'Behind every Man there is a Good Woman' Jane and Mary-Ann Carlile

Richard Carlile was one of the leading lights of the reform movement of the early 1800's. He was a tinsmith turned journalist, a man born in humble circumstances in 1790. In 1813 he married Jane but by 1816 they were in financial difficulties because of reduced work hours in smithing. Carlile turned to journalism and in 1817 went in to publishing with a partner, William Sherwin. They published Sherwin's Political Register, advocating reform, freedom of the press, and sexuality equality, and they printed pamphlets by men such as Thomas Paine and Henry Hunt.

Richard Carlile

By 1819, Carlile was prominent enough to be one of the speakers at the great rally at St. Peter's Field, Manchester. Jane Carlile had given birth to several children--there were ultimately to be five, but only three survived. She was, by some accounts, the business head of the family, believing that propagandism on the scale her husband promoted required good business to support it.

Peterloo Massacre

Carlile published firsthand accounts of the Peterloo Massacre, and the authorities took umbrage. They shut down the Political Register and Carlile responded by renaming it The Republican. In October 1819 he was sent to Dorchester Gaol for three years for blasphemy and seditious libel--The Society for the Suppression of Vice had a hand in his conviction. (Vice to them was any idea outside the status quo.)

Jane Carlile now came into her own. We cannot know what her thoughts on reform were, or how political were her beliefs. Certainly, there were women marching at the St. Peter's Field rally in support of women's emancipation. Whether Jane supported their views, we don't know. But she took over publication of The Republican in her husband's absence, and the journal from those days bear her name as publisher. She was from modest origins in Devon; Richard himself had only six years of schooling. How much, I wonder, did she have? Nevertheless she defended her husband's agitation for freedom of the press, and continued his work.

In 1821, she was herself charged with seditious libel. At that time, she pleaded that she had taken on the role of publisher only out of 'conjugal duty'. Did she, or was she a reformer, convinced of the rightness of their cause by the poor working conditions and worse situation of many of her contemporaries? Whatever the truth of her convictions, she was sentenced to two years in Dorchester Gaol, and shared a cell with her husband. (Their marriage, already in difficulty, was not enhanced by this enforced cohabitation.)

At this point, Carlile's sister, Mary-Anne stepped into the role as publisher for The Republican. It is difficult to imagine that duty alone led her to risk imprisonment. Was she also a woman of strong belief in the reform movement? Did she fight for women's equality and subscribe to the principles of republicanism? Whether she did or did not, she too was sentenced to gaol, for six months, in 1821. In 1823, she petitioned the House of Commons for her release as she was still being held because she could not pay the fines levied on her.

The Republican continued to be published despite the difficulties of its publishers. Richard Carlile, when he left prison, went on to agitate for change, becoming more and more radical, alienating supporters and eventually advocating free love, and something he called 'moral divorce' and subsequently 'moral marriage'.

But for the footer in extant issues of The Republican, Jane Carlile disappears from the historical record shortly thereafter. Her marriage was over, her husband involved with another woman. She appears to have remained in publishing to some extent as late as 1834 or 1838. Mary-Anne Carlile likewise is not mentioned again in contemporary literature. It bothers me that this should be so, but it proves the need for women's equality for which females were struggling as early as 1815.

Here's to you, Jane and Mary-Anne. I hope your lives proved fulfilling and successful.

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

Sources:
The following publications are available in their entirety at Google Books--
"Suppressed Defence: The Defence of Mary-Anne Carlile to the Vice Society's Indictment..."
"The Debate in the House of Commons...Mary-Ann Carlile..."
"The Trials with the Defences at Large...for Selling the Publications of Richard Carlile..."

"The Republican, Volume I"
"The Republican, Volume III"
"The Republican, Volume IV"

The trials of Jane Carlile are not available although there are a variety of listings. A search on 'Jane Carlile' will show what is available.

The Great Edinburgh Fire Balloon

In 1811, The Literary Panorama, The Monthly Magazine and The Annual Register, all told the tale of a disastrous fire at a farm in Oxfordshire:

7 September 1811 - A destructive fire broke out in the rick-yard of Mr. Coulton, a farmer, at East End near Shottlesbrooke, occasioned by the descent of a fire-balloon on a wheat rick...The balloon had been sent up in the neighbourhood of Marlow, nearly 20 miles from where it descended.

I had not heard the term fire-balloon before. A little investigation showed that this was another term for a hot-air balloon, that is, a balloon filled with air warmed by a fire, as opposed to a hydrogen filled balloon. Hydrogen gas became the preferred substance in balloon launch very early in the 1800s. Perhaps it was because of such incidents as that above?

The Great Edinburgh Fire Balloon

The Great Edinburgh Fire Balloon was the brain-child of James Tytler, a Renaissance man or a ne'er do well, depending on your point of view. Mr. Tytler worked in everything from medicine to literature, was an inventor and a poet, did not succeed notably in any of his careers, and was twice bankrupted by his endeavours.

In 1783 he developed a keen interest in the work of the Montgolfier brothers in France. He developed his own fire-balloon--a barrel-shaped envelope 30 feet in diameter and 40 feet high. The air which filled it was heated by a stove as opposed to the open fires which sometimes hung below these balloons on a grating.

His first flight took place on August 27, 1784 from Comely Gardens, Edinburgh. The balloon traveled half a mile and news of it traveled farther! His next ascent, on the 31 of August, was attended by a great host of people. His flight was shorter, but was greeted with acclaim. His subsequent efforts however were failures and, having expended huge sums of money, he soon had to move on to other, more lucrative, projects.

Nevertheless, it appears he was the first person in Great Britain to fly in a balloon, and he was thereafter known as 'Balloon' Tytler. His efforts were overshadowed by the 'Daredevil Aeronaut' Vincenzo Lunardi, who eventually undertook five launches in Scotland. It was soon forgotten that Tytler had flown in his fire-balloon nearly a month before the Italian ascended in his from Moorfields in London.

By the time of the Regency hot-air balloons and hydrogen balloons, if not commonplace, were at least frequent spectacles. A variety of styles and sizes of both balloons and equipages were being developed, distances of flights were lengthening and accidents were all too regular.

If you have not read Georgette Heyer's Frederica, I highly recommend it. A balloon ascension plays an important part in the plot, and her descriptions of the dangers and delights of ballooning are all too realistic. It was a heady time of invention and innovation, and we really shouldn't forget that James Tytler was at the forefront of its development.

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

Sources:
Ferguson, James.  Balloon Tytler. London: Faber and Faber, 1972
Gillon, J. K. James Tytler and the Great Edinburgh Fire Balloon.
http://gillonj.tripod.com/edinburghfireballoon/
Illustration of The Great Edinburgh Fire Balloon from this website, with thanks.

Intrepid-- Travellers during the Regency

Regency folk were intrepid travelers. Under conditions that would keep me comfortably and safely at home, they traveled the world. Bad inns, worse roads, bandits, shipwrecks, and wars could not prevent them from packing their possessions and setting off to see how the rest of the world lived.

A britzka traveling in Russia, early 1800s

Even a quick glance at the periodicals of the day displays a huge quantity of travel memoirs published every year. The Peninsular and continental Napoleonic Wars may have imposed restrictions, but still people traveled. In 1811 as war raged on the continent, among others, the following books were published:
- Mr. Hooker's Journal of a Tour in Iceland
- Valemberg's Journey in Lapland
- Pike's Exploratory Travels in North America
- Morrier's Journey through Persia, Asia Minor, etc.

When in 1814 Napoleon was exiled to Elba, the British flooded into Europe. The result was that publishing schedules were crowded with travel accounts such as:
- Miss Starke's Letters from Italy
- A Voyage to Cadiz and Gibraltar by Lieutenant-General G. Cockburn
- Salt's Voyage to Abyssinia
- Clarke's Travels in Greece, Egypt, etc.
- A Narrative of the Travels of the Rev. John Campbell in South Africa

And the travel publishing continued in the following years with examples like "Travels from Calcutta to Babylon" by Captain Lockett published in 1816 and in 1826 "Travels in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, etc." by W. R. Wilson.

A bretchka

When Regency folk traveled they used post-chaises, private four-in-hand coaches, stagecoaches, the 'diligence' in France and its equivalent in other countries. If they were really serious travelers, and well-to-do, they might have their own 'britzka'. The name came from the Polish, German and Russian, and there were many spellings. However you spelled it, the britschka was considered a cozy and comfortable method of transportation. It has been called the motorhome of the 1800s. Basically it was a phaeton, or chaise, with an extended body. Because of the additional length, it was possible to include beds in the body, as well as a desk, or a dressing table, or almost anything else the traveler desired. If you could not do without your favourite foods, you could install a locker to contain them in your britzka. There was room for extra luggage, books, all the comforts of home, in fact.

The only thing I cannot understand is how the britzka could be considered secure with only a hood covering half of the carriage body. Would not a coach, fully enclosed, be more secure in countries that abounded with bandits, beggars and bad weather? Even the presence of a coachman, a guard, and presumably a footman or two on the rear jump seat, would not compensate me for the lack of a full roof.

Nothing kept the people of the Regency era from their travels however, and one can see why they embraced the steam trains and steamboats being developed even as they crossed and re-crossed the world.

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne