West Wycombe Park

An autumn view of West Wycombe Park, an early 18th century English Palladian mansion in the Chiltern Hills, north-west of London. The house was built by Sir Francis Dashwood, sometime Chancellor of the Exchequer and founder of the Dilettante Society and slightly more notorious Hellfire Club. The caves where the latter Club held meetings are nearby and make an interesting visit.

The house is still in the family:the 12th Baronet Edward Dashwood currently enjoys the modest 5000-acre estate, albeit shared with visitors as the property is run by the National Trust.

Nearly West Wycombe village dates from the 16th century and is also looked after by the National Trust. The pubs and jettied shops on the old coaching road feel in a different age to dreary High Wycombe up the road.


The peace of this area of the Chilterns is now threatened by the High Speed 2 train project.

Photo: the author.

London Lives 1690-1800

London Lives 1690-1800 is a new searchable directory of over 240,000 contemporary primary sources relating to the lives of 3 million 18th century Londoners at the lower end of the social spectrum.

The project manager is Sharon Howard, who writes Early Modern Notes and is one of the coordinators of the long-running history blog carnival Carnivalesque.

The site is based around workhouse records, criminal registers, coroners' reports and court orders, and the London these documents describe is one where the death penalty was standard for run-of-the-mill thieving.

In many cases individuals with reasonable education and prospects fell in with wrong'uns and ended up on the wrong side of the law, and the consequences were often fatal or involved transportation "down under".

The Keyword search facility is itself evocative - who could resist exploring CopesMadhouse and HardLabouronHulks ?

Documents relating to the same individual are assembled into biographies or lives, with historical background written by the project team. This is one of the most powerful features of the site, and will expand as more biographies are added.

I decided to have a look at the fate of Margaret Larney, an Irish mother of five who was sentenced to death for "degrading the coin of the realm". This involved filing down gold coins, selling the filings, then passing off the "light" coin.

For women the death penalty even in this century was burning at the stake, but in this case there is no surviving record of how Larney perished.

This is an excellent resource that gets under the skin of 18thC London.

The Guardian/Observer has a glowing review too.

The picture is Hogarth's portrait of Sarah Malcolm, hanged for her part in the murder of three women in 1733 (also featured in the Observer review above)

Empire of the Seas with Dan Snow

"Empire of the Seas: How the Navy Forged the Modern World" is the title of Dan Snow's four-part documentary series currently setting sail on Friday evenings on BBC2, and jolly bracing it is too.

Dan is the son of Peter Snow, through-the-night BBC anchorman for many parliamentary elections, and I half expected Dan to roll out his dad's famous Swingometer to illustrate the shifts in the balance of sea power between Spain, France and Blighty.

As a former Boat Race man himself, Dan loses no opportunity to climb rigging, stand Winslet-like at the prow and man the wheel of various expensive-looking craft that the BBC has managed to borrow.

He also helps the modern Royal Navy to show off several of its more modern vessels, including a simulated raid by a large state-of-the-art fisheries protection vessel on a tiny defenceless fishing boat which the RN boat could easily squash by accident. Maybe there were no Somali pirates around to teach a lesson to...

The series charts the progress of the Royal Navy from the defeat of the Armada to the First World War, and therein lies one of the criticisms that have been aimed at the BBC. Why ignore the contribution of Henry VIII (and earlier regimes) in establishing the early Navy? Daly History Blog argues a similar point.

Cardinal Wolsey suspects that with such high production values (lots of helicopter flypasts as Dan sways on the topmast) the budget would only stretch to four episodes, so the early days had to be cut. See this previous post on Henry VIII's dockyards if you are interested in this period.

Another criticism is the sometimes slapdash treatment of the background politics (as opposed to the naval stuff proper). James Russell points out that the Armada was not simply a revenge mission for Drake's attack on Cadiz (as claimed in episode 1), but in fact it's key objective was to reverse the Protestant reformation and restore the Catholic church.

But Empire of the Seas is very good on how the expansion of the Navy was masterminded by men such as Sam Pepys . I agree with Molly Joyful's blog that the series isn't too gung-ho and highlights some of the less savoury episodes on the seas. These include the sad story of Admiral John Byng, also the subject of a previous post in this blog.

There is also a lavishly illustrated book to go with the series, written by expert naval historian Brian Lavery. Amazon UK are currently offering it at half price which at £10 is incredible value. That leaves a tenner spare for a bottle of rum to go with it.

Virtual Exhibitions of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France

I recently stumbled the Virtual Exhibitions page of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (BNF to its friends), which conveniently has an English translation button.

The site a) looks fab and b) has plenty of interesting content.

Enlightenment ("Lumieres") charts "the passage from obscuranticism to free thought and free actions, illuminated by reason" from the mid-C18th onwards . The presentation is grouped around the themes of religion, science, the individual, public space, the political order, universality, and heritage.

There are plenty of pertinent quotes, and I like this one from Voltaire (picture above):

"If England had only one religion, despotism would have to be feared; if she had two, they would cut each other's throats, but since there are thirty, the English live in peace with one another." (1734)

Also to enjoy are beautifully presented expositions on Medieval Bestiary and Medieval Gastronomy.

Merveilleux!

Ghosts of Kew Palace

Kew Palace is a striking terracotta Dutch-gable style house in the grounds of Kew Gardens, London.

It was built in 1663 by a merchant and later leased by George III, who acceeded the throne in 1760.

It is not really a palace at all, but takes the name of a larger building commissioned by George III in the same grounds, but never finished.
You can still view the outline of the foundations.

Unfortunately George went mad before this palace was completed. His son the Prince Regent didn't fancy it, and Parliament opted to knock it down [the staircase ended up at Buckingham Palace].

The "Dutch House" as it was known was used by Queen Charlotte, and their family. An enormous dolls house is one of the exhibits - it needed to be large as they had 15 children. She died there in 1818.

The palace is open to the public and a painstaking restoration has left areas where the decorations are peeled away to reveal layers beneath. It is very atmospheric, expecially in the "back stairs" and upper servants quarters. Here clever audio-visuals create ghostly memories of the lives of those who once served the royal family [all photographs copyright this blogl

Captain Woodes Rogers where are you now?

Last week a $3m ransom was parachuted onto the deck of the hijacked supertanker Sirius Star, which had been captured by well-armed Somali pirates. No doubt the insurers considered this a reasonable price to retrieve the $100m cargo and crew. The pirates wittily call themselves the Central Regional Coastguard.

The large number of warships of various countries on patrol off the Kenyan coast don't seem able to stop these ruffians from interrupting legitimate commerce. Maybe they could do with some assistance from an old-fashioned privateer such as the redoubtable Captain Woodes Rogers, who made Caribbean pirates' lives a misery in the early 1700's. He is credited with rescuing Alexander Selkirk, the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, from his island.

The Daily Telegraph reports that a rare copy of Woodes Rogers' journal has been unearthed in a
Bristol attic. It will be auctioned on 21st Jan and is expected to reach £3,000. Good value.

The painting above shows Woodes Rogers and his family:
"Here he is seen with his family, as his son proudly holds a plan of burgeoning Port Nassau (visible in the background). In reality, events proved less happy for the new British acquisition." Angus Konstam, The History of Pirates. Quoted here.

Cannon fodder

This post is a modest entry for the Your Nearest Site carnival....
In a Hampton cul-de-sac, a couple of streets from my house, an upturned cannon sits in the ground surrounded by a patch of grass in the middle of a small council estate.

It is a interesting relic of General William Roy's pioneering late C18th triangulation work which laid the basis for the Ordnance Survey.

The photo is courtesy the Twickenham Museum website, which tells the story of how Roy, a Royal Engineer, used triangulation to measure the distance between the Paris and Greenwich observatories. Until the advent of GPS, triangulation was the only means to measure distances over water.

The other end Roy's baseline, 5 miles to the north, is marked by another cannon in a slightly more noisy location on the perimeter road around Heathrow Airport.

To quote the Royal Engineers Museum site, "This line was measured in the summer of 1784, three times over, by means of cased glass tubing, seasoned deal rods and a steel chain. The discrepancy between these three methods was less than 3 inches".

John Wilkes thrown out of the Commons for lewd "Essay on Women", 21st February 1764

John Wilkes (unflattering etching by Hogarth on right) was thrown out of the Commons in February 1764 for his lewd "Essay on Women"; today in history 2/21.

John Wilkes was an important radical politician in 18th century England, whose ugly features did not prevent him successfully chasing women whilst at the same time championing the cause of Liberty, to the annoyance of George III and his government.

Here's an extract from an entertaining book review by Geoffrey Robertson in the Times Online from March 2006:

Lord Sandwich (famous for declining to rise from his gaming table for lunch, ordering instead “two slices of bread with something in between”) read the poem to the House, declaring that:
“. . . life can little more supply Than just a few good f***s and then we die.” [sorry , had to censor this! - CW]
This was a golden moment in the history of British hypocrisy. Sandwich faltered, but their lordships shouted “Go on, go on” before condemning Wilkes for publishing an obscene and blasphemous libel. Wilkes had the last laugh — to Sandwich’s suggestion that he would die either by hanging or the pox, he famously quipped: “That depends on whether I embrace your lordship’s principles or your mistress.”

Wilkes was regarded as a hero of Liberty in the United States, and John Wilkes Booth , assassin of Abraham Lincoln, was indeed named after him.

More on John Wilkes from Wikipedia .

Alexander Selkirk, inspiration for "Robinson Crusoe", rescued from Fernandez Island. Today in history, 1709

On 12th February 1709 Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor, was rescued from Fernandez Island after 4 1/2 years as a castaway. He was probably the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, first published in 1719.

Wikipedia has an entry on Selkirk. His ship, the privateer Cinque Ports, was not wrecked, but Selkirk suspected it was unseaworthy and would not last the rest of the voyage (he was right).

At first afraid of the wild beasts that might inhabit the interior of the island, he initially stayed near the beach but was pestered by mating sea lions. Further inland he found wild goats and other food, and was able to build shelter using carpenters' tools he had brought ashore from his ship.

After avoiding detection by two Spanish ships (they did not like privateers and would probably have strung him up , or worse), he was eventually rescued by another privateer, the Duke.

Those of a certain age like myself will recall the haunting main theme to the mid-1960s TV show Robinson Crusoe, compulsory viewing at the time with his adventures enthusiastically recreated in the garden the next day.

The good news is that you can still get the soundtrack album on Amazon, or Youtube...does this bring back any memories?

Men who commanded their own firing squads part 2: Admiral John Byng, March 1757

Admiral John Byng of the Royal Navy, like Marshal Ney in last week's post, gave the order to fire to his own firing squad, in his case by dropping a white handkerchief onto the deck of his flagship "Monarch", on which he was shot at Portsmouth in March 1757.

Byng had been found guilty by court-martial of "failing to do his utmost" in preventing the French capture of Minorca in 1756, at the start of the Seven Years War.

Many thought Byng had been made a scapegoat, and Voltaire wrote about his death in Candide, recording that in England 'it is thought good to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others' (pour encourager les autres)

Byng's end is recorded in typically terse naval style in the Master of the 'Monarch's' log recording the execution: 'at 12 Mr Byng was shot dead by 6 Marines and put into his coffin'.

Links: the National Maritime Museum , Peter Davis' site (where you can also download a Windows simulator for a square-rigged frigate) , Letters from Voltaire re. Byng on the Voltaire Soc. America site.

Other posts on this blog of naval interest:
The Spanish Armada
The Battle of Sole Bay
The Capture of Napoleon by the Bellerophon

The Last Wolf in Scotland, 1743

This post was prompted by a UK newspaper article about the Wolf Conservation Trust, which led to a bit of web research on wolves in British history. The wolf has a part-mythic place in history and so the boundary between fact and fiction is slightly blurred.

By means of hunting with horses and dogs or trapping in pits, traps and cages, wolves were completely wiped out in England by the early 1500s, in Cardinal Wolsey's time. Wolves may have survived in Scotland until the mid-1700s, when deforestation finally removed their safe havens . The exact time and place date or place when the last wolf was slain is not known, but here is an [edited] account from the page on wolves in Scotland on the website of the now-defunct Glasgow Zoo:

". . One day, in the winter of 1743, in Morayshire, the ruling Laird, of MacIntosh received a message from the chief of clan Mackintosh, that a large wolf had on the preceding day killed two children, who, with their mothers, were crossing the hills from Calder.

The Laird's stalker Macqueen was consequently invited by the chief to attend a "Tainchel", or gathering in the forest of Tarnaway, in Moray, and to bring with him his dogs. A man great stature and of corresponding strength, Macquenn kept the best deer-hounds in the country

On the morning of the tryst, Mackintosh waited eagerly for Macqueen, but he only arrived at noon. As Mackintosh was about to complain of his delay, Macqueen raised his plaid, and drew from under his arm the bloody head of the aggressor. "I met the bit beastie," said Macqueen, "and this is his head...as I came through the sloch by east the hill there, I foregathered wi the beast. My long dog there turned him. I buckled wi him and kirkit him, and syne whuttled his craig, and brought awa his countenance for fear he might come alive again, for they are precarious creatures!"

Mackintosh expressed his admiration, and rewarded his vigorous kinsman with the lands of Sean-a-chan for "meat to his dogs." Macqueen of Pall-a-chrocain died in 1797"


For another link to the history of wolves in Scotland go to the Wolves and Humans site.
Also see Wolf web

Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield. (1694–1773)

Who's he?, I hear you say. Philip Dormer Stanhope was a statesman (ambassador to the Hague, lord lieutenant of Ireland) and author. Many memorable quotes come from Stanhope's letters to his illegitimate son, (also named Philip Stanhope), published in 1774, designed "for the education of a young man". [Sadly his son died young].

On this day in 1749 he wrote "Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds".

Here is a selection of more of his witticisms from various sources...

"Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well". (my mother's favourite)
Letter, March 10, 1746.

"I knew once a very covetous, sordid fellow, who used to say, 'Take care of the pence, for the pounds will take care of themselves.'”
Letter, Nov. 6, 1747.

"Chapter of accidents"
Letter, Feb. 16, 1753.

"I assisted at the birth of that most significant word 'flirtation', which dropped from the most beautiful mouth in the world".
The World. No. 101.

"Every woman is infallibly to be gained by every sort of flattery, and every man by one sort or other"

"Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in a mixed company.”

“Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always want it the least.”

"Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day. "
- Letters to his Son

For more on the earl, see this link to the Project Gutenburg site, where you can read the letters to his son.

This Day in History - Bastille Day, 14th July.

This Day in History for July14th is of course Bastille Day. If you'd like to listen to a rousing version of La Marseillaise, here is a link . The lyrics are bloodthirsty, but good for rousing the troops.
Something a little bit different for today's post is some literary history, from the Writer's Almanac website from US public radio, which I have just discovered via Bloglines. Click on this link to hear the wonderful Garrison Keillor (pictured) tell you about literary anniversaries today (Owen Wister, Woody Guthrie, and Isaac Singer) , and as a bonus he also reads a poem.

5th June, 1783. First Public Balloon Flight

The Montgolfier brothers make the first public balloon flight.

This from inventors.about.com...[incidentally, in their "what's hot" list, they have the history of frozen food.....geddit?]

"The Montgolfier brothers, born in Annonay, France, were the inventors of the first practical balloon. The first demonstrated flight of a hot air balloon took place on June 4, 1783, in Annonay, France.

Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier, paper mill owners, were trying to float bags made of paper and fabric. When the brothers held a flame near the opening at the bottom, the bag (called a balon) expanded with hot air and floated upward. The Montgolfier brothers built a larger paper-lined silk balloon and demonstrated it on June 4, 1783, in the marketplace at Annonay. Their balloon (called a Montgolfiere) lifted 6,562 feet into the air.

First Passengers
On September 19, 1783, in Versailles, a Montgolfiere hot air balloon carrying a sheep, a rooster, and a duck flew for eight minutes in front of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and the French court.

First Manned Flight
On October 15, 1783, Pilatre de Rozier and Marquis d'Arlandes were the first human passengers on a Montgolfiere balloon. The balloon was in free flight, meaning it was not tethered.
On January 19, 1784, a huge Montgolfiere hot air balloon carried seven passengers to a height of 3,000 feet over the city of Lyons.

Montgolfier Gas
At the time, the Montgolfiers believed they had discovered a new gas (they called Montgolfier gas) that was lighter than air and caused the inflated balloons to rise. In fact, the gas was merely air, which became more buoyant as it was heated."