Manners Shaping Morals: Conduct literature at Newcastle University

Conduct literature is a little-known genre nowadays; it has been absorbed mostly into magazine culture and advice you get from your grandma. But in the 18th and 19th centuries it was a genre of literature that shaped, and was shaped by, popular culture. Conduct literature is texts that give advice on how to behave in polite society and how to run a successful household; in other words, on a person’s conduct. This advice ranged from the practical; how much credit it was acceptable to run up with household vendors; to the philosophical; how best to educate children to make them into functional citizens. The vast majority of these texts were aimed at women: in their capacity as mothers, as wives and as daughters. These manuals formed an influential industry in the late 18th and early 19th century as the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars raged and the British propaganda machine cultivated the idea of the French as immoral and dissolute compared to Britain’s steadfast morality. This deep-seated aspiration for ethical superiority is seen in the conduct literature of the age, conduct literature found in the 18th century collection at Newcastle University. As part of this collection the University holds books by Hannah More and Mary Wollstonecraft (among others), authors who, despite their varied political viewpoints, used their writing as a way of giving women more power.

Title page from Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Title page from Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (18th Century Coll, 18th C. Coll 396 WOL)

Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), widely regarded to be one of the first works of feminist philosophy and the precursor to the organised feminist movement. A first edition of this is held in the 18th Century Collection in the Phillip Robinson Library, previously owned by Joseph Cowen, revolutionary Member of Parliament for Newcastle Upon Tyne. This manifesto for female education was a well-known, radical example of the conduct literature genre. Wollstonecraft famously wrote in her introduction to the volume: “My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.” (6, emphasis original). This sentence is a decisive judgement on both women and the men who interact with them. Wollstonecraft invokes rationality to justify the language of her doctrine; a characteristic that was considered the defining trait of humanity in the 18th century. She also implies that women were treated as being in a ‘state of perpetual childhood’ by men in this era, something that can be seen in the conduct literature written by men in the 18th century. For instance, in Fordyce’s Sermons for Young Women he states, “The Almighty has thrown you upon the protection of our sex. To yours we are indebted on many accounts. He that abuses you dishonours his mother. Virtuous women are the sweeteners, the charm of human life.” (9). Not only does Fordyce imply women to be incapable of functioning without male protection in this statement, but he also designates them as ‘the charm of human life’ thus suggesting them not to be human at all. This is where the different political viewpoints of the female conduct literature writers held in Special Collections at Newcastle are united. Although they differ in how it should be expressed and used, each author acknowledges the female capacity for rationality.

Title page from More’s strictures
Title page from More’s strictures (18th Century Collection, 18th C. Coll 828.69 MOR)

Another deeply influential text that is held in the 18th Century Collection at Newcastle is conservative moralist Hannah More’s Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education (1799). This is one of many texts by Hannah More that is held by the university, but Strictures is her best well-known work. The text discusses both the practicalities and the moralities of raising children, especially young women. More grounds her philosophy in the importance of the family in raising future citizens and in shaping society. On the title page of the fourth edition copy held in the Newcastle University archives (shown above) she places a quote from Lord Halifax which states, “May you so raise your character that you may help to make the next age a better thing, and leave posterity in your debt, for the advantage it shall receive by your example.” This statement embodies More’s attitude to female morality and education; in Strictures she passes judgement on aristocratic women and their perceived indolence. More, like Wollstonecraft, values the emerging middle-class and their work ethic, manifesting in women through their cultivation of useful employment such as mending, rather than the frivolous, impractical embroidery typically undertaken by the aristocracy. When quoting Lord Halifax, More also invokes the concept of debt to a nation; she perceives women as being as much the cause of Britain’s intellectual superiority as men and as owing their full potential to their country.

The idea that citizens owe their nation morality stems from the conflict with France mentioned earlier; the prevailing opinion in Britain was that the French were immoral and prone to excess, and therefore one way in which Britain was superior to them was through their morality. This created an anxiety around female morality that both informed and was informed by the conduct literature genre, including those held by Newcastle University. Hannah More and Mary Wollstonecraft are two of the most well-known conduct literature authors from the 18th century and occupy opposite ends of the political spectrum. Nevertheless, they are united in their anxiety about female morality during this period and how any degradation of that would affect the nation at large. This collective anxiety eventually led to a societal idolisation of the middle class, whose ideology and ethics would come to set the standard for British society. Mary Wollstonecraft and Hannah More, therefore, form part of a genre that shaped British culture and therefore its history.

Written by bequest student Charlotte Davison, Postgraduate student from the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics.

Beauties in Strains Seldom Heard: The Famous Tune – January 2017

Image from ‘An Introduction to Harmony by William Shield’ (18th Century Collection 780 SHI)

Image from ‘An Introduction to Harmony by William Shield’ (18th Century Collection 780 SHI)

25th January, Burns’ Night, has just passed for 2017. The day (and evening!) celebrates the birth, life, and work of famous Scot Robert (‘Rabbie’) Burns (1759-1796). Regarded as the national poet of Scotland, Burns composed many folk songs. He also collected songs and adapted them for his own use.

To many, he is best-known for his anthem ‘Auld Lang Syne’, which is often sung (in Scotland and throughout the world) at New Year. Burns ‘wrote’ the words for ‘Auld Lang Syne’ in about 1788 and sent a copy of the original song to the Scots Musical Museum with the remark,

“The following song, an old song, of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript until I took it down from an old man.”

Some of the lyrics were indeed “collected” rather than composed by the poet; the ballad “Old Long Syne” printed in 1711 by James Watson shows considerable similarity in the first verse and the chorus to Burns’ later poem, and is almost certainly derived from the same “old song”.

25 January also marks the anniversary of composer William Shield, who died on the same day in 1829. Shield was born in Swalwell, Gateshead, on 5 March 1748 and was taught music by his father before becoming an apprentice shipbuilder in South Shields following the death of his mother. He continued studying music with Charles Avison, church organist at St John’s Church in Newcastle, and moved to London in 1772 to play violin in the opera at Covent Garden (later the Royal Opera House). He met Joseph Haydn and, in 1817, was appointed Master of the King’s Musick.

Like Burns, Shield was a great plunderer of folk tunes, often incorporating them into his own compositions. He is often cited as being the composer of the tune of Burns’ ‘Auld Lang Syne’.  In 1998, John Treherne, Gateshead’s Head of Schools’ Music Service, studied Shield’s score for his operetta Rosina (1782):

“I started to copy out the score and hummed the tune as I was writing it down. I was coming to the end when I realised the tune floating through my head was Auld Lang Syne.”

Had Burns ‘stolen’ the tune from Shield and taken credit for it? It’s more likely that Shield knew the tune of a traditional Scottish folk song and used it in Rosina to convey a Scottish atmosphere. The same could probably be said of Burns: he may have ‘stolen’ the tune from Rosina, but it’ more likely that he borrowed from a traditional Scottish tune that he’d heard somewhere. The debate has raged on for years, with north-of-England folk song traditionalists claiming that it was their local lad who composed the tune to one of the most-performed songs ever.

Shield’s ‘An Introduction to Harmony by William Shield’ (18th Century Collection 780 SHI) was published in 1800. This comprehensive treatise on the elements of harmony shows Shield’s encyclopedic knowledge of local and more ‘exotic music’ by using (unnamed) excerpts of existing music as exercises and examples. Shield’s ‘Introduction’ is, in fact, composed of an anthology drawn from music in his own library, including obscure pieces never reproduced before.

A second edition appeared in 1817. In the preface to Part the Second, Shield explains his reasons for using excerpts of existing music:

“. . . it has appeared to me the most liberal plan to let every musical illustrative example recommend itself by its own intrinsic merit, and not by the name of its author.”

Is this what Shield possibly felt when he first heard the theme he adapted in Rosina? Or what Burns experienced when he heard the tune he appropriated an obscure air for ‘Auld Lang Syne’?

Shield’s ‘Introduction’ met with varying reviews on its publication. The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle, although acknowledging Shield’s genius and popularity, dismissively stated:

“This work has proved serviceable by enticing grown-up lady-performers to acquire some knowledge of musical theory.”

 Robert Burns, 25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796. William Shield, 5 March 1748 – 25 January 1829.

 

Making the Archive Public #2 – The Execution of James Maben

This is #2 of the ‘Making the Archive Public’ series, where we are showcasing examples from this project, using the rich archive and rare book collections on offer to researchers in the North East.

The Execution of James Maben

An eighteenth-century execution: Industry and Idleness, Plate XI, 'The Idle 'Prentice Executed at Tyburn', William Hogarth (1747).

An eighteenth-century execution: Industry and Idleness, Plate XI, ‘The Idle ‘Prentice Executed at Tyburn’, William Hogarth (1747).

Visit: http://executionofjamesmaben.omeka.net/about

This project, by Robyn Orr, uses a digitised version of the eighteenth-century pamphlet, A True copy of the papers written by James Maben, held in the Newcastle City Library Special Collections. The themes that are discussed are Newcastle in the Eighteenth Century, Coins and Counterfeiting, and Prisons and Executions.

The pamphlet demonstrates that a single piece of archival material can be used to create a wider narrative (the front page and page 2 from the digitised pamphlet is shown below).

2nd page

Front page

Front page

Page 2

 

The Bastille – July 2012

Image of the Bastille in Paris
Image of the Bastille, Paris from Bretez, L. Plan de Paris commencâe l’annâee 1734… [Paris?: s.n., 1739]
(Rare Books, RB 912.4436 BRE Elephant folio)

On 14th July 1789 the Bastille in Paris was stormed. It was a fourteenth-century fortress that had been used as a state prison from the early Fifteenth Century but would come to symbolise both despotism and the French Republican Movement.

When finance minister, Jacques Necker, was dismissed Parisians became fearful of a conservative coup. Amid widespread violence and calls for a written constitution, royal forces had withdrawn from central Paris. Revolutionaries had armed themselves on 13th July and wanted to loot the Bastille for its significant gunpowder supply. Attention had also been focussed on the Bastille by one of its infamous inmates, the Marquis de Sade, who stoked up political fervour by shouting from his cell. The commander of the Bastille, Bernard-René de Launay, tried to negotiate but an impatient crowd stormed the outer courtyard and firing broke out. By mid-afternoon mutinous royal forces had bolstered the revolutionary crowd, bringing trained infantrymen and cannons. When the drawbridge came down, de Launay was powerless. The crowd surged in and dragged de Launay to his death. The Bastille was quickly portrayed in the pro-revolutionary press as a place of despotism and terror, thus legitimising the revolutionary action that day. (Historians such as Simon Schama assert that the storming of the Bastille was the liberation of its seven inmates from a relatively comfortable imprisonment and that the prison was governed well.)

The storming of the Bastille would be the inspiration for plays and broadsides for months to come. It is widely held to have marked the beginning of the French Revolution and the end of the absolute monarchy or ancien régime (Louis XVI recognised the authority of the National Assembly on 15th July). The Marquis de la Fayette was appointed Commander in Chief of the National Guard and ordered the demolition of the Bastille – a project that was managed by Pierre-François Palloy who sold parts of the building as souvenirs.

The Bastille is shown clearly on this eighteenth-century map as a tall fortress with eight towers, adjacent to the Porte St. Antoine gateway in the eastern part of the city. Michel-Étienne Turgot commissioned a map of Paris from the sculptor, painter and specialist in perspective views, Louis Bretez in 1734. This now famous map took two years to complete and, because Bretez was permitted access to mansions and gardens in the course of his surveying and drawing, is both accurate and detailed. It comprises 20 sectional birds-eye views of Paris and its suburbs that are presented as double facing sheets. As a commodity, it was aimed at the elite: the King; members of the Royal Academy of Sciences; and wealthy foreigners. For researchers today, it is a valuable primary document, providing not only a map of Paris as it was about 55 years before the French Revolution but also drawings of buildings that have not survived.

Varieties of Oxen – October 2010

Illustration of Juno: A beautiful improved short-horned cow
Juno: A beautiful improved short-horned cow from A Description of the different Varieties of Oxen, common in the British Isles; Embellished with Engravings; being an accompaniment To a Set of Models of the Improved Breeds of Cattle, executed by George Garrard, Upon an exact Scale from Nature, Under the patronage of the Board of Agriculture (London: J. Smeeton, 1800)
(19th Century Collection, 19th C. Coll. 636.22 GAR Elephant folio)

In 1800 fields were ploughed by oxen, tallow production was a major industry (beef fat rendered for use in candles, salves and to lubricate ammunitions), hides were used by the leather industry and the increasing urban population wanted milk and meat for their tables. It was an important time for improving livestock and founding commercially-successful breeds. It was also a time when the tradition for romanticised, stylised portraits of animals and rural life prevailed as owners and breeders commissioned paintings and etchings of the prize animals which were fattened to great weights and toured around the country. Today, those late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century breeds are either extinct or changed beyond recognition, for the most part.

Before the late Eighteenth Century cattle breeds were not formally recognised but intensive selective inbreeding led to distinct breeds and this corresponds with the introduction of illustrated books on animal husbandry. As few farmers would have been literate, animal portraiture served to demonstrate and to advertise the advantages of some breeds over others. However, owners and breeders wanted artists to depict the cattle even more obese than, in reality, they were. Thomas Bewick recalled in his Memoir being sent for to Barmpton to draw cattle and sheep but his drawings were not approved because they did not resemble other paintings of the animals – paintings which did not bear any resemblance to the animals as their corpulence was so exaggerated. Bewick wrote:

“I objected to put lumps of fat here and there where I could not see it, at least not in so exaggerated a way as on the painting before me … Many of the animals were, during this rage for fat cattle, fed up to as great a weight and bulk as it was possible for feeding to make them; but this was not enough; they were to be figured monstrously fat before the owners of them could be pleased”.

Bewick, T. A Memoir of Thomas Bewick
(Newcastle-on-Tyne: Printed by Robert Ward; London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, 1862), p.184.

George Garrard’s portraits, seen here, were actually drawn to scale. He made plaster models of cattle, sheep and pigs (held in the Natural History Museum, London) and the dimensions of the animals he drew are recorded on the prints.

Short-horned cattle

Short-horned cattle were developed in the late Eighteenth Century when Teeswater and Durham cows were crossbred. Charles and Robert Colling, following Robert Bakewell’s model for breeding long-horn cattle, developed the first systematic short-horn breeding programme and are thus credited as having established the breed. Robert lived in Barmpton, about three miles north of Darlington. (Darlington had gained a reputation for its cattle market or fair.)

According to Garrard’s accompanying text, Juno was Colling’s favourite cow and she had been declared “the best of the year in the district”. She was deep red in colour and had been calved in 1807.

The Holderness breed

Illustration of A White Teeswater Ox
A White Teeswater Ox from Short-horned cattle were developed in the late Eighteenth Century when Teeswater and Durham cows were crossbred. Charles and Robert Colling, following Robert Bakewell’s model for breeding long-horn cattle, developed the first systematic short-horn breeding programme and are thus credited as having established the breed. Robert lived in Barmpton, about three miles north of Darlington. (Darlington had gained a reputation for its cattle market or fair.) (19th Century Collection, 19th C. Coll. 636.22 GAR Elephant folio)

Short-horned cattle were developed in the late Eighteenth Century when Teeswater and Durham cows were crossbred. Charles and Robert Colling, following Robert Bakewell’s model for breeding long-horn cattle, developed the first systematic short-horn breeding programme and are thus credited as having established the breed. Robert lived in Barmpton, about three miles north of Darlington (Darlington had gained a reputation for its cattle market or fair).

Highland Ox

Illustration of A Fat Highland Ox
A Fat Highland Ox from Short-horned cattle were developed in the late Eighteenth Century when Teeswater and Durham cows were crossbred. Charles and Robert Colling, following Robert Bakewell’s model for breeding long-horn cattle, developed the first systematic short-horn breeding programme and are thus credited as having established the breed. Robert lived in Barmpton, about three miles north of Darlington. (Darlington had gained a reputation for its cattle market or fair.) (19th Century Collection, 19th C. Coll. 636.22 GAR Elephant folio)

Sir Henry Vane Tempest (1771-1813) had served as M.P. for Durham City. His Highland ox was black and had been exhibited at Smithfield in 1809, when it weighed 90 stone. Never recovering from the fatigue of travelling, the ox was slaughtered some time thereafter. The ox bears only a slight resemblance to the long-horned, reddish-tan, long-haired Highland cattle of today. Back then, the cattle could be brown, black, red, tan or even brindled (i.e. patterened).

The White Wild Bull of Britain

Illustration of The White Wild Bull of Britain
The White Wild Bull of Britain from Short-horned cattle were developed in the late Eighteenth Century when Teeswater and Durham cows were crossbred. Charles and Robert Colling, following Robert Bakewell’s model for breeding long-horn cattle, developed the first systematic short-horn breeding programme and are thus credited as having established the breed. Robert lived in Barmpton, about three miles north of Darlington. (Darlington had gained a reputation for its cattle market or fair.) (19th Century Collection, 19th C. Coll. 636.22 GAR Elephant folio)

The open fields, woods and ravines of Chillingham Park, Northumberland (seat of Lord Tankerville until 1971) continue to be home to the wild British cattle. In the early Nineteenth Century, the herd numbered about one hundred – today there are eighty five animals although the harsh winter of 1947 had reduced the herd to thirteen. Garrard relates that “when any of the herd happen to be wounded, or grown old, or otherwise decrepit, the rest run upon it and gore it to death”.

The cattle have lived in Chillingham Park, with minimal human intervention, since the Thirteenth Century and have not been genetically altered. They are small, white with red ears and upright horns.

More about the Oxen

Juno: A beautiful improved short-horned cow bred by Mr. Robert Colling of Barmpton near Darlington – 4 years old.

A Fat Teeswater Ox called The Ox of Houghton Le Spring: An improved short horned of extraordinary size and beauty, bred and fatted by John Nesham Esqr. of that place near Durham – it was got by Mr. Mason’s bull called Trunnell out of a cow by Favourite …

A Fat Highland Ox. Fed by Sir Henry Vane Tempest of Lampton Hall – weight 90 Stone 14lbs.

The White Wild Bull of Britain Bred in its native purity in Chillingham park Northumberland.