Harsh Winters
Felicity Day reveals how our ancestors coped with plummeting temperatures
Felicity Day reveals how our ancestors coped
James Woodforde was anything but a fan of the cold weather. His Diary of a Country Parson, 1758–1802 (published posthumously in 1924) includes a litany of complaints about the harsh winters of the 1790s. But is it any wonder, when you consider what he had to deal with? In January 1795, so intense was the frost in his small parish near Norwich that it “froze last night the chamber pots upstairs”.
Three years later, in 1798, it was, he wrote, “all the day intense – it froze in every part of the House… Milk & Cream tho’ kept in the Kitchen all froze. Meat like blocks of wood… & also our Bread”. The following February, there was snow “so very deep as to make almost every road impassable – in many roads 15ft deep”. He couldn’t get to his outside toilet, let alone any further.
And Parson Woodforde’s experiences were not unusual. The infamous ‘Beast from the East’ of 2018 was nothing compared with what our Georgian and Victorian ancestors faced with punishing regularity. They lived through a series of intensely cold winters – so cold, in fact, that the period from roughly 1550 to 1880 has become popularly known as the Little Ice Age. Scientists are not universally agreed on the cause – some put it down to the cooling effect of volcanic eruptions, others to low solar activity
– but whatever the reason, uncommonly severe winters were a part of life in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Newspapers tell of bitingly cold temperatures. For example, in January 1814 the temperature in Gloucester reached –10.5°C. The ice on the River Severn was so thick that locals could ride along it on horseback. In January 1867 it was still every bit as cold in Britain. Snow visited our island more frequently, too. Not just flurries, either, but snowstorms that created 20-foot drifts in rural areas. It was particularly bad in 1836; some 600 soldiers were deployed to clear roads at Chatham in Kent where the snow was 40 feet deep in places.
Far-Reaching Effects
Of course, without the luxuries of central heating or double glazing, gritter lorries or even thermal underwear, such hostile conditions were a considerable trial. Freezing temperatures obviously had a detrimental effect on health – particularly for the old, the young and those of a consumptive disposition – but the weather affected everything from travel and trade to employment and the economy, too.
For those compelled to be outside, the risk of hypothermia was very real. Parson Woodforde was a compassionate employer, and after hearing that two women had frozen to death while returning home from Norwich market, he declined to send his servants out when the weather was particularly bad. But not every employee was so lucky. Having been dispatched to check on livestock, a manservant perished in the cold and snowy conditions of January 1820, according to the Bath Herald – despite being equipped with gin and warm cider!
Drivers and guards on the mail coaches also had a raw deal, since they were required to sit atop the vehicle for its entire journey. Newspaper reports tell of them falling ill from exposure – a hazard that also affected two passengers travelling on the roof of the Bath coach in 1812, who were found frozen to death on arrival in Chippenham. A similar fate befell an unfortunate worker on the railway in the 1860s.
Venturing out was often pointless anyway – getting around on horseback or by coach was simply impossible in the face of deep snowdrifts. On one particularly bad day in 1814, no fewer than 33 mail coaches failed to complete their journeys to London, and in 1836 the Exeter mail had to be dug out of the snow five times on its journey to London. Perseverance could be perilous. With some roads little more than dirt tracks, deeplying snow could easily and very dangerously obscure the route, as one man found to his cost in 1853. The Morning Chronicle reported that having mistaken his road, he plunged into a river with his horse and cart and was drowned.
Mail Moratorium
In such cases, the mail coaches would have no choice but to halt altogether. The “effect commercially is… very embarrassing” noted the Morning Post in 1836, bringing communication, and indeed movement of money, between the metropolis and the regions to a
‘In 1836 the Exeter mail had to be dug out of the snow five times on its journey to London’
stop. Businesses, too, suffered in the snow. Shops usually closed, and those whose livelihoods depended on working outdoors were deprived of employment. Everyone from labourers to market gardeners could be thrown onto the poverty line by a period of severe weather.
And it didn’t help that prolonged cold snaps had a knock-on effect on the prices of food and fuel. The Times attributed the “enormous increase” in the cost of coal in 1814 to “the river navigation and other means of conveyance being so greatly impeded”, a state of affairs that continued even after the advent of the railways. A few inches of snow could still bring lines to a standstill, and stop goods and raw materials getting through. Crop failures would also lead to an insufficient supply of foodstuffs, pushing prices up.
The Plight Of The Poor
Yet lives had to go on, no matter how catastrophic the weather. The poorest in society had the fewest resources with which to face the challenges, so charitable efforts always played an important role. Landowners might turn a blind eye to wood taken illicitly as a substitute for expensive coal – even if they grumbled privately, as Somerset parson William Holland did about the “great depradations” (sic) that were committed on his new hedges in 1800. Funds collected through private subscriptions usually enabled coal, blankets and food to be distributed to the poor. And in 1860, a “soup kitchen supported by voluntary contributions” was in operation in Exeter, which was supplemented by a “benevolent gentleman” who provided inexpensive vegetables.
For those in more comfortable circumstances, surviving the winter was about practical solutions. Freezing temperatures indoors were generally the result of the period’s poorly fitting doors and windows, and home furnishings played a key role in combating them. Thick rugs and heavy curtains prevented heat escaping, and four-poster beds kept sleepers snug overnight. Wing-backed chairs, too, could be useful to keep draughts off the face, and reflect back the heat from the fire. Copper warming pans filled with hot coals were the equivalent of a hot-water bottle, and a portable version would warm your feet in an icy carriage.
The Fire Inside
Efficient heating was the best remedy of all. Some hot-air and hot-water heating systems were in existence by the Regency period, but the vast majority of households – both rich and poor – still relied on open fires. Conversely, the houses of the working classes were probably the warmest. Their kitchen, with its coal fire, was the hub of the home, and the fire spread heat into the few rooms they had directly above. By contrast, a house with many larger rooms and high ceilings was much harder to warm, and far less cosy. The ‘Rumford Stove’, designed by an American in the late 1790s, was
a popular solution. It reduced the size of the fireplace opening, and its inclined surrounds of brick absorbed and reflected the heat. However, the fuel was still expensive, so not even the wealthiest would expect to have a fire in every room.
Winter Wardrobe
Jane Carlyle counted herself lucky to be able to keep fires roaring in the drawing room and bedroom of her Chelsea home at the end of December 1860. An observer might, she wrote, “suppose we lived within a mile of a coal pit, instead of paying twenty-eight shillings a cart-load for coals!”. She was, she reported to a friend, “adopting all possible measures to keep myself warm”. Her other schemes included wearing all of her flannel petticoats at once. “I… am having two new ones made out of a pair of Scotch blankets!” she declared cheerfully, recommending: “My dear! If you are perishing, act upon my idea… no flannel comes near them in point of warmth.”
Layering was key when it came to winter clothing. While women like Jane piled on the petticoats, men wore multiple great coats outside. Ladies also used shawls, fur-lined cloaks and large fur muffs, which became particularly fashionable. At night, caps were worn by both sexes to provide extra warmth while sleeping.
Practical solutions aside, the famous British stoicism was another coping mechanism. Essayist and poet Robert Southey gently mocked it in his Letters from England (1807), written in the guise of Spanish tourist Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella: “I happened to go into a pastrycook’s shop… and inquired… why she kept her window open during this severe weather… She told me, that were she to close it, her receipts would be lessened forty or fifty shillings a day – so many were the persons who took up buns or biscuits as they passed by and threw their pence in.” ‘Espriella’ added, “Was there ever so indefatigable a people!”
And then, as now, grumbling helped. By 1886, familiar refrains about inadequate preparation had found their way into the Morning Post. The snow, they felt, might have remained on the ground until the spring, for all the effort there was to remove it. However, if you find yourself complaining about weather-related disruption this year, just spare a thought for your ancestors and the real trials of the Little Ice Age.