The RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth enjoying the show in 2014.

The annual RHS Chelsea Flower Show opened today - 23rd May 2016. The RHS patron, HM the Queen, is the guest of honour at each show and this year as she is celebrating her 90th birthday there will be special photographic exhibits and a floral arch for her.The show is so popular that tickets are restricted to four per person and are already sold out.

Chelsea is probably the world’s most famous horticultural shows and is the place to see cutting-edge garden design, find new plants and new ideas to enhance your garden. The show is held in the grounds of Royal Hospital Chelsea which was once the site of the famous 18^th century Ranelagh Gardens.  

Ranelagh House and Gardens with the Rotunda (1745) T. Bowles after J. Maurer

Ranelagh was one of the great melting pots of 18th century society. Entry cost two shillings and sixpence, compared to a shilling at Vauxhall and Horace Walpole wrote soon after the gardens opened, "It has totally beat Vauxhall... You can't set your foot without treading on a Prince, or Duke of Cumberland.” Novelist Fanny Burney described how the nightly illuminations and magic lanterns ‘made me almost think I was in some enchanted castle or fairy palace’. Originally designed to appeal to wealthier tastes, pleasure gardens soon became the haunt of the rich and poor alike. 

Actress Gwyneth Paltrow at the show.

When it first opened in 1746, Ranelagh boasted acres of formal gardens with long sweeping avenues, down which pedestrians strolled together on balmy summer evenings. Other visitors came to admire the Chinese Pavillion or watch the fountain of mirrors and attend musical concerts held in the great 200-foot wide Rotunda, the gardens' main attraction where Mozart performed as a child.  Yet the novelty soon waned. In June of that year Catherine Talbot wrote to a friend that “…it is quite vexatious at present to see all the pomp and splendour of a Roman amphitheatre devoted to no better use than a twelvepenny entertainment of cold ham and chicken.” And Ranelagh soon lost out to the cheaper and more exciting Vauxhall Gardens. It probably didn’t help that the Rotunda proved to have dreadful acoustics, there was no drinking or gambling allowed and the grounds were too well lit for assignations.

Canaletto. The Interior of the Rotunda at Ranelagh (c1751).

However Ranelagh remained open for sixty years weathering the storms and frosts of the 1780s, London riots and the French wars until 1803.

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show is organised by the Royal Horticultural Society which was founded in 1804. Today the Great Pavilion is one of main attractions covering roughly 11,775 square metres or 2.90 acres, enough room to park 500 London buses.

Actor Benedict Cumberbatch with his mother actress Wander Ventham in the Great Pavillion.

This year we can expect 2016 there will be spectacular show gardens, showcasing the exceptional talent of a handful of carefully selected garden designers. Alongside the Show Gardens are the smaller garden categories. The Artisan Gardens pay homage to traditional and contemporary artisan skills, and the Fresh Gardens category incorporate innovative materials and challenging ideas. There will be unique products for the garden and home including limited edition sculptures and gardening essentials, and in Ranelagh Gardens five artisans have been invited to dress Studios in which they will exhibit their handmade crafts.

Imagining life without antibiotics

Mary Woolstonecraft, author of the Vindication of the Rights of Women fell victim to Childbed fever in 1797 having given birth to her daughter Mary Shelly the author of Frankenstein

The discovery of antibiotics has transformed all of our lives but it was found quite by accident when Professor Alexander Fleming discovered that one of the plates which had previously been coated with staphyloccus bacteria had mould on it in 1928. The mould was penicillium notatum but it was not used on a human being until 1941 when an Oxford doctor, Charles Fletcher, tried it on a patient dying from an infected wound. The patient unfortunately died, not because the drug did not work but simply because Fletcher did not have enough to kill all the bacteria. Having proved its effectiveness in reducing bacterial infection in people the drug went into production and was available to treat patients from the end of World War II. In 1945 Fleming, and the US drug company that manufactured the new ‘Wonder Drug’ Chain and Florey were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

Staphylococcus has many strains and causes a wide variety of diseases in humans and animals. About 20% people are long-term carriers of staphyloccus  aureus on the skin or in the nostrils and it lurks quite inertly in the healthy lower reproductive tract of women. It can cause a range of illnesses, from minor skin infections, such as pimples, impetigo, boils, cellulitis, folliculitis, carbuncles, scalded skin syndrome, and abscesses, to life-threatening diseases such as pneumonia, meningitis, osteomyelitis, endocarditis, toxic shock syndrome, bacteremia, and sepsis. It is still one of the five most common causes of hospital-acquired infections. When it gets into the bloodstream your chances of surviving without antibiotics is about 20% for a healthy adult for the frail and the very young it is much lower so it is not surprising that many people in the past died of what we consider to be relatively minor illnesses e.g.:infected wounds, rotten teeth, septic throats, leg ulcers and abscesses.

Puerperal or childbed fever was a common infection in the past. It is an infection of the uterus and surrounding tissues. Infection can be caused by a number of factors: premature rupture of membranes, vaginal examinations, manual removal of the placenta, and prolonged labour. In chapter II of 'Feavers and Acute Diseases in Women in Childbed' Nicholas Culpepper discusses puerperal fever (though not by this name) and attributes it to the “…stoppage of the afterflux… or the foul humours that were gathered at the time of being with child and stirred in travel” i.e. labour. In addition to this, getting up too soon after childbirth, too rapid a delivery, changes in the weather, strong drink, spices, metastasizing milk, and obstructed perspiration were all suggested as possible causes but the most popular was that it arose from poisons in the atmosphere or miasma.

The epidemic of childbed fever that struck the city of Aberdeen, Scotland, between December 1789 and March 1792 was unusual. It occurred not in the dirty, crowded and ill-ventilated wards of lying-in hospitals, but throughout the city and surrounding villages. Alexander Gordon, physician to the Aberdeen Dispensary found that "this disease seized such women only as were visited or delivered by a practitioner or taken care of by a nurse who had previously attended patients affected by the disease."  He admitted, "I myself was the means of carrying the infection to a great number of women." He went on to recommend in his report of 1795 that, "Nurses and physicians who have attended patients afflicted with the puerperal fever ought carefully to wash themselves and get their apparel properly fumigated before it be put on again." Unfortunately his advice was rejected by the medical establishment of the time, he died a broken man a few years later and the carnage in the the lying-in wards continued unabated.

One famous victim of puerperal fever was Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley. In 1797 she gave birth to her daughter Mary with the assistance of a midwife but then a doctor was called to help remove the placenta. He came quickly and with unwashed hands removed it. Wollstonecraft died a painful but typical death a week later. Today, as I know myself these infections are treated with antibiotics. Antibiotics saved my life twice in childbirth so I am very grateful that I was born after their discovery.

In the 1790s, Gordon stressed that the disease was spread from one patient to another. In 1842, Thomas Watson recommended that physicians and birth attendants wash their hands and use chlorine between patients. In 1847, Ignaz Semmelweis reduced the rate of fever in his obstetric ward by ordering hand washing, but the idea was still rejected by the medical industry at large and it was not until the late 1850s when the work of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch provided convincing evidence of what we now call 'germ theory' that the idea of human transmission of infection started to be accepted. Indeed in 1880 the miasma theory was still competing with the germ theory of disease. Eventually, a "golden era" of bacteriology ensued, in which the theory quickly led to the identification of the actual organisms that cause many diseases.

Antibiotics are precious and we should use them wisely. If we look at what life was like before we had them I am sure we would not take them for granted.

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References:

Porter  Ian A. Alexander Gordon MD of Aberdeen 1752-1799.  University of Aberdeen:Oliver and Boyd (Edinburgh), 1958.

Gordon, Alexander. A Treatise on the Epidemic of Puerperal Fever of Aberdeen.London:GG and J Robinson,1795.

http://www.hektoeninternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=889&catid=65&Itemid=435 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_of_disease (01.05.2016)

A Directory of Midwives or a Guide for Women” by Nicholas Culpepper (London, 1681).

What should a respectable widow wear?

By the late 19th century, mourning behaviour in England had developed into a complex set of rules, particularly among the upper classes. For women, the customs involved wearing heavy, concealing, black clothing, and the use of heavy veils of black crêpe. The entire ensemble was colloquially known as "widow's weeds" (from the Old English waed, meaning "garment").

The growing wealth of the eighteenth century aristocracy set the trend for the flamboyant expression of loss and grief with masses of black bombazine silk, ostrich feathers and bows.

But older and poorer women choose a much simpler, more practical styles and with the growth of the urban middle class, particularly in Britain the demand for dull, black, mourning wools, black and white silk crepe increased as incomes and social expectations rose.

Black however was not the only acceptable colour for grief. In the portrait below we see a woman holding a portrait of her dead husband wearing white with a black lace collar and bonnet. Mauve was also an acceptable colour. 

The wearing of mourning clothes was more of a social necessity for women than men. Whilst men might wear a special suit of sombre clothing for the actual funeral they were rarely expected to wear special clothes or colours unlike women who were expected to show the world their change in status for at least a year and a day.

Of course many women wanted show respect to their dead husbands and continued to wear sombre colours for the rest of their lives. Indeed Charlotte Leadam the heroine of my first novel Sinclair is a young widow and faces this very problem.  As she waits for her husband's creditors to present their accounts, she is, "wearing her new mourning clothes; a respectable but uncomplicated widow's cap and a full length black cloak both in black bombazine silk. The silk was not shiny like taffeta but had a sombre, matte finish that seemed to drain the colour from her face making her look even more wan and tired than she actually was."

"Wearing black crepe was the only acceptable thing to do for a woman in her position and she would have to wear it in public for a minimum period of one year and one day. After that she could choose wear subdued colours such as browns and greys, purples, lilacs, lavenders, and even white."

"But today was the first time that she had appeared in her widow's clothes in public and by this act she was acknowledging that her life had changed forever. It was a sign to the world that she was respecting her husband’s memory but it also told anyone who was interested that she was irreparably damaged, that she was half spent or half dead inside and that she was lonely and vulnerable. To wear anything else would indicate that she was a heartless harlot but she hated the loathsome colour; it reminded her of her loss and it told the world that she was alone.”

In a world where a woman became her husband’s property on marriage and where a middle class widow could not enter the professions to support herself signalling this change in marital status could have its advantages showing men that they were available for marriage again.

Julia Herdman’s debut novel Sinclair will be available later this year.

Julia Herdman’s debut novel Sinclair will be available later this year.

Some thoughts on May Day

When I think of May Day I think either of Maypoles, Morris Dancing and the Jack in the Green or the old Soviet military processions in Red Square.

 

Of course the origins of May Day stretch back into the mists of time. In the late Middle Ages people in England started to dance around a Maypole (a pole with no ribbons) as a celebration of Spring and to encourage fertility in the soil and people. This was banned by the Puritans but came back with the Restoration in 1660 and has remained with ever since – the Victorians added the ribbons. 

But by the seventeenth century England was on the long march to modernity and urban living and London was well on the way to being the first great modern city in the world so May Day in London had nothing to do with May Poles or flowers.

May Day was one of a number of days of the year; Shrove Tuesday, Ascension Day, Midsummer and St Bartholomew’s Day; when disorder reigned.  Between 1603 and 1642 Shrove Tuesday riots involved apprentice boys attacking brothels, bawdy houses and playhouses to reduce temptation during Lent! In the same period there were eight May Day riots. The attacks on bawdy houses seem to peter out after the Restoration and the nature of May Day and other celebration days changes again.

In the late seventeenth century there is evidence of what are called ‘ridings’ in London and other towns. In a ‘riding’ those who are viewed to have transgressed the sexual morality of the day were harangued in the street by the mod beating their pots and pans and shouting at the tops of their voices in what was called ‘rough music.’ In June 1664 a woman appeared before a magistrate in Middlesex accused of following a woman down the street shouting, ‘whore, whore’ and clapping her hands. She was joined by others and soon there was a near riot. Those deemed to have offended their community were spat on, had dirt and stones thrown at them as well as the contents of chamber pots. In London haranguing husbands who had beaten or cheated on their wives was particularly popular as was terrorising brothel keepers and the mothers of illegitimate children.

Historian Charles Pythian-Adams has argued that during the eighteenth century May Day celebrations in London were transformed becoming socially segregated with the rich withdrawing from popular or plebeian activities, but this notion leaves out the growing urban middle class and the effects of growing religious non-conformity. As the eighteenth century progressed so did social separation (both class and gender) but it was not exclusively the elites separating themselves from the poor, the middle class were able to buy their way into urban elite culture, they may not have had a box at the theatre but they could have a seat in the stalls; and as for the poor they separated into those who chose the strictures of religious non-conformity (no pagan rituals) over the perceived laxity of the established church(pagan rituals accepted). This new urban culture was not conducive to what we think of as May Day traditions and its celebration or marking lapsed until it was re-invented and sanitised by the Victorians who gave us children holding ribbons and dancing round the May Pole in the Board School yard.

Source: The Eighteenth-Century Town: A Reader in English Urban History 1688-1820, By Peter Borsay, Routledge 2013