The Regency

8 Comments Posted on 18th Century, 19th Century, Disease, France, Georgian Britain, Guest Posts, Persons of Interest, The Enlightenment, The Regency

Fanny Burney and Her Mastectomy

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Fanny Burney

In 1811, before anesthesia was invented, Frances Burney d’Arblay had a mastectomy aided by nothing more than a wine cordial. She wrote such a gripping narrative about her illness and operation afterwards readers today still find it riveting and informative.

Fanny came from a large family and was the third child of six. From an early age, she began composing letters and stories, and she became a phenomenal diarist, novelist, and playwright in adulthood. Certainly, her skillful writing was a primary reason her mastectomy narrative had such appeal.

In her narrative, Fanny provides “psychological and anatomical consequences of cancer … [and] while its wealth of detail makes it a significant document in the history of surgical techniques, its intimate confessions and elaborately fictive staging, persona-building, and framing make it likewise a powerful and courageous work of literature in which the imagination confronts and translates the body.” Prior to her surgery, she had written similar works about “physical and mental pain to satirize the cruelty of social behavioral strictures, especially for women.”

Samuel_Johnson_by_Joshua_Reynolds-wikipedia

Dr. Samuel Johnson

Fanny grew up in England and had been embraced by the best of London society. She had served in George III and Queen Charlotte’s court as Second Keeper of the Royal Robes. Moreover, she was admired by such literary figures as Hester Thrale, David Garrick, and Edmund Burke. Fanny also befriended Dr. Samuel Johnson, the English writer who made significant contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. In fact, some of Fanny’s best revelations are about Johnson, how he teased her, and the fondness that he held for her.

In 1793, Fanny married Louis XVI Alexandre-Jean-Baptiste Piochard d’Arblay and became Madame d’Arblay. D’Arblay was an artillery officer who served as adjutant-general to the famous hero of the American Revolution, Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. D’Arblay had fled France for England during the Revolution just as had many other Frenchmen. However, in 1801, d’Arblay was offered a position in Napoleon Bonaparte’s government. He and Fanny relocated to France in 1802 and moved to Passy (the same spot where Benjamin Franklin and the princesse de Lamballe had lived), and they remained in France for about ten years.

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Baron Dominique-Jean Larrey (left) and Antoine Dubois (right)

While living in France, Fanny suffered breast inflammation in her right breast in 1804 and 1806. She initially dismissed the problem but then in 1811 the pain became severe enough that it affected her ability to use her right arm. Her husband became concerned and arranged for her to visit Baron Dominique-Jean Larrey, First Surgeon to the Imperial Guard, as well as the leading French obstetrician, surgeon, and anatomist, Antoine Dubois.

The French doctors treated Fanny palliatively but as there was no response to the treatment, it was determined surgery was necessary. Fanny’s surgery occurred on 11 September 1811. At the time, surgery was still in its infancy and anesthesia unavailable. Cocaine was later isolated, determined to be an effective local anesthetic, and used for the first time in 1859 by Karl Koller. So, it must have been horrific for Fanny to experience the pain of a mastectomy with nothing more than a wine cordial that may have contained some laudanum. Fanny was traumatized by the surgery and it took months before she wrote about the surgery details to her sister Esther exclaiming:

“I knew not, positively, then, the immediate danger, but every thing convinced me danger was hovering about me, & that this experiment could alone save from its jaws. I mounted, therefore, unbidden, the Bed stead – & M. Dubois placed upon the Mattress, & spread a cambric handkerchief upon my face. It was transparent, however, & I saw through it, that the Bed stead was instantly surrounded by the 7 men & my nurse. I refused to be held; but when, Bright through the cambric, I saw the glitter of polished Steel – I closed my Eyes. I would not trust to convulsive fear the sight of the terrible incision. A silence the most profound ensued, which lasted for some minutes, during which, I imagine, they took their orders by signs, & made their examination – Oh what a horrible suspension! … The pause, at length, was broken by Dr. Larry [sic], who in a voice of solemn melancholy, said ‘Qui me tiendra ce sein?”

Fanny went on to describe “torturing pain” and her inability to restrain her cries as the doctors cut “though veins – arteries – flesh – nerves.” Moreover, she noted:

“I began a scream that lasted unintermittingly during the whole time of the incision – & I almost marvel that it rings not in my Ears still! so excruciating was the agony. When the wound was made, & the instrument was withdrawn, the pain seemed undiminished, for the air that suddenly rushed into those delicate parts felt like a mass of minute but sharp & forked poniards, that were tearing the edges of the wound. … I attempted no more to open my Eyes, – they felt as if hermetically shut, and so firmly closed, that the Eyelids seemed indented into my Cheeks. The instrument this second time withdrawn, I concluded the operation over – Oh no! presently the terrible cutting was renewed – and worse than ever … I then felt the Knife rackling against the breast bone – scraping it! – This performed, while I yet remained in utterly speechless torture. “

Despite the excruciating pain, Fanny lived through the operation, and her surgery was deemed a success. Larrey produced a medical report about his brave patient stating that he removed her right breast at 3:45pm and that Fanny showed “un Grand courage.” Courageous as she was, there was no way for doctors to determine if Fanny’s tumor was malignant or if she suffered from mastopathy.

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Fanny’s Commemorate Plaque. Courtesy of Bath-heritage.co.uk

Fanny’s healing took a long time, and while still recuperating, she and husband returned to England in 1812. Six years later, in 1818, her husband died from cancer, and she died twenty-two years later, at the age of eighty-seven, on 6 January 1840 in Lower Grosvenor-street in London. As Fanny had requested, a private funeral was held in Bath, England, and attended by a few relatives and some close friends. She was laid to rest in Walcot Cemetery, next to her beloved husband and her only son Alexander, who had died three years earlier. Their bodies were then moved during redevelopment of the Walcot Cemetery to the Haycombe Cemetery in Bath and are buried beneath the Rockery Garden.

References

DeMaria, Jr., Robert, British Literature 1640-1789, 2016
“Died,” in Northampton Mercury, 18 January 1840
Epstein, Julia L., “Writing the Unspeakable: Fanny Burney’s Mastectomy and the Fictive Body,” in Representations, No. 16 (Autumn, 1986), pp. 131-166
Madame D’Arblay, in Evening Mail, 20 January 1840
Madame D’Arblay’s Diary, in Evening Mail, 18 May 1842
“The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (Madame D’Arblay), Volume VI, France 1803-1812,” in Cambridge Journals 

61yLoQ9ugKL._SX345_BO1204203200_-347x381Geri Walton has long been interested in history and fascinated by the stories of people from the 1700 and 1800s. This led her to get a degree in History and resulted in her website, geriwalton.com which offers unique history stories from the 1700 and 1800s. Her first book, Marie Antoinette’s Confidante: The Rise and Fall of the Princesse de Lamballe, discusses the French Revolution and looks at the relationship between Marie Antoinette and the Princesse de Lamballe.
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5 Comments Posted on 18th Century, Excess, Georgian Britain, Guest Posts, Sex, The Enlightenment, The Regency, Vice

Beggar’s Benison: Masturbation and Free Love in 18th Century Scotland

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The Test Platter of The Beggar’s Benison. (Photo courtesy of the Museum of the University of St. Andrews).

Men are gross. I should know – I am one.

But don’t take it from me. Take, for example, the eighteenth-century Scottish men’s club, “The Most Ancient and Puissant Order of Beggar’s Benison and Merryland,” or Beggar’s Benison for short. Formed in 1732 in the small town of Anstruther in Fife, this club comprised men of all ages, and of ranks ranging from tradesmen and merchants to government officials, eventually even including royalty. Its members came together – yes, in that sense of the term – to celebrate male sexuality and the idea of free love. The effluvia of their activity was collected on a “test plate” bearing an engraving of vulva and penis and the motto “The Way of a Man with a Maid.”

This pastime resulted in some interesting meeting minutes: “18 assembled, and Frigged upon the Test Platter. The origin and performance were discussed. The Platter was filled with Semen, each Knight at an average did not ‘benevolent’ [donate] quite a horn spoonful.”(1)

Masturbation was also key to initiating new members, who had to prove their manhood. In the initiation ritual, the novice would lay his erect penis on the test platter, then “The Members and Knights two and two came round in a state of erection and touched the novice Penis to Penis.”(2)

As homo-erotic as this undoubtedly is, the Benison wasn’t a proto-gay club. Those already existed and were known derogatorily as “molly houses.” In these establishments, men seeking sex with men could meet each other with somewhat less fear of discovery than in other venues, at a time when the punishment for sodomy was transportation or execution. The Beggar’s Benison wanted to distance itself from any such suspicions, either out of homophobia or fear of prosecution (probably both). While its Code promoted “fair trade and legal entry” in sexual matters, it also sought to prevent “a preposterous and Contraband Trade too frequently practiced.”

prick glass

The Wig Club’s prick glass (often misattributed to the Beggar’s Benison). Anyone attempting to drink from it was likely to get a good dowsing, so it was probably used only to initiate new members to the Wig Club.

But the grossness doesn’t stop with semen-filled platters. Other relics of the club included a wig supposedly made of the pubic hair of King Charles II’s mistresses (and have you ever noticed the size of Restoration-era wigs?). Eighteenth-century dandies sometimes adorned their hats with tufts of pubic hair as trophies of their conquests, and this wig was just a much larger version. It would later be transferred to the elite Edinburgh Wig Club (an offshoot of the Benison), and became that club’s icon. Allegedly, the loss of the wig to the Benison’s rival inspired King George IV to donate his own mistresses’ pubic hairs to the club, of which he was already an honorary member. (Unfortunately, the wig disappeared in the early 1900s, but we still have the Wig Cub’s prick glass, right)

The childish jokes almost write themselves. But does the Beggar’s Benison only merit either a derisive laugh or a disgusted “ewww!”?

In his 2001 book on the club, David Stevenson argues that behind what seems a particularly gross frat-boy bawdiness lay an Enlightenment sex-positivity. In contrast to the Puritan view that allowed sex, even within marriage, only for procreation, the Benison aligned itself with other Enlightenment thinkers in viewing sex as pleasurable in itself. This was also a time of rabid anti-masturbation sentiment, which began in 1715 with the publication of Onania, a pamphlet warning that self-pleasure led to “stunted growth, disorders of the penis and testes, gonorrhea, epilepsy, hysteria, consumption, and barrenness.”(3)Stevenson cover

The club can be seen as a reaction to such hysteria: a bold statement of the rights of man to fap when he pleases.

But what of women? As usual with Enlightenment thinking, liberty and equality only went so far. Like the other libertines of the time (and some today), the club viewed women both with veneration and as little more than objects. The Merryland in the club’s name refers to the body of Woman, to be explored and possessed (see the above-mentioned pubic hairs). At best, the club promoted “fair trade” or “free trade” between the sexes, but the emphasis was always on male freedom to pursue “commerce” with “Merryland.” Sexual freedom for the wives and daughters of these worthy family men? Lol.

And I doubt these men wanted their own daughters to participate in a service some village girls performed for the club. The Benison employed “posture girls” (eighteenth-century strippers), although, oddly, it kept its masturbatorial and viewing activities separate. Speaking to or touching the girls was forbidden, and the girls (literally girls, as they ranged in age from 15 to 17) were allowed to wear masks while posing nude. Then every Knight “passed in turn and surveyed the Secrets of Nature.”(4) Ironically, “free love” becomes sex (or titillation) for cash.

The sex-for-cash theme goes back to the club’s founding myth, in which the Stuart King James V, traveling in commoner’s disguise, comes to Dreel Burn, a stream dividing the two neighborhoods of Anstruther. Not wanting to get his feet wet (how noble!), he employs the services of a “beggar lass” to carry him on her back across the water. He gives her a gold coin for the service, and she gives him a blessing or “benison” in return: “May your purse naer be toom [empty], and your horn aye in bloom.” From this verse of double entendres sprang the club’s salutation: “May prick nor purse never fail you.”(5)

Edinburgh Beggar's seal

The Seal of the Edinburgh branch of the Beggar’s Benison, bearing the image of the prick and purse. The anchor has nothing to do with the navy, but is a sexual metaphor (a man “dropping anchor” in a woman’s “harbor”).

So the Beggar’s Benison wasn’t just a sex club, but wove Jacobite and free-trade themes into its codes and mythology. The trade metaphors may be even more important than the sexual aspect. The merchants of the club, like most dutiful Scots, engaged in smuggling to circumvent onerous English taxes. Think of them as early Libertarians. Stevenson even suggests that the bawdy activities of the club might have been a mere cover to allow smugglers and corrupt customs officials to meet. And who would want to check up on the club, considering the type of activities one might find at its meetings?

In the end, the Beggar’s Benison may have been little more nor less than the equivalent of a bunch of guys visiting a strip club, with all the sexism that implies. Stevenson makes the case that they kept to themselves and harmed no one, apart from some of the posture girls’ reputations. They also hosted lectures on what amounted to sex education, encouraging the use of condoms: “the sexual embrace should be independent of the dread of a conception which blasts the prospects of the female.”(6)

As Stevenson points out, far worse can be said of other, better-remembered Scots, such as Robert Burns, whose affairs led to illegitimate children and untimely ends for the mothers, or James Boswell, whose seventeen bouts of gonorrhea no doubt contributed to the spread of venereal disease among the many, many prostitutes he frequented. Compared to these and other eighteenth-century rakes (the denizens of the far more notorious Hellfire Clubs, for instance), the men of the Beggar’s Benison merely seem like spunky schoolboys.

Sources

(1) Stevenson, David. The Beggar’s Benison: Sex Clubs of Enlightenment Scotland and their Rituals. Tuckwell Press, 2001. p. 38

(2) Stevenson, p. 39

(3) Allen, Peter L. The Wages of Sin: Sex and Disease, Past and Present. University of Chicago Press, 2000. p. 87

(4) Stevenson, p. 38

(5) Stevenson, p. 12

(6) Stevenson, p. 36

Further Reading

Black, Annetta. Objects of Intrigue: Beggar’s Benison Prick Glass. Atlas Obscura. (Unfortunately, this article misattributes the intriguing prick glass as belonging to the Beggar’s Benison. According to Stevenson, it belonged to the later Wig Club.)

Perrottet, Tony. Hellfire Holidays. Slate.

Roderick, Danielle. Masturbation Clubs of the 1700s. The Hairpin.
http://www.slate.com/

HogueFinal A_macLarry Hogue’s writing is all over the place and all over time. He started out in nonfiction/nature writing with a personal narrative/environmental history of the Anza-Borrego Desert called All the Wild and Lonely Places: Journeys in a Desert Landscape. After moving to Michigan, he switched to writing fiction. He’s a fan of folk music, and got the idea for Daring and Decorum while listening to Loreena McKennitt’s outstanding adaptation of Alfred Noyes’ poem, The Highwayman. When not speaking a word for nature or for forgotten LGBT people of history, he spends his white-knighting, gender-betraying energies on Twitter and Facebook, and sometimes on the streets of Lansing, MI, and Washington DC. His new historical romance, Daring and Decorum, is due out August 1 from Supposed Crimes. As might be expected from this article, the novel can be described as “Regency Romance, minus the hunky, shirtless lords.”
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Review: A History of Courtship by Tania O’Donnell

 

51Iv62jqdOL._SX345_BO1,204,203,200_Tania O’Donnell, A History of Courtship: 800 Years of Seduction Techniques (Pen & Sword; Barnsley, 2017).

Have you ever wondered why we give flowers to people we like? About the origins of the rhyme ‘Roses are red, violets are blue’? How people in the past dressed to catch the eye? Why the girls in costume dramas always have to have an older lady in tow? Or generally how our forebears went about signalling their intent and making a move? If the answer to these questions is ‘yes’, then Tania O’Donnell’s History of Courtship may be the book for you.

O’Donnell focuses on, mainly British, sometimes American, and certainly Western, courtship, from the development of courtly love in the twelfth century up to (and including) the nineteenth century. The twentieth century is avoided on the basis that its sweeping technological and social changes made courtship a very different game, which is perhaps true, but I would have loved to see the story taken from Tristan and Isolde to the early rock’n’roll which retold their tale so many times.

Nevertheless, A History of Courtship leaps nimbly between periods, from the court poets and troubadours of Europe in the Middle Ages to the dangers of Tudor England, and from the grubby London of the Restoration to the more familiar romantic settings of Regency ballrooms and Victorian studies. The book gives only a superficial sense of how courtship may have changed between these periods but this is understandable given its thematic, rather than chronological, organization. It may even be justified given O’Donnell’s awareness that people themselves change rather less than customs over time and that even some of these have a cyclical existence.

Thematically, A History of Courtship illustrates an impressive range of romantic tropes (love at first sight, childhood sweethearts, kidnapping, elopement, proposal, marriage, scandal) using an equally impressive range of sources (clothing, cosmetics, legislation, letters, songs, poems, plays, diaries, sermons, gifts). The book is well illustrated with apposite selections, which speak to the depth of the author’s immersion in, and the breadth of her knowledge on, her subject. Although this is a slender, accessible volume, these provide something unique the more academic reader can appreciate as readily as the more casual. I found the intricate “lover’s knot” created by a hapless nineteenth century Pennsylvanian Quaker for the unrequiting object of his affections particularly intriguing.

O’Donnell, however, does not concentrate purely on the sweeter side of courtship at the expense of its, sometimes more visceral, reality. Regular readers of this blog will be quite satisfied with the quantities of scandal, prostitution, venereal disease, and ‘Vinegar’ Valentine’s cards in evidence. There is even a lengthy extract from the works of our late patron, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. Whilst not entirely alleviating the biases of the more traditional sources, O’Donnell’s approach also helps to draw out some of the leaner evidence on illiterate, poor or gay courtships.

Finally, O’Donnell offers a way of looking at the past that might help shed some light on our own lives. With the benefit of a little perspective, she seems to suggest, perhaps we should not rush to judgement in the present. Certainly, we should be grateful for the relative freedoms we enjoy today and should be cautious of viewing the past through rose-tinted spectacles. Above all, we should celebrate our courtships and not let them end at marriage. Seductive arguments.

Dr. John V.P. Jenkins 

5 Comments Posted on 18th Century, 19th Century, Death, Disease, France, Georgian Britain, Guest Posts, Law, London, Religion, The Regency

Smallpox vs Edward Jenner: How One Doctor Invented Vaccination and Cured the World

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The deadly disease smallpox had been feared by man for thousands of years by the 1800s, and rightly so. It was highly contagious, incurable, and killed a third of those unlucky enough to catch it.

Those who survived it were rarely left unscathed. Aside from the inevitable permanent scarring, it could leave victims blind and doomed to spend the rest of their days battling lung or joint problems. The disease also did not discriminate between the rich or poor.

Several royals and world leaders contracted it. Queen Elizabeth I, George Washington and Joseph Stalin all had pock-marked faces which they took great pains to disguise. The 18th century fashion for wearing patches stemmed from the desire to hide the damage smallpox had done to aristocratic skin. Smallpox killed both King Louis XV of France and Queen Mary II of England, monarchs who could well afford the best physicians to try to save them, so the merest threat of it was enough to send the population into a panic.

Of course, it didn’t help matters that medical scientists had no idea how the disease was spread and had no way of treating it. The concept of bacteria and viruses would not begin to enter into medicine until 1861, so physicians were clueless. Theories abounded over time, blaming God, the alignment of the planets, and eventually evil miasmas (bad air) as the root cause of an epidemic. Treatments were equally as primitive. Prayer, smelling sweet nosegays, and bonfires were the only weapons the Western World had for centuries. As a result, outbreaks could kill thousands in a very short space of time with terrifying speed, especially children or the old. The only thing they did know, was once you had caught it, you couldn’t catch it again.

In the East where medicine was traditionally more advanced and largely unencumbered by religious interference, physicians expanded upon this idea. Using the healing scabs of a recovering smallpox victim, which they scratched into the skin of healthy people, they protected them. Although they did not realise it at the time, what they were doing was building up the body’s antibodies using a weakened dose of smallpox and thereby rendering the body resistant to any stronger. It’s still a common practice nowadays with certain diseases. Polio is a classic example. Variolation (or inoculation as we now know it) was brought to Britain in 1715 by Lady Wortley Montague, an ambassador’s wife who had suffered smallpox as a child and lost a brother to it.

Whilst inoculation did work in a great majority of cases, it was not without serious risk. By exposing people directly to smallpox, albeit a significantly weaker version of the disease, at least ten percent of those inoculated contracted full-blown smallpox in the process, often with fatal consequences. King George III lost his son Prince Frederick after he had the boy inoculated. When even the king could not guarantee its safety, a great many preferred not to take the risk. Inoculation was also very expensive, which put even more off it, so smallpox remained a devastating killer throughout the eighteenth century.

In 1784, after extensive study of smallpox victims during an epidemic in his hometown of Chester, Dr John Haygarth became convinced smallpox was transferred by human contact. He recommended quarantining anyone with smallpox and gave sound advice as to how anyone coming into contact with a victim should stop the infection spreading:

“During and after the distemper, no person, clothes, food, furniture, cat, dog, money, medicines or any other thing that is known or suspected to be bedaubed with matter, spittle, or other infectious discharges of the patient should go out of the house until they have been washed…When a patient dies of smallpox, particular care should be taken that nothing infectious be taken out of the house so as to do mischief.”

Haygarth’s methods were soon widely adopted. Wherever possible, smallpox victims were isolated away from the rest of the community. Every item of clothing and bedding used was burned to avoid contaminating others. Sometimes, this occurred using quarantine ships. These were hardly floating hospitals as there was little doctors could do other than let the disease run its course, however, moving sufferers offshore was fairly successful in containing the disease if they caught it quickly enough.

cowpoxThe big breakthrough came thanks to a country doctor called Edward Jenner. He decided to test the validity of an old wives’ tale which claimed all those who worked with cows were immune to smallpox. Over the course of many years, he discovered that those new to working with cattle–such as milk maids–often caught a relatively harmless disease from them. Cowpox caused a mild fever and an irritating skin rash in humans which quickly cleared up of its own accord. Jenner began to suspect cowpox was the key to the immunity from smallpox. However, to test his theory he would need to infect a human with cowpox who had never come into any contact with cows before.

In 1796 he paid the parents of James Phipps, and then injected the pus from a cowpox pustule into the boy. A few weeks later, he exposed the boy to smallpox and when nothing happened declared it a resounding success. He called his new treatment vaccination as the word vacca is Latin for cow and was convinced it was the only thing capable of defeating the ‘speckled monster’. However, the Royal Society did not welcome his research with open arms. They declared it too revolutionary and asked for more proof. It took until 1798, and several more experiments with cowpox including one on his own baby son, before they published his findings.

Although conclusive, the people were less enthusiastic to this new miracle prevention. There was an enormous backlash against Jenner’s vaccination accompanied by an extensive propaganda campaign. Aside from the fact the new prevention was more expensive than the old-fashioned inoculation, the widespread resistance came because of two things:

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, vaccination was seen as ungodly. The very religious masses listened to the anti-vaccination sermons preached from pulpits the length and breadth of the British Isles. After all, in Corinthians is stated quite clearly: “All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts”. Mixing the two things was grossly unacceptable according to the scriptures.

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James Gillray, The Cow Pock. An anti-vaccination cartoon from 1802.

Secondly, although Jenner was able to prove vaccination did work with none of the risks caused by inoculation, he had no earthly idea why. Even the educated struggled to justify agreeing to vaccination without knowing the science behind it. Perhaps it was possible they would begin to sprout horns and udders in the future? Nobody could say for certain this wouldn’t happen.

Others were less resistant. Napoleon honoured Jenner with a medal after the Frenchman vaccinated his troops. Before that, more of his army were killed by smallpox than by battle. Another fan was President Thomas Jefferson who, in 1806, wrote a gushing letter of thanks to Edward Jenner:

“I avail myself of this occasion of rendering you a portion of the tribute of gratitude due to you from the whole human family. Medicine has never before produced any single improvement of such utility… Future nations will know by history only that the loathsome small-pox has existed and by you has been extirpated.”

While history proved Jefferson’s prediction correct, such accolades from Britain’s then enemies did not really do Edward Jenner any favours at home. Vaccination remained hugely unpopular with the masses and some dyed-in-the-wool physicians despite overwhelming evidence of its success and continued to be during Edward’s lifetime and beyond. He died in 1823 with his vaccination still as controversial then as it had been in 1796.

Things came to a bit of a head in the UK when the government stepped in. In 1840 they declared the old inoculation illegal, thus eliminating the choice. Then, the 1853 Vaccination Act made it compulsory in law for all babies to be vaccinated before they were three months old. Failure to do so resulted in a one pound fine and potentially the risk of prison. People argued they were now denied the right to decide what they could put into their own bodies and many took to the streets to protest. Compulsory vaccination was so unpopular, the government had to back down and stopped prosecuting those who refused.

It was only once the brilliant French scientist Louis Pasteur began to do more experiments on vaccination in the late 19th century, and was finally able to explain why it worked, that public objection lessened. Smallpox vaccination became widespread and the catastrophic and destructive epidemics died out. The last known recorded case of smallpox was in Somalia in 1977 and in 1980 the World Health Organization declared the disease eradicated save the few samples kept secure in laboratories. And all thanks an old wives’ tale and a tenacious, mild-mannered country doctor from Gloucestershire who never wanted to be famous.
virginia heath cover
Virginia Heath writes witty Regency romantic comedies for Harlequin Mills & Boon. The first book in her ‘Wild Warriners’ series, A Warriner to Protect Her, will be released in April 2017.

10 Comments Posted on 18th Century, 19th Century, Georgian Britain, London, Persons of Interest, The Regency, The Southwark Saga, Violence

Daniel Mendoza and The Modern Art of Boxing

mendoza-by-gillray

Daniel Mendoza by James Gillray

“It is undoubtedly a fact, that some men of turbulent and vindictive dispositions have made a bad use of their pugilistic powers, and have thereby become obnoxious and disgraceful members of society; but these instances occur not frequently, and when they do they must be acknowledged to result from the abuse, and not from the right use of the art. The robust and athletic should never forget that excellent observation of Shakespeare: ‘It is good to have a giant’s strength, but merciless to use it like a giant.’” -Daniel Mendoza, Memoirs (1816)

The first thing you learn in boxing is that if you don’t guard yourself with your hands up, you’re going to get hit in the face. It seems like common sense, so you might surprised to learn that this was not always done. Before English boxing’s heyday in the latter half of the eighteenth century, prizefights were still popular among the lower classes who tended to fight by taking turns hitting one another until someone won. Boxing as we know it today–a sport of skill and stamina as much about blocking and dodging as hitting–comes from the technique developed by Jewish-English prizefighter, Daniel Mendoza.

By the time Mendoza was born in 1764, Jews had only been allowed to settle in England for about a hundred years after officially being readmitted by Cromwell in 1656. Communities of Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews were forming primarily in London’s East End, and although they were generally accepted in London, they were still met with a degree of suspicion and antisemitism.

Georgian London attracted diverse people from around the world, but it was by no means a haven of tolerance. Jews in particular were viewed as small and weak, a stereotype Mendoza spectacularly disproved. During his career, he formed his own boxing academy and taught students there as well as giving private lessons for the wealthy, and wrote a boxing manual, The Modern Art of Boxing (1788), that is still read today.

Memoirs

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Daniel Mendoza by Henry Kinsbury, 1789

In 1816, Mendoza published Memoirs of The Life of Daniel Mendoza, an intelligent and witty autobiography still available today and surprisingly accessible to modern readers. In Memoirs, he recounts notable events in his life and career for dozens of subscribers credited in the first several pages.

Mendoza displayed proficiency at boxing from the age of fifteen, when he was apprenticed to a glass cutter. His master was kind, but the man’s son abused Mendoza’s Jewish heritage on numerous occasions until he gave the boy the thrashing of his life, before voluntarily leaving his position. Unwilling to burden his parents, he moved through a succession of odd jobs through his teens and early twenties, working for a greengrocer, a tea merchant, and a tobacconist, before inadvertently accepting a job escorting smuggled goods from the coast into the City. Once he discovered what they expected him to do, he quit this job and worked for some time as a biscuit maker, “baking Passover cakes” and so forth until fighting became a full-time job.

Although Mendoza was arguably one of the most naturally talented athletes in history, he never meant to make boxing his career. Still, the fights kept finding him. The “scientific” method of boxing he invented was very effective and drew huge crowds to see his fights and self-defense demonstrations. Unlike other boxers at the time, Mendoza fought with his knees bent and his arms guarding his face in a stance we would still recognize today. This stance allowed him to block and quickly dodge in a way his opponents could not. His natural ability coupled with this method proved a formidable combination: by 1788, he had won twenty-seven fights in a row. The same year, his long time rivalry with his one-time mentor Richard Humphreys, “The Gentleman Boxer,” came to a head in four fights and a series of letters published in The World.

Mendoza vs. Humphreys

In a match against Richard Humphreys in 1788, Mendoza suffered an injury that temporarily left him unable to walk and significantly slowed his career. Humphreys was declared the victor by default, but his victory was a hollow one as he had not beaten Mendoza as a result of skill.

richard-humphreys

Richard Humphreys by John Hoppner

While Mendoza was recovering from his injuries, he became aware of rumors he had handled himself poorly during the fight and that his injuries were exaggerated or even false. He felt compelled to write to The World to clarify his side of the events (no misconduct on either side) and that his injuries were very real and had been sustained by unfortunate accident (he fell out of the ring onto his head and injured his pelvis) rather than from the fight itself. He further suggested that if Humphreys would like to reschedule the fight, he would be more than willing to oblige. Humphreys took exception to this and responded with a letter of his own.

Mendoza accepted Humphreys’ challenge with his characteristic patience (and perhaps just a touch of well-earned superiority) and what follows in his Memoirs amounts to two chapters of Georgian smack-talk, faithfully recorded word for word as they worked out the details of their next fight.

Some highlights:

“Notwithstanding my declaration, previous to the battle between me and Mr. Mendoza, that whether I was beaten, or I beat him, I would never fight again, yet as in his address to the Publick, through the medium of your paper, he has insinuated that in his late contest with me at Oldham; his being beaten was the mere effect of accident, I do now declare that I am ready to meet him, at any time not exceeding three months from the present date.” -Humphreys

“As the world is decidedly of opinion that Mr. Humphreys is superior in the art of boxing, the third proposition I make is, the man who first closes shall be the loser. The time of fighting is impossible to mention, since the injury I have received in my loins may continue its effects to a distant period, but the moment I am relieved from that complaint, and declared capable by the gentleman who now attends me, I shall cheerfully step forward and appoint the day.” –Mendoza

“I cannot help remarking that neither Mr. Mendoza nor his friends seemed decided where they should fix this unlucky disaster. At first, it was his ancle; and there were people who could have sworn they saw three of the bones come out. The disorder moved gradually to his hips, from whence, lest it should be mistaken for a rheumatic complaint, it is settled, with more excruciating pain on his loins; where I am aware it may abide as long as he finds it convenient.” -Humphreys

“Mr. Humphreys is afraid, he dares not meet me as a boxer; he retires with the fullest conviction of his want of scientific knowledge; and though he has the advantages of strength and age, though a teacher of the art, he meanly shrinks from publick trial of that skill, on which his bread depends,” -Mendoza

“Mr. Mendoza says I am afraid of him; the only favour I have to beg is, that he or any of his friends will be kind enough to tell me so personally, and spare me the trouble of seeking them.” -Humphreys

After months of going back and forth, Mendoza and Humphreys finally met for not one, but three rematches beginning in May of 1788. It is worth noting that boxing matches often went on much longer than they do today, some of them lasting two hours or more through dozens of rounds.

Beyond superior technique, Mendoza’s major strengths were patience and stamina. Both the first two fights with Humphreys ended anticlimactically when Humphreys suddenly fainted, unable to keep pace with Mendoza. Although Mendoza was coming back from an injury, he was in the best shape of his life: he taught boxing at his academy and in private lessons as well as touring the country giving self-defense demonstrations to massive crowds.

The third and final fight with Humphreys lasted an incredible seventy-two rounds before Humphreys quit from exhaustion. He didn’t challenge Mendoza again.

Humphreys learned his lesson, but the public wouldn’t let him forget it. A song was written to commemorate their fight at Stilton in Huntingdonshire, which Mendoza helpfully includes in his memoirs. The song was one of many on the subject, but Mendoza reports this one in particular was “sung with great applause at several convivial meetings.”

For all this was basically a drinking song, it can be read as a neat summary of the public’s changing view of Mendoza wrapped up into a few verses from suspicion and antisemitism through to surprise and eventually praise. They are on Humphreys’ side (Richard has become “Dicky” here), but when he starts looking at the “curst little Jew from Duke’s place” like Goliath looking at David, we understand “Our Dicky” is in for a surprise…

SONG,
On the Battle Fought Between
HUMPHREYS and MENDOZA
At
Stilton in Huntingdonshire

O my Dicky, my Dicky, and O my Dicky my dear,
Such a wonderful Dicky is not found far or near;
For Dicky was up, up, up, and Dicky was down, down, down
And Dicky was backwards and forwards, and Dicky was round, round, round
O my Dicky, my Dicky, and O my Dicky my dear!

My Dicky was all the delight of half the genteels in the town;
Their tables were scarcely compleat, unless my Dicky sat down;
So very polite, so genteel, such a soft complaisant modest face,
What a damnable shame to be spoil’d by a curst little Jew from Duke’s Place!
O my Dicky, my Dicky, and O my Dicky my dear!

My Dicky he went to the school, that was kept by this Danny Mendoza,
And swore if the Jew would not fight, he would ring his Mosaical nose, Sir,
His friends exclaimed, go it, my Dicky, my terrible! Give him a derry;
You’ve only to sport your position, and quickly the Levite will sherry.
O my Dicky, my Dicky, and O my Dicky my dear!

Elate with false pride and conceit, superciliously prone to his ruin,
He haughtily stalk’d on the spot, which was turk’d for his utter undoing;
While the Jew’s humble bow seem’d to please, my Dicky’s eyes flash’d vivid fire;
He contemptuously viewed his opponent, as David was viewed by Goliath.
O my Dicky, my Dicky, and O my Dicky my dear!

Now Fortune, the whimsical goddess, resolving to open men’s eyes;
To draw from their senses the screen, and excite just contempt and surprise,
Produced to their view, this great hero, who promis’d Mendoza to beat,
When he proved but a boasting imposter, his promises all a mere cheat.
O my Dicky, my Dicky, and O my Dicky my dear!

For Dicky, he stopt with his head,
Was hit through his guard ev’ry round, Sir
Was fonder of falling than fighting,
And therefore gave out on the ground, Sir.

Poor Dicky. Somehow, we can’t quite feel bad for him.

Mendoza’s boxing career continued through the end of the eighteenth century, at which point he dedicated himself to teaching and touring. In his efforts to find other sources of income, he eventually became landlord of The Admiral Nelson pub in Whitechapel. He won and lost a fortune, and passed away in 1836 at the age of 72.

Legacy

daniel-mendoza

Mendoza. Did I mention he was gorgeous? I feel like that was implied…

Daniel Mendoza’s contribution to boxing cannot be overstated. During his lifetime, he became a major public figure. He won the patronage of the Prince of Wales in 1787 and became the first Jew to speak to George III. He was known throughout Britain on sight, thanks in no small part to the engravings of him sold to fans as well as his frequent appearances in Gillray cartoons (top). He was so well known, songs were written about his victories, and he was even mentioned by name in many of the plays of the day, including The Duenna and Road to Ruin. At least as significant as his contribution to boxing, he paved the way for acceptance of the Jewish community in Britain by challenging prejudices and winning respect, one fight at a time.

Though he’s not as famous today as he once was, proof of his influence can be seen every day. The next time you turn on the TV to watch some boxing or MMA, imagine how boring the matches would be if the boxers just stood there and took turns hitting each other.

Jessica Cale

If you’re interested in learning more about Mendoza’s fighting stance, English Martial Arts has a terrific video on it you can watch here.

Further Reading:

Egan, Pierce. Boxiana, or Sketches Of Ancient and Modern Pugilism (1812)

Gould, Mark. Boxing Pioneer Remembered At Last. The Guardian, September 2nd, 2008.

International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. Daniel Mendoza.

Jews in Sports. Daniel Mendoza.

Mendoza, Daniel. The Modern Art of Boxing (1788)

Mendoza, Daniel. Memoirs of The Life of Daniel Mendoza (1816)

4 Comments Posted on 18th Century, 19th Century, Art, France, Georgian Britain, Literature, London, Sex, The Regency, Victorian

Love and Hate in the 19th Century: Say It With Flowers

language_of_flowers_by_alphonse_mucha

Language of Flowers. Aphonse Mucha, 1900.

Although floriography existed in the ancient world and throughout the Renaissance, it hit its height of popularity in the nineteenth century. Mary Wartley Montagu is credited with bringing it to England in the early eighteenth century from her travels to the Ottoman Empire, where the court was fascinated with tulips. Tulipomania had come and gone a hundred years before, but European interest in botany was just beginning, contributing in no small part to the success of guides to the language of flowers.

Several such guides were available throughout the nineteenth century, many of them embellished with illustrations or even poetry. Hundreds of editions were sold around the world, and the craze influenced popular culture, with floriography appearing in books by Austen and the Brontes. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood used it extensively in many of their paintings, using the symbolism of the flowers to communicate themes to their audience in a language they would understand.

In a society as relatively repressed as Victorian Britain, floriography must have presented tantalizing possibility. One could say anything without saying anything at all. Rather involved love affairs could take place almost entirely with flowers. Whole conversations could be had in a single bouquet. It had the added benefit that it would have been a hobby for the genteel; it required a certain degree of literacy, knowledge of botany, and means with which to obtain the plants necessary to communicate one’s message. While one might pass daisies (“I share your sentiment”) every day, African Marigolds (“vulgar minds”) or Helmet Flowers (“knight-errantry”) might present a greater challenge.

Interestingly enough, for every plant with a positive meaning, there is at least one more with a severely negative one. Reading Kate Greenaway’s The Language of Flowers (1884), it is reassuring that those courted by people they didn’t fancy could put them off without being outwardly rude, from Red Balsam (“touch me not”) to the rather frightening Wild Tansy (“I declare war against you”).

Whether you’re researching a book, decoding a painting, or just looking for a Valentine’s idea for your loved one (or worst enemy), floriography is good fun. Here are some lists of my favorites. Scroll to the bottom for links to some nineteenth century guides you can read in full online or download for your e-reader. Have fun!

A Beginner’s Guide to the Language of Flowers

“When nature laughs out in all the triumph of Spring, it may be said, without a metaphor, that, in her thousand varieties of flowers, we see the sweetest of her smiles; that, through them, we comprehend the exultation of her joys; and that, by them, she wafts her songs of thanksgiving to the heaven above her, which repays her tribute of gratitude with looks of love. Yes, flowers have their language. Theirs is an oratory that speaks in perfumed silence, and there is tenderness, and passion, and even light-heartedness of mirth, in the variegated beauty of their vocabularly.” – Frederic Schoberl, 1834.

3275986767_d4dd7fb33d_b

Positive

Almond (flowering) Hope
Ambrosia Love returned
Arbor Vitae* Unchanging Friendship. Live for me.
Cloves Dignity
Clover, four-leaved Be mine
Coreopsis Arkansa Love at first sight
Coriander Hidden worth
Corn Riches
Daffodil Regard
Daisy, Garden I share your sentiments
Forget Me Not Forget Me Not
Ivy Fidelity. Marriage.
Lemon blossoms Fidelity
Mallow, Syrian Consumed by love
Oak Tree Hospitality
Oak Leaves Bravery
Pine-apple You are perfect
Potato Benevolence
Ranunculus You are radiant with charms
Snowdrop Hope
Strawberry Tree Esteem and Love
Tulip, Red Declaration of love
Tulip, Variegated Beautiful eyes
Tulip, Yellow Hopeless love
Venice Sumach Intellectual excellence
Walnut Intellect. Strategem.
Water Lily Purity of heart
1870s_vinegar_valentine_snake_proposal_declined

A “Vinegar Valentine” from the 1870s

Negative

Achillea Millefolia War
Aconite (Wolfsbane) Misanthropy
Adonis, Flos Painful recollections
Agnus Castus Coldness. Indifference.
Almond (common) Stupidity. Indiscretion.
Amaranth (cockscomb) Foppery
Apple, Thorn Deceitful charms
Asphodel My regrets follow you to the grave.
Bachelor’s Buttons Celibacy
Balsam, Red Touch me not
Barberry Sourness of temper
Basil Hatred
Bay leaf I change but in death.
Bay (Rose) Rhododendron Danger. Beware.
Belladonna Silence
Belvedere I declare against you
Bilberry Treachery
Birdsfoot Trefoil Revenge
Blue-flowered Green Valerian Rupture
Burdock Touch me not.
Butterfly Weed Let me go.
Carnation, Striped Refusal
Carnation, Yellow Disdain
Chequered Fritillary Persecution
China or Indian Pink Aversion
Citron Ill-natured beauty
Clotbur Rudeness. Pertinacity.
Coltsfood Justice shall be done
Columbine Folly
Convulvulus, Major Extinguished hopes
Creeping Cereus Horror
Crowfoot Ingratitude
Cypress Death. Mourning.
Dragonwort Horror
Enchanter’s Nightshade Witchcraft. Sorcery.
Flytrap Deceit
Fool’s Parsley Silliness
Frog Ophrys Disgust
Fuller’s Teasel Misanthropy
Fumitory Spleen
Garden Anemone Forsaken
Hand Flower Tree Warning
Hellebore Scandal
Hemlock You will be my death
Hydrangea Heartlessness
Japan Rose Beauty is your only attraction
Leaves (dead) Melancholy
Lavender Distrust
Lily, Yellow Falsehood
Licorice, Wild I declare against you
Lobelia Malevolence
Mandrake Horror
Milfoil War
Mosses Ennui
Mourning Bride Unfortunate attachment
Moving Plant Agitation
Mushroom Suspicion
Nettle, Burning Slander
Pennyroyal Flee away
Raspberry Remorse
Rose, York and Lancaster War
Rue Disdain
Saint John’s Wort Animosity
Spiked Willow Herb Pretension
Tamarisk Crime
Tansy (Wild) I declare war against you
Thistle, Scotch Retaliation
Trefoil Revenge
White Rose (dried) Death preferable to loss of innocence
Whortleberry Treason
Wormwood Absence
My love in her garden. Victorian Valentine card

Victorian Valentine by Kate Greenaway

Sexy

African Marigold Vulgar minds
Darnel (ray grass) Vice
Dittany of Crete, White Passion
Dragon Plant Snare
Everlasting Pea Lasting Pleasure
Fleur-de-Lis Flame. I burn.
Geranium, Lemon Unexpected meeting
Geranium, Nutmeg Expected meeting
Grass Submission
Jasmine, Spanish Sensuality
Linden or Lime Trees Conjugal Love
Orange Flowers Bridal festivities
Peach Blossom I am your captive
Quince Temptation
Rose, Carolina Love is dangerous
Rose, Dog Pleasure and pain
Tuberose Dangerous pleasures
Vine Intoxication

 

mechanical_valentine_06

Weird

Aloe Grief. Religious superstition
Cereus (Creeping) Modest genius
Christmas Rose Relieve my anxiety.
Cistus, Gum I shall die to-morrow
Colchicum, of Meadow Saffron My best days are past.
Dandelion Rustic Oracle
Helmet Flower (Monkshood) Knight-errantry
Houseleek Domestic industry
Indian Cress Warlike trophy
Lady’s Slipper Win me and wear me
Lint I feel my obligations
Oats The witching soul of music
Passion Flower Religious superstition
Persimon Bury me amid Nature’s beauties
Poppy, White. Sleep. My bane. My antidote.
Prickly Pear Satire
Violet, Yellow Rural happiness

Jessica Cale

Further Reading

Greenaway, Kate. The Language of Flowers (1884)

Schoberl, Frederic. The Language of Flowers; With Illustrative Poetry (1834)

Tyas, Robert. The Sentiment of Flowers; or, Language of Flora (1836)

*Arbor Vitae was also slang for penis at this time.

 

5 Comments Posted on 19th Century, Death, Disease, France, Georgian Britain, Guest Posts, Politics, The Regency, Uncategorized

“A Second St Domingo”: Sickness during the Walcheren Expedition of 1809

16_walcherenmap

Terrain of the Walcheren campaign, from France Militaire: histoire des Armees Francaises de terre de mer de 1792 a 1833…by A. Hugo, 1837.

In 1809, the British government sent an amphibious force of 40,000 men and 600 naval vessels to the Scheldt to destroy the French fleet and dockyards at Antwerp and Flushing. It was Britain’s biggest expeditionary undertaking since the beginning of the wars with France in 1793, part of the War of the Fifth Coalition and a diversion to assist the Austrians against Napoleon in central Europe.

The expedition, under the military command of John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, was a complete failure. The Austrian allies were defeated before the expedition left; although the British captured the island of Walcheren, they advanced too slowly across the neighbouring island of South Beveland, allowing the French to reinforce Antwerp. The expedition was finally withdrawn after a catastrophic outbreak of ‘Walcheren fever’, a combination of several diseases, including malaria.

The impact of this sickness can best be gauged through dry statistics. Of the 39,219 rank and file sent to Walcheren, 11,296 of them were on the sick lists by February 1810. By this time 3,960 were dead. A further 106 had died in battle, but those numbers were swallowed up in the sheer scale of the tragedy.

‘Walcheren fever’ struck the troops suddenly and savagely. One source, the anonymous Letters from Flushing, recorded fatalities from sickness as early as 12 August 1809, but on 8 August the British Chief of Staff reported ‘We have as yet no sick,’ and on 11 August the commander-in-chief Lord Chatham thought ‘the Troops upon ye whole continue healthy.’[1]

By 20 August, however, things had changed. The official Proceedings of the Army recorded on 22 August: ‘Sickness began to show itself among the Troops in South Beveland. On the 20th the number of Sick was 1564, and within the two following days it increased very considerably.’ The next day, the 23rd, the Proceedings recorded ‘Sickness increased very much within the last 24 hours.’ By the 24th the sickness had spread to Walcheren.[2]

At first the officers were not too worried. One of the aides-de-camp to Sir Eyre Coote (Chatham’s second-in-command) recorded in his diary on 24 August: ‘5000 French Troops are said to have fallen a victim to the climate last year, but I consider this as a very exaggerated statement, and at any rate, the constitutions of our men & their habits of life, are much better adapted to this moist atmosphere.’[3]

But by the 27th there were 3467 sick. The following day the officer compiling the official returns could not restrain his concern: ‘The sickness increased to an alarming Proportion, some of the General, and many other Officers were seized with fever, and the Number of Men on the Sick List was nearly 4000.’[4]

23_walcheren_sick

The evacuation of South Beveland, August 1809

The sickness was described by Lieutenant William Keep of the 81st:

The disease comes on with a cold shivering, so great that the patient feels no benefit from the clothes piled upon him in bed, but continues to shiver still, as if enclosed in ice, the teeth chattering and cheeks blanched. This lasts some time and is followed by the opposite extremes of heat, so that the pulse rises to 100 in a small space. The face is then flushed and eyes dilated, but with little thirst. It subsides and then is succeeded by another paroxysm, and so on until the patient’s strength is quite reduced and he sinks into the arms of death.[5]

The British army had been sent to Walcheren with medical supplies for only 30,000 men. It was caught completely off-guard by the scale of the sickness. Things were not helped by the fact that the British had bombarded one of Walcheren’s largest merchant towns, Vlissingen (Flushing), in mid-August, which restricted the accommodation available to the British troops. By 30 August there were nearly 900 sick in Flushing alone, ‘all of them laying [sic] on the bare boards without Paillasses & many without Blankets.’ Two days later Coote’s aide concluded in despair: ‘This island is a mere Hospital and an Inspector of Hospitals will shortly be a more useful officer than the General Commanding.’[6]

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Flushing Harbour. Photograph by Jacqueline Reiter

All these circumstances contributed to an atmosphere of near-panic. Nobody knew who would be next, and no rank was exempt. ‘A considerable degree of apprehension of Climate and Disease has prevail’d too generally, and there has been much anxiety shewn to get away from this Island as if it had been a second St Domingo,’ the Chief of Staff reported disapprovingly, but by this time several generals (including General Mackenzie-Fraser, who later died) were dropping like flies.[7] By mid-September the Adjutant-General of the army was sending in daily (rather than weekly) sick reports, and Chatham decided to start sending the sick home ahead of official orders from the War Office.

According to one account, one doctor ‘and his assistant [had] nearly five hundred patients prostrate at the same moment … the whole concern was completely floored’. [8] By 23 September the army had almost completely run out of bark (now quinine, used to treat malaria) and the medical corps were of course also losing staff to sickness. Sir Eyre Coote (who took over from Chatham, who was recalled) reported to the Secretary of State for War: ‘I can assure Your Lordship, without any Fear of Exaggeration … that the Situation of the Troops in this Island is deplorable … The Sick are so crowded, as to lay Two in one Bed in several Places, and have no Circulation of Air.’ In Flushing, by contrast, many of these places had rather too much air circulation, owing to ‘the damaged State of the Roofs, never repaired since the Siege.’[9]

Totally overburdened, the medical corps became desperate in their attempts to stem the disease. They had no idea what was causing it: they knew it wasn’t contagious, but thought it was due to ‘local or endemic Causes, viz. the Miasmata or Exhalations from the Soil.’ They did, however, notice that the sailors on board the British ships remained healthy, with the exception of the ones who had gone ashore to help with the siege of Flushing (naturally, as mosquitoes do not breed around salt water). One proposed treatment therefore was to pack the British sick into ships and sail them around the islands, in the hope that the sea air and a change of scene would restore them to health. Unsurprisingly, this did not work.[10]

The impact of Walcheren fever on the British army was significant and long-lasting. The soldiers who had served on the campaign continued to relapse periodically for years after. In March 1812 Lord Wellington, in the midst of fighting in the Spanish Peninsula, lamented the fact that his troops had been ‘so much shaken by Walcheren.’ [11] The careers of the commander-in-chief of the Army, Lord Chatham, and the naval commander, Sir Richard Strachan, were destroyed by the disaster.

The British government that had planned the expedition under the Duke of Portland fell, and its successor nearly foundered during the ensuing parliamentary inquiry into the debacle. Two government ministers, Lord Castlereagh and George Canning, ended up fighting a duel. None of this, of course, was especially comforting to the four thousand men who had died from ‘Walcheren fever’.

References
[1] Letters from Flushing … by an Officer of the Eighty-First Regiment (London, 1809), p. 120; Sir Robert Brownrigg to Colonel Gordon, 8 August 1809, BL Add MSS 49505, f. 9; Chatham to Castlereagh, 11 August 1809, PRONI D3030/3220; John Webb to the Surgeon General, 27 August 1809, A Collection of Papers relating to the Expedition to the Scheldt (London, 1809), pp. 588-90.
[2] The National Archives WO 190, 22-4 August 1809.
[3] University of Michigan Coote MSS, Box 29/3, Diary of the Walcheren Expedition, 24 August 1809.
[4] The National Archives WO 190, 27-8 August 1809.
[5] Quoted by Martin Howard, Walcheren 1809, Barnsley, 2011, p. 161.
[6] University of Michigan Coote MSS, Box 29/3, Diary of the Walcheren Expedition, 30 August, 1 September 1809.
[7] Sir Robert Brownrigg to Colonel Gordon, 8 September 1809, BL Add MSS 49505 f. 69.
[8] Rifleman Harris, quoted by Howard, Walcheren 1809, p. 172.
[9] Sir Eyre Coote to Castlereagh, 17 September 1809, A Collection of Papers, pp. 137-40.
[10] Memorandum dated 25 September 1809, A Collection of Papers, pp. 623-5; Sir Eyre Coote to Lord Liverpool, 23 October 1809, A Collection of Papers, pp.177-8.
[11] Howard, Walcheren 1809. p. 215.

Further reading
Gordon Bond, The Grand Expedition (Athens, GA, 1971)
Martin R. Howard, Walcheren 1809 (Barnsley, 2011)
John Lynch, ‘The Lessons of Walcheren Fever, 1809’, Military Medicine 174(3) 2009, pp. 315-19
T.H. McGuffie, ‘The Walcheren Expedition and the Walcheren Fever’, English Historical Review jacquelinereiter_bookcover62(243) 1947, pp. 191-202

Jacqueline Reiter has a PhD in late 18th century political history from the University of Cambridge. A professional librarian, she lives in Cambridge with her husband and two children. She blogs at www.thelatelord.com and you can follow her on Facebook or Twitter. Her first book, The Late Lord: the life of John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, was published by Pen & Sword Books in January 2017.