Here's a throwback to my research paper detailing Jane Austen's abbreviated life in Bath, England alongside Cassandra Brydges, Duchess of Chandos. Bath, England and the Chronology of Two Women April 30, 2018 Thy city, Bath, how grand! – thy healing springs The grateful Muse with perfect rapture sings, Whence thousands fly—with healing in their wings.[1] This poem, published in the Bath Chronicle in mid-June of 1786, illustrated the seemingly endless possibilities of Bath, England, with classical imagery of the Greek Muses and Philomella [sic], encouraged its readers to participate in promenades, sight-seeing, bathing, and meeting like-minded patrons. Indeed, in 1786, Bath was at its peak as the premier resort spa and social watering hole. Eighteenth-century Bath was regarded as a Mecca for the sick and the healthy. Like Jane Austen and Cassandra Brydges, Duchess of Chandos, those who came to Bath often had various motives for visiting. These two women’s social status, chronology, and personal history offer a distinct glance into Bath as a social and medicinal forum. Of those who visited Bath for various purposes, Lord Lansdowne, Earl of Bath, provided commentary on the importance of Bath as a healing place. On one occasion in particular, it was announced that Lord Lansdowne traveled to Bath recover from ill health.[2] He would do so until his death in 1735. In 1766, country parson John Penrose sought a cure for his gouty leg and was eventually whisked into the social forum that was Bath, England. Penrose was pleasantly surprised when, visiting the Pump Rooms, he saw Prime Minister Pitt.[3] Furthermore, a fortnight before the cotillion ball at the lower assembly rooms, the Marquis and Marchioness of Donnegal, along with others like the Earl and Countess of Cork, arrived early November 1792. For most of the daily printings in the Bath Chronicle, there followed a list of those who had arrived in town.[4] In one of her letters to her sister, Jane Austen remarked that “there was a very long list of Arrivals here, in the newspaper yesterday.”[5] It is evident that throughout the eighteenth century, Bath was a place where people of all social strata, from the plebeian to the middling sort to the aristocrat, could visit and experience. Against this backdrop of comings and goings throughout the eighteenth century, Bath established itself as a leader in the social strata of England. It is important to note that Jane Austen and Cassandra Brydges, Duchess of Chandos, made several visits to Bath like John Penrose, Lord Lansdowne, and Prime Minister Pitt. These women, while of different times and places, went to Bath to visit with friends, gather at the pump houses, and travel with ill family members. Cassandra Brydges celebrated her wedding anniversary to the duke in Bath,[6] while Jane Austen danced in the upper rooms of the Lower Assembly.[7] Rapid growth proved Bath’s reputation as a popular and thriving city. It grew from a town of 2,000 inhabitants in 1700 to 30,000 by 1800 and was socially diverse from the middling sort to the upper class. Bath was structured in such a way—with its assembly rooms, pleasure gardens, and recreational and medicinal baths—that the elite came to be served therapeutically for both body and mind.[8] This growth was determinant by the increase of specialization that Bath could uniquely offer: consumerism of health and entertainment.[9] The town was so popular that people would pay to see a scale model of it in London until 1792, when the model would be destroyed in a house fire.[10] The attention the model garnered highlighted again the attention Bath received in the eighteenth century. While it was certainly well-known by modelists like Shelton, or cartoonists like Rowlandson, those who experienced the town firsthand, like Jane Austen or Cassandra Brydges, could attest to Bath’s multifaceted behavior. Bath drew the attention of a wider audience and criticism in eighteenth century Britain, as it became a nationalized meeting-place for people of all socioeconomic statuses. When the Pump Rooms and Baths opened in 1706, it caused a wave of travel across Britain to visit the modernized “resort development.” This influx of people caused a quiet town to bulge under the weight of the affluent and the idle, thus feeding into the growing desire to consume and be entertained. These assembly halls, like the upper and lower assembly rooms, opened their doors for dances, parties, shows, dinners, gambling, and exhibitions. These no doubt attracted the masses on their own terms, especially those of the upper echelon like Cassandra Brydges.[11] Cassandra, in writing to her cousin affectionately named Parrot, illustrated that her friends Lord Carnarvon and Lord Harry went to Bath for “their divertion” [sic], meaning they wanted to participate in the social festivities Bath had to offer, possibly including the company of young women.[12] Time spent in Bath meant participating in the social scene and frequenting the spas, baths, and latest healing amenities. As the city was organized around the events the different venues had to offer, it gave both the secluded pleasures of the top tiered elite but also a variety of attractions for the growing middling sort. The beauty of Bath was the beauty of “intermingling of gentry with bourgeois society.”[13] Women like Cassandra Brydges and Jane Austen, while separated by time, experienced this firsthand as well. In September of 1721, Cassandra Brydges wrote about her cousin, Cassandra Cornwallis. In her description of an event, Brydges explained that Cornwallis had traveled to Bath to visit Mole Molyneux, a man that she had begun to form a serious attachment to. By this recollection of events, Cassandra Brydges had a “desire to proceed with the treaty between her [Emma Robinson’s] daughter Cass: & Mr Molyneux.”[14] Bath had a reputation as a place where singles of the opposite sex intermingled, and Cassandra Cornwallis visited Bath specifically for this purpose. Furthermore, when the duchess spent time in Bath in 1726, she wrote about the information she heard pertaining to her cousin “R’s” fortune, which was upward to two thousand pounds.[15] Cassandra Brydges’ aforementioned letter highlighted Bath’s role as a center for gossip. Even so, Jane Austen wrote to her sister Cassandra Austen of the gossip she heard in Bath, this specifically of Dr. Mapleton and his professional successes. While this information was not out of the ordinary, she wrote, “Mrs. Williams need not pride herself on her knowledge of Dr. Mapleton’s Success here; -- She knows no more than everybody else knows in Bath.”[16] Bath was a gossip-mill, and the business of one man was the business of the entire town. Despite the gap in both Brydges and Austen’s chronology, it is quite apparent that Bath’s role as a place to whisper tidbits about the elite perpetuated throughout the century. According to Brian Southam, a scholar of all things Jane Austen, Jane’s parents had taken various trips to Bath before deciding to move there because of their mutually declining health.[17] However, Southam suggested that while the Austen patriarchs were suffering from the illness of old age, there could have been ulterior motives for their daughters to find husbands from some of the families that frequented the city.[18] If that was the case for Mr. Austen’s removal to Bath, then Bath’s purpose of a recuperative and recreational resort served its role well. Not only did Bath exemplify a large tourist economy, but it housed many people like Jane Austen’s family, and became an attractive place for those of their station in life to retire.[19] On a specific visit to Bath in May of 1799, Jane noted dismally to her sister, Cassandra, that her first view of Bath was “just as gloomy” as it was last year in November. As of most families of Jane’s socioeconomic status, they rented rooms in town. This specific time, a Mrs. Bromley let her house for Jane and her family. Jane described her room having soiled quilts and a closet so small it could be a cupboard, something not unusual for her family’s financial situation. While her living quarters are not as garish as that of the Royal Crescent, this time Jane was able to fully participate in the gaiety of Bath society, including a public breakfast in Sydney Gardens as mentioned in her letter.[20] Yet for all the fanfare that seemed to accompany a patron in Bath, Jane seemed to participate in it very little. She had shopped on a few occasions for inexpensive trimmings for her hat, took a walk to Beacon Hill, and visited with her friends, the Mapletons. Otherwise, she remarked on the mundane, such as her brother Edward’s weak health and his attempts at healing: drinking at the Hetling Pump, bathing at the pools, and electricity.[21] It can be extrapolated from her lack of description of her involvement in the life of the city that her interactions with the frivolous things were few and far between. Cassandra Brydges participated in the same activities as Jane, such as shopping, visiting the baths, entertaining herself at the assemblies and exhibitions. However, Cassandra Brydges’ experiences in Bath were quite different than the “dirty quilts” Jane slept under. Cassandra had a more difficult time finding lodgings in Bath because the fashionable places she wanted to live were full. In spite of this, she also spent a significant amount of time at the lodgings her husband owned in Bath.[22] There she had female housekeepers and contended that it was the “best & most convenient [apartment] in the Bath.”[23] This difference from Jane Austen’s experience with housing was especially telling that as she was of a different social class. And despite living almost sixty-five years before Jane Austen in Bath, the duchess arguably had better living arrangements. Jane’s skepticism, “I we [sic] are all unanimous in expecting no advantage from it [the baths],” is much deliberated in her writings to her sister Cassandra.[24] The waters at Bath, whether to soak in or drink, have little healing value than a placebo. Her brother Edward’s ill-health was often treated in Bath, with many of her letters describing her brother, mother, and father’s trips to visit the pump rooms.[25] Unlike Jane Austen, Cassandra Brydges put much stock in the healing powers of Bath. Cassandra wrote, “I hope the benefit of the Bath my sister will soon recover a good state of health,” referring to what she believed to be medicinal properties in the waters at Bath.[26] Even so, many visited Bath as it was advertised to heal all sorts of maladies, including gout, rheumatism, convulsions, consumption, deafness, or infertility.[27] The duchess even experienced “troublesome collick,” or some form of chest cold in 1715 and desired that Bath would cure her of it.[28] These women experienced varying degrees of sickness in Bath, but their description of others’ and their own experiences in town lend credibility to Bath’s reputation as a place of recovery. However, it could be noted that due to the time difference, Jane Austen might have been more educated than the duchess concerning the true versus rumored medicinal properties at Bath. Both Jane Austen and Cassandra Brydges’ lives, despite their differences in chronology, social status, and personal history, gave evidence of Bath’s cultural relativity to their respective eras. Bath was known for its social and medicinal forum which gave rise to an increase in tourism and eventually population. This showed that a patron could sit next to a duchess and a famous novelist in the multifaceted town of Bath. Bibliography Primary Sources “Bath, Wednesday, November 7.” The Bath Chronicle. 08 Nov. 1792. p.3. [column 2.] Newspapers Online, Ancestry.com. Le Faye, Deirdre and Jane Austen. Jane Austen's Letters. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. O'Day, Rosemary and Cassandra Willoughby Brydges. Cassandra Brydges, Duchess of Chandos, 1670-1735: Life and Letters. Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2007. “The Lord Lansdown [sic] is gone for Longleat.” The Post Boy. 12 Sept. 1719. p.2. [paragraph 3.] Newspapers Online, Ancenstry.com. “Thy Prospects.” The Bath Chronicle. 15 June 1786. p.4. [column 1.] Newspapers Online, Ancestry.com. Secondary Sources Borsay, Peter. "New Approaches to Social History, Myth, Memory, and Place: Monmouth and Bath 1750-1900." Journal of Social History Spring 2006. p.867-889. Corfield, P.J. "Georgian Bath: The Magical Meeting Place." History Today November 1990. p.26-33. Southam, Brian. "Jane Austen Beside the Seaside: Devonshire and Wales 1801-1803." Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal. January 2011. p.125-147. Footnotes [1] “Thy Prospects.” The Bath Chronicle. (Bath, 15 June 1786), p.4. [column 1.] Newspapers Online, Ancestry.com, accessed 22 April 2018.
[2] Lord Lansdowne was an English poet, playwright, a member of the Jacobite peerage, and the Earl of Bath. “The Lord Lansdown [sic] is gone for Longleat.” The Post Boy. (London, 12 Sept. 1719), p.2. [paragraph 3.] Newspapers Online, Ancenstry.com, accessed 22 April 2018. [3] P.J. Corfield, “Georgian Bath: The Magical Meeting Place.” History Today. (London, Nov. 1990), p.27. Humanities Full Text, accessed 22 March 2018. [4] “Bath, Wednesday, November 7.” The Bath Chronicle. (Bath, 08 Nov. 1792), p.3. [column 2.] Newspapers Online, Ancestry.com, accessed 22 April 2018. [5] Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen, 17 May 1799. Compiled by Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen’s Letters. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Humanities Full Text, accessed 22 March 2018. [6] Cassandra Brydges to cousin Brydges at Aventon, 23 August 1726. Compiled by Rosemary O’Day, Cassandra Brydges, Duchess of Chandos, 1670-1735: Life and Letters. (Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2007). p.211. [letter 233]. [7] Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen, 13 May 1801. Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen’s Letters. [8] Peter Borsay, “New Approaches to Social History, Myth, Memory, and Place: Monmouth and Bath 1750-1900.” Journal of Social History. (Fairfax, Spring 2006), p.873. Humanities Full Text, accessed 22 March 2018. [9] Corfield. “Georgian Bath.” p.27. [10] This scale model was made by a Mr. Shelton and Mr. Master, who named it the “Model of Bath.” “Bath, Wednesday, November 7.” The Bath Chronicle. (Bath, 08 Nov. 1792). [11] Corfield. “Georgian Bath.” p.27-29. [12] Cassandra Brydges to Parrot (her cousin Martha Bourchier), July 1719. Rosemary O’Day, Cassandra Brydges, Duchess of Chandos. p.103. [letter 50.] [13] Quote found on page 30 of Corfield. “Georgian Bath.” p.29-30. [14] Cassandra Brydges to Emma Robinson, ? September 1721. Rosemary O’Day, Cassandra Brydges, Duchess of Chandos. p.138. [letter 121]. [15] This “R” is in reference to Emma Robinson. Cassandra Brydges to Lady Ann, Countess of Coventry, 1 July 1726. Rosemary O’Day, Cassandra Brydges, Duchess of Chandos. p.206. [letter 224]. [16] Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen, 19 June 1799. Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen’s Letters. [17] Southam was the author of Jane Austen’s Literary Manuscripts, Jane Austen and the Navy, and Jane Austen: A Student’s Guide to the Later Manuscript Works, as well as a editor of Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage. [18] Brian Southam, “Jane Austen beside the Seaside: Devonshire and Wales 1801-1803.” Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal. (New York, 2011), p.125. Literary Reference Center, accessed 22 March 2018. [19] Corfield. “Georgian Bath.” p.28-29. [20] Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen, 17 May 1799. Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen’s Letters. [21] Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen, 2 June 1799. Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen’s Letters. [22] Cassandra Brydges to Martha Bourchier, September 1715. Rosemary O’Day, Cassandra Brydges, Duchess of Chandos. p.79. [letter 11]. [23] Cassandra Brydges to Lady Castlemain, 27 September 1729. Rosemary O’Day, Cassandra Brydges, Duchess of Chandos. p.237. [letter 273]. [24] Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen, 2 June 1799. Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen’s Letters. [25] See Jane Austen’s letters, in particular those from Spring of 1799. Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen’s Letters. [26] Cassandra Brydges to her sister Chamberlayne, October 1718. Rosemary O’Day, Cassandra Brydges, Duchess of Chandos. p.94. [letter 36]. [27] Corfield. “Georgian Bath.” p.27-28. [28] Cassandra Brydges to Martha Bourchier, September 1715. Rosemary O’Day, Cassandra Brydges, Duchess of Chandos. p.79. [letter 11].
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