Category: Kristine Hughes

Regency Interiors – Do Not Try This At Home

Interior, Royal Pavilion, Brighton

Ah, the Regency and it’s interiors . . . a style so captivating that it’s essence has been re-vamped, re-thought and re-invented to this day. In his quintessential book on the topic, Regency Style, author Steven Parissien writes, “The Regency was a marvelous period for the visual arts. It was a time in architecture when Palladian grandeur was fused with Neo-Classical academicism and with the vivid visions of gifted designers such as Soane and Hope. Colours were more exotic and vibrant than they had been for centuries . . . ”

Nowhere was the Regency more exotic or vibrant than at George IV’s Brighton Pavilion. Awash in period fabrics and paints and filled with global geegaws and every concievable architectural embellishment, it still stands as an ode to excess.

Regency interiors on a much more realistic level can be seen at the Regency Town House in Hove, above, where I had the pleasure of visiting and meeting Dr. Nick Tyson several years ago. The Regency Town House is a five storey, Grade 1 Listed, terraced house of the mid 1820’s, designed by the Regency architect Charles Augustin Busby where Tyson heads a project to restore the townhouse to it’s original period state. The partition walls were pulled down and the original features painstakingly repaired or replaced. Tyson and his team made visits to neighbouring houses on the Square to search for examples of the original ceiling roses, fireplaces and plasterwork.Their efforts included painstakingly stripping the paint from the walls, layer by layer, and dating each color until they reached the original, Regency paint. Here, Regency architectural elements exist, but they are on a much more realistic, and liveable, scale than those found at the Pavilion.

A restored ceiling rose at the Regency Town House
Architecture aside, Regency furnishings were defined by Egyptian, Chinese and Neo-Classical influences – a fact which 20th – 21st century interior designers either never knew or choose to forget. The term “Regency” as applied to design has become distilled. Today, “Regency” is a designation applied to hotels, dry cleaners, limo services and a host of other businesses in the hopes of giving them a little class. In design, the essence of what defines the Regency has been re-interpreted through the years and all but vanished. The Hollywood Regency style was characterized by high glamour and glitz and emerged through the work of interior designers the likes of Dorothy Draper, Elsie de Wolfe, and William (Billy) Haines, who in the 1930’s decorated the homes of movie stars during  Hollywood’s Golden Age.

In the 1930’s, Dorothy Draper took on a design project at Hampshire House, an apartment building located at Central Park South in New York, where she installed a mix of English and Italian baroque styles throughout, while adding oversized black and white doors, plaster reliefs carved in the ornate style of Grinling Gibbons and, of all things, chairs that look like nothing so much as modified Hall Porter’s chairs.

In fact, a few years back, decorators collectively took to installing Hall Porter’s chairs everywhere – including restaurants, such as that located within Bergdorf Goodman in New York, below.

In one of my parallel careers (magazine editor, travel writer, food critic), exactly which I cannot now remember, I reviewed a restaurant located within a Miami Beach hotel. It had just been revamped and the decorator had opted to use Hall Porter’s chairs as seating at some of the tables. After approving my review, the hotel’s PR person called to ask if I could change the phrase Hall Porter’s chair to Porter’s hall chair in the text. She thought it sounded better and that’s the term their decorator had used. I told her (emphatically) that I could not.  And why. I did not tell her that her decorator obviously had no idea what a Hall Porter’s chair was, how it had been employed, much less why it was designed as it was -with it’s curving wing backs – in order to keep draughts off the heads and necks of the servants who had to sit in it all night long so as to be ready to open the door when their masters arrived home late at night. The fact remains that a Hall Porter’s chair was a piece of furniture meant to be used by a servant and no self respecting Regency homeowner would have used them otherwise. They certainly would not have felt honoured if made to sit in one whilst eating their dinner.

 

Nowadays, there has evolved yet another incarnation of the Regency design – Vogue Regency. And a 2008 book called Regency Redux: High Style Interiors: Napoleonic, Classical Moderne, and Hollywood Regency written by Emily Evans Eerdmans attempts to explain the various incarnations of Regency style through the 1940’s.

What remains inexplicable is why designers do not avail themselves of comtemporary sources, beginning with Rudolph Ackermann, in order to get the basis for their designs right. I suppose I might not be so aghast at some in the design world reinterpreting Regency style if they had any idea of the actual origins of the concept. Porter’s Hall chairs . . . . I ask you!

An Account of a Duel at Bath

The following is an extract from “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” by Charles Mackay (1841):

A barbarous and fiercely-contested duel was fought in November 1778, between two foreign adventurers, at Bath, named Count Rice and the Vicomte du Barri. Some dispute arose relative to a gambling transaction, in the course of which Du Barri contradicted an assertion of the other, by saying, “That is not true!” Count Rice immediately asked him if he knew the very disagreeable meaning of the words he had employed. Du Barri said he was perfectly well aware of their meaning, and that Rice might interpret them just as he pleased. A challenge was immediately given and accepted. Seconds were sent for, who, arriving with but little delay, the whole party, though it was not long after midnight, proceeded to a place called Claverton Down, where they remained with a surgeon until daylight. They then prepared for the encounter, each being armed with two pistols and a sword.
The ground having been marked out by the seconds, Du Barri fired first, and wounded his opponent in the thigh. Count Rice then levelled his pistol, and shot Du Barri mortally in the breast. So angry were the combatants, that they refused to desist; both stepped back a few paces, and then rushing forward, discharged their second pistols at each other. Neither shot took effect, and both throwing away their pistols, prepared to finish the sanguinary struggle by the sword. They took their places, and were advancing towards each other, when the Vicomte du Barri suddenly staggered, grew pale, and, falling to the ground, exclaimed, “Je vous demande ma vie.” His opponent had but just time to answer, that he granted it, when the unfortunate Du Barri turned upon the grass, and expired with a heavy groan. The survivor of this savage conflict was then removed to his lodgings, where he lay for some weeks in a dangerous state.
The coroner’s jury, in the mean while, sat upon the body of Du Barri, and disgraced themselves by returning a verdict of manslaughter only. Count Rice, upon his recovery, was indicted for the murder notwithstanding this verdict. On his trial he entered into a long defence of his conduct, pleading the fairness of the duel, and its unpremeditated nature; and, at the same time, expressing his deep regret for the unfortunate death of Du Barri, with whom for many years he had been bound in ties of the strictest friendship. These considerations appear to have weighed with the jury, and this fierce duellist was again found guilty of manslaughter only, and escaped with a merely nominal punishment.

London A – Z

The London A-Z, that indispensable guide to the streets and landmarks of the City, has been used by countless numbers of people seeking to navigate London’s streets. Everyone has heard of the London A-Z, though most have no clue as to it’s origins.

Meet Phyllis Pearsall – the eccentric British artist who single-handedly mapped London’s A-Z and created a publishing phenomenon. Born Phyllis Isobella Gross, her lifelong nickname was PIG. The artist daughter of a flamboyant Hungarian Jewish immigrant, and an Irish Italian mother, her bizarre and often traumatic childhood did not keep her from becoming one of Britain’s most intriguing entrepreneurs and self-made millionaires. Pearsall was left to her own devices as a teenager, especially after her father had gone bankrupt and fled to the U.S. Pearsall herself told an interviewer that one day soonafter, she returned home to find the door was answered by the fully decked-out Maharajah of Patiala, who was in the midst of having his portrait painted by Alfred Orr, Phyllis’s mother’s lover. ”Then mother said: ‘Alfred has an artistic temperament and couldn’t possibly have a little girl in the house. Get a live-in job,’ ” Mrs. Pearsall related.
Displaying much pluck, at the age of 14 Pearsall went to France to teach English at a girls school at Fecamp. With French as her second language she went on to study at the Sorbonne in Paris, always living on the edge of poverty, sleeping on the street under a newspaper blanket and drying her laundry on library radiators.
Eventually earning a meagre living by painting portraits and writing articles for various magazines and newspapers, Pearsall returned to England and in 1926 met and married Richard Pearsall. The marriage lasted for about eight years, during which time she had established a reputation for her writing and for her etchings and painting and the couple moved to Spain. Eight years later, the 30-year-old Pearsall became a divorcee, returned to London and turned to full-time portrait painting in order to support herself.  
Some accounts say that it was the difficulty Pearsall had in finding the homes of her portrait sitters in London that prompted her to create the A-Z. Others that she couldn’t find the address of a party she wanted to attend in Belgravia. Still other accounts relate that Pearsall’s father, Alexander Gross, wrote to ask her to publish in England a map of the world produced by the map company he’d built in the United States – after losing the map company he had originally established in Fleet Street. Reluctantly she agreed, and had to learn all the technical jargon involved in reproduction and printing before setting about selling direct to the customer. It was on one of these selling expeditions that she got lost because of the out-of-date London street map she was using. This was the beginning of her idea of how useful an up-to-date map would be – a map that all could use for business and pleasure.
Without hesitation she covered London’s 23,000 streets on foot during the course of one year, often leaving her Horseferry Road bedsit at dawn. Pearsall collected street names, house numbers along main roads, bus and tram routes, stations, buildings, museums, palaces etc, in addition compiling the street index in alphabetical order.To publish the map, and in light of its enormous success, she set up her own company, The Geographer’s Trust, which still publishes the London A-Z and that of every major British city. The first A-Z was published in 1936. She abandoned the traditional design of the large fold out map in favour of a book format where each page was a small section of a large-scale map. All of the streets were coded to enable them to be referenced, indexed and searched for. Pearsall printed 10,000 copies of her maps, selling them as indefatigably as she had compiled them. She persuaded a reluctant buyer at W. H. Smith, the British bookseller, to place an order for 250 copies, promising a refund if they went unsold. The maps were an instant success, and have sold countless millions of copies since.
Pearsall ran her publishing company successfully for many years and reported to work well into her 80’s, arriving in a red Mercedes that she bought at the age of 59, when she passed her driving test after taking more than 200 lessons.
 
Mrs. Pearsall wrote several books, including an account of her trips through Spain, a collection of short stories, a company history and a volume describing her business philosophy, in which she advocated generosity (”bonuses to everyone”), courtesy (”no aggressive selling”) and frugality (”Micawber housekeeping”). In 1986 she was made a Member of the British Empire.
 
Phyllis Pearsall died at Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex on 28 August 1996 at age 89.
 
What a dame.

Blue Plaque at Pearsall’s former home in Court Gardens Lane, London 

To read further on the subject, we suggest Mrs.P’s Journey: The Remarkable Story of the Woman Who Created the A-Z Map by Sarah Hartley.

Victoria here, chiming in to remind readers of the historical A to Z series, of special value to researchers and writers.  You can acquire them from several sources – just Google it.  I bought my copy of The A to Z of Regency London at the Guildhall in the City of London.  Good research library there too! The six versions of the A to Z’s of historic London are: Elizabethan, Restoration, Georgian, Regency, Victorian and Edwardian.  Make your choice(s) according to the focus of your interests.
Here is the London Topgraphical Society description: “Our A to Z series consists of six books, which provide fully-indexed maps of London at roughly 100 year intervals. Each reproduces a key map of the period. The indexes allow users to identify the position of streets and buildings, in some cases right down to small courts and alleys. They appeal to anyone interested in the development of London and are invaluable for those researching family history. The A to Z volumes are published in association with Harry Margary and the Guildhall Library.”

Section of the Map from

The A to Z of Regency London

Will They or Won't They?

Amazing, is it not, how the Star already knows what Kate will be wearing when she marries Prince William when the rest of the world hasn’t yet heard that they’d become engaged? William and Kate: A Royal Love Story premiers tonight at 10 p.m. on TLC and seeks to answer that burning question – when is Prince William going to get engaged to Kate Middleton? TLC’s press release reads:

“Showcasing the definitive love story between a Prince who will be King and the woman who may one day be his Queen, this brand new documentary unveils Prince William and Kate Middleton’s intriguing royal courtship that began in college eight years ago. Theirs is an unlikely story – Kate is an attractive young woman, but grew up well outside the realm of royalty. William is the embodiment of centuries of royal breeding and tradition. As he is being groomed for kingship with Kate at his side, this special reveals the added pressures William will face as he is expected to restore the reputation of the tarnished House of Windsor, a royal house severely damaged by his parents’ broken marriage and his mother Princess Diana’s untimely and tragic death.”

One would think that TLC, and the press at large, would have learned their lesson by now and, in order to avoid a repeat of the mad dog-like press attention given to Diana, they’d lighten up on William. But as he’s the future king, that’s doubtful. And to be honest, if they put the show on t.v., we’ll watch it.

In my opinion, William’s got an even tougher road to hoe than his father, Prince Charles. For the most part, the world has given up on Charles being an effective king. He’s dismissed as being a tree hugging, adultering whacko or it’s assumed that he’ll be too old to be of any real use once he assumes the throne and that his reign will just have to be got through until the reins are passed to William. In addition, Charles is too closely associated with all the scandals and drama of the past few royal decades. William, poor devil, is seen by some as the last hope for restoring the cache of the monarchy. Personally, I think Charles will make a fine king. One has only to recall the words of the Duke of Wellington, who said that the sons of King George III were “the greatest millstone ever hung round the neck of government” to see that as Prince of Wales, Charles is a vast improvement over Prinny. I’d much rather have a Prince who is too green than one who is too purple.

Like they did with his father and mother, the press are touting William and Kate’s courtship as a fairy-tale romance. One can only hope that this pair will live happily ever after. In addition to the press, Ladbrokes is also getting in on the proposal action, speculating that Prince William is most likely to propose in December and offering 7/4 odds that that’s when Clarence House will officially announce his engagement to Kate Middleton.  Meanwhile, rival bookmakers Paddy Power make the first two Saturdays in August the likeliest for a Royal Wedding with 13th August 2011 as the date likeliest for the couple to be spliced, with odds of 3/1 about the wedding taking place that day.

Alas, while abhoring the possibility that the young lovers will be beset by the media, and the bookies, the moment they announce their engagement, I’ll also be watching TLC tonight at 10 p.m. Well, okay, I’ll be flipping back and forth between that and Sherlock Holmes on PBS . . . does the fact that I have absolutely no intention of betting on the Royal nuptials mitigate things at all?

The Prize Fighter Buried in Westminster Abbey

A prize fighter buried in Westminster Abbey? Can this be true? The pugilist in question is no other than Jack Broughton (at left), who is often described as the founder of the British School of Boxing. “Broughton’s Rules ” were long held sacred in the prize-ring, and are still regarded as the alphabet of pugilistic law.

Born in I704, Broughton began his career as a Thames waterman, and he was the first man who won Doggett’s Coat and Badge. He made his appearance as a professor of self defence at George Taylor’s famous booth at the “Adam and Eve ” at the head of the Tottenham Court Road. There he defeated his master, and was encouraged to set up a larger and more convenient amphitheatre on his own account. Seceding from the Tottenham Court Road establishment, he rapidly built a new prize-ring adjoining the Oxford Road, near the spot where Hanway Street, Oxford Street, now stands, and opened it on March 10, I743. From prints in the British Museum, it appears that this building was somewhat similar to Astley’s original circus and riding school in the Westminster Road; there were boxes, pit, and a gallery; a stage for the combatants in the centre of the ring, and the tout ensemble bore some resemblance to the pictures of the Old Fives Court in Windmill Street.

The most significant sign of Broughton’s success was the promulgation of his own “Code” for the guidance of combatants, and the satisfaction of the judges. This was produced by Mr. Broughton, for the better regulation of the amphitheatre, and approved of by the gentlemen, and agreed to by the pugilists, August 18th, 1743. These rules lasted in perfect integrity from the period of their date until 1838, when after the fight between Owen Swift and Brighton Bill, the ” New Rules of the Ring ” superseded Broughton’s. We here give the original

BROUGHTON’S RULES

(I) That a square of a yard be chalked in the middle of the stage; and every fresh set-to after a fall, or being parted from the rails, each second is to bring his man to the side of the square, and place him opposite to the other; and till they are fairly set-to at the lines, it shall not be lawful for the one to strike the other.

(2) That, in order to prevent any disputes, the time a man lies after a fall, if the second does not bring his man to the side of the square, within the space of half a minute, he shall be deemed a beaten man.

(3) That, in every main battle, no person whatever shall be upon the stage, except the principals and their seconds; the same rule to be observed in bye-battles, except that in the latter, Mr. Broughton is allowed to be upon the stage to keep decorum, and to assist gentlemen in getting to their places; provided always, he does not interfere in the battle; and whoever presumes to infringe these rules, to be turned immediately out of the house. Everybody is to quit the stage as soon as the champions are stripped, before they set-to.

(4) That no champion be deemed beaten unless he fails coming up to the line in the limited time; or that his own second declares him beaten. No second is to be allowed to ask his man’s adversary any questions or advise him to give out.

(5) That, in bye-battles, the winning man to have two-thirds of the money given which shall be publicly divided upon the stage, notwithstanding any private agreements to the contrary.

(6) That, to prevent disputes, in every main battle, the principals shall, on the coming on the stage, choose from among the gentlemen present two umpires, who shall absolutely decide all disputes that may arise about the battle; and if the two umpires cannot agree, the said umpires to choose a third, who is to determine it.

(7) That no person is to hit his adversary when he is down, or seize him by the ham, the breeches, or any part below the waist; a man on his knees to be reckoned down.

These rules have been called the groundwork of fair play and manly boxing, and no man, from his experience, was better able to frame such a code than Broughton. To them, says the author of “Fistiana,” we greatly owe “that spirit of fair play which off ers so wide a contrast to the practices of barbarous ages, when every advantage was admissible where brute strength or accidental casualties placed a combatant in the power of his antagonist. It is to be lamented that, even in modern times, the inhuman practices of uncivilised periods have subsisted to a disgraceful extent, and hence we have heard of gouging, that is to say forcing out the eye of an antagonist with the thumb or finger; purring, kicking a man with nailed shoes as he lies on the ground, striking him in vital parts below the waistband, seizing him when on his knees, and administering punishment till life be extinct, and a variety of other savage expedients by which revenge or passion has been gratified; and it is remarkable that in those counties in which pugilism or prizefights have been least encouraged, these horrors have been most frequent ; we refer to -shire in particular, where, even to this day, that species of contest, called up-and-down fighting, that is when a man has got down he is kept down and punished, incapable of motion, is permitted with impunity, unless indeed the death of the victim leads to the apprehension and trial of the survivor.”

To Broughton also the Ring owed the introduction of gloves. He thus announced his new invention in the Daily Advertiser of February 1747 –

Mr. Broughton proposes, with proper assistance, to open an academy at his house in the Haymarket, for the instruction of those who are willing to be initiated in the mystery of boxing, where the whole theory and practice of that truly British art, with all the various stops, blows, cross-buttocks, &c., incident to combatants, will be fully taught and explained; and that persons of quality and distinction may not be debarred from entering into a course of those lectures, they will be given with the utmost tenderness and regard to the delicacy of the frame and constitution of the pupil; for which reason mufflers are provided, that will effectually secure them from the inconveniency of black eyes, broken jaws, and bloody noses.

Broughton, after fighting several years, and maintaining his ascendancy, was at length vanquished by one Jack Slack, a Norwich butcher, in April I750, at Broughton’s Amphitheatre. Some thousands were lost on the unexpected defeat; and nearly 150 pounds were taken at the door, not counting many tickets sold at a guinea and a half each, all of which went to Slack, who is supposed to have gained nearly 600 pounds by his victory. After this defeat Broughton never fought again; and his amphitheatre was shortly after shut up. The Duke of Cumberland, his principal patron and backer, lost 10,000 pounds on this contest.

Broughton died, January 8, I789, at Walcot Place, Lambeth, in his eighty-fifth year.

Captain John Godfrey, who wrote a ” Treatise on the Science of Defence,” thus apostrophises Broughton:

“Advance, brave Broughton! Thee I pronounce Captain of the Boxers.
As far as I can look back, I think I ought to open the characters with him ; I know none so fit, so able, to lead up the van. This is giving the living preference to the rest. What can be stronger than to say that, for seventeen or eighteen years, he has fought every able boxer that appeared against him, and has never yet been beat ? This being the case, we may venture to conclude from it ; but, not to build alone on this, let us examine further into its merits. What is it that he wants ? Strength equal to what is human, skill and judgment equal to what can be acquired, undebauched wind, and a bottom spirit never to pronounce the word ‘Enough.'”

Although many authorities, including the ” Dictionary of National Biography,” once stated that John Broughton was buried in Lambeth Church, the father of modern boxing sleeps peacefully with his wife in the cloister of Westminster Abbey.

How can this be? In the first place it is well to remember that Broughton, after his retirement from the Ring, filled an honourable place in the Yeomen of the Guard, which he held until his death. In Dean Stanley’s “Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey” it is clearly indicated that Broughton is buried in the West Cloister. His burial here is attested both by a wall tablet and a gravestone in the pavement. Here is the inscription on the wall tablet –

BENEATH THIS TABLET LIES THE REMAINS OF MRS. ELIZABETH BROUGHTON. DIED 7TH DECEMBER, 1784- AGED 59 YEARS. ALSO OF MR. JOHN BROUGHTON, ONE OF HIS MAJESTY’S USHERS OF THE YEOMEN OF THE GUARD. DIED 8TH JANUARY, I789. AGED 86 YEARS.

When it was first erected, the stone showed a gap left after John Broughton’s name. Dean Stanley tells us, on the authority of a communication made by Broughton’s son-in-law to the master mason of the Abbey, that this gap was intended to be filled by the words “Champion of England.” But the Dean objected, and the blank remains.” His headstone did not bear an epitaph for nearly 200 years and it was not until 1988 that Broughton’s request was fulfilled and the words “Champion of England” were engraved on the headstone.

Broughton was buried in the cloister on the lefthand side of his wife (whose burial here in 1784 is itself strong presumptive evidence that her husband was laid here in 1789), but it remarks that whereas “the journals of the day state that he was buried in Lambeth churchyard ” it appears that he was given an honourable interment in the Abbey.’ It will be observed that on the tablet Broughton is described as one of His Majesty’s Yeomen of the Guard. Several such Yeomen are buried in the cloisters, and there is even ground for believing that in his later years Broughton was also a verger of the Abbey. Indeed, Westminster Abbey may be said to contain a statue of Broughton, for the magnificent figure of Hercules in Rysbrack’s monument to Sir Peter Warren in the North Transept was modelled after his gigantic form.