A guide to Regency England for readers of classic literature or historical fiction set in the early 19th century.
England, as it was in the early 1800's, can sometimes be as confusing to a modern reader as travelling to a foreign country. Their clot...
As well as the usual Court Mourning, when a member of the British Royal family died, the King, or the Prince Regent, could also order a General Mourning for the whole population. It would be announced in the London Gazette, and reprinted in all the other newspapers. This instructed the general populace to put themselves into whatever "decent mourning" they could afford.
Between 1790 and 1820 there were only eight General Mournings ordered. The Duke of Cumberland (1790) the Duke of Gloucester (1805) and the Duchess of Brunswick (1813) were siblings of the king. Princess Amelia, (1810) Princess Charlotte (1817) and the Duchess of York & Albany (1820) were the king's daughters and daughter-in-law. The other General Mournings were for the Queen's death in 1818 and the King himself in 1820.
Only when the King and Queen died did the order specifically call for deep mourning, as this entry from the London Gazette, issue 17421, shows:
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General mourning did not continue for months, as it was unpopular with tradesmen. Even in the previous century, people had complained that a lengthy period of general mourning would be bad for business, even as they profited from it:
"I remember, in London, upon a general mourning, the rascally mercers and woollen-drapers would in twenty-four hours raise their cloths and silks to above a double price, and if the mourning continued long, then come whining with petitions to the court, that they were ready to starve, and their fineries lay upon their hands." [A Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacturers, written by Jonathan Swift, 1720]
In 1817 and 1818, General Mourning officially ended after six weeks.
One of the most lamented Royal deaths in the Regency era was that of Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince Regent and second in line to the throne. She died on 6th November 1817, five and a half hours after delivering a stillborn son. She was twenty-one and had only been married for a year and a half.
The country had been preparing to celebrate the birth, and instead suffered the shock of her loss. As a result of what they called a "National Sorrow", theatres postponed plays, some businesses closed for up to a fortnight, and many families mourned as though they had lost one of their own.
"All that custom ordains as the sign of external sorrow was to be seen everywhere in the public streets, in the parks, and in the most retired and obscure parts of the metropolis. Unconfined to those with whom a charge of dress is no consideration, the same sentiment operated with great effect upon thousands whose condition approaches closely to difficulty and poverty. Among these humbler classes there were few who could find the means of procuring any black that did not put on the visible demonstration of their unaffected sorrow." [Celebrities I Have Known: With Episodes, Political, Social, Sporting and Theatrical, by Lord William Pitt Lennox, pub 1877]
This was probably the closest Regency example of a public outpouring of grief similar to that seen after the death of Princess Diana in 1997.
Society Mourning
"The general grief expressed on this melancholy occasion was the natural result arising from the benevolence of her character.-- Her ways were ways of pleasantness, and all her paths were peace." [Funeral of her Grace, the Duchess Dowager of Chandos, Morning Post, 12th April 1813]
Society mourning was that respectful mourning for someone you did not know personally but still respected. Depending on the status of the person who had died, it could mean the occupants of an estate, a town or even a whole country putting on mourning for a short time after their death. A modern equivalent might be the grief shown by the public following the death of an admired musician, like Freddy Mercury in 1991.
People whose death could spark this kind of mourning during the Regency era included those much-loved and respected landowners who would have been genuinely mourned by their loyal tenants and neighbours. Business owners might also be mourned, particularly those who cared for the well-being of their employees by providing sanitary accommodation and free schooling for their children. When Matthew Boulton died in 1809, hundreds of his workers wore whatever mourning they could, in addition to the hatbands and gloves that were gifted to them for the funeral procession.
Politicians at this time may not have been well-liked but would have been respected, and the crowd of onlookers may have chosen to wear black at their public funeral, but it was unlikely that they would have continued wearing mourning afterwards. Others whose death sparked a more widespread mourning included military heroes, like Lord Nelson.
[Image: London Fashionable Morning and Full Dress, Lady's Magazine, pub. November 1810. Court mourning fashion to mark the death of Princess Amelia. (Public Domain)]
