How to Create the Perfect Wife (47 page)

Finally I want to thank my family and friends for giving me the practical, emotional and physical help that has been essential in writing this book from beginning to end. Most of all, my thanks are to Sam and Susie, for their usual forbearance and patience, and to my husband, Peter, my first reader and my constant support.

ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

1.

Thomas Day by Joseph Wright, 1770 (Manchester Art Gallery)

2.

top left
Richard Lovell Edgeworth by Antoine Cardon, 1812 (National Library of Ireland);
top right
Erasmus Darwin by Joseph Wright, c. 1770 (The Erasmus Darwin Foundation, Lichfield);
bottom left
Jean-Jacques Rousseau by Allan Ramsay, 1766 (Scottish National Gallery);
bottom right
James Keir, engraving by W. H. Worthington, after L. de Longastre (Wellcome Library, London)

3.

top left
Anna Seward by Tilly Kettle, 1762 (British Library/Robana via Getty Images);
top right
Honora Sneyd, medallion from Josiah Wedgwood’s factory, 1780 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London);
bottom left
Esther Milnes by James Millar, c. 1780 (the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum, Lichfield);
bottom right
Maria Edgeworth by unknown engraver, c. 1754 (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

4.

top The
London Foundling Hospital, engraving by B. Cole, 1755 (Coram, in the care of the Foundling Museum, London);
bottom left
Thomas Coram by William Hogarth, 1740 (Coram, in the care of the Foundling Museum, London);
bottom right
Tokens left at the Foundling Hospital (the Foundling Museum, London)

5.

top left
Billet form for Monimia Butler, 1757 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives/Foundling Hospital Deposit);
top right
Apprenticeship indenture for Ann Kingston, 1769 (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives/Foundling Hospital Archives Deposit);
bottom
Shrewsbury House of Industry, colored aquatint published by C. Hulbert, c. 1830 (Shropshire Archives)

6.

top
The Bow and The Minuet, from Leith Davis,
The Polite Academy,
London, 1762 (British Library);
bottom
The Temple, 1722 (by kind permission of the Masters of the Bench of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple)

7.

top left
Charles Burney by William Sharp, 1821 (National Portrait Gallery, London);
top right
Fanny Burney by Edward Burney, 1782 (the Collection at Parham Park, West Sussex);
bottom
Dr Burney’s House by R. B., 1839 (Greenwich Heritage Centre)

8.

top
Sabrina Bicknell by Richard James Lane, after Stephen Poyntz Denning, 1833 (National Portrait Gallery, London);
bottom left Henry
Edgeworth Bicknell by Charles Baugniet, 1853 (National Portrait Gallery, London);
bottom right
John Laurens Bicknell, lithograph by Charles Baugniet, 1845 (Wellcome Library, London)

NOTES

A NOTE ON MONEY AND WEATHER

Comparing sums of money between the eighteenth century and today is fraught with problems. However, where comparisons are given these are based on the Bank of England inflation calculator using figures for 2011:
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/Pages/inflation/calculator/index1.aspx
.

All references to weather are taken from meteorological reports in the
Gentleman’s Magazine
and other contemporary records.

CHAPTER I: MARGARET

1

Thomas Day read the letter:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, pp. 208–9. Edgeworth describes the visit to Ireland on pp. 196–99. RLE states that they left for Ireland in “spring 1768.” However, the Buttery Books at Middle Temple for that year show that RLE dined there until the week of May 8–14. And since the travelers met Darwin on their route this must have been before Darwin’s carriage accident, which laid him up for several weeks, on July 11 that year. They must have left, therefore, between late May and early July. The family history, family house and surrounding countryside are described in
The Black Book of Edgeworthstown and Other Edgeworth Memories,
which was handed down in the Edgeworth family. See Butler, Harriet Jessie and Harold Edgeworth.

2

One acquaintance would later say that if Margaret appeared:
Edgeworth, FA, p. 18.

2

Even his close friend Edgeworth:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, p. 175.

2

At the dinner table Day’s manners:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, p. 197.

4

As Day told a friend at the time:
TD to JB, n.d. (postmarked October 11 and must be 1768, but mostly written three weeks earlier, i.e., September 20) Essex RO, D/DBa C10. Day describes the on-off relationship with Margaret in this 11-page letter as well as her previous romance with the English officer.

5

He had suffered rejection before:
TD to JB, n.d. (c. 1765), three letters and three fragments from Day at Oxford to Bicknell, Essex RO, D/DBa C10.

5

He would later describe Margaret:
TD to AS, March 14, 1771, SJBM, 2001.71.17. Although this letter is dated 1771, it was probably written in 1772 since it refers to events—such as Elizabeth Sneyd’s arrival in Lichfield and Day’s winter of being groomed—which had not happened until then.

6

“These my Friend are the Prejudices”:
TD to JB, n.d. Essex RO, D/DBa C10.

CHAPTER 2: LAURA

9

The crowded room hushed:
Keir, pp. 108–9.

10

Thomas Day was born on June 22:
Day’s early years are described in Keir, pp. 4–5; Kippis; and Gignilliat, pp. 1–2. Gignilliat says Day’s mother was 27 when she married in 1746, but Keir states that she was 70 in 1791 so she was actually 25. A correspondent writing to the
Gentleman’s Magazine
in 1791, signing himself “E” and describing Day as “my old playfellow,” says Day Sr. was deputy collector of customs outward (not collector as Keir states) and gives his date of death as July 24, 1749. This writer, probably RLE, states that Phillips was an usher in the same office. GM, 1791, vol. 61, part 1, p. 401.

10

Baby Thomas was baptized:
Parish register, St. George-in-the-East, LMA.

10

From his mother
—
who once stared down a bull:
Keir, p. 16.

10

Soon after she was widowed:
Keir, p. 5.

11

Thomas and his stepfather would never see eye to eye:
Seward (1804), p. 27.

11

Barehill, near Wargrave, in Berkshire:
The area, neighboring Kiln Green, five miles south of Henley-on-Thames, was called either Bare or Bear Hill in the eighteenth century but is now known as Bear Lane.

12

One of about a hundred boarding pupils:
Anon,
Charter-House, Its Foundation and History
(London, 1849); Thornbury, Walter,
Old and New London
(London, 1897), vol. 2, pp. 380–404; Wheatley, Henry Benjamin,
London, Past and Present,
vol. 1, pp. 362–66; Quick, Anthony,
Charterhouse, A History of the School
(London, 1990). General background on eighteenth-century education is from Fletcher.

12

He even gained a reputation:
Keir, p. 11. Keir cites William Seward as giving the anecdote about boxing.

13

Indeed one version of the boxing story:
Stephen.

13

it was published in a London newspaper: Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser,
May 5 and August 15, 1764. The verses were published in two parts so Day and Bicknell were actually 16 and 18 by the time the second verses appeared. Gignilliat attributes the poem to Day, but it was almost certainly a collaboration since Day asked Bicknell in a letter from Oxford (n.d.), “I suppose Knife & Fork is consign’d to Rust.” Essex RO, D/DBa C10.

13

Bicknell was “in the strictest sense”:
Kippis.

14

Gibbon described the few classes:
Gibbon, Edward,
Memoirs of My Life,
ed. Radice, Betty (Harmondsworth, UK, 1984), pp. 77–86. General background on Oxford University is from Midgley, Graham,
University Life in Eighteenth-Century Oxford
(New Haven; London, 1996); details on Corpus Christi are from Fowler, Thomas,
Corpus Christi
(Oxford, 1898).

15

Arriving in Oxford in his black silk gown:
University of Oxford,
Alumni Ox-onienses, 1715–1886
(London; Oxford, 1887–88), vol. 1, p. 357. The college architecture is largely unchanged today.

16

Day liked to “descant at large”:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, pp. 248 and 341; vol. 2, p. 86. The second comment is from Maria Edgeworth.

16

Alone in his rooms, he poured:
Letters, TD to JB, Essex RO, D/DBa C10. Three letters sent by Day to Bicknell from Oxford have survived. All are undated, but events mentioned suggest they were written in 1765 and 1766. The succeeding quotes are all from these letters. No replies from Bicknell survive.