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WATERLOO'S AFTERMATH, PART ONE

THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO’S AFTERMATH

As evening approached on June 18, 1815, the Allied forces were repelling the attack of the French Imperial Garde in the center and the Prussian forces had arrived from the east.



The Prussians attack Plancenoit by German painter Adolph Northen (1828-1876)



The arrival of the Prussians was timely indeed.  The Prussians took the hamlet of Plancenoit and soon, the French forces were fleeing in disarray, leaving equipment and wounded behind in their haste. 

Napoleon at Waterloo
by Charles de Steuben, (1788-1856)



Meeting of Wellington and Blücher
detail of mural in Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament) 
by Irish Artist Daniel Maclise (1806-1870), completed 1858



Late in the evening after the battle, Blücher and Wellington met at the inn La Belle Alliance and shook hands. In a great ironic twist, the two victorious generals spoke in the language of their enemy – the only language they both knew was French, though Blücher supposedly only knew a few words:  “Mon Dieu, quelle affaire!”



Royal Gallery, Palace of Westminster, London


They decided Wellington’s troops should rest up, bury the dead, and then come toward France. The Prussians, relatively fresh, would pursue the French army.The two victorious generals met and agreed the Prussians woould continue to pursue the French troops south toward France. The Allied troops would bury the dead, treat the wounded, rest up and catch up soon. Neither man probably realized that for the most part, Napoleon was finished and they would be taking over Paris in weeks.

Prussians Capture Napoleon’s Carriage

In the evening of the 18th, Prussian troops captured Napoleon’s carriage which he had to abandon and flee on horseback. Later the carriage was displayed in London where it was a famous attraction; it later was part of Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, but was destroyed in a fire there in 1925.


Thomas Rowlandson’s 1816 version of the display at Bullock’s Museum

Though the battle had been won and the Prussian troops were chasing the remnants of Napoleon’s armies south toward France, more battles were expected in the coming days.
 Perhaps no one would have predicted it was, for all practical purposes, over – or would be in a couple of weeks. There was resistance and further fighting, but it was minimal, on a Napoleonic scale, that is.

Wellington crosses the battlefield


The Duke of Wellington rode through the carnage back to his headquarters in the village of Waterloo where he would write his despatch to Lord Bathurst in London declaring victory. Later the Duke of Wellington said,  “I hope to God I have fought my last battle…I am wretched even at the moment of victory, and I always say that next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained.”

Waterloo by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775 – 1851)



This painting by Turner was created after he toured the battlefield and sketched the scene. It emphasizes the tragedy of so many deaths, so many lost forever. It was the first battle in which Napoleon faced Wellington, and for both men, indeed their last military battle. The Battle of Waterloo left 9,500 dead; 32,000 wounded.


Battle of Waterloo by Irish painter William Sadler II (1782-1839)




The Morning After the Battle by John Heaviside Clark
On the battlefield, there were tens of thousands of dead and dying men and horses. Thieves crept among the bodies, robbing them of anything valuable.  Parties of soldiers collected the wounded and took them to field hospitals. The dead were buried, sometimes in mass graves. The army surgeons were exhausted having spent the battle  and the night tending the injured.

Fitzroy Somerset, later 1st Baron Raglan, by William Salter


One of Wellington’s ADCs, Fitzroy Somerset (1788-1855), had his right arm amputated.  Before they carried off the arm, he demanded to have the ring his wife (one of the Duke’s nieces) had given him removed from the lost hand. He learned to write with his left hand and was a secretary to Wellington for many years. He was named 1st Baron Raglan in 1852 and led the British Army in the Crimean War. He died before the Allied victory at Sevastopol was complete, partly of depression over criticism of his conduct of the war.


General Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, 1815
by artist Peter Edward Stroehling (1768-1826)



Another famous Waterloo amputation was Paget’s leg.  Henry Paget, Earl of Uxbridge (soon to be Marquess of Anglesey), commanded the cavalry at Waterloo. He was seated on his horse talking to Wellington near the conclusion of the battle when his leg was shattered by a cannon shot. He said, “By God, sir, I’ve lost my leg.  The Duke said, “By God, sir, so you have!” 


Surgical Saw and bloodied glove from Waterloo

Surgical Instruments

Artificial leg of Marquess of Anglesey
Waterloo Teeth 

for more relics from Waterloo 200, click here

One of the gruesome aspects was the collection of the teeth. It was done after every battle in those days, as the teeth were valuable and much better than most false teeth – for many years, dentists advertised Waterloo Teeth.

 Wounded arriving in Brussels; 
Excerpt from Sir Walter Scott’s  Poem The Field of Waterloo
The wounded shew’d their mangled plight
In token of the unfinish’d fight,
And from each anguish-laden wain
The blood-drops laid the dust like rain!
Many of the wounded were carried in carts (aka wains) into Brussels where thousands were nursed in makeshift hospitals and homes. Some of these men were luckier than those carried directly into field hospitals, as in the open air they were much less exposed to infection than in the crowded piles of dying in the hospitals.



After meeting with Blücher, the Duke returned to the village of Waterloo and wrote his despatches to Lord Bathurst and the Prince Regent. When the despatches were ready, on June 19, Wellington asked Major Henry Percy, either (according to which account you believe) the only unwounded ADC or the least-wounded of the eight ADCs Wellington had on June 18, to take the despatches and the captured Eagle standards and flags to London. 


Jacket worm by Henry Percy when on the battlefield and delivering the despatch to London


Percy got a chaise to the port of Ostend and embarked on the brig HMS Peruvian.  Some accounts tell of the becalmed ship and the completion of the voyage by rowing – the Captain James White RN and Percy, with several other sailors, taking the oars themselves.  From their landing at Broadstairs, Kent, about 3 pm on June 21, Percy hurried to London, changing horses at Canterbury, Sittingbourne, and Rochester.  At first he could not find Lord Bathurst or Prime Minister Lord Liverpool.  But with the French Eagles of the 45th and 105th sticking out of the windows of the carriage, they soon attracted a crowd, following them and cheering.


A French Eagle as on the top of the battle flags


Eventually he found the officials  and together they carried the news and the Eagles to #14 (or #16 in some accounts)  St. James’s Square, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Boehm who were hosting a grand party for the Prince Regent and his brother the Duke of York, C-in-C of the Army.

The Boehm residence, St. James Square, today the East India United Service Club 


According to most accounts, the excited crowds following Percy’s mad dash around London were heard by those at the party. When the disheveled Percy, still in blood-stained uniform, came inside and laid the Eagles at the Regent’s feet, the Prince immediately promoted him to Colonel Percy. The Prince Regent withdrew to read the despatches and returned in tears at the carnage, but elated at the victory.

An artist’s version of Presenting the Eagles; actually there were only two

As the party dispersed without the planned dancing or supper, Mrs. Boehm was said to have observed that it would have been much better to have waited until after the party to present the despatches.  No one else agreed of course.  Mr. Boehm later died bankrupt.  Mrs. Boehm lived out her life in a Grace and Favor apartment at Hampton Court.

Major Henry Percy (1785-1825)

Major, now Colonel Percy, retired in 1821, and became a member of the House of Commons in 1823; however, he died only a year later, age 40.

Nathan Rothschild (1777-1836)


Among the many legends that have grown around the Battle of Waterloo, perhaps none is more controversial and even inflammatory than the story of the Rothschild fortune – or lack of it.  Some versions say that banker Nathan Rothschild, who had been providing gold to the British government through his network of relatives in banking houses on the continent, learned about the Waterloo victory before anyone else in London and made a killing in stocks and/or bonds by buying low when hopes were dim and selling high when victory had been secured.  Various versions of the story have him gaining the knowledge from his company spies at the exiled entourage of Louis XVIII, another that he communicated with the continent by carrier pigeon. Many other researchers claim all such stories are bunk, inspired by jealousy and anti-Semitism, even fueled by Nazi propaganda during WWII.  A careful study of the variable rates in British markets of the immediate period around Waterloo would prove no one made a killing in stocks, consols, or bonds of any kind, many conclude.

Whatever the arguments, the Rothschild brothers had long proved their ability to handle financial matters on behalf of business, government and their own interests.  Perhaps no special circumstances are needed to account for their wealth.


Chelsea Pensioners by Sir David Wilkie


A happier story is the arrival of the Waterloo despatch at Chelsea Hospital where copies were read by retired soldiers. This famous painting, commissioned from artist David Wilkie by the Duke of Wellington, completed in 1822, hangs in Apsley House.

An excerpt from the Waterloo Despatch in Wellington’s hand
From The Morning Post, 22 June, 1915


To read the official publication of the Despatch in the London Gazette, click here.


Re-enactment of despatch delivery. 2015
For an account of the reenactment of the delivery of the Wellington despatch, click here.

IN WATERLOO’S AFTERMATH, PART TWO, WE WILL DEAL WITH 
THE DISPOSAL OF NAPOLEON, NEXT WEEK.

ON THE SHELF: REVIEW OF EMMA HAMILTON: SEDUCTION & CELEBRITY

By Guest Blogger Jo Manning

This sumptuous accompaniment – replete with gorgeous full-color and some black and white images — to the exhibition currently showing at The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich (until April 17th) comprises essays by Quintin Colville; Vic Gatrell; Christine Riding; Jason M. Kelly; Gillian Russell; Margarette Lincoln; Hannah Greig; and Kate Williams on different aspects of the controversial Emma Hamilton’s life, legend, and times.

I’ve been to two previous art shows that featured Emma Hamilton and other Georgian celebrities:  Joshua Reynolds And The Creation of Celebrity (at the Tate Britain in 2005), and the George Romney exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in 2002. Both were exemplary, dedicated to these superb portraitists and their famous subjects. These sitters became instant celebrities owing to the prints of the portraits becoming widely disseminated. (These prints generated a bit of nice income for the painters, as well.) The caricaturist Gillray illustrated the popularity of these prints in his well-known “Very Slippy Weather,”showing Londoners entranced by the latest prints for sale at stationers’ shops.
Emma Hamilton (born 1765-died 1815) was also variously known as Amy/Amey/Emy/Emily Lyon and Emma Hart until she married Sir William Hamilton, British envoy (ambassador) to the Court of Naples, thus becoming Lady Hamilton. She was one of the most controversial – and, yes, notorious — women of her time. Much has been written about her but there remains a good deal of speculation, as well. (Among the best-written biographies and novels of her, in my opinion, are these:  Williams, Kate, England’s Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton, 2006; Fraser, Flora, Beloved Emma: The Life of Emma, Lady Hamilton, 2004; and Susan Sontag, The Volcano Lover: A Romance, 1992.)

For starters, she was an unqualified beauty: a perfect oval of a face; thick, wavy, cascading auburn tresses; big-eyed; a rosebud mouth; and a complexion described by one besotted writer as a “velvet skin of lilies and roses”.  Surprisingly tall, with good, square shoulders and a substantial bosom, she defied the “pocket Venus” model prized by prevailing18th century aesthetic standards. A killer combination, this, that pouting baby face and a curvy, womanly figure. Who would not want to paint her? More to the point, who would not want to be her lover?

Emma Hart as a Bacchante, circa 1785
Biographies and other writings on Emma find more ample material in the second and last third of her life than in the first. Yes, she grew up poor; yes, she worked in menial positions as a young teen; yes, she moved to London at one point; yes, men began to notice her. What is uncertain is when and how she became a sex worker. Did her mother actually pimp her out at the age of fourteen? Did she work the streets or was she in a brothel? At any rate, we are on more solid ground when she is taken up by Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh (this name is pronounced “Fanshawe”), a wealthy, dissolute rake who nonetheless has her take up the ladylike sport of horse-riding (“To hounds!”) and teaches her more genteel manners.  (She was said to have a vulgar speaking voice and bad diction; her spelling, from letters that remain, show her bad spelling, but many people then were bad spellers.)
He dumps her, however, when she becomes pregnant. She is about sixteen when she is sent away – and the record is not clear whether or not this child was Fetherstonhaugh’s or Greville’s or another man in their set, Jack Payne — and gives birth to a girl, said to be named Emma Carew. (She was also known as Emma Hartley; after years as a teacher/governess she died alone in Florence and is buried in the English Cemetery. It appears she’d had a sad life.)
After giving birth, she left the child to be raised by a relative in the country and took up with this man in Fetherstonhaugh’s set, Charles Greville, who refused to have another to do with the baby and further set about further “improving” Emma in manners, diction, et cetera. Greville,
who was the nephew of the very wealthy Lord Hamilton, but not well-off himself, was a bit of a control freak, from all I have read about him and which these essays confirm. It was Greville who introduced her to the portrait painter George Romney….and thereby hangs quite a tale.  And here is Romney looking his moodiest, in an unfinished self-portrait (circa 1781/2):
I myself have researched and written about Romney’s obsession with Emma, whom he painted at least sixty times and sketched many more times. At his death, notebooks were found filled with drawings – many unfinished — of his muse Emma Hart – as she was then known. Romney was a strange old cuss. Extremely talented – he became one of the most renowned portraitists in England – but he was prone to serious bouts of depression (it apparently ran in his family). He was a very moody man. Emma Hart enriched his life, and when she was gone from it, he went even more downhill mentally. 
Emma Hart In A Straw Hat
The only quibble I have with the uniformly excellent essays making up this book is in the Christine Riding piece. Emma Hart sat for George Romney some nine years. Nowhere in all the background reading and research I did for my guest blog for Number One London did I find any evidence that there was anyone else in that studio save Romney and Emma. I never saw mention of a “chaperone” nor of any friends/acquaintances of Greville or Emma dropping in. And this is telling, because sittings for artists were social occasions; observers sat and gossiped and were served tea, etc. This was the norm. One sitting could take up to an hour; these sittings were longer. Again, never, ever, did I find any of this normal way of conducting sittings followed by Romney with Emma. Greville, to my knowledge, simply would not allow this.
Emma Hart as Circe, painted by George Romney c1782… Exquisite!
Charles Greville was an extremely jealous and controlling man, possessive to a rather sickening degree, in my opinion. Emma Hart was his possession; he did not want to share her with anyone, even in the benign setting of sitting for a portrait. All I read led me to believe that those two, artist and subject, were alone…together. For NINE years! And I wondered, did they become lovers? It’s tantalizing to imagine this, but there is no solid proof. What seems to be evident, however, is that Emma opened up to Romney as she was posing and entertained him by singing and dancing and having fun. (I reckon she did not have much fun in her relationship with Greville, given his rigid personality.)
And, although over the years people have made fun of Emma and her “Attitudes” – i.e., the dramatic poses she struck to entertain guests – there needs to be, I think, an objective re-examination of her talents, both with these poses and with her singing. (She did hang out with theatre people when she was younger and may even have appeared onstage.) Apparently she wasn’t as untalented as so many reported over the years. I found that re-appraisal fascinating…and it confirmed to me that so much of what was written at the time and subsequently thereafter – much of it simply repeating the same anecdotes — was not to be trusted. (I found this to be true when I was writing the biography of Grace Dalrymple Elliott, My Lady Scandalous. There is a lot of misinformation/misinterpretation out there and one has to be cautious.)
Perhaps my favorite portrait of Emma Hart by George Romney
When Emma Hart was given to Lord Hamilton by his nephew (yes, she was a gift, as she was, after all, his possession), she was eagerly received. Greville was reportedly tired of her and, assiduously searching for a wealthy woman to marry, Emma was in his way. By sending her to Naples on a ruse (oh, yeah, go on ahead, I’ll be joining you directly!), he accomplished his purpose. The much older, lonely man, besotted by her beauty, took her in and eventually proposed marriage to her. (She was 21 when Greville rid himself of her; Hamilton was about 56. They married when Hamilton was 61 years old; his first wife, an heiress, had died before Emma appeared on the scene and he’d been alone for some years.)
Gillray caricature making fun of Lord Hamilton’s interest in Classical antiquities and volcanoes (he was a renowned amateur volcanologist), with images of Emma and Lord Nelson in the upper left corner, indicating he’d been made a cuckold
Most of you may know the rest of this celebrated story. Emma – now Lady Hamilton and ensconced in luxury far beyond her imagination whe
n she was walking the London streets and/or working in a brothel – met Lord Nelson, the famed British admiral and hero of Trafalgar, and Lord Hamilton – bless his heart – was toast.
The details can be found in the essays, but a last word about Emma’s child(ren) with Nelson is perhaps appropriate here. She had Horatia, who lived to a ripe old age, the wife of a minister and the mother of a slew of children, whose maternity Emma never acknowledged publicly, and possibly one or two other children, one of whom was said to have died very young or at birth.  One or two sources I read in my research implied that there were twin girls, one of whom was sent to an orphanage, the other having died or disappeared. Sadly, it did not appear that Emma was much of a mother (though some sources said she was close to Emma Carew, her first daughter), but there is not much to go on to substantiate what happened to these later, mysterious twins…if they indeed ever existed at all, poor lost babes.
Lord Nelson, Hero of the Battle of the Nile and of Trafalgar
This is quite a wonderful compilation with superb illustrations, fast reading, and an excellent introduction to the life and loves of a singular woman. Enjoy the reading and perhaps shed a tear or two for Emma Hamilton’s last tawdry years. So many women like her wound up in France, dying there, forgotten. (My biography subject died there, as did the actress mistress of King William IV, Dorothy Jordan, along with other discarded women.) Nelson wanted Emma taken care of by the country he’d served so well; well, she wasn’t.
And, if you can, visit the exhibit at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London before it closes. As you can tell from the few sample images here, it is a feast for the eyes.
Quinton Colville’s introductory essay, “Re-imagining Emma Hamilton,” gives an excellent overview of the mythology and reality surrounding this woman; he is the Curator of Naval History at the National Maritime Museum in London. There are six full and informative articles in this companion to the exhibition at the National Maritime Museum, starting with historian Vic Gattrell, who teaches at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge; his essay is “Sexual Exploitation And The Lure Of London,” a subject on which he has written extensively. Christine Riding holds the position of Head of Arts and Curator of the Queen’s House at the National Maritime Museum; she was previously at the Tate Britain, where she curated 18th and 19thcentury British art; her essay is “Romney’s Muse: A Creative Partnership In Portraiture”.
Jason M. Kelly takes us to the middle part of Emma Hamilton’s career, to Naples, where, as the wife of the British ambassador, she moves in very different circles and we take a look at “A Classical Education: Naples And The Heart of European Culture.” Kelly is an associate professor at Indiana University-Purdue and directs the Arts and Humanities Institute there. Gillian Russell penned “International Celebrity: An Artist On Her Own Terms”; Russell writes on fashionable women and on theatre in Georgian London.
Rounding out these essays are Margarette Lincoln (“Emma And Nelson: Icon And Mistress Of The Nation’s Hero” and Hannah Grieg on Emma’s last sad years with “Decline And Fall: Social Insecurity And Financial Ruin.” ) Lincoln is a specialist in English naval history and served as Deputy Director of the National Maritime Museum for several years; she is now a visiting professor at the University of London. Grieg is an academic who is now at the University of York, lecturing on 18thcentury British social, cultural, and political history; much of her research centers on the lives of the elite class in that society.
A special treat at the end of this fascinating book is biographer Kate Williams’ take on “Emma Hamilton In Fiction And Film.” Williams is a professor of history at the University of Reading and author of England’s Mistress.
Poster for Vivien Leigh/Laurence Oliver biopic That Hamilton Woman!

EMMA HAMILTON:  SEDUCTION & CELEBRITY, edited by Quintin Colville with Kate Williams, Thames & Hudson/Royal Museums Greenwich, 2016, 280 pages

The Story of "Mad Jack" Mytton

A true Regency eccentric, John ‘Mad Jack’ Mytton was born at Halston in 1796. He inherited a fortune worth about £500,000 a year by today’s standards, but died in 1828 at the King’s Bench debtors’ prison in Southwark at the age of just thirty-seven. Alas, we are getting ahead of ourselves . . . .
Young Squire Mytton, expelled from both Westminster and Harrow, arrived for studies at Cambridge University with “2,000 bottles of port to sustain him during his studies.” You will not be surrpised to learn that he failed to graduate. Mytton went on to drink six bottles of port a day, although he was known to drink eau de cologne when brandy was not readily available. Mytton enjoyed country pursuits such as racing, driving and hunting, but he was also civic minded – he ‘invested’ £10,000 to become MP for Shrewsbury by paying ten pounds each for votes, but once elected he spent less that half an hour in the House of Commons.
Madcap pranks made Mytton a legend in his own lifetime and it was said that as a whole, Mytton’s life amounted to a “series of suicide attempts.” A drunken friend was put to bed with two bulldogs and a bear. Mytton went duck shooting by moonlight on Halston’s frozen lake, dressed in only his nightshirt. Disguised as a highwayman, complete with his blazing pistols, he ambushed departing guests on the Oswestry road. In 1826, after winning a bet, he rode his horse into the Bedford Hotel in Leamington Spa, up the grand staircase and onto the balcony, from which he jumped, still seated on his horse, over the diners in the restaurant below, and out through the window onto the Parade. During a visit to France, Mytton set fire to his night shirt in an effort to cure himself of the hiccups. The drastic step did end the hiccups, but left Mytton with serious burns to his upper body.

Mytton once rode a bear into his drawing room in full hunting costume
One biographer notes that Mytton once rode a bear into his drawing room in full hunting costume. “The bear carried him very quietly for a time; but on being pricked by the spur he bit his rider through the calf of his leg.” Mytton owned thousands of dogs and cats during his lifetime, some of which he had dressed in costumes. Perhaps his favorite pet was a horse named Baronet, who had full run of the Hall and who often lay down and napped before the fire.
                                       Halston Hall, Shropshire – More info on their website
‘Mad Jack’ lost his money, but not his friends. Three thousand people attended his funeral. He is buried in the Chapel at Halston, but his ghost is said to appear annually on Mytton’s birthday, September 30th, at theMytton & Mermaid Hotel at Atcham. His funeral procession stopped at the Mytton, then a coaching inn, on the way to Halston Chapel. Mad Jack also lives on today in Mad Jack Mytton Way, a seventy mile route through some of rural England’s most unspoilt and beautiful countryside. The route starts near Highley and ends at the bridge over the River Terne in Llanfair Waterdine on the Welsh border and is regularly used by riders, cyclists and walkers.
Next time,  more Mytton anecdotes from Famous Racing Men by Willmott-Dixon Thormanby (1882)

It Isn't Hoarding if It's Books ! And Music !! The Role of Georgian and Regency Women in the Preservation of England's Musical Heritage


Henry Purcell (10 September, 1659 – 21 November, 1695) is considered England’s greatest composer of the Baroque Era. Named one of the first British composers of significance, he was often called “Orpheus Britannicus”and his contribution to the musical heritage of his native land is immeasurable.

Henry Purcell
Imagine then, the excitement stirred in the musical world in 1964, when Nigel Fortune, Purcell scholar, announced the discovery of a previously unknown ode by Purcell in a four-volume manuscript collection of the composer’s works at Tatton Park in Cheshire. ‘The Noise of Foreign Wars’ is preserved as a fragment in a bound collection first copied by Philip Hayes (1738-1797) Professor of Music at Oxford. After Hayes’s death, the collection was owned by Samuel Arnold (1740-1802) composer and conductor of the Academy of Ancient Music. In May of 1803, the collection was purchased by Mark Masterman Sykes of Sledmere in Yorkshire.

Sledmere House – Yorkshire
How did it end up in the music room at Tatton Park? How did all of these men – a music professor, a composer and conductor, and a wealthy landowner in Yorkshire manage to save such a treasure so that Nigel Fortune might unearth it three hundred years after it was written? They didn’t. Well, they didn’t do it by themselves. It took….
A woman.
In the late seventeenth century, gentlemen of means began to collect books and art to display in their homes as a mark of their wealth and status. After all, no young man returned from his Grand Tour without some sort of souvenirs. (Preferably the sort for which one did not need to visit one’s physician.) Long galleries in which to display paintings and works of art and libraries became essential parts of the Society town-house and the country “ancestral pile”. Some homes were even designed or redesigned to feature these architectural aspects prominently.
In 1809, the biographer Thomas Frognall Dibdin called the obsessive collection of books by the nobility ‘bibliomania’. In 1812, an exclusive bibliophile society, the Roxburghe Club, was formed. One of its founding members? Mark Masterman Sykes. He was best known for his collection of books and engravings. By the end of 1810, his library at Sledmere was considered one of the finest in England.
And in 1807, Mark Masterman Sykes gifted his four-volume collection of Purcell’s music to his newly married sister, Elizabeth Sykes Egerton, of Tatton Park.  (You thought I was never going to get there, didn’t you?)

Elizabeth Sykes, (Mrs Wilbraham Egerton), c. 1795
portrait miniature by Abraham Daniel of Bath
Elizabeth Sykes was an accomplished musician at an early age. As a young girl, her music collection was like that of any musically inclined lady. Collections of the sort made by the accumulation of pieces with social occasions and entertainment in mind. Not to be taken seriously, or so the majority of Society (men) believed.
Her first music books are dated 1790 and are inscribed with her name – Miss Sykes. They consist of pre-ruled oblong copybooks into which she copied music from her piano lessons, folk songs, and catches. One book actually has two handwritings in it – one starts at one end of the book and the other starts at the other end. This was a common practice in copying music, especially when one wanted to divide the types of compositions – say sonatas at one end and hymns at the other. In some instances, a composition might be started, messed up and started over in a better fashion to the finish.
Her copybooks from 1799 and 1801 were larger pre-ruled music books from the London music publisher Robert Birchall. The covers were a bit more elegant with pages for her to inscribe her name and the details of the music in each one. There were vocal ornaments and notations in these in multiple hands. Even entire pieces appear to be copied by others. This can be attributed to the common practice of passing around these books to friends, the same way young ladies today might pass around CD’s or I-pods.
Elizabeth Sykes also purchased a great deal of printed sheet music. Fortunately for us, she signed all of her music as it was purchased. Therefore, it is easy to differentiate between the music she bought whilst unmarried, and those pieces she purchased after she married her cousin, Wilbraham Egerton, in 1806 and moved her collection to Tatton Park. (I know. She married her cousin, but he did play the cello.)

Tatton Park – Cheshire
The collection of printed sheet music, because it was the realm of women, did not signify as collecting the way the accumulation of books and art did. However, these collections often contain copies of popular songs printed the night after their first performance at Vauxhall or at one of London’s theatres, never to be seen again. It is thought researchers have only begun to scratch the surface of many of these collections.
Elizabeth had a great deal of her music bound in indexed volumes. Her diligence and attention to her collection produced folio compilations as handsome as the albums of engravings and illustrated books on antiquities to be found in any bibliophile’s library. Her valuation of her music resulted in it being shelved and cared for the same way her husband’s and brother’s collections of books were. 

Music room at Tatton Park
As a result, in addition to the Purcell volumes gifted to Elizabeth by her brother, the music at Tatton Park includes rare numbers of Benjamin Goodison’s projected complete edition of Purcell begun in 1789. Nearly an entire shelf contains Samuel Arnold’s collection of Handel’s complete works. It is the first complete edition of any composer, pre-dating the Mozart Gesamtausgabe.

Dove sei by G.F. Handel (from the Samuel Arnold collection at Tatton Park)
I have gone into great detail about the collection of music at Tatton Park and the incalculable debt we owe Elizabeth Sykes Egerton. Like those researchers who have renewed the world’s interest in these collections, I have only scratched the surface of this fascinating topic. There are impressive collections of music accumulated and preserved by Georgian and Regency women all over England.  Lydia Hoare Acland’s collection at Killerton House in Devon. Mary Egerton Sykes music books at Sledmere in Yorkshire. Over two thousand items in Miss Cornewall’s collection at Mocca’s Court in Herefordshire. 
The list goes on and musicologists are prowling the libraries and collections of stately homes all over England in search of the next great musical treasure. All tucked safely away by those accomplished young ladies, bluestocking women, and musical dragons who loved their music enough to preserve it for all of us.
I’ll be posting more on this subject in my next post. Not only more about the role women played in preserving England’s musical heritage, but also how their love of music changed the architectural design of many houses built during the late Georgian and Regency eras to accommodate that love.  

AUTHOR LOUISA CORNELL JOINS OUR FAMILY











Victoria and I are thrilled to announce that our dear friend Louisa Cornell has joined the Number One London editorial team. We couldn’t be happier! Many of you will already know Louisa who, in addition to her editorial work and her own writing projects, is also President Elect of the Beau Monde Chapter of Romance Writer’s of America.

Louisa has been a friend of this blog since it’s beginnings six years ago and has been a friend to Victoria and myself for a considerably longer period of time (decades!). 


Louisa, on the left, with Victoria at one of the many writing conferences they’ve attended through the years.

As a champion of romantic fiction and all things British, Louisa will be bringing her unique talents and her passion for researching the history of Great Britain to Number One London soon and you can look forward to reading her enlightening posts, reviews of fiction and non-fiction books and to many surprises yet to be announced.



Welcome Louisa!


And a note from Louisa –

I cannot begin to tell you what a thrill and honor it is to join the Number One London team! I think I’ve spent so much time loitering about here the last six years, Victoria and Kristine have decided to put me to work. And I could not be happier! This blog has been and continues to be a delightful respite from the everyday world, a lovely neverending vicarious vacation to the UK, and a source of entertainment and enlightenment for all who love 18th and 19th century England and the romances set in those eras. I look forward to contributing in my own small way to the myriad charms enjoyed by the most discerning, supportive, and loyal denizens on the web – Our Visitors!

Thank you so very much, Kristine and Victoria!
And thank you to Number One London’s Fabulous Followers!


And while we’re at it, Victoria, Kristine and Louisa would like to thank all of our guest bloggers who have contributed to the blog in the past. Our most prolific (and much loved) pal, author Jo Manning has been providing guest posts to Number One London since the beginning, with many of her posts featuring 18th and 19th century artists and their sitters. Look for more book reviews and posts from Jo coming soon. Over the past year, we’ve welcomed guest posts from the following authors: Abigail Dane, Marilyn Clay, Louise Allen, Diane Gaston (Perkins), Beth Elliot, Cheryl Bolen, Amanda McCabe, Tracy Grant, Kerryn Reid and Michelle Styles. If you’ve uncovered an historic tidbit you’d like to post about, or a favourite his
toric person, place or thing, please do get in touch. We’d love to add you to our roster of guest bloggers.