A Very Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year

George Morland, Skating Party. Wash & ink. c.1792

Louise

On Thin Ice

There is no snow in London at the moment, and certainly no ice for skating on, but during the early 19thc century skating on the lakes and ponds in the parks was very popular – and could be perilous.

One of the best lakes for skating was the Serpentine in Hyde Park. It was formed in 1730 by damming the Westbourne, one of London’s lost rivers flowing down from Hampstead, and snakes between the Park proper and Kensington Gardens. It was in this water that Harriet Shelley drowned herself in 1816. The print on the left shows skaters in St James's Park with the Queen's House, later Buckingham Palace, in the background.

The Picture of London for 1807, a particularly handy guidebook (and one that I tend to prefer to modern volumes when exploring!) has this to say about the dangers of thin ice and the steps taken to deal with them:

In severe winters, when the Serpentine River is frozen over, the ice is almost covered with people. One winter there were counted more than 6000 people at one time on the ice. A number of booths were pitched for the refreshment of the populace; and here and there was a group of six, eight or more, fashionable young men, skating, and describing very difficult figures, in the manner of a country dance, with particular neatness and facility of execution… From the number of accidents which happen annually on this river when frozen over, his Majesty gave the Humane Society a spot of ground on its banks, on which they have erected a most convenient receiving-house for the recovery of the apparently drowned; it cost upwards of £500 and is worthy of inspection by the curious. The Society, during the times of frost, keep men on the river to guard the unwary from danger, and to relieve those who may require their aid.

The Humane Society, which later received its royal charter, and which still exists as the Royal Humane Society to reward acts of courage in saving life, was founded in 1774 by two doctors who were concerned about reports of apparently drowned persons not being resuscitated and then either dying or being buried alive. The society was at first called the Society for the Recovery of Persons Apparently Drowned. They set out to publish information on reviving the drowned, paid rewards to anyone attempting a rescue, paid pub keepers if they allowed their premises to be used during a resuscitation attempt and provided volunteers, such as the Icemen around the Serpentine, with life-saving equipment in key locations.

They also established other Receiving Houses around the Westminster area so that drowning victims might be treated. The Hyde Park building survived until it was demolished in 1954 and branches of the Society were set up around the country, mainly in ports.

Valuable as this work was, the methods used to revive the drowned were strange by today’s standards. Draping the body over a barrel was supposed to drain the water from the lungs, which might have had some effect. Spirits were often administered, which probably made the choking worse, but oddest of all, was the application of tobacco smoke.

This was supposed to be blown into the rectum of the unfortunate person, and, I suppose, the indignity of the operation might have brought round the merely semi-conscious. Fortunately for the person who was puffing away on a pipe as part of the procedure, devices like little bellows were invented to introduce the smoke into the rectum. At one time these were placed at strategic locations around London’s lakes and along the Thames and one rare survivor is shown in the photograph above.

If the weather is good and you are in London, a walk through Hyde Park taking in Apsley House at one end and Kensington Palace at the other, is described in Walks Through Regency London, available from www.louiseallenregency.co.uk

Louise

On Thin Ice

There is no snow in London at the moment, and certainly no ice for skating on, but during the early 19thc century skating on the lakes and ponds in the parks was very popular – and could be perilous.

One of the best lakes for skating was the Serpentine in Hyde Park. It was formed in 1730 by damming the Westbourne, one of London’s lost rivers flowing down from Hampstead, and snakes between the Park proper and Kensington Gardens. It was in this water that Harriet Shelley drowned herself in 1816. The print on the left shows skaters in St James's Park with the Queen's House, later Buckingham Palace, in the background.

The Picture of London for 1807, a particularly handy guidebook (and one that I tend to prefer to modern volumes when exploring!) has this to say about the dangers of thin ice and the steps taken to deal with them:

In severe winters, when the Serpentine River is frozen over, the ice is almost covered with people. One winter there were counted more than 6000 people at one time on the ice. A number of booths were pitched for the refreshment of the populace; and here and there was a group of six, eight or more, fashionable young men, skating, and describing very difficult figures, in the manner of a country dance, with particular neatness and facility of execution… From the number of accidents which happen annually on this river when frozen over, his Majesty gave the Humane Society a spot of ground on its banks, on which they have erected a most convenient receiving-house for the recovery of the apparently drowned; it cost upwards of £500 and is worthy of inspection by the curious. The Society, during the times of frost, keep men on the river to guard the unwary from danger, and to relieve those who may require their aid.

The Humane Society, which later received its royal charter, and which still exists as the Royal Humane Society to reward acts of courage in saving life, was founded in 1774 by two doctors who were concerned about reports of apparently drowned persons not being resuscitated and then either dying or being buried alive. The society was at first called the Society for the Recovery of Persons Apparently Drowned. They set out to publish information on reviving the drowned, paid rewards to anyone attempting a rescue, paid pub keepers if they allowed their premises to be used during a resuscitation attempt and provided volunteers, such as the Icemen around the Serpentine, with life-saving equipment in key locations.

They also established other Receiving Houses around the Westminster area so that drowning victims might be treated. The Hyde Park building survived until it was demolished in 1954 and branches of the Society were set up around the country, mainly in ports.

Valuable as this work was, the methods used to revive the drowned were strange by today’s standards. Draping the body over a barrel was supposed to drain the water from the lungs, which might have had some effect. Spirits were often administered, which probably made the choking worse, but oddest of all, was the application of tobacco smoke.

This was supposed to be blown into the rectum of the unfortunate person, and, I suppose, the indignity of the operation might have brought round the merely semi-conscious. Fortunately for the person who was puffing away on a pipe as part of the procedure, devices like little bellows were invented to introduce the smoke into the rectum. At one time these were placed at strategic locations around London’s lakes and along the Thames and one rare survivor is shown in the photograph above.

If the weather is good and you are in London, a walk through Hyde Park taking in Apsley House at one end and Kensington Palace at the other, is described in Walks Through Regency London, available from www.louiseallenregency.co.uk

Louise

Thin ice

I spent a day recently exploring Hyde Park and Kensington Palace and gardens with my copy of “The Picture of London for 1807: being a correct guide to all the curiosities, amusements, exhibitions, public establishments and remarkable objects, in and near London” clutched in my frozen fingers.

I’d gone there to find some information for Christine Merrill, one of the US authors of the Regency continuity I’m working on - she needed to know what species of tree her hero and heroine might accurately be kissing behind.
The answer was, not very much in 1815, not if they wanted to preserve their privacy. According to my guidebook “A few years since, Hyde Park was a little deficient in wood, many of the old trees having decayed; but recently some judicious plantations have been made, that will greatly enliven its general appearance.” And, looking at the trees now, it is obvious that 200 years ago they would have been very young indeed. Christine’s hero and heroine were going to have to find somewhere else for their embraces.

The parks and gardens looked fabulous in the frosty mist and all that was missing, I thought, were skaters on the ice.

According to The Picture of London “In severe winters, when the Serpentine River is frozen over, the ice is almost covered with people. One winter there were counted more than 6,000 people at one time on the ice. A number of booths were pitched for the refreshment of the populace; and here and there was a group of six, eight or more, fashionable young men, skating, and describing very difficult figures, in the manner of a country dance, with particular neatness and facility of execution. In general, however, the English do not excel in this very exhilarating and wholesome exercise.
From the number of accidents which happen annually on this river when frozen over, his majesty gave the Humane Society a spot of ground on its banks, on which they have erected a most convenient receiving house for the recovery of persons apparently drowned; it cost upwards of £500 and is worthy the inspection of the curious. The society, during the time of frost, keep men on the river to guard the unwary from danger, and to relieve those who may require their aid.”

There’s no sign of the “convenient receiving house” now, but I have suggested it to Christine as a possible retreat for her amorous couple. Whether she’ll use it I don’t know - perhaps the risk of being interrupted by the life savers would be too much for even the boldest of heroes.

The photograph is of the Long Water (Hyde Park bank) from Prince Albert’s Italian Gardens and the print from the French series Modes et Manières published in the early 19thc.

Louise Allen