Charles Molloy Westmacott - "virulent scribbler"

If you are born a man of modest, or even straightened, means in a time when wealth, nobility and society are all important, what can you do? You can either strive with all your resources to join said society--claw your way up the social ladder--or you can denigrate that society in order to indicate that you have no admiration for it, and that you believe it to be valueless.

Charles Molloy Westmacott chose the latter alternative. He was born in 1788, the illegitimate son (he claimed) of the artist Richard Westmacott and Susannah Molloy, an inn-keeper. Though enemies claimed he was the son of a chimney sweep, he was well educated, and he spent many of his early years in the art and theatre worlds.

In the early 1820's he entered the publishing world. For some years he had been collecting documents 'relating to the aristocracy' and he realized he could profit from the information he had gathered. He began writing, and what he wrote was always controversial, often actionable, and usually scandalous.

In 1825, he achieved a pinnacle of notoriety with the publication of "The English Spy" using a pseudonym 'Bernard Blackmantle'.

The "Spy" covered many aspects of life within the world of the beau monde, particularly commenting upon the worlds of Eton and Oxford. But the society of Brighton and of Mayfair were also derided and The "Spy" begins with a 'poem':

But society did not view his pages with good humour for even the frontispiece illustration and the accompanying text poked fun at them, based on the Five Orders of Architecture:

His connections in the art world ensured that his book was illustrated by top rank artists, Robert Cruickshank and the then elderly Thomas Rowlandson. The material Westmacott included in his book was carefully designed to portray society in its worst light:

"The swaggering broad-shouldered blade who follows near him, with a frontispiece like the red lion, is the well know radical, Jack S____h, now agent to the French consul for this place, and the unsuccessful candidate for the independent borough of Shoreham."

Women were not immune from his acid tongue:

The plump looking dame on the right, is Aug--ta C--ri, (otherwise lady H-----e); so called after the P--n--ss A-------a, her godmamma.

In 1825 Westmacott also published under the same pseudonym, a roman a clef titled "Fitzalleyne of Berkeley; a Romance of the Present Times". It recounted a hot gossip story thinly disguised, and excited much distress among the actual participants in the events.

His path now determined, Westmacott became editor of a Sunday weekly paper "The Age" in 1827. "The Age", which first appeared in 1825, was all about gossip and scandal, heresay and irregularity. His mildest writings were still tongue in cheek:

"Through a slight return of the gout, His Majesty [George IV, formerly the Prince Regent] has most prudently postponed the Drawing Room which was to have been held on Thursday--but we are assured it will delight our readers to know that His Majesty's health is so far renovated as to preclude the chance of any further disappointment."

His Majesty was, of course, extremely unpopular, and there was probably no delight felt in any reader about the health of the King.

Charles Westmacott died in 1868 having spent a lifetime disparaging the beau monde. He was described at one point in his career as "the principal blackmailing editor of his day". He said of himself in the introduction to "The English Spy":

...he has no tongue for scandal--no pen for malice--no revenge to gratify, but is only desirous of attempting a true portraiture of men and manners, in the higher and more polished scenes of life.

It was, of course, all untrue. He was seeking revenge, on a society that rejected him. And he seemed satisfied with the results of his labour. The National Portrait Gallery has a wonderful drawing of Westmacott by artist Daniel Maclise. You can view it here--he looks to me to be a self-satisfied man. Tabloid journalism of today has its origins with writers such as Charles Molloy Westmacott--to my mind, a doubtful legacy.

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

Sources: Charles Molloy Westmacott and the Spirit of the Age by David E. Latane. Victorian Periodicals Review, Volume 40, Number 1, Spring 2007 pp. 44-72

Wikipedia.org

The Joys of Brighton by Guest Blogger Janet Mullany

I get up every morning at half past six and goes out on the beach looking at the boys catching crabs and eels and lookeing at the people batheing. There are numbers of old wimin have little wooden houses on wheeles, and into these houses people goe that want to bathe, and then the house is pushed into the water and when the person has undressed they get into the water and then get into the wooden house again and dress themselves, the house is drawn on shore again. (Diary of William Tayler, footman, 1837)

Even for a servant Brighton was a holiday resort, and William’s diary is full of sea bathing, rowing, an account of an election and a visit to Brighton Races. There was plenty to do in the town even if you were only a (privileged) servant. And if you were wealthy … chances are you’d spend a lot of time undergoing a rigorous sea bathing (and drinking) regime, as well as indulging in other fashionable but more pleasant pursuits.


I used Brighton as one of the settings in my most recent book, Mr Bishop and the Actress, since I’d visited the town in 2009. Of course I went to the Royal Pavilion but my main objective was to visit the Regency Town House, a house undergoing meticulous restoration in Brunswick Square, with a basement annexe/servants’ quarters a few doors down which has barely been touched for almost two centuries.


First, I have to share what I learned about the appearance of the town since so many writers get it wrong (and I would have, too). It was not always white and gleaming. In fact, the early developers, with an eye to those who visited for health as much as fashion, left the natural stone, the same as that of the sidewalks, its soft gray-brown color. Railings were dark green, not black. The whole effect was one of softness and harmony with nature.

The architect of Brunswick Square, Charles Augustin Busby (who visited the USA in 1817 and may have been inspired by Boston architecture), designed not only vacation houses for the rich and powerful visiting the town, but also more modest housing—and a church (above left)—nearby to support the huge support staff needed for their luxurious accommodation. The square, built in the 1820s, had running water, gas lights, and the latest in elegant, well proportioned rooms.

The Regency Town House, number 22, is the only house in Brighton that still boasts the complete set of original storm shutters, seen here from the first floor salon (or second floor in American).

Its kitchen is highly sophisticated, matching the technological advances of that of the Pavilion, where superchef Antonin Careme spent an unhappy, homesick year in 1817. You can see here the reconstructed skylight that brings ventilation and light into the basement kitchen.

I finished my visit with a nice of tea and a toasted teacake at a beach cafe. And, yes, the entire beach consists of pebbles. No sand in sight, but it’s part of Brighton’s charm.



Janet Mullany is an award-winning, multi-published author who writes books set mainly in Regency England. Janet is originally from England but now lives near Washington, DC. Visit her at her website here

Janet's most recent book is "Mr. Bishop and the Actress", available now from Little Black Dress :

I had a great title. I had a great scenario, a woman being dropped by her protector, and a great first line:

Sorry, darling, it’s either you or the horses.

Mourning in "The Ladies' Monthly Museum"The Death of Princess Charlotte

I have been reading about Princess Charlotte of Wales, daughter of our Prince Regent and his unloved wife Caroline of Brunswick, lately. The book I just finished was 'Becoming Queen Victoria' (by Kate Williams) which had a useful, if somewhat dramatic, take on the life of the erstwhile Princess.

Then I found, in The Ladies' Monthly Museum of November and December 1817, coverage of her death, and the outpouring of national grief that followed it. The reaction was similar to that which occurred on the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, but there was much more reason for the public reaction.

Charlotte was the last hope of a nation depressed by the illness of its king, and tired, disgusted and disheartened by the behaviour of the Prince Regent. There was a belief that she would be the monarch they had been waiting for, a queen who would right all the wrongs perpetrated by her forebears, exclude her dissolute uncles from the throne, and make her people--burdened by economic hardship--happy. And then it was all cut short on November 6, 1817 and The Ladies' Monthly Museum lamented:

The sudden, unexpected, and melancholy death of the only presumptive Heiress to the Crown of England in direct succession (after being delivered of a still-born son,) in the bloom of youth and beauty, in the height of her happiness, in the midst of conjugal endearments, beloved and respected, with the prospect of attaining the pinnacle of human greatness, has excited a general sentiment of sympathy and sorrow throughout the country; absorbed every other consideration; and for a time exclusively fixed our attention upon the character of illustrious victim, and the future consequences of her loss.

The Museum took an idealized engraving of the princess and turned it into a keepsake that no doubt was framed by many, and enshrined:

Following this portrait was a twelve page "Memoir of the Life, Death, and Funeral, of her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte Augusta." In the same issue, in the column titled Epitome of Public Affairs, was a five page article on the funeral of the Princess. It includes information on the body's preparation for burial (!), minute details of the coffin ('massive handles with enriched chased borders'), and the activities of each half hour of Wednesday, November 19, the day of the funeral.

There were regular articles in this issue of the Monthly Museum (A New System of Mythology, Comic Use of a Retentive Memory) but they were interspersed with further outpourings of grief:

Even the Fashion Notes for which The Ladies' Monthly Museum was notable were all about mourning clothes. "...it is soothing to our feelings to perceive the general respect paid to her memory by all classes of people, no person of decent appearance being seen out of mourning."

The walking dress is black bombazeen with black crape trim. Worn over it is a pelisse of black Levantine. The French bonnet is of black Leghorn. The evening dress is black crape over black sarsnet. trimmed with jet beads. All the jewelry is of jet.


The Museum always included a 'Costume Parisiennes' column. This month it begins:

"The latest accounts from Paris announce that the French court have gone into mourning for our Princess, for eleven days, and all the English of distinction have paid her memory a similar mark of respect:..."

'The more things change, the more they stay the same' -- we may not wear mourning clothes any more, but the reaction to tragedy has not altered in the last two hundred years.

But on to more cheerful matters--next week, award-winning, multi-published Regency author Janet Mullany will visit to blog about Brighton. Please join us then!

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne