United Kingdom
Cashmere Shawls in the 1700 and 1800s
Cashmere shawls were first introduced in Europe around the late 1700s. Joan Hart, a textile expert of today, wrote: “The artist Elizabeth Vigee Le Brun first noted the shawls at a party in 1795 in St. Petersburg where she entertained her guests with “tableaux vivants” using cashmere shawls as props. … The shawls were already…
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Surviving the Hangman’s Noose in the 1700 and 1800s
Execution by hangings were not always successful and sometimes didn’t turn out as expected. There are several stories about botched hangings and a few about the condemned surviving the hangman’s noose in the 1700 and 1800s. Here are four stories about those who happened to survive being hanged between 1723 and 1885.
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Mrs. Williams the Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Astrologer and Fortune-Teller
Mrs. Williams the eighteenth and nineteenth-century astrologer and fortune-teller was born on 28 May 1759 and supposedly descended from an ancient, wealthy, and respectable family in Wales. Unfortunately, her father experienced a great falling out with his family and any wealth that he might have been entitled to was lost. This also meant that Mrs.…
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Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility
Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility was originally called Elinor and Marianne. The first draft of it was in epistolary form and written perhaps as early 1795, although she touched it up again at age twenty-one in November of 1797 and renamed it Sense and Sensibility. She drew inspiration for the novel from other novels of…
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More Interesting Facts About Madame Tussaud the Wax Sculptor
Madame Tussaud, the wax sculptor, was christened in Strasbourg, France on 1 December of 1761 as Anne-Marie Grosholtz. To differentiate her from her mother who had the same name, the young Anne-Marie was called Marie, and her mother served as a housekeeper to a doctor named Philippe Mathé Curtius. He began to create anatomical wax…
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James Lackington Revolutionized the Book Trade
James Lackington revolutionized the book trade because of his innovative book-selling practices. He was born in on 31 August 1746 in Wellington, Somerset to a shoemaker and was one of eleven children. His father had some money and young Lackington was lucky enough to attend a “Dame School,” but it lasted only a short time…
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The History of Goody Two-Shoes
The History of Goody Two-Shoes (with or without a hyphen) was a children’s story written anonymously in 1765, published by John Newbery, and a variation of the story of Cinderella. Goody Two-Shoes was the nickname of a poor orphan named Margery Meanwell who goes through life with one shoe until a rich gentleman gives her…
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The Executioner’s Rope of the 1700 and 1800s
The executioner’s rope of the 1700 and 1800s was one the hangman’s most important tools as no hanging could be accomplished without it. All executioners relied on a good rope, chief among them was William Marwood. He was known for having developed the hanging technique known as the “long drop.” It ensured a prisoner’s neck…
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Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey
Before Jane Austen published Sense and Sensibility, her father had tried to get her book Susan (the original version of Northanger Abbey) published. He failed and then her brother Henry took over and through his business partner, William Seymour, who was also a lawyer, it was sold to a London publisher, Crosby & Company. Austen…
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The boy Jones Who Broke into Buckingham Palace
Edward Jones was nicknamed “the boy Jones” by newspapers and became notorious for breaking into Buckingham Palace multiple times between 1838 and 1841. His first break-in occurred in 1838 when he entered disguised as a chimney sweep having gained admission by squeezing through a hole in the March Arch at the principal entrance of the…
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