The actress Frances Barton or Frances “Fanny” Barton was the daughter of a private soldier who started her working life as a flower girl and a street singer. As an actress, she performed in taverns and resorted to selling herself as many hard-up women did in those days before she made it onto the stage.
Her first step to success came when she got a job as a servant to a French milliner. Fanny learned about costume and acquired some French which afterward stood her in good stead as she mingled in London’s high society as a famous actress.
Actress Fanny first appeared on the stage was at Haymarket in 1755 as Miranda in Mrs. Centlivre’s play, Busybody. Following that she became a member of the Drury Lane Company, where she was overshadowed by its more established actresses Hannah Pritchard and Kitty Clive. However, Fanny was an she was an ambitious actress and travelled to Ireland where she had her first major success Lady Townley in The Provok’d Husband by Vanbrugh and Cibber. Fanny worked at her trade, she became a consumate actress and five years after she began her career she received an invitation from David Garrick to return to Drury Lane.
Fanny married her music teacher, James Abington, a royal trumpeter, in 1759. It was not happy and the pair separated but she retained his name calling herself Mrs. Abington. She remained at Drury Lane for eighteen yearsFanny played Mrs. Teasel in Sheridan’s School for Scandal making the role her own. She also played Shakespearean heroines – Beatrice, Portia, Desdemona and Ophelia and the comic characters Miss Hoyden, Biddy Tipkin, Lucy Lockit, and Miss Prue. Mrs. Abington’s Kitty in “High Life Below Stairs” put her in the foremost rank of comic actresses, making the mop cap she wore in the role the reigning fashion“.
This cap was soon referred to as the “Abington Cap” and frequently seen on stage as well as in hat shops across Ireland and England. Adoring fans donned copies of this cap and it became an essential part of the well-appointed woman’s wardrobe. The actress soon became known for her avant-garde fashion and she even came up with a way of making the female figure appear taller. She began to wear a tall-hat called a ziggurat adorned with long flowing feathers and began to follow the French custom of putting red powder on her hair.
An example of Fanny’s influence on fashion - the high ziggurat style hat.
Sir Joshua Reynolds painted her as Miss Prue a character from Congreve’s Love for Love. The portrait is the best-known of his half-dozen or more portraits of her. In 1782 she left Drury Lane for Covent Garden. After an absence from the stage from 1790 until 1797, she reappeared, quitting it finally in 1799. Her ambition, personal wit, and cleverness won her a distinguished position in society, in spite of her humble origin.
Source; Wikipedia
Illustrations: Fanny Abington, Joshua Reynolds, Portrait of Marie-Dauncey,1789, James-Northcote, Fanny as Miss Prue, Joshua Reynolds.
Julia Herdman writes historical fiction that puts women to the fore. Her latest book Sinclair, Tales of Tooley Street Vol. 1. is Available on Amazon
SPAM is celebrating its 75th birthday today. Love it or hate it we’ve all had it at some time in our lives and it would not have happened without Nicholas Appert an 18th-century confectioner and chef from Paris.
In 1795, Nicholas Appert began experimenting with ways to preserve foodstuffs, succeeding with soups, vegetables, juices, dairy products, jellies, jams, and syrups. He placed the food in glass jars, not cans and sealed them with cork and sealing wax. The food was preserved by boiling the sealed bottles in boiling water.
In 1795 the French military offered a cash prize of 12,000 francs for a new method to preserve food. After some 14 or 15 years of experiment, Appert submitted his invention and won the prize in January 1810 on condition that he made the method public. The same year, Appert published L’Art de conserver les substances animales et végétales (or The Art of Preserving Animal and Vegetable Substances). This was the first cookbook of its kind on modern food preservation methods.
La Maison Appert, in the town of Massy, near Paris, became the first food bottling factory in the world. This was years before Louis Pasteur proved that heat killed bacteria. In honour of Appert, canning is sometimes called “appertisation.” Appert’s method was so simple and workable that it quickly conquered the world. The French public and press were loud in their praises - “Appert has found a way to fix the seasons” said one paper. The French Navy was quick to use his method, but it was in England that Appert’s idea was fully exploited and improved.
English Canned Foods
In 1810, British inventor and merchant Peter Durand patented his own method, but this time in a tin can, so creating the modern-day process of canning foods. Tin was already used as a non-corrosive coating on steel and iron, especially for household utensils, but Durand’s patent is the first documented evidence of food being heated and sterilised within a sealed tin container. His method was to place the food in the container, seal it, place in cold water and gradually bring to the boil, open the lid slightly and then seal it again. In some quarters, he is hailed as the “inventor” of the tin can, but a closer look at the patent, held at the National Archives in London, reveals that it was “an invention communicated to him”. Norman Cowell, a retired lecturer at the department of food science and technology at Reading University, had shown that another Frenchman hitherto uncredited by history, an inventor called Philippe de Girard, came to London and used Durand as an agent to patent his own idea. It seems Girard had been making regular visits to the Royal Society to test his canned foods on its members. Girard was forced to come to London because of French red tape, says Cowell, and he couldn’t have taken out the patent in England at a time when the two countries were at war so he sold his idea to Durand for £1000 and disappeared from history. In England, there was an entrepreneurial spirit and venture capital to kick-start enterprise. People were prepared to take a risk on new ideas whereas in France if someone had a good idea they took it to the Academie Francaise and if the members of the Academie thought it was a good idea they might offer a ‘pourboire’ a small amount of money to develop it.
In 1812 Englishmen Bryan Donkin and John Hall purchased both patents and began producing preserves. Between 1814 and 1821, the Admiralty’s orders for canned foods increased from around 3000 pounds to 9000. Donkin’s role in changing history is rarely acknowledged. Standing on the spot of Donkin’s factory today is a school car park on Southwark Park Road, there is little evidence of the industry which, 200 years ago, was about to spread around the globe.
American Canned Foods
Canning arrived in the US in the 1820 but was not common until the beginning of the 20th century, partly because a hammer and chisel were needed to open the cans until the invention of a can opener by an Englishman named Yates in 1855. Canned food changed the world; it improved the nutrition of the masses, feed armies and explorers, transformed the work of women in the kitchen; Andy Warhol even made cans into art. Today, households in Europe and the US alone get through 40 billion cans of food a year, according to the Can Manufacturers Institute in Washington DC.
Of course, America is the home of SPAM. SPAM) is a brand of canned cooked meat made by Hormel Foods Corporation. It was first introduced in 1937 and gained popularity worldwide after its use during World War II. By 2003, Spam was sold in 41 countries on six continents and trademarked in over 100 countries (not including the Middle East and North Africa).
According to its label, Spam’s basic ingredients are pork, with ham meat added, salt, water, modified potato starch as a binder, sugar, and sodium nitrite as a preservative. Natural gelatin is formed during cooking in its tins on the production line. Many have raised concerns over Spam’s nutritional attributes, in large part due to its high content of fat, sodium, and preservatives.
By the early 1970s the name “Spam” became a genericized trademark, used to describe any canned meat product containing pork, such as pork luncheon meat. With expansion in communications technology, it became the subject of urban legends about mystery meat and other appearances in pop culture. Most notable was a Monty Python sketch which led to its name being borrowed for unsolicited electronic messages, especially spam email
Since 1942, each year the Chicago Section of the Institute of Food Technologists awards the Nicholas Appert Award, recognising lifetime achievement in food technology. In 1991, a monumental statue of Appert, a work in bronze was erected in Châlons-en-Champagne.
Sources: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21689069, Wikipedia
Julia Herdman writes historical fiction that puts women to the fore. Her latest book Sinclair, Tales of Tooley Street Vol. 1. is Available on Amazon – Paperback £10.99 Kindle £2.42 Also available on:
Benjamin Franklin was a lover of knowledge; after all, he was the quintessential Renaissance man. He gave us the lightning rod, the Franklin stove, bifocals, and Poor Richard’s Almanack. He was also an indispensable politician and civic activist who not only helped lay the groundwork for the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution but was also the country’s first ambassador to France where in 1779 he fell in love with Anne Catherine Helvétius, the widow of the Swiss-French philosopher, Claude-Adrien Helvétius.
Nicknamed “Minette”, she maintained a renowned salon in Paris using her dead husband’s accumulated wealth and among its habitués were France’s leading politicians, philosophers, writers, and artists. In courting her attention, he sent her many letters expressing his love, admiration, and passion. In one, he claimed that he had a dream that their dead spouses had married in heaven and that they should avenge their union by doing the same on earth! In another passionate plea, he wrote: “If that Lady likes to pass her Days with him, he, in turn, would like to pass his Nights with her; and as he has already given her many of his days…she appears ungrateful never to have given him a single one of her nights.”
Franklin’s libido was apparently so strong, he himself was scared of it. In his autobiography, he confessed: “the hard-to-be-governed passion of my youth had hurried me frequently into intrigues with low women that fell in my way.”
One of the more revealing documents on his views on women, which had been known in certain circles but kept under wraps for almost 200 years, was a letter he wrote in 1745, offering advice to a young man who was having trouble with his own insatiable libido. In the letter, which was entitled “Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress,” Franklin advised: “In all your Amours, you should prefer old Women to young ones.” He goes on to explain that with older women they tend to have more discretion, will take care of you when you’re sick, are cleaner than prostitutes, and that “there is no hazard of children.” He also offered that you can’t really tell who’s old or young when you’re in the dark. What a romantic!!!
Julia Herdman writes historical fiction that puts women to the fore. Her latest book Sinclair, Tales of Tooley Street Vol. 1. is Available on Amazon – Paperback £10.99 Kindle £4.99 Also available on:
Ascot Racecourse pronounced /ˈæskət/, by those in the know is close to Windsor Castle and is the Queen of England’s favourite racecourse. The most famous and prestigious race is The Gold Cup.
Ascot Racecourse was founded in 1711 by Queen Anne. The first race, “Her Majesty’s Plate”, had a purse of 100 guineas, was held on 11 August 1711. Seven horses competed, each carrying a weight of 12 stones (76 kg). This first race comprised three separate four-mile (6437 m) heats. It’s changed a lot since then.
Every year Royal Ascot is attended by Elizabeth II and other members of the British Royal Family such as The Prince of Wales, arriving each day in a horse-drawn carriage with the Royal procession taking place at the start of each race day and the raising of the Queen’s Royal Standard. It is a major event in the British social calendar, and press coverage of the attendees and what they are wearing often exceeds coverage of the actual racing. There are three enclosures attended by guests on Royal Ascot week.
The Royal Enclosure is the most prestigious of the three enclosures, with recent visits from the Queen and Royal Family members. Access to the Royal Enclosure is restricted, with high security on the day. First-time applicants must apply to the Royal Enclosure Office and gain membership from someone who has attended the enclosure for at least four years. Those in the Royal Enclosure have the options of fine dining and hospitality, and a selection of bars. The dress code is strictly enforced. For women, only a day dress with a hat is acceptable, with rules applying to the length and style of the dress. In addition, women must not show bare midriffs or shoulders. For men, black or grey morning dress with top hat is required.
Over 300,000 people make the annual visit to Berkshire during Royal Ascot week, making this Europe’s best-attended race meeting. There are eighteen group races on offer, with at least one Group One event on each of the five days. The Gold Cup is on Ladies’ Day on the Thursday of the meet, hats are the order of the day - the more outrageous the better.
In 2012, the Golden Jubilee Stakes was renamed the Diamond Jubilee Stakes, to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee. In 2013, the Windsor Forest Stakes was renamed the Duke of Cambridge Stakes, with the Queen’s consent, recognising the new title given to Prince William; in 2015, the newly created Commonwealth Cup became the eighth Group One race at Royal Ascot, replacing the Buckingham Palace Stakes. In 2016, total prize money across the five days of Royal Ascot was £6,580,000. This year the prize money is expected to be higher. Races with notable prize money increases for 2016 included the Prince of Wales’s Stakes (£750,000 from £525,000), the Queen Anne Stakes (£600,000 from £375,000) and the Diamond Jubilee Stakes (£600,000 from £525,000), while the other Group One races all had their prize money increased to £400,000. The Gold Cup in 2016 was run as “The Gold Cup in Honour of The Queen’s 90th Birthday”.
Ascot racecourse closed for a period of twenty months on 26 September 2004, for a £185 million redevelopment funded by Allied Irish Bank and designed by Populous and Buro Happold. As the owner of the Ascot estate, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth reopened the racecourse on Tuesday 20 June 2006. Upon re-opening the new grandstand attracted criticism for failing to provide sufficiently raised viewing for patrons to watch the racing, and devoting too much space to restaurants, bars, and corporate hospitality facilities. At the end of 2006, a £10 million programme of further alterations was announced to improve the viewing from lower levels of the grandstand.
Julia Herdman writes historical fiction. Sinclair is a second chance romance set in Georgian London and Yorkshire with horse racing and doctors that puts women to the fore. Available on Amazon – in Paperback and o Kindle. Also available on:
In the now famous words of Cheap Trick, “I Want You to Want Me,” is a common refrain in many a love letter. The song only reached number 29 in the UK Charts in 1979 but was used in the 1999 hit romcom, 10 Things I Hate About You. In the story, new student Cameron (Gordon-Levitt) is smitten with Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) and, in order to get around her father’s strict rules on dating, attempts to get “bad boy” Patrick (Heath Ledger) to date Bianca’s ill-tempered sister, Kat (Julia Stiles).
Written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, it is a modern version of William Shakespeare’s comedy The Taming of the Shrew. The song plays to a montage of Ledger pursuing Stiles as he tries to persuade Kat (Stiles) to go to the prom with him and of course they fall in love with each other in the end.
It seems that Kings too were not above a bit of begging when cupid’s arrow hits its mark. Henry VIII’s State Papers contain a letter he wrote to his then mistress Anne Boleyn who was residing in Hever Castle in 1527.
The love struck Henry VIII wrote:
“I beg to know expressly your intention touching the love between us.Necessity compels me to obtain this answer, having been more than a year wounded by the dart of love, and not yet sure whether I shall fail or find a place in your affection, ….
But if you please to do the office of a true loyal mistress and friend, and to give up yourself body and heart to me, who will be, and have been, your most loyal servant, (if your rigour does not forbid me). I promise you that not only the name shall be given you, but also that I will take you for my only mistress, casting off all others besides you out of my thoughts and affections, and serve you only.
I beseech you to give an entire answer to this my rude letter, that I may know on what and how far I may depend…..
Written by the hand of him who would willingly remain yours, H. R.”
Anne was playing a longer game than Henry imagined at the time, determined to be his wife, not just his mistress. She keeps him on tenterhooks, torturing his heart for as long as she can being tardy with her replies. Of course, she gets her way, but things did not turn out exactly as she had planned!
The Taming of the Shrew has been the subject of critical controversy. Dana Aspinall writes “Since its first appearance, sometime between 1588 and 1594, Shrew has elicited a panoply of heartily supportive, ethically uneasy, or altogether disgusted responses to its rough-and-tumble treatment of the ‘taming’ of the ‘curst shrew’ Katherina, and obviously, of all potentially unruly wives.”
Some scholars argue that even in Shakespeare’s day, the play must have been controversial, due to the changing nature of gender politics. Marjorie Garber, for example, suggests Shakespeare created the Induction so the audience wouldn’t react badly to the misogyny in the Petruchio/Katherina story; he was, in effect, defending himself against charges of sexism. G.R. Hibbard argues that during the period in which the play was written, arranged marriages were beginning to give way to newer, more romantically informed unions, and thus people’s views on women’s position in society, and their relationships with men, were in a state of flux. As such, audiences may not have been as predisposed to tolerate the harsh treatment of Katherina as is often thought. Evidence of at least some initial societal discomfort with The Shrew is, perhaps, to be found in the fact that John Fletcher, Shakespeare’s successor as house playwright for the King’s Men, wrote The Woman’s Prize, or The Tamer Tamed as a sequel to Shakespeare’s play. Sadly for Anne Boleyn, she suffered the full weight of the King’s misogyny when he had her killed to bed his new fancy, the luckless Jane Seymour.
Julia Herdman writes historical fiction. Her latest book Sinclair, Tales of Tooley Street Vol. 1. is Available on Amazon – Paperback £10.99 Kindle
Sinclair is set in the London Borough of Southward, the Yorkshire town of Beverley and in Paris and Edinburgh in the late 1780s. Strong female leads include the widow Charlotte Leadam and the farmer’s daughter Lucy Leadam. Sinclair is a story of love, loss and redemption. Prodigal son James Sinclair is transformed by his experience of being shipwrecked on the way to India to make his fortune. Obstacles to love and happiness include ambition, conflict with a God, temptation and betrayal. Remorse brings restitution and recovery. Sinclair is an extraordinary book. It will immerse you in the world of 18th century London where the rich and the poor are treated with kindness and compassion by this passionate Scottish doctor and his widowed landlady, the owner of the apothecary shop in Tooley Street. Sinclair is filled with twists and tragedies, but it will leave you feeling good.
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