The Wake in Regency England

A cross-post from The Regency Redingote:

The English wake during the Regency had nothing to do with the ceremony which many people in westernized nations today observe in honor and memory of someone recently departed. In fact, wakes in England by the early nineteenth century were considered by many such profane and unruly events that there were many efforts being made to suppress them completely. By the time the former Prince Regent, George IV, died in 1830, at least a third of the wakes in England had been abolished or severely curtailed. Few survived past the end of the reign of his niece, Queen Victoria.

The origins and history of the English wake …

Mrs Hurst Dancing

A cross-post from The Regency Redingote:

No, this book is not about Jane Austen’s Mrs. Hurst from Pride and Prejudice. The Mrs. Hurst who lent her name to the title of this delightful volume was a real woman, who lived during the Regency. Her home was in a small English village in Buckinghamshire called Newport Pagnell, and she loved to dance. She was captured in full swing one evening at her home in a charming watercolor by a young friend, Diana Sperling.

The full title of this book is Mrs Hurst Dancing & Other Scenes from Regency Life 1812 – 1823. I stumbled across it in my local library and was immediately enchanted. This volume contains full-size reproductions of a number of watercolor sketches made by a young woman called Diana Sperling during the years of the Regency and just beyond. Miss Sperling also wrote witty explanatory captions for most of these watercolors which gives a real flavor of the daily life of a family of the minor gentry during the Regency.

Button and Whitaker St Paul’s Churchyard

The Beau Monde invites you into the Regency World of author Lesley-Anne McLeod, one of our original chapter members, as she talks about dance instructions from Button and Whitaker, St. Paul’s Churchyard, London.

Please stay and share a few dances at the Beau Monde.

In The Ladies’ Fashionable Repository for 1811, I found a few weeks ago a page titled “Button and Whitaker’s New Country Dances, for 1811″. It included some twenty-four dances, listing titles and brief instructions on the new movements.

The Spanish Cloak–Turn your partner round with the right hand, the second couple do the same, lead down the middle, up again, turn rouSt. Paul’s Churchyard had been throughout the 1700′s and into the mid 1800′s a center of musical retailing, along with its bookshops and book publishing. The reason for this, according to Sir John Hawkins (in his book The History of Music) was that “the service at the Cathedral drew together, twice a day, all the lovers of music in London..”

Button and Whitaker frequently published such collections of new dances. They also published booklets such as New Instructions for the German Flute, containing the easiest & most modern methods for learning to play, etc.; Pocket Collection of Favourite Marches; and Dr. Clarke’s Arrangement of Handel. Other of their titles included: 1816 Companion to the Ballroom; “Selection of dances, reels, and waltzes for the Pfte., Harpsichord, Violin, or German Flute”, No. 8,; and Opera of THE LORD OF THE MANOR, Written by C. Dibdin, Jun. It seems to have been a sizable operation, with a wide and voluminous production of sheet music.

Button and Whitaker also published a version of Thomas Moore’s Celebrated Irish Melodies, arranged for the Harp or Pianoforte; with introductionry, intermediate, and concluding Symphonies, composed by John Whitaker.

It appears Mr. Whitaker did a considerable amount of composing; one advertisment mentioned: “Paddy Carey; a celebrated Air; composed by Whitaker. Arranged as a Rondo for the Piano-forte…”

They also sold instruments. One mention of a boxwood clarinet by Button and Whitaker is still current on the internet. I’ve not been able to discover more information about their instrument sales as yet.nd.

Cheltenham Waltz–Turn three with the first lady, the same with the first gentleman, lead down the middle, four couple up again, and swing corners.

The dances and their names were charming but who, I wondered, were Button and Whitaker? Research was required–I never find it a hardship!

Button and Whitaker, I discovered, were among the premier music publishers and musical instrument sellers of Regency England. They were located in St. Paul’s Churchyard, according to Frank Kidson, author of the article Handel’s Publisher from Oxford University Press:

“At the North West corner, …was in 1731 located Peter Thompson at the “Violin and Hautboy.” The Thompson family with their successors, Button and Whitaker, held the business here until about 1830.”