Regency Bathroom Breaks
You've overdone the punch at Lady Insufferable's rout. You need a bathroom break, but it's 1811. Is a bourdaloue really the only option? Engraving 1801. British Museum In the first decades of the 19th century the average English family used some kind of outdoor privy, rather like the one shown in the 1801 caricature (left) of an 'old maid' ousted by her squabbling cats. The "water closet" (as a flush toilet was known) was considered a prestigious luxury. Indoor plumbing barely existed, making the first toilets costly and impractical to install. [...]
Outsiders Within – Romani in the Regency
By the time 'Gypsies' appeared on the pages of Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott and Maria Edgeworth, Romani people had been in England for centuries. Sidebar: Believing the copper-skinned migrants to hail from Egypt, the Europeans had coined the term "Gypsies" for these migrants. Some consider this pejorative and prefer Rom/Roma or Traveler. However studies of genetics, culture, and language show distinct differences in heritage between the communities of Eastern Europe (predominately Roma), the Travelers (almost entirely Irish), and English and Welsh Gypsies (Romani). To avoid geographic confusion, the broader 'Gypsies' is used in this post. [...]
Regency Spending Power
A simplistic inflation calculation does not give meaning to Regency spending power. Lord Byron could have hired ten scullery maids for the price of a musical snuffbox he purchased in 1813 - £105. According to Samuel and Sarah Adams (The Complete Servant, 1825), an income of £100 a year would enable a Regency household to hire a maid-of-all-work, for about £5-10 per year. This poor dogsbody might hope to save the price of Lord Byron's snuffbox in the course of her lifetime. She would have found it unthinkable to spend an entire month of her wages [...]
