered the city. Another skirmish ensued. Several were arrested and later transported. One of the rioters though, severely injured a policeman with an iron bar. He was later tried and hung, for wounding with intent to murder. History does not record what became of “Carrotty Kate.”

Avon Street was a dangerous place to be – and to be from.

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Historical Novels – A Story that Had to be Told

Painting by William Hardwick from Victoria Art Gallery (Bath) Collection

Drownings in the River Avon were relatively common in Bath in the middle of the 19^th Century. Many were accidental, or at least that’s what the Coroner’s Court often concluded. A substantial number though, were suicides. They were regularly reported as such in the local paper, but were rarely seen as newsworthy by the national press.

The people who had taken their own lives in the River Avon were for the most part un-newsworthy because they were usually poor. They were part of the nameless, faceless masses exploited by the Industrial Revolution, routinely marginalised and vilified in the press. Popular opinion was that they were lazy, ignorant and dirty; given to drinking too much, and begging, or they were itinerants, migrants without roots, who did not want to work and were content to live in squalor.

Yet it was in “The Times” newspaper archive that I first read of the incident that now forms the prologue to my book – an incident so tragic, abhorrent and pitiful that it was reported nationally. On Sunday 6^th February 1850, in the early hours of the morning, Thomas Hunt drowned himself and his young daughter.  The Coroner’s Court determined that Hunt had taken his own life and found him guilty of the murder of his daughter.

I knew when I read the piece that I would include their story somewhere in my book. It seemed somehow to summarise the tragic lives of many who survived in the Avon Street area of Bath. It was the darkness and despair that existed at the heart of the city – the secret that was kept hidden behind the Georgian facades – the lie that lay behind the carefully contrived and protected image.

I had initially intended to use the incident as an anecdote somewhere in the book, perhaps brought up in conversation between the characters, but the story of Thomas Hunt and his daughter, would not leave me. Eventually it became a lynch pin, something that brought the characters together, or drove them apart. It played a big part in determining the plot and came to influence atmosphere and settings, as I tried to explore the two very different worlds that co-existed in the city.

There was nothing in the newspaper records to indicate that Thomas Hunt was in debt (as he is in my book) but debt and loan-sharks were a way of life for the working class at that time, as they are increasingly  now. Their story came almost to define what life must have been like for many of the residents of Avon Street and though prologues are unfashionable and may even put some people off reading a book, their story (or my interpretation of it) now forms the prologue of “Avon Street” – because that’s where it needs to be.

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Writing “Avon Street”

Writing has been a big part of almost every job I have had, from reports and promotional literature, to research studies and strategies, but it wasn’t until I started an evening course on short story writing that I realised how important writing had been in my life, and how much I enjoyed working with language. I had written a few short stories and poems over the years, but never bothered trying to get them published. Most of them I did not even keep. I had even written a few calypsos and humorous songs, for Xmas parties and social events, when working at the Wales Tourist Board – I supplied the words, and a gifted folk singer provided the music – and more importantly, the voice. She has a great voice. I do not.

But back to that first evening course – It made me realise how much I enjoyed writing fiction, but also how much I had to learn. I began writing a journal (in the early morning) to establish the habit and discipline of writing. Sometimes they were stories, other times they were reminiscences or just ideas. The important thing was to write everyday. I learned about the theory and techniques of creative writing in classes, but more importantly, by writing regularly I was finding my voice, as a writer.

During the evening classes 9and I went for years) we had to write to tight timescales, which can be frustrating, but also fires the imagination and stops you over-thinking an idea. They also gave me an opportunity to see how the same subject matter can be tackled in so many different ways from different perspectives. Assignments too, covered a wide range of techniques and subject matter, which again was challenging, but forced me as a writer to experiment and challenge my own boundaries, and develop my own unique style.

One of my short stories won a prize in the Wells Literary Competition. It was an amazing experience to hear it read by a professional actor on local radio. Another story gave me the idea for “Avon Street” and now forms part of Chapter 12 of the book. It was going to be the opening chapter when I started writing the book, which will give some idea of the many changes and edits the book has been through.

I also started “Avon Street” with a firm chapter by chapter plan. But this too quickly evaporated as the characters grew stronger and began to assert themselves.  As I came to know them better it became clearer what they would or would not do and think in certain circumstances, which sometimes changed the plot and generated new sub-plots. Even the setting (Bath) slowly emerged as a character in its own right. The more research I did, the more fact merged with fiction. It was clear that Bath was place where, with the right money, you could be whoever you wanted to be – the perfect setting for an historical crime novel where no one is who they seem to be.

I began posting on the Guardian Books blog, again to test my writer’s voice.  I attended other writing courses, this time at Bath Spa University, everything from poetry as story-telling to screen writing and the novel; all to try to improve my writing. When I was about half way through the first draft of Avon I tested the opening chapters on two websites where writers review each others work. The chapters did well and the comments I received helped in sharpening the dialogue and improving the pace of the story. I experimented with poetry too, to improve my use of language and was lucky to have a poem published in a Guardian anthology. All of this helped in polishing the novel and refining the characters, plot and settings.

The final draft was sent to various publishers and agents and again when they provided feedback I tried to respond. I’ve lost count now of the revisions “Avon Street” has been through. The road to becoming a published writer was not easy, more a roller-coaster than a road, but it’s due out on the first of February. If you read it, I hope you enjoy it. If you enjoy it, I hope you will tell others.

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Bath – Appearance is Everything

Ball at the Upper Assembly Rooms, Bath – Painting by R.Cruikshank from the Victoria Art Gallery Collection.

“It was a much safer place for a gentleman in his predicament – he might there be important at comparatively little cost.” – “Persuasion”

Beau Nash turned Bath into the most fashionable resort in 18th-century England and established the framework and beliefs on which the city was developed. He had been somewhat of a failure in his former careers in the army and in the law, but that did not hold him back when he took up his role as Master of Ceremonies for the City of Bath in 1704, a position he retained until his death.

Though the title of Master of Ceremonies was unofficial it gave Nash substantial power in the city. He established a select list of people (some 500 to 600) that he judged to be the cream of Society. There was competition amongst visitors (whatever their standing) to earn his favour and to be included in the list. Nash would meet new arrivals to the city and assess whether they were worthy of inclusion in his “select company.” He organised the premier social events in Bath and chose who should be invited, and largely dictated who should socialise with whom. He also controlled the gambling in the city, from which he earned his living.

More importantly Nash is also remembered for creating a new informality in manners in the city, breaking down the old social order which had preserved the dominance of the nobility and the gentry. At this time there was a growing middle class of successful businessmen, industrialists and trades-people who might be from humble origins but who  had plenty of money; and Nash and the city of Bath were dependent on money, wherever it came from. Nash’s new social hierarchy was very much based on the abilities to exhibit all the trappings of wealth, to be entertaining and to spend lavishly.

This new social order was revolutionary in its time. It meant that people of wealth would be welcomed in Bath as members of high society, whereas in other towns and cities they might still be judged by their birth and background. A whole industry and way of life grew up around this convention. The city thrived on attracting temporary visitors who stayed for the season or who visited in parties.

Few of these people lived in the city. They visited for a few months, renting houses or apartments – and they could rent everything in Bath – from the best addresses, to crockery and cutlery, silver-ware and ornaments, horses and carriages, servants and attendants. In short, providing you had the money (or the credit) you could be whoever you wanted to be in Bath; or as Jane Austen observed in “Persuasion” it was a city where someone could “be important at comparatively little cost.”

It was the ease with which characters could deceive in Bath that created so much potential in setting an historical crime novel in the city. “Avon Street” is set much later (in the mid-19^th century) and though Bath had changed by then, Nash’s rules still applied – you could still be who you wanted to be in Bath, irrespective of your roots. It was still a city where appearance was everything.

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