(2) Georgian London | True Grit; An ambitious time with dark consequences
www.economist.com/news/books-and ... sequences-true-grit
Note:
(a) This is a book review on two books:
(i) Lucy Inglis, Georgian London, Into the streets. Viking, 2013;
(ii) Hannah Greig, The Beau Monde; Fashionable society in Georgian London. Oxford Univ Press, 2013.
* The Scottish surname Inglis is "a term denoting an Englishman or an English speaker," similar to the English surname "English."
* The Scottish surname Greig is "from a short form of the personal name Gregory."
(b)
(i) Georgian (adj; First Known Use: circa 1855):
"1: of, relating to, or characteristic of the reigns of the first four Georges of Great Britain
2: of, relating to, or characteristic of the reign of George V of Great Britain"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/georgian
(ii) Georgian era
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_era
House of Hanover:
* George I (1660-1727; reign 1714-1727)
* George II (1683-1760; reign 1727-1760)
* George III (1738-1820; reign 1760-1820)
* George IV (1762-1830; regency 1811-1820; reign 1820-1830; eldest son of George III)
* William IV (1765-1837; reign 1830-1837; third son of George III and yournger brother and successor to George IV) (George III's second and favorite son, Frederick (1763-1827) died before William IV's coronation.)
* Victoria (1819-1901; reign 1837-1901; daughter of the fourth son of King George III) She ascended to the throne, because George III was childless and William IV's only legitimate child Elizabeth died in infancy (1820-1821), despite ten illegitimate children who by law could not inherit (real property or throne).
(c) Lucy Inglis "begins at St Paul's Cathedral and circles outward"
St Paul's Cathedral
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Paul%27s_Cathedral
(Church of England; seat of the Bishop of London; sits at the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London)
(d)"London’s financial centre was in its infancy—the Bank of England was formed in 1694 (funded mainly by rich Jewish and Huguenot immigrants). Amid the ancient meat, fish and produce markets, the wharves and the warehouses, moneymen began meeting in coffee houses to discuss business and stocks."
(i) Bank of England
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_England
(Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world, after the Sveriges Riksbank [of Sweden; established 1668]; The Bank was privately owned from its foundation in 1694 until nationalised in 1946; In 1998, it became an independent public organisation)
Swedish-English dictionary:
* Sverige (n): "the Swedish name for Sweden"
riks- (prefix): "national"
(ii) moneyman (n): "FINANCIER"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moneyman
(e) "'Freak' shows around Piccadilly Circus presented hermaphrodites and large-breasted African women as exotic entertainment. * * * New power looms caused economic ruin for silk weavers in the east. * * * Alcoholism became a scourge in the Irish enclave of St Giles to the north. In 1750 one in every five buildings in the area made or sold gin."
(i) Piccadilly Circus
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piccadilly_Circus
(Piccadilly Circus connects toPiccadilly, a thoroughfare whose name first appeared in 1626 as Piccadilly Hall, named after a house belonging to one Robert Baker, a tailor famous for selling piccadills, or piccadillies, a term used for various kinds of collars)
(A) The online dictionary www.m-w.com does not have piccadill, but does have 'piccadilly" (etymology: F picadilles, pl. of picadille picadil — more at PICKADIL).
"Piccadilly collar" also appears in
collar (clothing)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collar_(clothing)
(B) What does a piccadilly look like?
* piccadill
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piccadill
(or pickadill; fashionable in the late 16th century and early 17th century)
Worn by both men and women (who could afford it).
* Reageer, Piccadilly. July 23, 2010 (a blog in Dutch)
www.jacktummers.nl/piccadilly/
(a painting of a man wearing round, white piccadilly around his neck)
(C) Compare “Piccadilly collar.”
* a sketch:
Piccadilly collar: "[noun] small shirt c. [short for "collar"], the tips of which are angled by a decorative pin which goes under the knot of a necktie"
Online Textile Dictionary, undated.
en.texsite.info/Piccadilly_collar
* a photo:
SLIM FIT SHIRTS / SINGLE CUFF SLIM / #10499. Emmett London, undated
www.emmettlondon.com/catalog/18/ ... e-cuff-slim/1/10499
("Piccadilly collar")
(ii) “New power looms caused economic ruin for silk weavers in the east.”
(A) power loom
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_loom
(B) Luddite
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
(1811-1817)
(iii) “Alcoholism became a scourge in the Irish enclave of St Giles to the north.”
That was the area around
St Giles in the Fields
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Giles_in_the_Fields
(the present structure was built between 1731 and 1733 [still extant]; on this site a chapel was recorded in 1101)
(iv) St Giles, London
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Giles,_London
(a district of London; formerly the parish of St Giles in the Fields; section 2.2 "Gin Lane")
three mentions of "Irish" in this Wiki page:
"Vagrants expelled from the city settled in the St Giles district known for the generous charitable relief of the parish. Irish and French refugees were drawn to the area as well as 'St Giles blackbirds,' black servants reduced to begging."
"From Georgian affluence in the 18th century, the area declined rapidly, as houses were divided up, many families sharing a single room. Irish Catholic immigrants seeking to escape desperate poverty took up residence and the slum was nicknamed 'Little Ireland' or 'The Holy Land.' The expression 'a St Giles cellar' passed into common parlance, describing the worst conditions of poverty. Open sewers often ran through rooms and cesspits were left untended.
"Reformer Henry Mayhew described the slum in 1860 in A Visit to the Rookery of St Giles and its Neighbourhood: ‘The parish of St Giles, with its nests of close and narrow alleys and courts inhabited by the lowest class of Irish costermongers, has passed into a byword as the synonym of filth and squalor.
(f) “Prostitutes haunted Covent Garden; Harris’s List, an annual directory, detailed the names and talents of many.”
(i) Covent Garden
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covent_Garden
(The land, now called "the Covent Garden," was seized by Henry VIII, and granted to the Earls of Bedford in 1552)
two consecutive paragraphs:
"The use of the name 'Covent'—an Anglo-French term for a religious community, equivalent to 'monastery' or 'convent'—appears in a document in 1515, when the Abbey [(Catholic) Benedictine monks of the Abbey of St Peter, Westminster], which had been letting out parcels of land along the north side of the Strand for inns and market gardens, granted a lease of the walled garden, referring to it as 'a garden called Covent Garden.' This is how it was recorded from then on.
"After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540, Henry VIII [as Supreme Head of the Church in England] took for himself the land belonging to Westminster Abbey, including the convent garden and seven acres to the north called Long Acre.
(ii) Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris%27s_List_of_Covent_Garden_Ladies
(1757-1795; an annual directory of prostitutes then working in Georgian London)
(g) “After the Gordon riots in 1780 (when anti-Catholic protesters wrought anarchy for a week) the government finally introduced a city police force. Meanwhile, philanthropists set up societies and institutions that persist today, such as the Foundling Hospital for abandoned children, the RSPCA to protect animals, Kew Gardens and the British Library.”
(i) Gordon Riots
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Riots
(Lord George Gordon became its [Protestant Association of London's] President in 1779; Gordon inflamed the [anti-Catholic] mob; Gordon was arrested and charged with high treason, but was found not guilty; section 3 Aftermath; section 4 Cultural references)
Quotation from section 3: “The Earl of Shelburne shocked many the day after the riots broke out by proposing in parliament that Britain should consider forming a force modeled on the French police [21]. Footnote 21 reads, "A Greater London Professional Police Force--the Metropolitan Police Service [whose original headquarters was Scotland Yard]--would not however be established until Sept 29, 1829. The City of London Police would not be established until 1839.
(A) London Police
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Police
(B) law enforcement in France
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcement_in_France
(France has two national police forces: [second] Gendarmerie Nationale [1306-present])
(C) National Gendarmerie
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Gendarmerie
(more commonly known by its French title, the Maréchaussée)
Quote: "While its existence ensured the relative safety of French rural districts and roads, the Maréchaussée was regarded, in contemporary England (which had no effective police force of any nature), as a symbol of foreign tyranny. In 1789, on the eve of the French Revolution, the Maréchaussée numbered 3,660 men divided into small brigades (a 'brigade' in this context being a squad of ten to twenty men.)
English dictionary:
* gendarmerie (n; French, from gendarme; First Known Use 1795):
"a body of gendarmes"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gendarmerie
* gendarme (n; French, from Middle French, back-formation from gensdarmes, plural of gent d'armes, literally, armed people; First Known Use 1793):
"a member of a body of soldiers especially in France serving as an armed police force for the maintenance of public order"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gendarme
(ii) Foundling Hospital
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundling_Hospital
(founded in 1741 by the philanthropic sea captain Thomas Coram; When, in the 1950s, British law moved away from institutionalisation of children toward more family-oriented solutions, such as adoption and foster care, the Foundling Hospital ceased most of its operations)
was a children's home, not hospital in today's sense)
(iii) hospital (n; Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Medieval Latin hospitale hospice, guest house, from neuter of Latin hospitalis of a guest, from hospit-, hospes)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hospital
(h)
(i) “Casanova, for example, almost drowned himself in the Thames after catching his mistress under her hairdresser. Devastated, he promptly smashed the place and walked towards the river with his pockets full of lead shot. Mercifully, he chose not to jump but recounted the event in his memoirs instead.”
(A) A entire paragraph of section 1.6 On the run, in
Giacomo Casanova
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_Casanova
(1725-1798)
devotes to his time in "England." Still there is no mention of his suicide attempt at the Thames.
(B) Ian Kelly, Casanova: Actor, lover, priest, spy. Penguin, 2008
http://books.google.com/books/about/Casanova.html?id=ucrdhj8dII4C
Click the book to search with the term "Marie Anne Charpillon" and read five consecutive pages.
(ii) “‘The Beau Monde’ by Hannah Greig * * * The Glorious Revolution of 1688 began the transfer of power from the monarchy to Parliament, and this elite set became central to London’s politics and social calendar. Every ‘season’ from December to June (when Parliament was in play) the so-called beau monde would occupy extravagant town houses in Mayfair and St James’s and attend court, the theatre and opera, the pleasure gardens, assemblies and balls. * * * An interesting chapter on jewellery reveals the relationship between gems and social connections. Jewels were regularly reset—a necklace may become a bodice adornment or belt buckles—and then lent to extended family or an intended.”
(A) For Beau Monde, see ton (le bon ton)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton_(le_bon_ton)
(The ton is a term commonly used to refer to Britain’s high society during the Georgian era, especially the Regency and reign of George IV; The full phrase is le bon ton, meaning good manners or "in the fashionable mode;" Beau Monde (French for "beautiful world") is interchangeable)
French-English dictionary:
* ton (noun masculine; Latin tuus): “tone [such as ‘manner of speaking’]”
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ton
The “le bon ton” (where “le” is definite article for male noun) and “de bon ton” (de = of) is defined as “good taste” or “good form.”
* beau (adjective masculine; feminine belle, masculine plural beaux, feminine plural belles; from Latin adjective masculine bellus):
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/beau
* monde (noun masculine; from Latin mundus world): “fashion” (never means “world”)
(B) St James’s
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_James%27s
(There was a former civil parish of St James [an Anglican church: 1684-present] from 1685 to 1922 that roughly corresponded to the area)
(C) pleasure garden
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasure_garden
(D) intended (n): “the person to whom another is engaged”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intended
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发表于 10-31-2013 11:23:50
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