Back in January 2021, I released my Austenesque novel, The Mistress of Rosings Park. In that story, draper’s shops play a strategic role. In my upcoming novel from Dragonblade Publishing [book 4 of 5 in the Lyon’s Den Connected World Series, Lost in the Lyon’s Garden], my heroine is employed at a draper’s shop and the hero, though he is an earl, lives in Cheapside [just as did Elizabeth Bennet’s Uncle Gardiner]. Lord Benjamin Thompson hopes to bring back some of the “glory” of that part of London. Both hero and heroine of this new tale are children of clergymen and take the idea being “my brother’s keeper” to heart.
One of the first industries in Great Britain was the manufacturing of cloth. Wool and cotton fabrics [Think of all that cotton fibers swirling around Mr. Thorton in the Masterpiece version of North and South] were available with some ease. Cotton printed muslin was often found upon the backs of people of the age. By the end of the Regency era, Great Britain had imported 90 million pounds of cotton. Messrs. Harding Howell & Co in Pall Mall was one of the leaders of choice linen-drapers. In 1811, Jane Austen described a shopping excursion she made to a London establishment that sold handkerchiefs, gauzes, nets, veils, trims, and cloth as . . .
We set off immediately after breakfast and must have reached Grafton House by 1/2 past 11 -, but when we entered the Shop, the whole counter was thronged & we waited a full half an hour before we c’d be attended to. When we were served however, I was very well satisfied with my purchases.
It was not unusual for customers to haggle over the prices, but, by the Regency, the shoppers saw more “set” prices on items. Unfortunately, for the shopkeepers, they were “obliged” to extend credit to the aristocracy, which saw the privilege as a necessary part of their positions in Society. Being paid was purely on the backs of the shopkeepers, who often went bankrupt with little recourse, for peers could not be sent to debtors’ prison for non-payment. Though I chose not to paint my heroine’s [Miss Victoria Whitchurch] employer, Mr. Sustar, with an unstained brushstroke, I did attempt to show him in moments of strictness, as well as kindness, for he was making an unusal business decision that would make him money and expand Miss Whitchurch’s duties. You will see what I mean when you read the tale.
By the beginning of the 19th Century, it is estimated that 200 different shops could be found in London. These shops kept long hours, generally, 12-hour days. The shopkeepers and their assistants often lived on the premises. Warehouses were located in Covent Garden. Mercers and linen drapers could be found in Cheapside. Shops lined the streets with shopkeepers living above. We know that ladies of Society shopped on Oxford Street an Bond Street in Mayfair. Men frequented the shops and gentlemen’s clubs in St. James. Newer styled shops sprung up along the Strand.
Those of us who love Pride and Prejudice can easily recall Caroline Bingley’s disdain when speaking of Elizabeth Bennet’s unsuitable pedigree to Mr. Darcy.
“Yes; and they have another [uncle], who lives somewhere near Cheapside.”
“That is capital,” added her sister, and they both laughed heartily.
“If they had uncles enough to fill all Cheapside,” cried Bingley, “it would not make them one jot less agreeable.”
“But it must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world,” replied Darcy. (Pride and Prejudice, chapter 8)
From Jane Austen’s World, we learn, “Shop keepers advertised through circulars, trade cards, newspaper notices, or board-men, who were employed to roam the streets. In the 1760’s, the large shop signs that had once hung over shops and identified the shop’s merchandise to a populace that largely could not read were deemed hazardous. They were removed by law, but a few managed to survive, as this account in the Book of Days describes:
In Holywell-street, Strand, is the last remaining shop sign in situ, being a boldly-sculptured half-moon, gilt, and exhibiting the old conventional face in the centre. Some twenty years ago it was a mercer’s shop, and the bills made out for customers were ‘adorned with a picture’ of this sign. It is now a bookseller’s, and the lower part of the windows have been altered into the older form of open shop. A court beside it leads into the great thoroughfare; and the corner-post is decorated with a boldly-carved lion’s head and paws, acting as a corbel to support a still older house beside it. This street altogether is a good, and now an almost unique specimen of those which once were the usual style of London business localities, crowded, tortuous, and ill-ventilated, having shops closely and inconveniently packed, but which custom had made familiar and inoffensive to all; while the old traders, who delighted in ‘old styles,’ looked on improvements with absolute horror, as ‘a new-fashioned way’ to bankruptcy.“
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The Mistress of Rosings Park: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary
I much prefer the sharp criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses. – Johannes Kepler
When she arrives at Hunsford Cottage for a visit with her long-time friend Charlotte Collins, Elizabeth Bennet does not expect the melodrama awaiting her at Rosings Park.
Mrs. Anne Darcy, nee de Bourgh, has passed, and Rosings Park is, by law, the property of the woman’s husband, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy; yet, Lady Catherine de Bourgh is not ready to abandon the mansion over which she has served as mistress for thirty years. Elizabeth holds sympathy for her ladyship’s situation. After all, Elizabeth’s mother will eventually be banished from Longbourn when Mr. Bennet passes without male issue. She inherently understands Lady Catherine’s “hysterics,” while not necessarily condoning them, for her ladyship will have the luxury of the right to the estate’s dower house, and, moreover, it is obvious Rosings Park requires the hand of a more knowledgeable overseer. Therefore, Elizabeth takes on the task of easing Lady Catherine’s transition to dowager baronetess, but doing so places Elizabeth often in the company of the “odious” Mr. Darcy, a man Lady Catherine claims poisoned her daughter Anne in order to claim Rosings Park as his own.
Purchase Links for The Mistress of Rosings Park:
Kindle https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08R2435N4?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420
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