Equipping Oneself for a Holiday in Bath
or: Buying an Umbrella in Jane Austen’s England
Captain Wentworth, watching them, turned again to Anne, and by manner, rather than words, was offering his services to her.
“I am much obliged to you,” was her answer, “but I am not going with them. The carriage would not accommodate so many. I walk: I prefer walking.”
“But it rains.”
“Oh! very little. Nothing that I regard.”
After a moment’s pause he said: “Though I came only yesterday, I have equipped myself properly for Bath already, you see,” (pointing to a new umbrella); “I wish you would make use of it, if you are determined to walk; though I think it would be more prudent to let me get you a chair.”
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen, illustration by C.E. Brock)
Had Jane Austen’s novel been set much earlier in the Georgian era, the captain would never have thought of such a purchase, or been able to find an umbrella shop, if he had.
The first recorded use of the word ‘umbrella’ was in 1610, although the object itself goes back to ancient times. The Aztecs used umbrellas made of feathers and gold, the Ancient Egyptians made parasols out of palm leaves and feathers, then fixed them on long handles, and there were forms of parasols in Nineveh, Persepolis and Ancient India. One of the Chinese Terracotta Warriors holds an umbrella. In Ancient Greece there were even umbrellas which could be opened and shut, as needed, while in Ancient Rome umbrellas made from skins or leather were commonly used by women and effeminate men. However, during the Middle Ages, the use of this practical object seemed to disappear.
The umbrella entered England in the 17th century, probably from China. A dictionary of 1614 lists an ‘umbrello’ as an object that could screen from the sun. In France, umbrellas began to appear fairly regularly in the 1660s, and diarist John Evelyn (shown here) mentions seeing one as a great rarity in 1664 – the one he saw was decorated with Chinese characters.
Umbrellas were much slower to enter English shops. The first lightweight folding umbrella to enter England was supplied by a Paris merchant. It could be opened and closed, weighed less than 1kg, and the enterprising merchant gained an exclusive right from the King to produce these umbrellas for five years.
The French continued to work on improving the device, and in 1759 a new design for an umbrella combined with a cane appeared. Soon, its use was widespread. In Paris, around 1770, it was even possible to rent an umbrella if you were caught out by a sudden shower.
Robinson Crusoe, stuck on his island, famously made himself an umbrella to keep off the sun. However, he was not drawing on his English background when he did so. Defoe informs us that Crusoe had seen such objects on his travels in Brazil.
The use of the umbrella was very uncommon in England in the first half of the 18th century. Jane Austen’s parents would have been most unlikely to have owned umbrellas in their youth.
It all changed thanks to daring Mr Jonas Hanway, founder of Magdalen Hospital, philanthropist and traveller, and a practical and enterprising man. He dared to venture public ridicule by habitually carrying an umbrella in the streets of London. He had seen them in use in Europe and been impressed, so from 1750 until his death in 1786, Hanway and his umbrella became a familiar sight in the city.
Cartoons depicting Hanway, along with onlookers’ reactions to the strange thing over his head, were displayed in print shops, and he was pointed out as one of the city’s oddities. However, London weather being what it is, there were some who thought this object, while strange, did come with advantages.
In 1788, a London newspaper advertised umbrellas. Gradually, umbrellas came into fashion. Interestingly, they eventually caused a huge drop in sales for gentlemen’s canes because it was hard for a man to carry both a cane and an umbrella at the same time.
In spite of Mr Hanway’s example, it was women who most enthusiastically took up the use of the umbrella. And yet the need of men was as great, if not greater, than that of women. Men’s wigs were often enormous, and men continued to wear wigs for longer than did women. In Pride and Prejudice, it is clear that Mr Bennet wears one – he is mentioned as owning a ‘powdering gown’ (these were used when hair powder was blown on to a wig to make it look fresher), and Robert Watson in the unfinished The Watsons is also mentioned as wearing a wig.
Hair powder was made from flour, and if one got caught in the rain and one’s wig got soaked, that flour turned into a horrid cakey mess. Wigs were very expensive, so the first drops of rain could send men scurrying for shelter to protect their wigs. Finally, Joseph Addison wrote in praise of umbrellas in The Spectator, and men at long last felt they would not be ridiculed if they carried one. By 1801, according to Robbins’s Bath Directory, there were five umbrella manufacturers in town.
The London umbrella shop of James Smith and Sons, established in 1830, soon found it needed to open two more London branches. It is still in business selling luxury umbrellas today.
Captain Wentworth would not have been wearing a wig that needed protection from the rain, but he has probably been drenched in his navy service more often than he ever wanted to be. He’s a modern and practical man, so buying an umbrella is entirely in keeping with his sensible character. Admiral Croft is another practical man – he and his wife both use umbrellas and keep them hanging by the door leading into the Kellynch shrubbery.
Jane Austen mentions umbrellas in other novels as well. Catherine Morland, longing for the sun to come out so she can walk with the Tilneys, dejectedly notes “four umbrellas up already” in the Bath streets. In Emma a courtship starts thanks to the fetching of umbrellas – Emma and Miss Taylor are caught in a shower and Mr Weston gallantly fetches two umbrellas from Farmer Mitchell’s (who is another practical owner of umbrellas), Frank Churchill hurries from the Crown Inn to hold umbrellas over the heads of Jane Fairfax and Miss Bates, and when Fanny Price is caught in a sudden squall, Dr Grant comes out with an umbrella to escort her into the parsonage.
The umbrella is an everyday item that we now take for granted. We tend not to spend a lot of money buying one, for on average, we lose 4.6 umbrellas in our lifetimes. Today, most umbrellas are made in China – the city of Shangyu has over one thousand umbrella factories. In the USA, 33 million umbrellas are sold every year.
Dickens made such a feature of Mrs Gamp’s umbrella (always displayed with ‘particular ostentation’) in Martin Chuzzlewit that the word ‘gamp’ is in the dictionary as a synonym for a large umbrella, often rather loosely tied up. As a gamp, a brolly, a parasol, a sunshade, a bumbershoot, or a canopy, or whatever else you might call it, an umbrella is a wonderful object that is found in all our homes. Perhaps next year, on 10 February, you might even like to celebrate National Umbrella Day? I should think that Captain Wentworth would approve.
Enjoy this gallery of images that feature umbrellas from Jane Austen’s books, drawn by C.E. Brock and Hugh Thompson. Click to enlarge.
