| | | Karen Bowman - Characters | Corsets & Codpieces | | Gorgeous Georgians
| | | Gorgeous GeorgiansThere was no ignoring aristocratic ladies' 'high-hair' during the Georgian era. Women fainted from the weight of additional wigs and decorations, ducked under doors to avoid collisions and sat on the floors of coaches due to the scale of it. Many employed 2 lb of whitening powder per 'dressing' simply to maintain their extravagant styles. The epitome of an 'age of elegance', an elaborate hairstyle was of course just another dazzling and impractical creation, along with wide skirts and beauty patches, which became de rigueur for members of aristocratic society.
| | The Fan - Provider of Privacy, Mystery & Allure
| | | The Fan - Provider of Privacy, Mystery & AllureJust as there was a potential secret language inherent in where a face patch was placed, so too the fan was an instrument both of practicality and intrigue. Itself an object of mystery constructed from 'leaves', 'rivets,' 'ribs', 'sticks', 'slips' and 'guardsticks', this moveable work of art was undoubtedly a most important accessory for a wealthy woman in the seventeenth century. Huge quantities of fans were imported into Europe from China by the East India Company from the seventeenth century onwards. For years fixed or paddle fans had been the norm, mostly consisting of feathers set into ornate handles. Indeed, Queen Elizabeth I of England declared that 'the only worthy gift of a queen are fans', though this could well have originated from the Queen having been told that she had very beautiful hands, and holding a fan would emphasise such beauty.
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| | False Calves & Rising Moons
| | | False Calves & Rising MoonsThe Regency period saw a woman's waist take an upward turn. Historically the focus of a woman's body, it appeared no longer satisfied with its natural position and so for upward of twenty years was to be located so high under a woman's breasts as to become invisible. No less than a godsend for the Regency woman, she could suddenly enjoy a freedom of dress that her grandmothers could only have dreamed of. Gone were heavy silks and brocades, the swathes of incongruous petticoats and breath-robbing corsets of previous centuries. Dresses 'Ã la Grecque' evolved from a European preoccupation with all things Greek and Roman and occurred as early as the 1790s, even though the Regency period in English history did not strictly start until 1811. These changes in fashion favoured the natural contours of the body, draping the female form in gauzy, diaphanous fabrics and were inspired by the French Revolution, the concept of 'Enlightenment', freedom, human rights and equality, which were associated with the ancient ideals of Greece and Rome.
| | Death by Crinoline
| | | Death by CrinolineThere was no more a contentious Victorian fashion, both for the 'fair sex' who wore it and the male population who were forced to accommodate it, than the crinoline. It was described as 'a monster'. Fathers and husbands hated them, politicians tried to legislate against them, Florence Nightingale decried them and employers banned them. It was once suggested the hoop should only be available for 'mature' women, matrons whose movements were less frivolous and so less of a problem for anyone within 6ft of them. There is no doubt that accidents as a direct result of wearing a crinoline were more frequent than with any other garment in history. In addition, it was the only fashion where not only the wearer but also anyone within a short distance of them was at risk of disaster.
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| | Corsets
| | | CorsetsIt was quite astonishing just how many diseases were attributed to tight lacing: head-aches, giddiness, fainting, pain in the eyes, pain and ringing in the ears and bleeding at the nose. In the thorax, despite the displacement of the bones and the injury done to the breast, tight lacing also produced shortness of breath, spitting of blood, consumption, derangement of the circulation, palpitation of the heart and water in the chest. In the abdomen it caused loss of appetite, squeamishness, vomiting of blood, depraved digestion, flatulence, diarrhacolic pains, dropsy and rupture. This could be followed by melancholy, hysteria and many diseases peculiar to the female constitution. It also produced what no self-respecting Victorian woman wanted – a red nose!
| | The Roaring '20s
| | | The Roaring '20sThe cloche hat was invented by the Parisian milliner and French fashion designer Caroline Reboux in 1908, and it wasn't long before this small, unassuming fashion accessory, along with the dropped-waist dress, became one of the most recognisable shapes of the 1920s. As with many fashions before and since, the Cloche style did not please everyone. On Saturday, 8 August 2025 the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette ran the following warning, citing the modest cloche hat as the latest danger to womankind from articles of clothing when reporting on the death of a young woman knocked down by a motor-bus travelling at four or five miles an hour. 'The hats worn by women these days are as bad as blinkers on a horse', he said. 'Women are completely blinded on one side of their faces. I wonder they do not meet with more fatal accidents.'
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| | Clinched & Pinched
| | | Clinched & PinchedDior was heavily criticised for his innovation as the amount of fabric required to create a New Look garment was in direct conflict with the rationing that was still in place. With the economic situation in Britain remaining dire, opposition to the New Look was based on 'waste'. With England struggling to get back on its feet after W.WII there was even talk of a law against it. As if that were not enough The New Look also cinched and pinched women back into shapes reminiscent of those of their Victorian if not Georgian grandmothers!
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| | | | | | | Essex Girls | | Elizabeth (Bessie) Blount (c. 1502-1540)
| | | Elizabeth (Bessie) Blount (c. 1502-1540)"She was thought for her rare ornaments of nature and education to be the beauty and mistress-piece of her time." Lord Herbert of Cherbury.
Even at a young age Elizabeth was outstanding. Lively with fair hair and
blue eyes she was well versed in Latin and poetry and with brains as
well as beauty, she was equally good at singing, dancing and 'all goodly
pastimes'. She blossomed at court. Rumours abounded that even at the
tender age of fourteen she was already involved with the king. But it
was Henry's love of revels and court pastimes that were bringing them
together.
| | Lady Frances Evelyn Maynard - The Socialist Countess of Warwick (1861-1938)
| | | Lady Frances Evelyn Maynard - The Socialist Countess of Warwick (1861-1938)"I was a 'beauty' and only those who were alive then know the magic
that word held for the period. I was physically fit, eighteen, unspoilt,
and I adored dancing."
Known by her childhood name of 'Darling Daisy', Frances was everything a socialite should be. It is said that her lover, Prince Edward, was so besotted with her that he commissioned a private railway line up to her home, Easton Lodge, and gave her an ankle bracelet inscribed 'Heaven's Above'. Her beauty was legendary. She inspired the popular music hall ditty 'Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do' and habitually wore emeralds to match her eyes. Needless to say she enjoyed a long relationship with the prince, remaining his mistress for nine years.
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| | Mary Boleyn 'La Petite Boullain'
| | | Mary Boleyn 'La Petite Boullain'"Kind, sweet natured, pliable, impulsive and easily manipulated - a woman of easy virtue…"
She had lost her lover, the King, to her sister and was the catalyst of much family advancement, but when her husband from an arranged childhood marriage died and she secretly married again for love, her family turned against her, so that she was forced to write to the King's Secretary, the zealous Thomas Cromwell for help. But she was the fortunate one. Surviving them all she ultimately inherited the family estates. These lands were a poignant legacy. They had come to Mary in 1538 she being 'the sole daughter and next heir' of her father, Sir Thomas, Earl of Ormond and Wiltshire. Had her brother lived the family fortunes would undoubtedly have passed to him. But George had been beheaded on Tower Hill on the morning of Wednesday, 17 May. Her sister Anne, also by the King's decree, had met her death two days later, she, like George charged with 'illicit intercourse', treason and incest. Considering her own fall from grace it was a prudent Mary Carey, who had retired to Rochford Hall deep in the Essex countryside. Now the only surviving child of the ambitious Thomas and his wife Katherine Howard, she was mistress of considerable landholdings in Essex and Norfolk.
| | Catherine of Breganza (1638 - 1705)
| | | Catherine of Breganza (1638 - 1705)"Her face is not so exactly as to be called a beauty, though her eyes are excellent good, and nothing in her face that in the least degree can disgust one. On the contrary, she hath as much agreeableness in her looks as I ever saw, and if I have any skill in physiognomy, which I think I have, she must be as good a woman as ever was born." King Charles II
Queen Catherine of Braganza held court at Audley End in the autumn of 1668. Chronically shy at times she would escape to this house in the country as a change from her life in London, her childlessness and the King's many mistresses. Once, disguised as country lass, in a red petticoat and waistcoat the Queen went 'a frolicking' to Walden fair, (Saffron Walden) with the Duchess of Richmond and the Duchess of Buckingham. Unfortunately the aristocratic ladies had overdone it in their costumes and according to a correspondence between two gentlemen some years later, they 'looked more like antiques than country folk'. Their apparel drew the attention of the crowd and so the Queen momentarily slipped into a booth to buy a pair of yellow stockings 'for her sweetheart'…
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| | Boudicca - A Woman Scorned
| | | Boudicca - A Woman Scorned"…a Briton woman of the royal family and possessed of greater intelligence than often belongs to women. In stature she was very tall, in appearance most terrifying, in the glance of her eye most fierce, and her voice was harsh; a great mass of the tawniest hair fell to her hips; around her neck was a large golden necklace and she wore a tunic of divers colours over which a thick mantle was fastened with a brooch. This was her invariable attire." (Cassius Dio)
For a woman Boudicca seems to have possessed great military knowledge, which became apparent during the preparations and war council assemblies she addressed before her forces took on the might of Rome. Boudica would have received her training and education, learnt about Celtic traditions, local gods, and customs of her tribe by spending her early years under the guardianship of another aristocratic family. The customary exchange of children between different families and tribes was an important way of cementing friendships, passing on their ancestor's knowledge, (as they had no written word) thus preserving Celtic culture as well as establishing loyalty - and keeping good relations between local families.
| | Lady Emma Hamilton
| | | Lady Emma Hamilton"Yesterday Lady Hamilton gave a grand dinner, a ball and supper to the fashionables at Southend to which her Ladyship also invited all the naval officers in or near that place in honour of the Hero of the Nile." Chelmsford Chronicle, Friday August 2nd 1805.
Lady Hamilton and Horatio Nelson already had one child together, a daughter born illegitimately on 29th October 1800. She was christened Horatia Nelson Thompson as the first step in an elaborate deception to mask the scandal. The child was put into the care of a Mrs. Gibson and given the name of Thompson or Tomson to suggest she was the reputed daughter of a seaman. The scheme worked and the world believed Nelson and Emma to be her Godparents. Only they then adopted the child as an orphan. The spring of 1804 sparked rumours that Emma Hamilton was again expecting a child. A regular visitor to the Royal Terrace in Southend, she favoured this stretch of coast as a place to receive Nelson when his ship was anchored off the Nore. When her time came she retired to a house not far from the coast, her condition once more a secret for fear of scandal.
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| | Caroline Amelia Elizabeth of Brunswick (1768 - 1821)
| | | Caroline Amelia Elizabeth of Brunswick (1768 - 1821)"Pretty face – not expressive of softness – figure not graceful – tolerable teeth but going – fair hair and light eyebrows, good bust … Vastly happy with her future expectations … talks incessantly." (Assessment of Caroline of Brunswick in 1795 by Prince George VI's friend and confidant James Harris, Earl of Malmesbury, in his Diaries and Correspondence.)
It was the rise of Southend coupled with a great dislike for her foppish husband that gave German born Karoline Amalie Elisabeth of Brunswick her Essex connection. Born on May 17th 1768, she was the second daughter of Duke Karl II of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and his wife, Augusta Charlotte, and though her mother was already the sister of George III of England, it was arranged that Caroline marry her first cousin, the then Prince of Wales, essentially to get him out of £630,000 of debt. The Princes' tastes however ran more to sophisticated women and he found Caroline, at the time of their marriage, immature for her 27 years. For a Prince who valued beauty and grace, he held her to be hideously ugly referring to her throughout their relationship as, 'short' 'fat' and 'rude'. It also did not help that George was in love with his mistress of ten years, the catholic Mrs. Fitzherbert to whom he was illegally married. Ironically it had been Mrs. Fitzherbert George had dispatched to receive his future bride on her arrival from Brunswick to England.
| | Elizabeth 1 - A Lady of Progress
| | | Elizabeth 1 - A Lady of Progress"When it pleaseth her in the summer season to recreate herself abroad, and view the state of the country, every nobleman's house is her palace…" (from William Harrison's 'Description of England')
Elizabeth made in excess of four hundred visits to individual and civic hosts. Towns were obliged and honoured to welcome her, too, between 1558 and 1603. Entertaining the Queen could not be avoided. While Essex has no unique claim on Elizabeth, it was a well-favoured destination. In Essex the Queen visited the ancient boroughs of Maldon, Colchester, Harwich and Saffron Walden. She was entertained by Sir William Petre of Ingatestone Hall, by Sir Thomas Mildmay at Moulsham (Sir Thomas is recorded as having complained of the expense), Chelmsford and Lord Darcy at St Osyth. Other great houses were visited at Epping, Great Hallingbury, Ongar, Kelvedon, Gosfield and Abbess Roothing. At Horham Hall, Thaxted, she stayed for as long as nine days… Elizabeth did not travel light. As she insisted the decor and ambiance of the royal palaces at Greenwich, Whitehall, Richmond and Hampton Court be recreated in the halls and dining rooms of her hosts, so all her furniture, wall hangings, books, pictures, jewels, bedlinen including the royal bed had to be moved in with her. A baggage train of at least three to four hundred carts was needed, the whole entourage spanning on average a distance of ten miles from the first wagon to the last,…
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| | | | | | | Essex Boys | | Henry VII (1457 - 1509)
| | | Henry VII (1457 - 1509)"Slender but well built and strong; his height above the average, his face cheerful, especially when speaking; his eyes were small and blue." Henry VII in his mid forties
Hunting does not automatically spring to mind when thinking of Henry VII. His public image was one of a careful man, a man too preoccupied with his own safety to ride with the hunt; too practical to enjoy music dancing and festival. But Henry VII was an avid hunter. It was something he pursued in the Essex forests of Epping, Hainault, and Havering-atte-Bower while they still sprawled un- tamed across the county; the Abbeys of Waltham and Barking still standing magnificent on their woodland boundaries and their Abbotts and Abbesses enjoyed the privilege of seasonal hare hunting supplemented each year with a generous grant of venison.
| | Charles Dickens
| | | Charles Dickens"He is young and handsome, has a mellow, beautiful eye, fine brow, and abundant hair…" Eyewitness description of Charles Dickens as he appeared at a party given by Judge Walker in Cincinnati, Ohio, in April 1842.
The 7th February 1812 has gone down in the annuls of history for three reasons; it was the day a series of earthquakes caused a small tsunami in America's Misippippi River, causing it to run backward for several hours; the poet Lord Byron made his first speech in House of Lords and Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in Portsmouth. Admittedly Portsmouth is a fair distance from Essex but this small boy who read avidly and was destined to become the greatest Victorian writer this country has ever known drew on many places and populated his books with the characteristics of those he encountered on his travels. For this reason Essex like many other places was not unfamiliar to him.
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| | Daniel Defoe
| | | Daniel Defoe"He is a middle- sized spare man, about forty years old, of a brown complexion, and dark brown coloured hair, but wears a wig, a hooked nose, a sharp chin, grey eyes, and a large mole near his mouth…" Description of him when charged with writing a scandalous pamphlet c. 1704
When Daniel Defoe's first novel, – 'The Life and Times of Robinson Crusoe' arrived on the early Georgian literacy scene in 1719 he was almost sixty years old. 'Moll Flanders' followed in 1721 cementing his reputation as a novelist but Defoe was no stranger to publishing. A prolific and versatile writer, he wrote more than five hundred books, pamphlets and journals on various topics, was a pioneer of social and economic journalism and spoke out strongly in favour of education for women. But it is the fact that he resided, both in Chadwell St Mary and Colchester during his lifetime plus the travel guide, 'A Tour Through The Whole Island Of Great Britain' written between 1724 and 1727 that qualifies him, to the reader of this book as an Essex Boy.
| | Daniel Mendoza
| | | Daniel Mendoza"Intelligent, charismatic but chaotic…"
In Brentwood cemetery lay the last mortal remains of Daniel Mendoza, bare-knuckle Heavyweight Boxing Champion of Britain from 1792 to 1795, the only Jew to hold the title. An Essex man by virtue of this resting place and the matches he fought in this county he was regarded as the father of scientific boxing. This was at a time when boxing still had no rules or regulations; were vicious affairs where the final bout was over only when one fighter, bloodied and bowed could no longer stand.
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| | Dick Turpin (1705 - 1739) and The Essex Gang
| | | Dick Turpin (1705 - 1739) and The Essex Gang"5ft 9ins high, of a brown complexion, very much marked with the Small Pox, his cheek bones broad, his face slimmer towards the bottom, his visage short, pretty upright, and broad about the shoulders." Contemporary account of Richard Turpin.
Far from being the 'gentleman of the road' and 'seducer of ladies' as his reputation would have us believe, Turpin was no more than a thug and petty criminal. In fact Turpin only took to the highway robbery he is renowned for in the last year of his life. Up until then he was a core member of a band of organised criminals led by three brothers Jasper, Jeremy (Jeremiah) and Samuel Gregory. Later the sixteen or so members of this disreputable and notorious company of miscreants became known as the Essex Gang. All romance aside, these men including Turpin were hardened criminals known for their viciousness and brutality. When raiding farmhouses, in and around London, they were always fully armed and destroyed and burned everything not worth taking. For us to have made them folk heroes and the subjects of romantic ballads, is wholly misplaced.
| | King Henry VIII
| | | King Henry VIIIHenry had given the order to build 'Beaulieu' eight months into Katherine's pregnancy hoping beyond hope that she would be delivered of a son.
Having married in 1509 their first child, a girl had been still-born on 31 January 2025 followed exactly a year later by a son, Henry Duke of Cornwall who lived for only 52 days.1513 and 1514 saw the births of two more sons the first surviving no more than a few hours, the second delivered dead. Four children promised then snatched away was nothing less than a tragedy for the King and Queen and must have seen both Henry and Katherine despair.
But adversity appeared to have turned to hope and then gratitude when, almost at the end of this, Katherine's fifth pregnancy, Henry ordered plans for the transformation of Newhall, the subsequent delivery of a live and healthy baby prompting a genuine joy in the King.
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| | Laurence Edward Grace Oates
| | | Laurence Edward Grace Oates"…Oates is splendid with them—I do not know what we should do without him." Captain Scottt speaking of Oates and his ability with the expedition horses.
When Lawrence Oates was accepted as a member of Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic expedition he was already thirty years old. Not only was it was his knowledge of horses that saw him charged with the care of the nineteen ponies vital for sled haulage on the trip, it was his distinctive service in the army. Promotions in 1901 and 1902; reaching captain in 1906 and active service in Ireland, Egypt and India had all made Lawrence Edward Grace 'Titus' Oates courageous and self-reliant. In other words exactly what Scott was looking for in those that were to accompany him to one of the most hostile environments on earth.
| | Sir John Hawkwood
| | | Sir John HawkwoodHawkwood, in all his years as a mercenary was not deemed unduly cruel.
That honour was taken by the Hungarian and Breton companies who seemed predisposed to kill for pleasure with incredible savagery. But Hawkwood's massacre at Cesena in February 1377 cursed him with the unflattering title 'un diaudo incarnato' or 'devil incarnate' on account of the 5,000 men, women, and children that were slaughtered. Such was his reputation after the atrocities of the 'Cesena bloodbath' that Italian mothers frightened their children with the threat that 'Giovanni Acuto' (the sharp one) would come for them if they disobeyed their parents.
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