Half-boots and Dancing Slippers--Regency Footwear

Ladies love shoes! And ladies of the Regency were probably no different than those of the 21^st century. After all, who could dislike dainty slippers like these, from a Gillray drawing (a rather rude one of the three Graces in a high wind!)

These examples from an illustration of 1829 are similar but are designated as 'Russian' shoes.

A more complex take on the simple slippers are these examples laced up the ankle with ribbons particularly made, I think, for the shorter summer gowns of the 1810s.

Dancing slippers were little different, but may often have had a silk sole as well as upper, the better to slip across the ballroom floor. There are recorded cases of ladies completely shredding their dancing slippers in one evening.

Most shoes of the Regency were like these slippers: silk or silk satin, with straight soles of soft leather and no designation of right or left foot. Some shoes however were of stenciled leather like these charming c. 1810 examples in pink from the Museum of Welsh Life.

The Museum describes them thus: "pair of pink glace kid slippers with stylized pattern of black floral moverall; pointed toe; very low heel covered with pink leather; pink silk cord ties single pair of eyelet holes at front; narrow ribbon covers seam". This pair of c. 1829 green silk satin shoes are from the same museum, described as "with leather soles, flattened at toes; no heel; green ribbon binding and laces; gathered satin decoration across front; left and right the same; inscribed: GODFREY Ladies Shoe Maker No 25 New Bond St London".

The ladies' shoe maker noted above may have operated from a shop like this:

And his trade card or advertisments would have been similar to this:

Both of these illustrations come from the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera at the Bodleian Library.

I have always been fascinated by the comments about 'half-boots', and I have always had trouble visualizing them. I finally found some illustrations of original, surviving half-boots. These are available for sale at Vintage Textile and are late Regency, approaching 1830. Those on the left are of ivory linen and on the right they are of green damask with leather toes and soles. Both pairs lace on the inside of the ankle; I did see one illustration elsewhere with lacing up the front of the boot.

One thing I have not found, and would love to, is an illustration of a lady's riding boot. Has anyone seen such a thing?

I wish I could don a pair of pretty shoes today but I think I shall have to make do with my snow boots, again, and for the next month or so. Oh well, my blue tweed shoes with the kitten heels await the spring, and so does my burgundy leather pair with the criss-cross straps, and…

What do your favourite shoes look like?

Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

P.S. Thanks so much to Linore Burkard for an entertaining and informative post on Princess Charlotte last week. It was a pleasure having you here, Linore!

Princess Charlotte: Romantic Royal, Doomed Daughter (Or, the Princess Who Should Have Been Queen) by Linore Rose Burkard

Imagine if Queen Victoria never came to the throne because her cousin, Princess Charlotte Augusta (1796-1817), beat her to it. Of course this couldn't have happened: Despite being as wildly popular to the England of her time as Princess Diana was to ours, Princess Charlotte never became the Queen she might have been, and by birth, should have been, for the simple reason that she died before getting the chance.

Read on to catch a glimpse of Her Royal Highness, Princess Charlotte of Wales -Daughter of the Regent ( later George IV). She was passionate, a sometime pawn of her warring parents, and a great favorite among the English during the Regency until her tragic death in 1817. She was a romantic ideal to her subjects, (even Jane Austen loved her) but a doomed daughter. A future monarch who would never reach the throne.

In 1817 when Princess Charlotte, the only child of the Prince Regent and his estranged wife Caroline of Brunswick, died at the age of 21 (following childbirth), Britain went into mourning such as was not seen again until the death of Princess Diana.

The young princess was a national celebrity of the time, loved for her forthright and passionate nature and because she was seen as the best outcome of an upopular Regent and his even more unpopular and disastrous marriage. If mentioned in the papers, she was most often viewed sympathetically, even reverently. The people loved her. If the Regent was not worthy of the place Providence had seen fit to bestow upon him; if Princess Caroline his wife, was a well-known eccentric, with dubious standards of hygiene and even morals, the young Princess, at least, gave the populace hope.

She was perhaps the more loved for her contrast to both parents, the selfish, hedonistic (though intelligent) father, and her less-than well-esteemed mother. In her own words, the Princess once put it this way: 'My mother was bad, but she would not have become as bad as she was if my father had not been infinitely worse.'

In this painting she appears, it seems to me, a sturdy picture of strength and health; all the more pity, then, that she fell victim to the medical practices of the day, dying after giving birth to a still-born son-- following a horrendous 50 hour labor--from post-partum hemorrhaging. There is a train of thought which says she died of porphyria; the sickness that afflicted her grandfather, George III. This seems unlikely to me, particularly in light of the fact that her doctors had been regularly bleeding her before the birth, and had enforced a strict diet upon her. In other words, she had been weakened considerably before the event.

In any case, her husband, the handsome, formal Prince Leopold, was greatly distraught. (Think of it--In one fell swoop he lost wife, son, and future as Prince Consort.) The nation joined his grief in a huge outpouring of sorrow. Poets immortalized the princess in poetry; the Regent had a large memorial built for her; but he fell under renewed attack by the press and his subjects, not least because it was rumoured he had refused to abandon his hunt, despite the report of his daughter being in labour, until it was too late. In truth, he went to bed the night she delivered fully exhausted himself, hearing that his daughter was doing well, even though his grandchild had not survived the birth. When he woke the next day to find that he had lost his only child as well, he was enormously affected, and took it very hard

The nation did, too. To the popular imagination, Princess Charlotte represented a new day, a new era, a reversal of the high and irreverent carrying-on of the upper classes during the unsettling years of war, rumoured madness in their king, and even, perhaps, invasion of their own shores. Having lived only to the age of 21, we forget how great a symbol of hope the young Princess was to her contemporaries. She doesn't get a great deal of press anymore. Most have forgotten her.

Her memoirs (not autobiographical) reveal a generous, loving girl with a great deal of intelligence, a whip of a temper, strong principles, and with a propensity towards kindness that was heartily attractive. Her manner of expression, both written and in speech, was eloquent. I find it little wonder that England of her day loved her so well. I wish we could have seen what "Queen Charlotte" would have been like on the throne, and in later life. (And yet, instead of the Victorian Era, would we have called it a “Charlatan Era? ” [Charlotten Era?] Probably not!)

Linore Rose Burkard writes "Inspirational Romance to Warm the Soul," as well as articles on Regency Life and people, Homeschooling, and Self-Improvement. She publishes a monthly eZine "Regency Reflections" which you can receive for FREE by signing up at her website quickly and easily. Ms. Burkard graduated from the City University of New York with a magna cum laude degree in English Literature, and now lives in Ohio with her husband and five children. Her novels are: Before the Season Ends, The House in Grosvenor Square, and just-released, The Country House Courtship, all from Harvest House Publishers.

For more articles about people, places and life during the Regency, visit Regency Romance author Linore Rose Burkard's website

Regency Domestics III - The Footman

"The duties of the Footman include almost every description of household employment." So says The Servant's Guide and Family Manual of 1831.

The footman's duties were dependent upon the size of the household in which he was employed. In a large household with several maid-servants for housework, kitchen servants for food service, stable staff, and body servants, his duties were restricted to decorative and service tasks like carrying messages, parcels, and general errand work.

But in a small household, the list of duties could be extensive. The Complete Servant by Samuel and Sarah Adams, written in 1825, says "The business of the Footman is so multifavious and incessant, that in most families, if he be industrious, attentive, and disposed to make himself useful, he will find full employment in the affairs of the house, and the more useful he can make himself, greater will be his reward, and the more comfortable he will be himself."

left - a shoe polishing chest

Included in The Complete Servant is an advertisement which appeared in the Gloucester Journal in January 1825 "WANTED, a middle-aged steady Servant, in the capacity of FOOTMAN; he will be required to wait at table, clean plate, and make himself generally useful in the House. No one need apply who has not lived some time in his last place; and it is indispensably necessary that he shall be able to shave his Master."

Duties included everything from cleaning boots, clothes, lamps and furniture, to setting tables, following his mistress as she shopped, laying fires, and assisting his master to dress...and shave.

left - the sort of lamps that constantly required cleaning

A later 1800's report however, noted in the book The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant by Pamela Horn suggests that the very nature of the footman's work, particularly the carrying of messages and performance of errands offered him a unique opportunity to order their own time, and occasionally to be less than diligent.

The footman's life offered plenty of variety, if nothing else, generally for twelve to sixteen hours a day. And unlike many domestic positions, it extended the opportunity for advancement to the place of butler or perhaps even steward.

Next week the first of my guest bloggers, Linore Rose Burkard, will be here. Linore is the author of three Regency romances, and will be discussing aspects of her own research. Linore's latest book is The Country House Courtship. Visit her website at linoreroseburkard.com

I will be back to two weeks--til then, take care,

Lesley-Anne