Private Passion, Public Order;

Gaming, gender and the middle classes in eighteenth-century England

by

Janet E. Mullin

Master of Arts (History), University of New Brunswick (2000)

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF

THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

Doctor of Philosophy

In the Graduate Academic Unit of History

Supervisor: Beverly Lemire, D.Phil. Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta Examining Board: R. Steven Turner, Ph.D. Director of Graduate Studies, Department of History, University of New Brunswick Wendy Churchill, Ph.D. Department of History, University of New Brunswick Gary K. Waite, Ph.D. Department of History, University of New Brunswick Randall Martin, Ph.D. Department of English, University of New Brunswick External Examiner: Margaret R. Hunt, Ph.D. Department of History/Women's & Gender Studies, Amherst College

This thesis is accepted

Dean of Graduate Studies

THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK

January, 2008

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14-1 Canada DEDICATION

This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of my grandmother, Rose F. Anewalt, -with love, pride, and profound gratitude.

ii ABSTRACT

Gaming was everywhere in eighteenth-century England. Although most of the tales of the games of that period centre around the extravagant, often reckless, play of the aristocracy, the middle classes were also finding that games, particularly cards, were an excellent way to enjoy their leisure hours. Their increasing prosperity meant that they could afford to enjoy the fashionable pleasures of polite society, and for the first time they had the time in which to do so. Since their businesses and homes were unprotected from financial disaster, however, they stood to lose everything if they indulged in the high stakes and risky games of their "betters". Their solution was to evolve an entirely distinct leisure culture, one which combined the agreeable pastimes and comfortable, elegant settings that befit their wealth with the restraint and moderation of their working lives.

From the pages of the personal papers of the middle classes, a picture emerges of social play, in which the men, the women, and, often, the children of the middling sort sat down to cards in private homes, inn parlours, and the assembly rooms of the new resort towns. Over the period, card play became an innate part of the genteel world, in the process spawning a vast array of leisure-driven industries and trades. The middle classes were a motive force from both sides of the counter, as suppliers of the burgeoning consumer market and as buyers of the increasing range of goods available. The exploding publishing industry allowed the expression of opinions on cards and gaming in general, ranging from outright damnation of all games to sly satires in their defense. Plays, pamphlets, verses, and caricatures spilled from publishers' presses, embodying the attitudes and priorities of the society that made them.

In enjoying one another's company over their cards, the middle classes formed and strengthened neighbourly and commercial bonds, weaving social webs that served

iii purposes beyond mere entertainment At the same time, they devised their own way of enjoying themselves according to their own lights, true to the principles that had made them what they were.

iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A project of this complexity always spawns a long list of thank-yous, and this one is falling right into line. First of all, I want to thank my supervisor, Dr Beverly Lemire, for her unfailing assistance, support, and amazingly short turnaround times. Dr Gary Waite, my co-supervisor, field supervisor, and Teaching Apprenticeship 'master', was and is a wonderful example for a fledgling lecturer. Dr Lianne McTavish, my third field supervisor, was infinitely patient in guiding my first efforts at image analysis. Thank you all so much.

I am most grateful to the members of my examining committee, Dr Wendy

Churchill, Dr Gary Waite, Dr Randall Martin, and Dr Margaret Hunt, for their patient reading and thoughtful criticisms. Thank you for giving my dissertation the benefit of your expertise and experience.

The staffs of the following libraries and archives have been of enormous help to me: the Harriet Irving Library at the University of New Brunswick, with special thanks to the long-suffering folks of Document Delivery and Microforms and the Electronic Text

Centre; the British Library, the Museum of London, the Guildhall Library, the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, all in London; the National Archives, Kew; the Yale Center for British Art and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, both of Yale University; Fairfax House, York; and a long, long list of English county archives, far too many to list here (see Bibliography for a complete list of archives). In addition, thanks go to the following institutions for permission to reproduce images: the Department of

Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, the Geffrye Museum, the Guildhall Library, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of London, and the Wellcome Library, all in

London; the Bath and North East Somerset Council; the East Riding [Yorkshire] Archives and Local Studies Service, Beverley, Yorkshire; the York Conservation Trust and Fairfax

v House, York; the Yale Center for British Art, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript

Library, and the Lewis Walpole Library, all of Yale University; the Philadelphia Museum of

Art; the Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY; the McCormick Library of Special

Collections, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL; the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

New York City; the A. M. Brown Memorial Library, Brown University, Providence, RI.

You have all made this researcher's life so much easier. Many, many thanks to you.

I wish to gratefully acknowledge financial assistance from the Department of

History, the School of Graduate Studies, and the History Graduate Students' Society, all at the University of New Brunswick; the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of

Canada; the Yale Center for British Art; and the O'Brien Foundation. I can only hope that

I have done justice to their generous support

Finally, with loving gratitude, thanks to my family, my friends, my fellow graduate students at the Department of History, and most especially to my husband, Bill, whose patient proofreading, commenting, and trip-planning skills made this whole process work so smoothly. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

VI Table of Contents

DEDICATION ii ABSTRACT iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v Table of Contents vii list of Tables viii List of Figures ix Chapter One: Introduction 1 Chapter Two: As Time Goes By: Cycles of middling card play 37 Chapter Three: Parlour Games: Social play and the middling sort 58 Chapter Four: Saying When: Risk management at work and at play 96 Chapter Five: The Lady Stak'd: Middling women, card play, and the gamestress stereotype... 135 Chapter Six: The Business of Cards: The commercialisation and formalisation of card play.... 165 Chapter Seven: There Might Be No Harm: Morality and social practice 218 Conclusion 240 Bibliography 244 Appendix 276

Vita

vii List of Tables

Table 1: Coaches Leaving Bath's Inns, 1791 210

Table 2: Trades and Businesses in Bath, 1791 211

viii List of Figuies

Figure 1: "The Fruits of Early Industry and Economy" George Morland, c. 1783-1789 5

Figure 2: "The Idle "Prentice at Play in the Church Yard, during Divine Service" William

Hogarth, 1747 41

Figure 3: "The Strong Family" (detail) Charles Philips, 1732 52

Figure 4: "A Card Party" attrib. Isaac Cruikshank, 1794 66

Figure 5: An example of parallel amusements: "The Wanstead Assembly" William Hogarth,

1728-31 77

Figure 6: "The Du Cane and Boehm Family Group" (detail), Gawen Hamilton, 1734-5 92

Figure 7: "British Commerce" Benjamin West, 1791 99

Figure 8: (L) 1788 gaming token, head side 110

Figure 9: (R) 1788 gaming token, tail side 110

Figure 10: "Countrymen and Sharpers" Thomas Rowlandson, 1787 113

Figure 11: "Cheating at Cards" Thomas Rowlandson, n.d 115

Figure 12: "The Spendthrift", engraving after Robert Pyle, 1760s 119

Figure 13: "Loo" Isaac Cruikshank, 1796 147

Figure 14: "Lady Godina's Rout: _or_ Peeping-Tom spying out Pope-Joan — Vide

Fashionable Modesty" James Gillray, 1796 148

Figure 15: "Life and Death Contrasted — or, An Essay on Woman" (detail) anon., c.1760 151

Figure 16: "The Lady's Last Stake" William Hogarth, 1758-1759 155

Figure 17: Signatures of Hoyle and his publisher, from a 1748 edition 176

Figure 18: Display of gaming ephemera in the Eighteenth-Century Gallery, Museum of

London 184

ix Figure 19: Domestic-market ace of spades, c. 1795 187

Figure 20: (L) An eighteenth-century court card: King of hearts 188

Figure 21: (R) An eighteenth-century pip card: ten of spades 188

Figure 22 (L) Knave of clubs, Ludlow & Co., c. 1800 189

Figure 23 (R) Knave of dubs, C. Blanchard, c. 1765 189

Figure 24: Playing card wrappers from Hardy & Sons of London, eighteenth century.... 191

Figure 25: Stationer's tradecard, eighteenth century 192

Figure 26: Demi-lune mahogany card-table with boxwood stringing, c. 1785 195

Figure 27: Mahogany card table with shaped folding top lined with green felt, c. 1765 197

Figure 28: Sabicu, satinwood, and mahogany games table, c. 1800 198

Figure 29: A card table becomes a side table: mahogany card table, c. 1715 199

Figure 30: Ballroom, York Assembly Rooms, Blake Street, York 203

Figure 31: The Octagon Room, Upper Assembly Rooms, Bath 214

Figure 32: Tide page of an anti-gaming tract 222

Figure 33: "Two-Penny Whist" James Gillray, 1796 223

Figure 34: "Mrs Figs Card Party Disturbed" Woodward and Cruikshank, c. 1807 232

x 1

Chapter One: Introduction

The mind of man naturally requires employment, and that employment is most agreeable, which engages, without fatiguing the attention. There is nothing for this purpose of such universal attraction as cards ... The alternate changes in play, the hope upon the taking up a new hand, and the triumph of getting a game, made more compleat from the fear of losing it, keep the mind in a perpetual agitation, which is ... too agreeable to be quitted for any other consideration.1

I cannot allow any pleasures to be innocent, when they turn away either the body or the mind of a Tradesman from ... the application both of his hands and head to his business; those pleasures and diversions may be innocent in themselves, which are not so to him ...2

Eighteenth-century England was rife with gaming.3 The turn of a die, the stride of a horse, even the length of a life, all offered occasions for feverish excitement and wagering money. Thousands of pounds changed hands each night in the gaming dens of St

James's, business speculation ran roughshod over the dreams of naive investors, and raindrops down window-panes held bettors in thrall.4 Card play, especially with a money stake, became a widely popular and fashionable pastime over the period, as new games were devised and new social spaces evolved. None of this escaped the notice of contemporaries, who were very ready to air their views on this trend or exploit its popularity for profit.

Gaming became a nexus of hot debate, commercial gains (licit or otherwise), and jaded cynicism.

1 William Jackson, Thirty Letters on Various Subjects (London: T. Cadell, 1784), 9. 2 Daniel Defoe, The Complete English Tradesman in Familiar Letters (originally published 1727; reprint New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1969), i:97. 3 "Gaming," as the eighteenth century understood it, meant essentially the same as our modern word, "gambling," which did not come into general use until the early nineteenth century. For the purposes of this dissertation, "gaming" refers to any game or wager with a money stake attached or implicit. 4 Christopher Hibbert, The English: A Social History 1066-1945 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1987), 372. 2

The vast majority of surviving contemporary views on gaming concern high- stakes and reckless play among the aristocracy, with few or no mentions of any other play or players, and our modem historiography reflects this bias.5 Considering the relative dearth of primary source material dealing specifically with the middle classes, it is perhaps understandable that the gaming habits of the "middling sort" have been neglected. This is unfortunate, since middling players significantly outnumbered their titled counterparts, and the context of their play represented a unique cultural dimension of middle-class life. What surroundings hosted their play, and who played? Did they play deep or restrain their wagers? How did they reconcile such wagers with their responsibility for the running of a business or a professional practice? What answers did they have for the moralists who ranted that cards were the instrument of the Devil? Gaming was represented in image and text as a particularly problematic pastime for women, but did the gamestress stereotype reflect the middling reality? In the diaries, letters, and accounts of middling people, patterns of play emerge; we glimpse the attitudes and opinions of the writers concerning the games they played and their significance to the social life of England's middle classes.

Surviving published and material sources, from plays to card tables, from sermons to satirical prints, add embedded layers of meaning to the picture, allowing the attitudes and priorities of the period to resurface.

The middle classes themselves might be thought of as an unlikely group to indulge in play for money. In an age of unlimited business and personal liability, of uncertain commerce, and of new and vulnerable investment markets, their fortunes and

5 For discussions of the British gaming scene, see, for example, Phyllis Deutsch, "Moral Trespass in Georgian London: Gaming, Gender, and Electoral Politics in the Age of George III" The HistoricalJournal39:3 (1996), 637-656 and Amanda Foreman, Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire (London: HarperCollins, 1998). For the Continent, see: Thomas M. Kavanagh, 'Enlightenment and the Shadow of Chance: The Novel and the Culture of Gambling in Eighteenth-Century France (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993); Jonathan Walker, "Gambling and Venetian Noblemen c. 1500-1700" Past and Present 162 (February 1999), 28-69. 3 property were unprotected and ruin was always a possibility.6 Time was a precious commodity in itself and not lightly given over to frivolous pursuits. Even in such circumstances, however, people found ways to enjoy their favourite pastimes. The middling sort were, in fact, uniquely qualified to play prudently, relying on the habits and characteristics of their widely varying trades and professions to construct a saftey net that allowed play within limits and prosperity at the same time.

The Complete Tradesman: Work ethic and professionalism

Historians agree that the eighteenth century's "middling classes" did not constitute a self-conscious "middle class"; that sort of coalescence did not occur in England until the nineteenth century.7 However, merchants, skilled tradesmen, and professionals did have a distinct sense of common interests and purpose, the roots of which extended back to the guilds of the Middle Ages. The eighteenth-century business ideal owed a great deal to the collective honour and fair dealing of the guild structure, while borrowing standards of sober industry and honesty from religious traditions.8 These values made trust and its financial counterpart, credit, possible, which in turn fostered the smooth function of

6 Margaret R. Hunt, The Middling Sort Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England 1680-1780 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 43. 7 Davidoff and Hall argue for a middling identity based on a deliberate moral distancing from misbehaving aristocrats; see Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 21-22. Hunt, The Middling Sort, 14-15. For thorough surveys of the middling sort and their world, see Hunt, The Middling Sort, Peter Earle, The Making of the English Middle Class: Business, Society and Family Life in London 1660-1730 (Berkeley. University of California Press, 1989); Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes; John Smail, The Origins of Middle-Class Culture: Halifax, Yorkshire, 1660-1780 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994); Jonathan Barry and Christopher Brooks (eds.), The Middling Sort of People: Culture, society, and politics in England, 1550-1800 (New York: St Martin's Press, 1994); and Brian Lewis, The Middlemost and the Milttowns: Bourgeois Culture and Politics in Early Industrial England (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001). 8 Keith Wrightson, Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain (London: Yale University Press, 2000), 302. 4

co-operative commercial networks. Such shared standards, drummed into middling

children from an early age, fostered a sense of collective identity, which was strengthened

by a shared social network and common amusements.9

For some middling people, unremitting hard work was their hedge against failure;

pastimes and pleasures were at best a distraction from, at worst a clanger to, success.10

"Business neglected is Business lost," cautioned Daniel Defoe in 1727, a warning equally

applicable to professionals and tradesmen.11 Close attention to the everyday details of the

markets and commercial trends were essential.

9 Christopher Brooks, "Apprenticeship, Social Mobility and die Middling Sort, 1550-1800" in The Middling Sort of People: Culture, society, andpoktics in England, 1550-1800 ed. Jonathan Barry and Christopher Brooks (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994), 76; Jonathan Barry, "Bourgeois Collectivism? Urban Association and the Middling Sort" in The Middling Sort of People: Culture, society, and politics in England, 1550-1800 ed. Jonathan Barry and Christopher Brooks (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994), 98. 10 Earle, The Making of the English Middle Class, 11; Loma Weatherill, Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in Britain, 1660-1760 (London: Routledge, 1996), 164. 11 Defoe, Complete English Tradesman, i:99. 5

Figure 1: "The Fruits of Early Industry and Economy" George Morland, c. 1783-1789. Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art: The John Howard McFadden Collection, 1928.

The rewards of devotion to business are made plain in Figure 1, which shows a room filled with good-quality, even luxurious, household comforts. The African servant, the painting on the wall, and the coins on the table all owe their presence to the warehouses and ships visible through the open window. Even if this prosperous merchant now has time to take his ease, hard work has brought him to this agreeable position in life; his continuing close attention to his business is connoted by the well-worn account book and the consultation with his bookkeeper. 6

Others regarded a balance between productive work and regenerative leisure as necessary to body, mind and soul.12 As the eighteenth century unfolded and Britain's economy expanded, the middle classes prospered as both engines and beneficiaries of this rapid growth in trade and national wealth. This unaccustomed affluence opened up whole new possibilities for leisure time, and the means with which to enjoy it. Armed with the arguments of the medical profession in favour of relaxation and exercise, together with the trend to self-improvement made so popular by The Spectator and The Tatkr, middling people felt justified in taking time for themselves." The leisure industry and middling leisure culture grew up together.14

Merchants and professionals alike took pride in their work. Although families paid increasingly heavy premiums to put a son into the Inns of Court or the universities, the highest amounts by far were being demanded for commercial apprenticeships, and startup costs for most trades exceeded £100 of capital.15 As might be expected from their importance to the national economy, merchants clearly had a healthy sense of their own value. A sense of worth and the dignity of one's calling or trade was inculcated in apprentices from the beginning; indentures bound them (at least formally) to moderation, propriety and decorum.16

12 Gerda Reith, The Age of Chance: Gambling and Western Culture (London: Routledge, 2002), 83. 13 Weatherill, Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture, 163-164; Lewis, The Middlemost and the Milltowns, 363. Weatherill points out (p. 163) that diarists, by definition, were staking a claim to time for themselves; this is important for my study, since diaries are a major primary source for this dissertation. For a justification of taking time for leisure and exercise, see The Young Gentleman and Lady Instructed in such Principles of Politeness, Prudence, and Virtue, As will lay a sure Foundation for gaining Respect, Esteem, and Satisfaction in this Life, and Eternal Happiness in a future State; Interspersed with such Observations and Maxims, as demonstrate the Danger and Folly of Vice, and the Advantage and Wisdom of Virtue (London: Edward Wicksteed, 1747), 11:108-109. 14 The growth and scope of the leisure industry, particularly as it related to cards and card play, will be discussed in Chapter Six. 15 Edward Hughes, "The Professions in the Eighteenth Century" Durham University Journal 13 (March 1952), 46; Earle, The Making of the English Middle Class, 106. 16Brooks, "Apprenticeship", 77; Earle, The Making of the English Middle Class, 93. These indentures' specific bans against card play and other forms of gaming make their reputation as entry-level sins clear. 7

The most vital quality in a businessman, contemporaries agreed, was honesty and a sense of fair dealing.17 In business and in private life, integrity was the essential entree to the credit networks that kept commerce (and, to an extent, professional practice) ticking over. Without access to loans and extensions of credit, merchants awaiting overseas shipments or seasonal payments would have found tight cash-flow situations impossible to manage; young lawyers and medical men would have grown bitter in assistants' roles, unable to set up on their own.18 Trustworthiness in the middling sort reinforced the interlacing web of connections, debts, credit, and trade.

That web was also strengthened by a sense of moral direction. Since the late seventeenth century, business failure had become firmly linked to moral frailty, with extravagance, laziness, dissipation, and any manner of vices as primary targets for pointing fingers. As Margaret Hunt notes, this standard of morality was applied in increasingly secular, rather than the original religious, terms; God became less of a factor than the impersonal forces of the market.19 In practical terms, a common moral paradigm acted as a buffer against just those unfathomable outside influences. If everyone within a commercial network behaved and invested according to a cautious and industrious norm, the potential risk of economic upheaval would be lessened for all.20 In an age of inevitable risk, tradespeople were prepared to grasp at any measure, however slight, that offered a sense of control over their destiny.

17 Craig Muldrew, The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social'Relations in Early Modern England (London: Macmillan Press, 1998), 127. Of course, honesty in the workplace carried over to honesty at play, which made for happier social hours and reinforced one's reputation. The dangerous exception to this genteel system of personal honesty was the 'debt of honour', which often resulted in a gaming debtor's defaulting on payments to tradesmen. This concept will be discussed in Chapter Four. 18 Wrightson, Earthly Necessities, 301. 19 Hunt, The Middling Sort, 37. 20 Hunt, The Middling Sort, 40. Right Living: Finances at work and at home

Another middling hedge against financial insecurity was what contemporaries called "right living". Each member of the household fulfilled their proper role by being a good provider or nurturer of the family, by making careful purchases for the household to avoid "trifling into Poverty", and by careful and thrifty management of the running of the home.21 In past years, gentility had not found common cause with thrift; aristocrats, in particular, had always maintained a blythe disregard for money, on the grounds that undue concern about expenditure was a bourgeois trait. For the middle classes of the eighteenth century, however, economy and gentility complemented one another, and the former brought the latter within reach of a moderate income.22

For this system of balanced income and expenditure to work, however, accounting and careful bookkeeping were key, as all tradespeople knew.23 Tossed (often quite literally) on the waters of an unstable business climate, the middling sort clung to the disciplines of these forms of applied numeracy, as yet another means of keeping their prospects of success and financial stability afloat.24 Since coin was often in short supply and many people refused to accept banknotes, alternatives to cash were common. Payment in kind, barter, and (for some) pawning meant that credit (or the wait for payment) might

21 Wrightson, Earthly Necessities, 296-297. 22 Kavanagh, Enlightenment and the Shadows of Chance, 41; Smail, Origins of Middle-Class Culture, 206-207. Kavanagh's study notes the nonchalance with which aristocrats gambled at the court of France; play for high stakes was a badge of honour for the noblesse d'epee. The middle classes of England, as will become clear, saw things rather differently. 23 Although men far outnumbered women in the trades, professions, and commercial interests, there was a small but significant proportion of women who ran (and often owned) successful businesses. They will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter Five. This chapter's discussion of middling attitudes includes those of business women as well as men. 24 Beverly Lemire, The Business of Everyday Life: Gender, Practice and Social Politics in England, c. 1600-1900 (Manchester. Manchester University Press, 2005), 189; Margaret Hunt, "English Urban Families in Trade, 1660-1800: The Culture of Middle Class Capitalism" (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, New York University, 1986), 326-327. 9 stretch over months or years. This 'long credit" made accounting both a nightmare and a vital tool for business survival.25 Accounting "laid out a new world of order" which transformed these conundrums of mercantile life into neat columns of figures.26 Prompt entry of all transactions kept the books up to date and the traders in the know about the exact health of their businesses. As part of a credit network, business owners were under a moral obligation to keep current, thorough, and honest accounts, both for the sake of their creditors and of their own reputation.27 "Even a declining Tradesman should not let his books be neglected," advised Defoe. "If his creditors find them punctually kept to the last, it will be a credit to him, and they would see he was a man fit for business ..."28 Hope for a new start, based on a solid reputation for good business sense and pains taken, might rest on the state of one's account books.

Given the close connection between business and home in the years when accounting's importance was being realised, the adoption of household bookkeeping is hardly surprising.29 Accounts, as Beverly Lemire notes, were a control mechanism and means of surveillance for the paterfamilias, whose authority over household spending was (at least nominally) absolute.30 More and more, however, the family accounts were kept by the

25 Margot C. Finn, The Character of Credit: Personal Debt in English Culture, 1740-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 76-77. Foreign trade, in particular, posed serious challenges, since ships could be gone for more than a year and their fate was often unknown due to poor communications networks. See Hunt, "English Urban Families in Trade", 18. 26 Lemire, The Business of Everyday Life, 190. Contemporaries (including foreign observers) regarded order and common sense as natural components of the English character, accounting was a good fit with both traits. See Langford, EngHshness Identified: Manners and Character 1650-1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 70,75. 27 Julian Hoppit, Bisk and Failure in English Business 1700-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 171-172; Lemire, The Business of Everyday Life, 191. 28 Defoe, Complete English Tradesman, i:283. 29 Until the late seventeenth century, business owners generally lived in the same building as their shops. See Earle, The Making of the English Middle Class, 45. 30 Lemire, The Business ofEvetyday Life, 192. Shopkeeper Thomas Turner of Sussex recorded card-play losses for himself and his wife as for a single, household, unit. See David Vaisey (ed.), The Diary of Thomas Turner 1754-1765 (East Hoathly, Sussex: CTR Publishing, 1994), 18. 10 woman of the house. Middling women were becoming more numerate in their domestic concerns; as good household managers, they combined domesticity and numeracy in keeping disciplined, regular accounts.31 Besides the records of spending for the children, the linen-chest, and the kitchen, many women also kept their own personal accounts, a number of which took the form of diary-account books. In these small volumes, the domestic, womanly ideal of modesty, frugality, discretion, and accountability was trumpeted and reinforced.32 In their facing (opposing) pages, a dichotomy is apparent: the diary recorded social and family events, while the account pages detailed the financial side of women's lives. These books may have been used by women as proofs of the aforementioned qualities, or, more prosaically, as a means of demonstrating fiscal responsibility and good sense in spending, with a view to obtaining more influence over the home's finances.33

Politeness: Business tool and social lubricant

... you may possibly be a tradesman of some eminence and as such you will necessarily have connections with mankind and with the world; and that will make it absolutely necessary to know them both: you may be armed if you add to the little learning and improvement you have hitherto had, the manners, the air, the genteel address, and polite behaviour of a gentleman, you will absolutely find your act in it every transaction of your future life - when you come to do business in the world.34

31 Hunt, The Middling Sort, 89; Lemiie, The Business of Everyday Life, 193. Of course, women running separate businesses would have been keeping those accounts as well. 32 Jennie Batchelor, "Fashion and Frugality: Eighteenth-Century Pocket Books for Women" Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture 32(2003), 4-5. These books also contained fashion plates, almanac pages, and useful tidbits of information; Batchelor mentions instructions for various card games in one such book. See "Fashion and Frugality", 5. 33 Batchelor, "Fashion and Frugality", 9-10. 34 Jedediah Strutt, hosier, in a letter of advice to his son. Quoted in Roy Porter, English Society in the Eighteenth Century (London: Penguin Books, 1990), 72-73. 11

Prosperity introduced new opportunities to the middling sort, who found that their new wealth allowed them to enjoy a wider range of material comforts and pursuits and to mingle with the elite on a more assured footing.35 If money opened doors, politeness oiled the hinges; with its emphasis on a natural, pleasingly genteel informality, it was intended to put people at their ease and ensure harmony where social strata met and mixed.36 Freed from the stiff formality of old-style etiquette, polite society became a new field of action for commercial and professional people, who shaped it according to their own lights and for their own ends.37

Eighteenth-century commentators remarked on the increasingly genteel manners of the middling sort, especially those in the hospitality, retail and commercial sectors, and credited their frequent contacts with aristocratic customers with the change.38 Whatever the cause, the practical benefits were recognised. "Commercial affability", combined with an understanding of the ways and expectations of one's retail or professional clientele, fostered repeat custom and kept a finger on the pulse of polite trends.39 Moreover, having an entree to assemblies and other genteel entertainments presented many more opportunities for meeting potential investors or clients.40 Politeness had become a tool for middling

35 Wrightson, Earthly Necessities, 305. 36 Lawrence E. Klein, "Politeness and the Interpretation of the British Eighteenth Century" HistoricalJournal 45:4 (2002), 874-875. 37 R. J. Morris, Men, Women and Property in England, 1780-1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 23. 38 Paul Langford, "The Uses of Eighteenth-Century Politeness" Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 12 (2002), 318. 39 Lawrence E. Klein, "Politeness for plebes: Consumption and social identity in early eighteenth-century England" in The Consumption of Culture 1600-1800: Image, Object, Text ed. Ann Bermingham and John Brewer (London: Roudedge, 1995), 372; Hunt, The Middling Sort, 50. Of course, the trading classes were well aware of the pitfalls of the genteel lifestyle, especially in its seductive allure for middling sons. 40 Klein, "Politeness and the Interpretation of the British Eighteenth Century", 879. Davidoff and Hall note that table manners were an important indicator of social standing and a point of real concern for the middle classes; after all, many business deals were discussed around the dinner table. My own research has found 12 empowerment.41 Even if their motives were not wholly disinterested, however, people who began by pretending to gentility soon found that it had become a habit, and then a natural behaviour pattern. As these co-opted social practices were taught to the next generation who maintained them throughout their lives, they became the standard of expected behaviour for the middle classes.42 Through the shared standard of genteel conduct and the common material and leisure experiences that polite society enjoyed, the titled elite and the middling sort found themselves holding similar "cultural allegiances", which may have fostered social cohesion.43

The woman of the house

Historians are generally agreed that women's relocation from shops to homes gained momentum in the eighteenth century, at least in those families that could afford it

A wife was expected to create a domestic space, a refuge for the family and especially for her husband, a sanctuary from the pressures of the workaday world. As several authors remind us, however, this shift was not necessarily a passive one for the women concerned, nor were they hesitant in laying claim to their responsibilities and spheres of influence.44

These were willing participants, not downtrodden distaffs. In creating and nurturing

that in many cases, cards were a natural sequel to a hosted dinner, as discussed in Chapter Three. See Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 399. 41 Langford, "Eighteenth-Century Politeness", 312. 42 Klein, "Politeness for plebes", 377. Klein takes issue with Norbert Elias' 'trickle-down' theory of politeness' spreading from the aristocracy to the middle classes, arguing that politeness arose "in both quarters." See Klein, "Politeness for plebes", 372. 43 Klein, "Politeness and the Interpretation of the British Eighteenth Century", 873, 896. 44 Smail, The Origins of Middle-Class Culture, 174; Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford, Women in Early Modern England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 205. respectable households, which proclaimed middling respectability and trustworthiness, women were helping to establish a cultural and social identity for the middle classes.45

Women might have been backstage of the main drama of middling economic life, but they were hardly cut off from the commercial world. Through family networks, women were at the epicentre of financial and social support systems that floated loans, advanced cash in emergencies, and helped new business concerns to struggle to their feet

Moreover, they bore, reared, and trained the coming generation of children, fully conscious of their responsibility for shaping the minds and the habits of future generations.46 Within family homes, dining rooms could potentially serve as liminal spaces: social spaces that allowed the formation and maintenance of business contacts. Business and professional husband-and-wife partnerships shaped a new gentility, one that spanned shop and home spaces, appropriate to the life of the middle classes in their evolving role in British society.47

The rationality of card play

If we accept the axiom that enjoying leisure activities was worthwhile for busy traders or professionals, why should they choose to play cards? Aside from the fashionable ubiquity of card games and their central role in polite entertainment, they may have had a natural appeal to people who relied on their wits for economic survival. Enlightenment thinking - the drive for order, organisation and rationality - was an underlying motive force in England's eighteenth century, and certainly influenced middling thinking with regard to

45 Smail, The Origins of Middle-Class Culture, 175. 46 Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 280-281, 322. 47 Wrightson, Earthly Necessities, 304. 14 the running and improvement of business.48 In the same way, it may well have shaped their choice of leisure activities. Over the eighteenth century, a decided shift away from blood sports such as bear-baiting was mirrored by the increased popularity of more sedate thinking pastimes. Music, conversation, and cards embodied rational enjoyment and exercise of human intellect and ability.49

Cards, in particular, lent themselves to the leisure hours of the middle classes.

The dizzying variety of card games and the relative cheapness and easy portability of a pack of cards made them an ideal way to pass the time. Any number of people could amuse themselves at different games in all sorts of settings and occasions. For the middle classes, especially, card play made use of skills they had in hand, and could be justified on the basis of practice or teaching the young. Card play can be regarded as another form of applied numeracy, since many games required addition during hands and score-keeping, as well as the arithmetic involved in calculating winnings or losses. For the more mathematically ambitious, many games lent themselves to the calculation of odds based on the cards played. Outside the games themselves, the notion of keeping accounts of card money lost and won was quite common.50 John Smith, a young divinity student teaching at

Westminster School in the last years of the century, kept a series of card accounts that ran for a number of years, with a running balance of losses and gains. Smith's is an extreme

48 Robert Boyle wrote in 1671, "These Inventions of ingenious heads doe, when once grown into request, set many Mechanical hands a worke, and supply Tradesmen with new meanes of getting a livelyhood or even inriching themselves." From Some Considerations Touching the Usefulnesse of Experimental Natural Philosophy, excerpted in Science in Europe, 1500-1800: A Primary Sources Reader ed. Malcolm Oster (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave, 2002), 156. 49 Of course, Enlightenment tenets could be said to argue against card play, at least that involving games which emphasised chance over skill or any game played to excess. These extremes, and the players who defied their dangers, will be discussed in later chapters. See Reith, The Age of Chance, 83. 50 This point is based on the surviving numbers of accounts of varying detail in English archives. See Appendices 1-9 for some examples. 15

example of personal card accounts, which may have been kept to convince potential critics

(or himself, perhaps) of the fact that his favourite pastime was not a drain on his purse.51

The orderly, forward-looking thinking required by many strategic games was

second nature to the merchant and professional classes. Likewise, the systematic

framework provided by increasingly detailed rules and play-systems would have posed no

puzzle to people accustomed to methodical business procedures. The co-operative nature

of partner games echoed the teamwork necessary in successful partnered firms or

businesses, and the fair dealing expected in the workaday world translated naturally to the

card table.52 Practical businessmen no doubt enjoyed the opportunity presented by genteel

entertainments and gatherings to rub elbows with a wider circle and increase the profile of

their professional firms or business concerns. The middling sort adopted aspects of polite

social life, shaping it to their own needs, creating their own unique paradigm of restrained

sociability, in which moderation reigned at the dinner table and the card table alike.55

Methodology (i): Working definitions

Defining the middling sort has perplexed writers and commentators since before

the eighteenth century dawned. Contemporaries referred to people of "the middling

condition" and "the middling sort", but were generally vague and often contradictory about

their definitions.54 Modern historians have proposed a variety of demarcation lines, yet

51 Sheffield Archives SpSt/60636/5-9 52 Phyllis Deutsch, "Fortune and chance: Aristocratic gaming and English society, 1760-1837" (unpublished New York University PhD thesis, 1991), 52. 53 Smail, The Origins of Middle-Class Culture, 201; Barry, "Bourgeois Collectivism?" 102. 54 Peter Earle, "The Middling Sort in London" in The Middling Sort of People: Culture, society, andpolitics in England, 1550-1800 ed. Jonathan Barry and Christopher Brooks (New York: St Martin's Press, 1994), 156- 157. 16 each study has had to rely on working definitions based on such criteria as income, occupation, family history, or place of business or residence. This study is no different, and its sample is defined qualitatively rather than quantitatively; no income figures are used for individual households or businesses, for example.55 I have chosen to concentrate on people whose families were supported by trades or professions, including military service and the

Church. On occasion, this has included younger sons of gentry descent, who had their own way to make in the world, turning to business and professions to do so. Individuals have been included or set aside on a case-by-case basis, using personal references and information found in their private papers to make these decisions. For example, diarists mentioning land-ownership or inherited family titles have been excluded. However, in the absence of local gentry families, middling people were often the most prominent members of society in small towns or villages, and frequently acted as de facto heads of society. While it could be argued that such pseudo-gentry should be excluded from this study, I have found so little practical difference in the lifestyles of the two groups that there is no reason not to include them.56

Some explanation is due for the use of the terms 'private space', 'semi-public space' and 'public space' throughout this dissertation, as opposed to the more familiar and much-debated Habermasian 'private sphere' and 'public sphere'.57 The distinct

Habermasian boundaries, which sharply differentiate between public and private spheres,

55 Income data are available for a number of eighteenth-century people, as are profits and earnings for many eighteenth-century industries and firms. However, locating diaries, letters and accounts for the owners of those particular businesses, and finding within those personal papers evidence of card play and other aspects of their leisure hours, would be very difficult considering the scattergun survival of eighteenth-century ephemera. 56 Peter Borsay, The English Urban Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Provincial Town 1660-1770 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 229-230. 57 Steve Pincus, " 'Coffee Politicians Does Create': Coffeehouses and Restoration Political Culture" Journal of Modern History 67:4 (December 1995), 834. 17

are largely inapplicable to this analysis. For all intents and purposes, all of the card play to be discussed falls within the private sphere, as it is not direcdy associated with public-

sphere activity. This holds true even in those situations where other reasons than pure

amusement drew particular players to the card table.58 However, our writers described a wide variety of settings for their card games, many of which warrant closer examination.

Since there were substantive differences between card play within a private home and that which took place in more widely accessible arenas, such as assembly rooms and the public

spaces of such resort towns as Bath, I wanted to distinguish these different types of private-

sphere play. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, the Habermasian public sphere was theorised as a male preserve: the functions of the civic authority, the club, and the coffee house were all dominated by men and the male public world. The vast majority of middling public-space play revealed in personal accounts, however, involved both sexes.59

Women were a welcome and vital part of most public gatherings of the middle class, and routinely sat down to cards at mixed-sex play. Semi-public spaces included such venues as assembly rooms and inn ballrooms, and at least for the duration of a select entertainment, were acceptable to the standards of polite females. As for private-space play, a substantial portion of play taking place in private homes involved more than the family who lived there. The inclusion of outsiders, whether they had called unannounced or had been

58 John Brewer cautions that the public sphere is not a place, but a category of activities; with this distinction in mind, very nearly every game noted by my writers must be considered private-sphere play. See John Brewer, "This, that and the other: PubKc, Social and Private in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries" in Shifting the Boundaries: The Transformation of the Languages of Pubic and Private in the Eighteenth Century ed. Dario Castiglione and Lesley Sharpe (Exeter University of Exeter Press, 1995), 5. 59 The only examples I have found of play that was associated at all with public-sphere activity were described by James Oakes of Bury St Edmunds. At the Alderman's Dinner, cards followed a meal hosted by die new Alderman when he took office, and these events were only open to men. See Jane Fiske (ed.), The Oakes Diaries: Business, Politics and the Family in Bmy St. Edmunds 1778-1827 (Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1990), 1:267 and 1:392. Oakes also mentions an Election Ball, open to both sexes, at which cards were played. See Fiske, The Oakes Diaries, 13:44. 18 invited for more structured, formal entertainments, made the private space of the family home into, essentially, a liminal one. In the case of the middle class, whose social circles frequendy overlapped with commercial and professional ones, the public/private sphere delineation is even more blurred. As Amanda Vickery comments, "sociability resists the categories of public and private, for its very function is to integrate the two."60

Finally, in defining the years covered by this study, I have extended its reach beyond the strict confines of the eighteenth century, choosing instead to consult sources spanning the years 1680-1820. This "long" eighteenth century begins with the rise of mercantile prosperity, the social-improvement experiments of Joseph Addison and Richard

Steele, and the end of restrictions on the press, all of which were vital to the cultural life of the middle classes.61 The endpoint of 1820 is as good a date as any, since by the death of

George III the card-playing culture of the previous century had shifted from the assembly room to the gambling club, as epitomised by the success of Crockford's Club of St

James's.62

60 Amanda Vickery, The Gentleman's Daughter Women's Lives in Georgian England (London: Yale University Press, 1998), 196. Vickery also cites a third, appropriately middle-way option, which Dallet Hemphill calls the "social sphere". This concept falls between the public and private worlds and their functions, and has aspects of each. See Vickery, Gentleman's Daughter, 196. Brian Cowan prefers the eighteenth-century term "civil society". See Brian Cowan, "What was Masculine about the Public Sphere? Gender and the Coffeehouse Milieu in Post-Restoration England" History Workshop Journal51 (2000), 150. 61 Addison and Steele published several periodicals in the early eighteenth century, with a stated purpose of encouraging the elevation of society through intelligent reading and stimulating conversation. See Brian Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 237-238. 62 William B. Boulton, The Amusements of Old London (New York; Benjamin Blom, 1969, reprint), 1:130. 19

Methodology (ii): Primaty sources

The research parameters for this dissertation was shaped by the decision to limit the discussion of English gaming - that is, staking money on the outcome of a game - to that involving card play. I examined personal papers (diaries, accounts, and letters, published and manuscript), periodicals, court records, published literature (plays, poems, and novels), prescriptive literature (published sermons, advice manuals, and conduct books), material sources such as playing cards and card tables, and images (paintings, drawings, and satirical prints). Although the personal papers have probably been most extensively utilised, all of these sources have made rich contributions to my work and have shaped my conclusions.

Diaries and other personal papers have the advantage of direcdy accessing the point of view of the writer at the time an event actually occurred, or shortly thereafter, and can add rich, vivid detail to historical studies.63 The immediacy of the events, recorded at the time of the events, gives their recounting a freshness that memoirs written years after the fact cannot hope to match. Letters, too, are an excellent mirror of the world of writer and recipient, often affording glimpses into the attitudes and values of both even in cases where only one side of the correspondence survives.64 Account books, when examined in isolation, raise nearly as many questions as they answer. They are certainly informative on

63 Personal papers have been used to excellent effect in recent years by social and cultural historians of the eighteenth century. Amanda Vickery draws on the huge collection of letters and journals left by one woman as "that intact Delft platter ... which allows us to ... make sense of the shattered fragments [of] other collections and archives" which may not be, in themselves, as complete. Taking a different approach, Margot Finn looks at the consumer revolution from the viewpoint of male purchasers, whose diary entries reveal what they considered important and valuable. See Vickery, Gentleman's Daughter, 11 and Margot Finn, "Men's things: masculine possession in the consumer revolution" Social History 25:2 (May 2000), 134-155. 64 for an example, see Norfolk Record Office HMN 4/232/116 737x7. 20

several levels, but also tantalisingly lacking in personal context.65 Among the most useful

sources were a number of diary-account books, which usually had space for a week's worth

of diary entries on the left-hand page (verso) and the corresponding days' accounting on

the right-hand (recto) side.66 These two aspects of daily life, aligned in this way, added up

to more than a sum of the whole, as diarists' comments on their activities and purchases

fleshed out the bare bones of the neat columns of figures.

In examining personal papers, the historian must be wary of certain pitfalls.

Diaries nominally written for the writer's eyes only may actually have been constructed with

an audience in mind. Thomas Turner's editor, David Vaisey, notes that more than one

entry was written in self-justification, which might suggest an inquisitive reader or an internal debate.67 It is worth noting, however, that very few of the many manuscript diaries

I have consulted show signs of being written for an audience.68 Many young girls' diaries began their lives as an exercise in the daily discipline of record-keeping. Predictably, the result often suggests a dutiful half-hour piano practice routine rather than a repository of a child's thoughts and feelings.69 In addition, several of the diaries I have drawn on have been edited by other scholars, who had their own priorities in deciding what to keep and what to excise.70 At least some of the material removed during editing did mention gaming;

65 for an example, see Northamptonshire Record Office Bru.ASR 103. 66 for an example, see Norfolk Record Office MC 115/1, 585x3. 67 Vaisey, Thomas Turner, xxviii. 68 John Smith's maintenance of a separate, running card account may have been to prove (to himself or to a potential critic) that his play was not damaging his finances. See Sheffield Archives SpSt/60636/5-9. 69 Johanna Selles-Roney, "A Canadian Girl at Cheltenham: The Diary as an Historical Source" HSE/RHE 3:1 (1991), 93. 70 for an example, see Vaisey, Thomas Turner, xxxix. 21 without consulting the often-unavailable original manuscript, it is impossible to know the extent of such changes.71

Those keeping diaries, in deciding what to record and what to leave out, exercise many choices with each entry. Consciously or unconsciously, through text or through omission, each diarist constructs a personal account, and the historian reading the manuscript must work with the result As Cynthia Huff warns, diarists do not write narrative: there is often no sense of the progression of a plot, nor is there elaboration of characters.72 The diarist experienced those events and knew the people involved; the historian may pound in vain on the window of the text, crying out for just one clue to the significance of the happenings, or the person behind the reference. This frustration, however, is more than repaid by the unlooked-for moments of clarity, when the writer speaks in the reader's mind and the casement springs open, even if only briefly.

Published primary sources, while less intimate than private papers, allow a larger segment of society's voices to speak, permitting access to a fuller range of contemporary attitudes. In airing the views of a cross-section of society (at least, of literate society), periodicals, plays, and novels embody the cultural realities of their time and place. Like any created items, the views expressed in published materials, even the subjects chosen, are inevitably shaped by cultural norms and expectations.73 Card play and gaming were prominent and highly-charged topics for debate for good reasons: they were ubiquitous and

' One editor certainly regarded gaming references as being of no interest. Joyce Godber, in introducing the diary of John Salusbury of Leighton Buzzard, notes that the only omission in the diary's published form is "the constant references (on the average twice a week) to cards and backgammon." Fortunately, a typescript made from the original, now lost, manuscript, was available at the Bedfordshire and Luton Record Office. Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Services 130LEI; Joyce Godber (ed.) "John Salusbury of Leighton Buzzard, 1757-9" in Some Bedfordshire Diaries (Streadev: Bedfordshire Historical Record Society XL (1960), 46. 72 Cynthia Huff, "Reading as Re-vision: Approaches to Reading Manuscript Diaries" Biography 23:3 (Summer 2000), 510. 73 Jay L. Lemke, http://www-personaiumich.edu/~iaylemke/tfieories.htm 4 September 2007 22 they had acquired a number of contradictory connotations in their rise to fashionable status. In carrying this load of moral and cultural meanings, cards (and the money exchanged over games) came to represent different things to different groups and individuals, and contemporary publications reflected this eddying current of debate.

Many periodicals, beginning with The Spectator, The Tatler, and The Guardian, had a conscious agenda of improving society by way of stimulating intelligent conversation on public-minded subjects.74 Not all papers and magazines followed this high calling, but even the lowest and shortest-lived scandal sheets reflected some aspect of contemporary feeling.75 Likewise, the many plays and poems that appeared in print over the century, whether satiric, sentimental, or moralising in tone, found audiences to purchase and read them, and many went through several editions.76 The wildly popular novel, originally a formula for telling a longer story and developing character more deeply than was possible in shorter stories, was seized upon by moralists in particular as a means to address social ills.77

Writers of prescriptive literature - conduct books and published sermons, for example - favoured a more direct approach. Whether they targeted children, marriageable

74 Ulla Heise (trans. Paul Roper), Coffee and Coffee-Houses (West Chester, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1987), 131. For more on the social consciousness-raising campaign of Sir Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele, the interested reader is referred to Aytoun Ellis, The Penny Universities: A History of the Coffee-Houses (London: Seeker & Warburg, 1956); Lawrence Klein, "Coffeehouse Civility, 1660-1714: An Aspect of Post-Courtly Culture in England" Huntington Library Quarterly 59:1 (1997), 30-50; Borsay, English Urban Renaissance, and G.J. Barker- Benfield, The Culture of Sensibility: Sex and Society in Eighteenth Century Britain (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). From the beginning of that campaign, the middling sort were the primary target audience. 75 The letters published in eighteenth-century periodicals were nearly all signed with pseudonyms or initials, and may possibly have been written by staff writers as another form of editorial. Essays or letters purporting to come from women, for example, may have issued from the pens of male writers in satiric or critical vein. As a result, I have approached these letters with caution, while taking advantage of the lens they turned on their times. 76 As did, for example, the satirical play The Humours of Whist, a mocking look at the mid-century obsession with that game and the man who popularised it, Edmond Hoyle. 77 See, for example, Hannah More's The Gamblers or The Treacherous Friend: A Moral Tale (London: Spence and Coull, 1824). This book and others like it were the forerunners of the social-justice novels of Charles Dickens. 23 young people, or adults wrestling with social or family problems, these writings were largely aimed at readers from the middle ranks of society.78 They have the advantage of showing later readers the forms and rituals of a given period, in addition to those aspects of life considered most important by the Church establishment or polite society. However, as

Anna Bryson notes, they reveal more about contemporary priorities than about actual contemporary behaviour. If we read them as representations of social and cultural codes, we remain on firmer ground.79

Court documents, such as case records and indictments, are very useful in providing a sense of how society viewed gaming and card play and of the limits it wished to set on both. They also reveal the disconnect between what the law prescribed (and proscribed) and what the justice system could actually enforce. Even surprise raids on gaming houses found empty or nearly-empty houses, the birds flown, their tracks still visible in the snow of the adjacent roofs. Accounts of mote serious crimes resulting from cheating or from catastrophic losses, lent a sense of urgency to the frequently updated and largely futile anti-gaming legislation.80

Images, especially the mass-produced satiric prints that typified the eighteenth century, were an especially rich source for this study. Past historians have used prints mainly as illustrations of political events or social trends, or as primary documentary evidence of the appearances of people or things. One danger in such usage, as John

78 Klein, "Politeness for plebes," 375. 79 Anna Bryson, From Courtesy to Civility: Changing Codes of Conduct in Early Modern England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 12. This caveat applies equally well to published sermons and to conduct books. 80 The anti-gaming Act of 1744 noted in its preamble that "young and unwary Persons, and others, are drawn in to lose the greatest Part, and sometimes all their Substance; and it frequently happens they are reduced to the utmost Necessities, and betake themselves to the most wicked Courses, which end in their utter Ruin ..." See 18 Geo. 2 (1744) c. 34, "An Act to explain, amend, and make more effectual the Laws in Being, to prevent excessive and deceitful Gaming; and to restrain and prevent the excessive Increase of Horse Races", Preamble. 24

Brewer and Peter Burke each emphasise, lies in the assumption that print artists placed a premium on realism. In fact, artistic conventions, visual stereotypes, and the distortions necessary to successful satire all combine to challenge that assumption. As Burke points out, however, even distortions and stereotypes yield meanings, and can be a piece in the ideological puzzle. Similarly, Roy Porter notes that artists' own biases and ideologies may become apparent within an image, and should be taken into account when interpreting their work.81 In recent years, however, images have attracted increasing attention, not merely as illustrations but as primary sources themselves, carrying embedded meanings. Widely available, combining satire's essential weapons of criticism and humour with vivid pictures, satiric prints reached vast audiences among the British public and drew attention to many fashionable foibles, including card play and gaming generally.82 Paintings of different genres, particularly increasingly-fashionable conversation pieces, also embody contemporary priorities and mindsets, and have provided a number of valuable insights into the society that made them.

I was fortunate to locate and photograph a number of examples of eighteenth- century English card tables, playing cards, and other carding accessories. Even my brief

(and sometimes distant) exposure to these items added an extra excitement to my research.

I was able to examine their different styles, their varying quality, and their unique features, all in concert with available information concerning their provenance and manufacture.

Beyond those contributions, the sheer physicality of these fascinating things conjured their

81 See John Brewer, The Common "People and Politics 1750-1790s (Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, 1986), 16; Peter Burke, Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 30; and Roy Porter, "Review Article: Seeing the Past" Past and Present 118 (February 1988), 200. 82 The textual bias of historians over the centuries has only lately begun to soften, and images are slowly being accepted as valid primary sources, outside the realm of art history. Because the interpretation of any image is a highly subjective exercise, and because image analysis requires at least some grounding in the techniques involved, their widespread use as sources may be a long way off. 25

long-ago settings: the drawing rooms those tables graced, the people who set them out and

tugged chairs into place around them, the candlesticks that burned precariously at their

corners. The card tables were "fields of social play" in the most literal sense, their scuffed

and marked cloth tops suggesting the thoughtiess focus of intent players.83 Touching the

cards themselves elicited a sympathetic thrill, what Jules David Prown calls a "sensory

experience of past events."84 Was this little dent a fingemail-mark, perhaps the mark of a

cheat? Had fortunes been won or lost at the fall of these cards? Comparing similar items

from different time periods (or intended for different markets) was also enlightening,

affording a sense of evolving style and market demand.85

Methodology (iii): Analysis

Beyond the contextual and factual information supplied by these sources, an additional level of analysis was made possible in certain cases. Several diaries spanned many years and recorded many separate instances of card play; of these, some included mentions of food and/or drink, cash winnings or losses, and lists of fellow players. These diaries (and one set of accounts) permitted me to use sortable spreadsheets to look for trends and changes over time, favourite settings for play and popular games, and unusual events or entries that made points of their own. The diarists in question were, in alphabetical order John Baker, a Sussex attorney who moved to London in his old age;

83 Bernard L. Herman, "Tabletop Conversations: Material Culture and Everyday Life in the Eighteenth- Century Atlantic World" in Gender, Taste, and Material Culture in Britain and North America, 1700-1830 ed. John Styles and Amanda Vickery (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 4Z 84 Jules David Prown, "Style as Evidence" Winterthur Portfolio 15:3 (Autumn 1980), 208. 85 Molly Harrison notes the value of examining several similar objects as a means of discovering how their production reflected the priorities of both their makers and their prospective buyers. Harrison, People and Furniture: A Social Background to the English Home (London: Ernest Benn, 1971), 8. Card tables and cards will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter Six. Nicholas BlundelL, a Roman Catholic from Lancashire; attorney Robert Hobbes and his wife Elizabeth (nee Ashfield) of Warwickshire; James Oakes, Bury St Edmunds banker and prominent citizen; Captain John Salusbury of Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire; John Smith

(later the Reverend John Smith) of Westminster School in London; Thomas Turner, a shopkeeper in rural Sussex; and the Reverend James Woodforde, a Norfolk country parson.86 The accounts of Mrs Elizabeth Dummer of Hampshire were also very useful, even without diaries to accompany them.87 These diary and accounts spreadsheets appear as Appendices 1-9. The same technique was applied to information culled from trade directories of the late eighteenth century, in search of businesses serving the leisure cultures of Bath; that spreadsheet appears as Appendix 12.

In using images as primary sources, I sought to uncover the inherent meanings within images, intended or unconscious, carried by individual motifs. At the same time, I was seeking social values and priorities, constructed by the times and transmitted by those images. Given the widespread use of signs in eighteenth-century art, most particularly in graphic satire with its pointed messages, double entendres, and in-jokes, a semiotic approach was a logical choice.88 I based my analysis on the work of Roland Barthes, who expanded

m See Philip C. Yorke (ed.), The Diary of John Baker (London: Hutchinson, 1931); J. J. Bagley (ed.) and Frank Tyrer (transcr.), The Great Diurnal of Nicholas BItindell of Little Crosby, Lancashire (Liverpool: Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, n.d.); Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Records Office DR 8/2-5, ER 79/1, 3; Jane Fiske (ed.), The Oakes Diaries: Business, Politics and the Family in Bury St Edmunds 1778- 1827 (Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1990); Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service LEI 130 (Salusbury); Sheffield Archives SpSt/60636/5-9 (Smith); David Vaisey (ed.), The Diary of Thomas Turner 1754-1765 (East Hoathly: CT*R Publishing, 1994; John Beresford (ed.), The Diary of a Country Parson: The Reverend James Woodforde (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968). 87 Northamptonshire Record Office Bru.ASR 103. 88 For an introduction to semiotics, see Gillian Rose, Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials (London: Sage Publications, 2001); and Theo van Leeuwen and Corey Jewitt (eds.), Handbook of Visual Analysis (London: Sage Publications, 2002). For a more detailed look at semiotic methodology, see also Roland Barthes (trans. Annette Lavers), Mythologies (London: Jonathan Cape, 1972); and Roland Barthes (trans. Stephen Heath), Image, Music, Text (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977). For a related method, iconography, see Erwin Panofsky's ground-breaking Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the 27 on the linguistic semiotics of Ferdinand de Saussure. Barthes adopted Saussure's working unit of the sign as comprised of a signified (an idea or concept) and a signifier (the object or motif which represented it); in applying these terms to visual images, Barthes argued that images' meanings could be "read" through their component signs.89 Each sign carries a load of meaning, often on several levels. Individual signs may be associated with several meanings at once, and most images have several signs. Every society, ancient or modern, develops sign-systems based on current social forces, many dominant, some at the fringe of the thought of the time.

For Barthes, signs were to be read at two levels, denotative and connotative. A denotative reading addresses only the basic question: "What is depicted by this sign?" without attempting to probe any further. The connotative reading is more complex, following from and building on the denotative; it is at this level that the historical and cultural context of the image come into play. Connotative signs reveal broader, often subtle, meanings; these may be based on convention, on common knowledge in the target audience, or on current events and trends.90 This level of analysis is often problematic and may be highly speculative, but this danger can be minimised by a thorough knowledge of the period under study. No sign-system existed (or exists) in a vacuum; from the artist's studio to the viewer's eye, any image is of necessity shaped and constructed within the discourse of its time. It may be attempting (as many satires did and do) to attack that discourse, but even in so doing it operates within that discourse, becoming a part of it, unavoidably, in spite of itself. As such, it can reveal a great deal about that discourse,

Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939); and Goran Hermeren, Representation and Meaning in the Visual Arts (Stockholm: Laromedelsforlagen, 1969). 89 Barthes, Mythologies, 112-113. Saussure's work had been solely concerned with sign-systems within written texts. 90 Barthes, Mythologies, 119. 28 especially to viewers who see it over a distance of many years. The researcher must be aware of artistic conventions and practices, and stay within the context of the sign systems of the period, since these systems would have been known to the audience for whom these prints were created. Graphic satire, in particular, had a vested interest in creating meanings for its audiences; its success depended entirely on its readability. Such details as clothing and body language could project wealth, social standing, or respectability to a knowledgeable readership, and these points must be borne in mind.91

Methodology (iv): Sources of error

In any collection of personal papers, sampling errors are inevitable. For instance, addictive gamesters were woefully under-represented in the personal papers examined.

Considering the deliberate, orderly, disciplined minds of most regular diarists, account- keepers, and correspondents, this makes perfect sense.92 Other evidence of compulsive middling gamesters may appear in the letters of their friends and families, or in newspaper accounts in extreme cases. Contemporary references to obsessive players strongly suggest that some middling people did play to excess, but detailed records of their obsession, if indeed they exist, failed to surface.93 In addition, a concerted effort was made to include as many women in this study as possible, as well as a range of ages in writers, since interests

91 Brewer, Common People and Politics, 22. 92 A notable exception, one that perhaps proves the rule, is Mr Hilton of Beecham in Westmorland, who kept fairly detailed notes of his descent into alcoholism. Unfortunately for my study, Mr Hilton played very little, and then mosdy at backgammon. Cumbria Record Office, Kendal WD MM/Box 32. 93 An example of an oblique reference to gaming comes from the young James Boswell, whose promise to a friend bound him to eschew playing for money for five years after his gaming debts were cleared. "Happy it is for me," he wrote in early 1763, "that I am thus tied up ... I might go to the greatest lengths and soon involve myself in ruin and misery." Frederick A. Pottle, Boswell's London Journal, 1762-1763 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1950), 127. 29 and preferences vary widely over the life cycle. The difficulty in both cases has been the sheer under-representation of both women and, especially, children in the surviving papers.

Fortunately, several individuals made up somewhat for the dearth of such sources by the clarity and fullness of their comments.

The sample is certainly skewed in favour of those who actually played cards. A number of diaries yielded no evidence of card play (which could mean it was so common as not to be recorded); a few spoke of an active rejection of play. On the other hand, abundant first-hand evidence of middling card players appeared, even among the clergy, who might have been expected to cavil at the idea of playing cards for money.94 Those people who did balk at sitting down to cards often noted their reasons, which had their own interest for me. The fact that many middling people played cards could not be disputed: the vast number of players at the assembly rooms of resort towns is a good indicator of the prevalence of card play at this level of society. It became clear that generalising about the attitudes of the eighteenth-century middle classes (as they affected their leisure choices, at any rate) is problematic at best, risky at worst. Again, given the diverse nature of this large, ill-defined group, this is not really surprising. In an effort to minimise the errors implicit in sampling, this truly national study includes individuals and families from all areas of England, whether urban or rural dwellers; particular efforts have been made to ensure that the industrial North has been well-represented.95

Using images as primary sources is a subjective exercise with inherent risk- reward potential. In analysing images for encoded meanings, there is a risk of both over-

94 Given the number of Dissenters within the ranks of the middle classes, I had expected to have more difficulty finding adequate numbers of sources. Methodists, Calvinists, and Quakers, for example, all disapproved of gaming in any form. 95 See Appendix 13 for geographic distribution of personal-papers writers. 30 and under-reading. As Peter Burke warns, researchers may be tempted to "learn something that the artists did not know they were teaching".96 Conversely, signs that fail to support arguments may be dismissed too readily.97 A fine line must be negotiated between these extremes. John Brewer and Roy Porter both insist that historians wishing to tap these deeper layers must attempt to read the prints as their original viewers would have done.98

Modern observers are bound to miss some meanings, but the more thorough the knowledge of the period, the fuller will be the appreciation of the signs, and therefore the reading of the images.

Chapter structure

As is often the case in historical research, the primary sources led in unexpected and unforeseen directions. The original intent of this dissertation was to ask why people of the middle classes would ever play for money, given their vulnerable position in a business climate of unlimited liability. Having read the anti-gaming tracts of the period, with their dire warnings and self-satisfied tut-tuttings over ruined gamesters, I fully expected to find numerous examples of broken businesses and middling dreams crushed under the weight of gaming debts. However, with every letter and diary, another picture came more clearly into focus: social players, content to while away a few leisure hours in congenial play with family, friends, neighbours, and business associates. These people played for money, but kept the stakes low; they played games of skill and strategy in preference to those of pure

96 Burke, Eyewitnessing, 14. 97 Roelof van Straten (trans. Patricia de Man),An Introduction to Iconography (Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach, 1994), 11-12. 98 B. E. Maidment, Reading Popular Prints, 1790-1870 (Manchester. Manchester University Press, 1996), 13; Brewer, Common People and Politics, 16; Roy Porter, "Seeing the Past", 201. chance; and they enjoyed their cards in the context of an evolving standard of polite

sociability. To be sure, occasional stories were told of middle-rank gamesters and their

tragic fates, but they seem to have been the exception proving the rule." Middling card-

players, in general, took on no more risk than they were comfortable with.

The conclusions reached in this study reflect middle-class card play as it appears

in personal papers and as it was represented by society at large: that is, how middling

players saw themselves and how card-players were represented in the publications and

images of the day. There is often, however, a substantial disconnect between the two;

many times I found myself wondering whether the people whose own words I was reading

had ever read any of the really fervid fulminations against cards or other any leisure pursuit

lumped (as many were) under the loaded term "luxury".100 I doubt that they would have

recognised themselves in the satirical prints surrounding card play, or thought that their

messages applied to their pastimes in any way at aH Several themes emerged from this

array of primary sources, and these shaped the chapters that follow.

Chapter Two addresses the cycles of card play for the middling sort, both the waxing and waning of play over the year's entertainment and social seasons and the changes

that occurred during the life span of individual people. Changes in circumstances, in

standing, and in family life are all reflected in the social lives of these players, and sometimes the results are surprising. Cards, it is clear, were a part of polite sociability from cradle to grave, from "the season" in London to the Assize Balls of the county circuits.

Chapter Three opens the drawing-room doors to examine the rituals of hospitality involving play within private domestic spaces. Different forms of entertaining,

99 See, for example, British Library Egerton MS 2479. 100 S. Fawconer, An Essay on Modern Luxury: Or, An Attempt to Delineate its Nature, Causes, and Effects (London: James Fletcher, 1765), 28. 32 the expectations of both guest and host, and the delicate balance between cards and conversation are all discussed with a view to understanding the place of card play in the life of the middling home. The overwhelmingly social aspect of card games within this private- space context is particularly evident in diaries and letters, which paint for us a picture of friendly time spent in enjoyment and good fellowship, even as differences of opinion arose over a misunderstood bet or a rubber poorly played.

Chapter Four looks at darker aspects of card play, contrasting risk at business and in investment with the hazarding of one's reputation or livelihood in illegal, high-stakes, or particularly precarious play situations. Why would people who understood the value of pounds, shillings, and pence risk cash on a game? Why was a money stake so important in gaming, and how did the middling sort act to contain the chances of loss? Here we see the risks inherent in public-space play, including the tricks of sharpers and the entranced agonies of addictive players.

In Chapter Five, the female gamester sweeps onto the stage, carrying with her the conflicting perceptions of woman and expectations of femininity that were typical of the eighteenth century. At one and the same time she was portrayed as an innocent, a voraciously sexual profligate, an impressionable featherhead, and a scheming harpy striving for financial free-agency and liberation from patriarchal control. Text and image sources are examined for the gamestress stereotype, which is then weighed against the reality of middling women as they sat down to cards.

Chapter Six considers the business of cards and the role of the middling sort in exploiting and enjoying that burgeoning trade in both theit leisure pursuits and the consumer goods that made them possible. From a game for two over the supper dishes to the large-scale card assemblies of Bath, a continuum of production and consumption is 33 discussed; the middle classes' prominence as both suppliers and buyers becomes obvious, indeed pivotal. The many facets of the carding industry, in large part, owed their cut and lustre to this fast-growing and diverse group of innovative businesspeople.

Chapter Seven poses the moral questions surrounding card play: could this use of time be justified? What of the money lost and won - were players not motivated by ugly greed? Could the Sabbath be safeguarded from this practice? Could it ever be right for a man of the cloth to sit down to cards? Middling responses were very revealing; many allowed their actions, including their own judgements about card play, to speak for them.

Conclusion

A serious study of a leisure activitiy such as card play could be regarded as a contradiction in terms: could something so frivolous, so outside the workaday world of the eighteenth-century middle classes, be worthy of consideration? Ronald Paulson argues for the importance of what he calls "peripheral details" in any search for meaning, within an object or within a society. Gestures, attitudes, words or activities which are taken for granted in social practice are the most revealing of all, Paulson writes; anything considered second nature by a society is embedded in its very fabric, and can therefore be used to study that society.101 Card play certainly qualifies with respect to eighteenth-century

England.102

,m Ronald Paulson, Popular and Polite Art in the Age of Hogarth and Fielding (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), xi. 102 An example survives to this day in the phrase "according to Hoyle." For an eighteenth-century writer on card games to have been immortalised in everyday speech, the culture of cards must have been pervasive indeed. 34

To date, very little scholarship has focussed on the leisure lives of the middle

classes per se. Histories of the middle classes have made passing mention of their inclusion

in polite society and its amusements, but the emphasis has been firmly placed where the

middling sort themselves placed it on the hard work and sobriety required for financial

success and stability, including Paul Langford's excellent 1989 study, A. Polite and Commercial

People™ Margaret Hunt's work stresses the importance of hard work, prudence and

restraint for the middling sort, as they struggled with the inherendy risky nature of

commerce.104 This study builds on that work by examining the middle classes' very

influential roles in the burgeoning leisure industry, as they caught at the business

opportunities it offered and as avid consumers.

Other studies discuss leisure activities within a middling context rather more fully,

but their focus is elsewhere: the rise of the planned urban space, for example, or the

growing political power of the middling sort.105 My research approaches the eighteenth-

century middle classes from a wholly new angle, examining middling leisure culture and genteel sociability through the lens of carding behaviour. Individual voices from a cross-

section of this very diverse group speak about their games, their gatherings, their hosts, their clothes, their activities, and their preferences. Diaries, account books, and

correspondence offer a detailed view of the leisure world of England's eighteenth-century middle classes, permitting a deeper exploration of the conditions and circumstances of their play. They unveil a seldom-seen portrait of genteel sociability that reveals flexibility and companionable competition. At the same time, new insights such as the pressure to play

103 Paul Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727-1783 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); Margaret Hunt, The Middling Sort and Peter Earle, The Making of the English Middle Class. 104 Hunt, The Middling Sort, 39. 105 See Peter Borsay, The English Urban Renaissance and Paxil Langford, A Polite and Commercial People. 35 and the importance of a stake appear in these accounts. Furthermore, this work has added to current scholarship on the important role of middling women in public-space entertainments and social life, including Amanda Vickery's The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's

Lives in Georgian EnglandI106 Comparison between popular-press sources and middling personal papers has identified the wide gulf between the representation of die female card player and her reality.

In the course of my research, it has become clear that middling attitudes were not merely a veneer of good manners for the sake of business or social advancement. Nor was the vaunted caution of the tradesman left at the shop door at night. The well-documented restraint, moderation and discretion of the trades and professional classes permeated their hours away from work and swayed their choice of leisure activities, both in deciding what games to play and how to play them. This study meshes nicely with current historiography to add a new layer of understanding to an increasingly complex picture of the middling sort in its many ramifications.

As I noted at the beginning of this chapter, nearly all of the work to date on the rampant gaming culture of England's eighteenth century centres on the notorious and often reckless play of the aristocracy. In her 1991 doctoral thesis, Phyllis Deutsch makes a strong case for a rising public distrust of aristocratic government, based largely on concern over gaming and other irresponsible behaviours. Older texts, such as Andrew Steinmetz' The

Gaming Table and John Ashton's The History of Gambling in England, both published in the nineteenth century, use contemporary poems, satires, and plays as sources, in addition to letters and parliamentary records. With very few exceptions, all secondary studies feature the noble gamester, male or female; players from other social classes appear only as a

106 Vickery, Gentleman's Daughter, Chapters Five and Six. 36 warning against dangerous social mixing around the gaming table.107 Such mixing was inevitable at the increasingly popular spas of England, and as a result, histories of Bath by

David Gadd and Russell Barnhart are among the few to mention middling players as such.108 The stereotypical picture of gaming in this period was based on lurid tales of aristocratic excess: the fortunes lost, the families deserted for the gaming table, the fabric of society reduced to tatters, and the pistols or swords drawn at dawn. The middling sort actively rejected this lifestyle, fashioning a new and distinct leisure culture of their own.

As an important component of polite society on the strength of their new wealth and their increasing social prominence, for the most part the middle classes embraced the agreeable pastimes of gentility while rejecting its dangerous extremes. Their entertainments and their social hours, including card play, were a means of forming and reinforcing social

(and, often, commercial) bonds within complex webs of family, neighbourly and business circles. The men and women at the centre of the English business and professional worlds chose their own games, set their own stakes, and enforced their own standards, remaining firmly within their own value system. As the middling sort began becoming aware of itself as an entity, however amorphous and ill-defined, the new paradigm it constructed for itself affected all aspects - and stages - of the life cycle of its members.

107 See Andrew Steinmetz, The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims, In All Times and Countries, especially in England and in France (Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith, 1969 - reprint); and John Ashton, The History of Gambling in England (Detroit Singing Tree Press, 1968 - reprint). Even their rare mentions of middle-class players are implicit rather than specific. 108 See David Gadd, Georgian Summer. Bath in the Eighteenth Centuiy (Bath: Adams & Dart, 1971); and Russell T. Barnhart, Gamblers of Yesteryear (Las Vegas: Gambler's Book Club Press, 1983). 37

Chapter Two

As Time Goes By: Cycles of middling card play

"The Itch of Play rages like a Plague ... [it] spares neither Age nor Sex among us; and we are become a Nation of Gamesters," lamented The ILondon Magazine in 1737.1 Not only was gaming now available everywhere, at every stratum of society, it had pervaded every stage of life, as children clutched cards in chubby hands beside their toothless great- uncles. Card play lent itself particulady well to many styles of entertainments in a wide variety of situations, and was a lifelong passion for many in the eighteenth century. As middling folk marked rites of passage, celebrated special occasions, and moved within their changing and cyclical social landscapes, interesting and often uniquely middle-class themes emerge. This chapter introduces these patterns, which will resurface for closer examination in subsequent chapters.

Child's play

We all dined and spent the Afternoon at Weston House with Mr. and Mrs. Custance and little Family ... After Coffee and Tea we all got to Cards ... I won at Quadrille at 2d per fish 0.1.6. Master Willm Custance won the Pool at Commerce and it was highly pleasing to see him enjoy it. The Pool was seven Shillings.2

Eight-year-old William Custance enjoyed that January Saturday in 1790. Allowed to dine in company with his parents and their guests, he was also included at one of the

1 The London Magazine 257 (25 November 1737). 2 John Beresford (ed.), The Diary of a Country Parson: The Reverend James Woodforde (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 111:166. 38 card tables that came out afterwards. To cap the day's pleasures, he won a tidy few shillings at Commerce. In this excerpt from the diary of the Reverend James Woodforde, Parson of

Weston Longeville in Norfolk, aspects of the social apprenticeships of eighteenth-century children are evident, not the least of which was card play at an early age.3 Middle-class society was becoming a busy round of genteel hospitality and entertainments, and parents thought it important for children to grow accustomed, from the nursery, to being in company.4 That entailed much more than the ability to eat without gobbling and to walk across a room without tripping in one's elegant new shoes. Early mastery of the agreeable pastimes that so amused the grown-ups would mean being included in adult occasions, being made a fuss of, and, just perhaps, being allowed to stay up past one's usual bedtime.

What child could resist such opportunities?

Children were taught simple card games, which their parents and family friends played with them. For the most part, eighteenth-century children were not discouraged from card play, on the premise that what was permissible for adults was so for would-be adults as well.5 Children were allowed to stake their pocket money (for which they were expected to account), and were often awarded at least part of the winnings as well.6 These occasions allowed children to benefit from the example of this adult circle, both during and alongside play. Parson Woodforde happily hosted several such gatherings in 1790: "It was

3 At a friend's dinner party, Mr Woodforde watched two ladies "play Cards ... with the Children ... [who were] about 3. or 4. years old." Beresford, Country Parson, 11:90. Also see Jane Fiske (ed.), The Oakes Diaries: Business, Polities and the Family in Bury St Edmunds 1778-1827 (Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1990), 1:171. 4 Amanda Vickery notes that little girls often "played at visiting" as a means of learning the essentials of an important part of female sociability. See Vickery, The Gentleman !r Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England (London: Yale University Press, 1998), 209. 5 Karin Calvert, Children in the House: The Material Culture of Early Childhood, 1600-1900 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992), 48. 6 William Holland wrote in 1807: "I sat down to Commerce, William [his nine-year-old son] latterly playing for me and the little dog was so sharp that he won the Pool. I gave him a shilling..." It appears that young William was not allowed to pocket the whole pool — perhaps because he had not staked any money of his own. See Jack Ayres (ed.), Paupers and Pig Killers: The Diary of William Holland, A Somerset Parson, 1799-1818 (New York: Penguin Books, 1986), 136. 39 quite a treat for the little Folks to be out They seemed quite happy here - wch gave us much pleasure."7 Beyond die straightforward mechanics of the games themselves, the art of losing gracefully and winning graciously were very important social skills, and both were best learned through practice.8 Acquiring such adult manners lent a certain dignity and poise to a child: "we spent a very agreeable evening," gravely noted young Charlotte Clover after cards and tea at her Aunt Coxford's in February 1804.9 These accomplishments were an investment in the future, giving children a stake in the adult world.10

This early exposure to worldly pursuits, however, could form bad habits for the future, as the Gentleman's Magazine fulminated in 1812:

The love of two-penny Commerce ripens into the love of half-guinea Whist, and at length hardens into the pernicious habit of Card-Playing; which ... is seldom, if ever, conquered after it has been long indulged ... it is generally productive of extreme irritation, and fretfulness of temper ...11

This warning was presaged in 1799 by Mrs Philip Lybbe Powys, who saw two young girls being led to ruin by their own mama. "The poor girls are really to be pitied, as 'tis not theirs but their mother's fault, to be in such a constant round of dissipation, and playing very deep [ie. for high stakes] at cards, from the same bad example."12

7 Beresford, Country Parson, 111:200. 8 Calvert, Children in the House, 60. 9 Norfolk Record Office MC 115/1, 585X3. 10 Calvert, Children in the House, 51. Calvert's point centres on Amish children, who were commonly given goods, such as livestock or linens, of real value and long-term usefulness; these children, she argues, had a precociously adult sense of pride and maturity as a result. I would argue that the same principle applies to the learning of grown-up behaviours and social skills. 11 Gentlemen's Magazine 82 (July 1812), 32. At the opposite extreme, according to The Female Instructor of 1824, a complete lack of initiation posed its own dangers, so that "the dazzled stranger [should] step from the nursery at once into a flood of vanity and dissipation." See The Female Instructor (London: Thomas Kelly, 1824), 20-21. 12 Emily Climenson, Passages from the Diaries of Mrs Philip Lybbe Pouys of Hardwick House, Oxon.AD 1756 to 1808 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1899), 326. The mother in question, Mrs Powys reported, went to London soon afterwards to set up a faro table. 40

Some feared that cards prevented young people from developing other social

skills, such as conversation. An instruction manual published in 1747 thought it

very wonderful to see persons of the least sense fie. young men and women] passing away a dozen hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards, with no other conversation, but what is made up of a few game phrases; and, with no other ideas, but those of black or red spots, ranged together in different shapes.13

Into the world

A young man's education was similarly problematic. As the commercial and

professional worlds placed greater emphasis on genteel behaviour and standards, middling parents strove to give their sons an education that would prepare them for their future careers.14 The press pointed out the risks inherent in "inculcating the ideas of a gendeman" into middle-class boys, who were thus taught "idleness and vice" and were encouraged to think of themselves as too good for "the confinement of business."15 This proved true for some young men, who, on leaving home for apprenticeships, university, or the army, could and did make questionable use of their social skills. Sending his son off to a life in the

Army, a Blackburn merchant enclosed a letter of advice, which cautioned his "dear Boy" against "Gaming, a vice [which] onst learnt is never cured", and which would lead him to

"ruin, to Poverty, & to Jail."16 As Figure 2 suggests, gaming had set itself up in opposition

13 The Young Gentleman andLadj Instructed (London: Edward Wicksteed, 1747), 11:138-139. 14 Joan Wilkinson (ed.), The Letters of Thomas Langton, Flax Merchant ofKirkham, 1771-1788 (Manchester: Chetham Society, 1994), 55. 15 Charles Moore, A Treatise on Gaming (London: J. F. and C. Rivington, 1790), 353. Fanny Bumey's Cecilia raised the same spectre in the character of Mr Belfield. Burney, Cecilia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 215. 16 Brian Lewis, The Middlemost and the MiUtowns.: Bourgeois Culture and Politics in Early Industrial England (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 50. 41 to the virtuous life, connoted by the church gate, to which the Idle Trenrice turns his back.

Figure 2: "The Idle 'Prentice at Play in the Church Yard, during Divine Service" William Hogarth, 1747. Although this young man played at dice, the image's warning applied equally to card-playing apprentices. Courtesy of the McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University Library.

Many surviving apprenticeship indentures specifically forbade card play, which endangered both a master's money and his authority over his charge.17 The life of hard work and devotion to one's trade was to be learned early and reinforced throughout a young man's training. In being prepared for the commercial or professional life, many novices did not

17 Peter Earle, The Making of the English Middle Class: Business, Society and ¥ amity Life in London: 1660-1730 (London: Methuen, 1989), 93; Naomi Tadmor, "The Concept of the Household-Family in Eighteenth- Century England" Past & Present 151 (May 1996), 119. acquire the self-control required to keep their purses in their pockets.18 A father wrote in great agitation to his wife: "I have a letter from William, He has been a Gambler — but has left it off — Upon his Word as an Officer and a Gendeman [emphasis in original] he will play no more! — begs I will not cast him off ..."19 Parents knew that "Young Men will be

Young Men always ... till Severe Experience advances with their Years ..." and lived in hope of their falling back on their "own Good Sense", hopefully before the damage was irreversible.20

For young men just beginning professional or commercial careers, however, cards could provide a smooth entree to their new social world. Card clubs and public assemblies often included very prominent citizens, and useful contacts could be made in making up a table.21 Being on an easy social footing with a potential employer or a possible patron might make the difference between a dead-end job and a fast track to advancement. More than mere career ambition hung in the balance: for many middling men, a solid financial footing was essential for marriage and the assumption of fully adult status.22 In 1799,

Elizabeth Ashfield wrote that her new fiance "call'd in the morng to tell me Mr Wyatt had offer'd to take him into partnership," thus enabling him to marry.23

18 Margaret Hunt, The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England, 1680-1780 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 47. 19 Shropshire Archives 484/806 (22 November 1811). libertine sons were such powerful symbols of failed upbringing and disregard for middle-class values that some fathers cut them off altogether, disassociating their name and trade from the dissipation those sons had embraced. See Hunt, The Middling Sort, 49-53. 20 Hull City Archives DMI/1/95. 21 The membership lists of the George Inn Whist Club of Winchester (Hampshire Record Office 181M84W/1) included men of obvious standing within the city. 22 Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 229; Theodore Koditschek, Class formation and urban-industrial society: Bradford, 1750-1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 211. 23 Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Record Office DR 8/3. 43

The yearly round

Regardless of the motives of those sitting down to cards, the middling social calendar offered plenty of opportunities for games in its yearly round. Originally arising in

London to accommodate those whose duty to the country brought them to the capital during Parliamentary and High Court sessions, 'The Season' had become famous for its busy winter-long round of entertainments and cultural events.24 On a smaller scale, the larger county and shire towns developed their own winter seasons, catering to those of the gentry and middle classes whose business or home life kept them away from the metropolis.25 Assemblies and balls vied with theatres and private parties in a whirl of activity, providing distraction and amusement in the long, dark winter nights.

Most diarists noted a marked upswing in their social commitments beginning in

October or November, and continuing at a brisk pace through February or March. For many communities, "keeping Christmas" meant a round of house parties that often stretched well into February. In Sussex, East Hoathly shopkeeper Thomas Turner hosted his share of these get-togethers, all the while bemoaning the expense, his losses at the inevitable card games, and the peace of mind "so often disjointed and confused by such tumultuous, or at least merry, meetings."26 Year after year, his January and February entries were peppered with references to this social round, which began the yearly cycle of gaming revels. Far away in Westminster, young John Smith spent many wintry evenings at friends'

24 Julian Hoppit, A Land of Liberty? England 1689-1727 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 428. 25 Peter Borsay, The English Urban "Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Provincial Torn 1660-1770 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 139-140. Borsay offers an interesting discussion on the "practical and psychological" driving forces behind the seasonal nature of leisure culture on pages 142-144. 26 David Vaisey (ed.) The Diary of Thomas Turner 1754-1765 (East Hoathly: CTR Publishing, 1994), 173. After his wife's death in June 1761, Turner absented himself from these New Year parties for several years, not returning to them until 1765. Perhaps he took advantage of his status as a widower to avoid a form of gathering he did not enjoy in any case. 44 homes. A February 1789 entry in his card journal is typical: "Tea & Supper at Mr Smedleys met Dodd [and] Ward - and Debary ... play'd 3 rubbers ... in bed before one".27 The

Season's busy schedule wearied some reluctant players: "London life now is every evening from card-party to card-party," sighed Mrs Powys in 1795,28 She found that many hosts favoured large weekly parties:

Mrs Lytwyche express'd herself quite hurt... that Mr Powys and I should be there the first time when she had hardly any company, 'only seven [card] tables, and that is so very few, you know, Ma'am.' I really am very ignorant, for I did not know it, and thought it a squeeze; but how unfashionable I am in disliking these immense parties I kept secret.29

Country winters could be long and dark, with few outside amusements but those arranged by the community. George Woodward, snug in his Berkshire parish, gratefully acknowledged his sisters' January visit of 1754, which made the house "very agreeable at this dead season of the year; for as soon as the clock strikes seven we sit down to four handed cabbage, and play till supper time; the rest of the day is spent in working and reading."30 With their tasks complete and long hours stretching ahead of them, the

Woodwards passed the time companionably over their cards.

Town life provided many opportunities for public-space play, which took place in what Peter Borsay calls "arenas of display": Assembly Rooms, pleasure gardens, and inn ballrooms. These gatherings, especially assemblies, were often large, and gave the middling sort an oudet for their social impulses, as well as the see-and-be-seen imperative of genteel

27 Sheffield Archives SpSt/60636/5. 28 CHmenson, Mrs Philip Lybbe Pouys, 282. 29 Climenson, Mrs Philip Lybbe Pouys, 298. In another entry (p 308), Mrs Powys described a card party with "only three tables, about thirty-six of us," so a table could presumably hold up to a dozen players, depending on the game being played. 30 Donald Gibson, A Parson in the Vale of White Horse: George Woodward's Letters from East Hendrvd, 1753-1761 (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1982), 53. Gibson notes that Woodward's parish of East Hendred is now in Oxfordshire, as a result of modem boundary adjustments. See his "Introduction", p 17. 45 society.31 Arising from the large and very public entertainments of the newly-popular resort towns, assemblies were a new form of genteel gatherings which included dancing, refreshments, and, increasingly, cards. These functions were commonly held around county assizes, race meetings, and civic occasions such as parliamentary elections; as the century went on, larger, more active centres might have purpose-built assembly rooms rather than the inns used in smaller towns.32 Subscription balls were held periodically throughout the winter season, but were more expensive to attend than public assemblies, which meant the company tended to be wealthier.33 Both types of gatherings made provision for card enthusiasts. James Oakes of Bury St Edmunds enjoyed the series of subscription balls held throughout the winter: "The 4th Subscription] Ball [was] very full & splendid ... 3 Card Tables & 27 couple of Dancers all the Officers & their Ladys ... We left the Ball Room Vz hour after 2 O'Clock".34 A billeted regiment provided Stamford's local assemblies with scores of presentable young men in 1771: "Stamford has been very gay this

Winter, with Balls Concerts and Card partys wch has ingag'd us almost Every Day in the week there is part of ye regement of Blues hear Still ..."35

Smaller groups gathered in winter-long card clubs, which commonly met at local inns. The George Inn Whist Club of Winchester kept their number at twenty-four by means of a carefully maintained system of elections; their members were all men, and all prominent in the community. Although they undoubtedly took their whist play seriously,

31 Vickery, Gentleman's Daughter, 241; Borsay, English Urban Renaissance, 150. 32 Assizes were court sessions, held in county towns, made possible by regular visits by circuit judges. At these sessions, trials would be held for accused criminals held since the previous assizes. Several of our writers mention attending Assize Balls; James Oakes gave an account of an Election Ball held in August 1803 (Fiske, Oakes Diaries, 11:44). 33 Vickery, Gentleman's Daughter, 241; Paul Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727-1783 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 101. 34 Fiske, Oakes Diaries, 1:322. 35 Hull City Archives DMI/1/25. This letter could have been written by Lydia Bennet. 46 they did not neglect the agreeable amenities. "On the admission of any new Member," the club's rules noted, "it is expected the Clubb be entertained with a Genteel Supper ... at the expence of the New Member."36 The sixteen members of the Potton Card Club in

Bedfordshire rotated among several inns in their area, taking care to collect funds "for the

Benefit of the Servants at each Inn where the Assembly is held." Of the sixteen signatures on the club's founding articles, however, only six are men's; like the Rotation Club of

Weston, Norfolk, the Potton Club included a number of married couples and, evidendy, unattached women.37

Summer play generally centred around the spas and resort towns, as the gentry and the middle classes flocked to these increasingly popular holiday destinations. Originally advertised as locales of health and treatment for numerous ailments, spa towns found themselves catering to an increasingly healthy clientele, attracted by the "amusements and the pleasure of seeing company" rather than the healing waters. Nor was that catering a small consideration: providing spaces, food and drink, and entertainments for the leisure activities demanded by these health tourists was big business, and the local response was enthusiastic.38 As the crowds strolled the terraces and public walks between bathing sessions and assemblies, they found shopkeepers very ready to display and sell their wares to these eager customers. Card players did not lack for opportunities to play. Bath's Upper

Assembly Rooms added a new card room in 1777, which boasted "17 Card Tables full"

36 Hampshire Record Office 181M84W/1. This was also a common practice when an apprentice became a journeyman. My thanks to Dr Beverly Lemire for this point. 37 Bedfordshire and Luton .Archives and Records Services X202/22. For the rules of the Rotation Club of Weston, see Beresford, County Parson, 1:196 and 1:198. 38 Borsay, English Urban Renaissance, 33. The economic boom centering around the gaming industry in Bath and other resort towns will be discussed in greater depth in Chapter Six. 47 three years later and twenty-seven in 1801.39 Other resorts laid out a similar array of pleasures: "There are plenty of amusements if people have a mind to enter into them —

Gaming Tables — assemblies, Plays &c &c," merchant Samuel Capper wrote happily from

Cheltenham.40

For those whose business kept them in London over the hot, dusty summer months, the smaller spas that surrounded the capital offered a happy alternative to the everyday routine of the shop. Islington, Hampstead, and many other suburban villages enjoyed brisk business throughout the eighteenth century. On other summer evenings, the lively pleasure gardens of Vauxhall, Marylebone and the more exclusive Ranelagh beckoned.41 These commercial venues, with their relatively low admission fees, were accessible to a wide cross-section of Londoners, offering dancing, music, art galleries, and dark walks in which to enjoy more dubious pleasures. Although purpose-built card rooms do not seem to have been available, play certainly took place there. "Went... to Vauxhall," wrote John Smith in July 1790, "staid Supper there — had not been at Vauxhall for nearly the last five years; most probably it may be about that time before I am caught there again."

Even though that evening's winnings at whist more than covered his expenses, he was clearly deaf to Vauxhall's siren song.42

39 Trevor Fawcett, Bath Entertain'd: Amusements, Recreations and Gambling at the 18*-Century Spa (Bath: Ruton, 1998), 22; Climenson, Diary of Mrs Philip Lybbe Pouys, 349. Bath's rapidly expanding population and visitor trade •will be discussed in Chapter Six. 40 Gloucester Record Office D5310/21. 41 Ranelagh's clientele tended to be more sober and decorous than those of Vauxhall and Marylebone, partly because of its higher entry fee, 2s 6d, more than twice that of Vauxhall, which charged only a shilling. See John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1997), 66. 42 Sheffield Archives SpSt/60636/6. Vauxhall's suppers were notoriously expensive: for a shilling, one could supposedly buy a plate of ham sliced so thin the newspaper could be read through it. See Liza Picard, Dr Johnson's London: Life in London 1740-1770 (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), 247. 48

As summer's end approached, the entertainment cycles shifted again in many regional centres. In August, Carlisle's races brought Mrs Mary Yates to town for a week's round of amusement at the Assembly Rooms:

23 August [1794] ... arrivd between 5&6 got some Tea, dressd and went to the Card Assembly a very good one and a litde dance about 8 Couple ... we parted before 12. 26 August... about eleven the [Assembly] Room was very full of company ... dancd two dances with Mr Hasell, playd at Cards with the Penrith party left the Room about one ...

The fun continued intermittendy through the end of October, and its end brought Mrs

Yates sad withdrawal pangs: "2 November ... thus ended the last week of the year, that is likely to be passd by me, in society or to bring any cheerfulness with it ..."43

The family way

Marriage and the arrival of children were obviously momentous changes in situation, and were duly reflected in the frequency and circumstances of card play. Every wedding ceremony created a new family unit, with new social and household obligations; every bride and groom shouldered adult responsibilities, often for the first time in their lives.44 Each new family gradually formed its own circle, adjusting its social life accordingly.

The family was the primary locus for sociability, the point from which all social webs

43 Cumbria Record Office, Carlisle D AY 6/7. Similar gatherings clustered round Warwick Races in September and Lewes Races in July, to name only two. Carlisle's racetrack was in fact one of the busiest in the country. See Borsay, Urban Renaissance, 357, Appendix 5. 44 Vickery, Gentleman's Daughter, 39; Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 322-323. 49 radiated; the home served as the setting for that sociability, providing a cosy and enjoyable environment for the company.45

The diaries of a young woman and, later, of her husband, offer a valuable look at this fundamental change. Before Elizabeth Ashfield's 1799 engagement to the young solicitor Robert Hobbes, her social life had centred on her family's circle of friends and relations, dining and taking tea with her uncle, the Misses Gregory, Mr and Mrs Webb, and playing friendly games of cards with them all. She also played at the winter card assemblies.46 After 13 August, however, when "Mr Hobbs declared himself [her] Lover", her orbit enlarged to include him and his sister in her visits, and both joined her at the card tables of her uncle and her friends. When the Ashfields hosted the Hobbes family to celebrate the engagement, a few hands of commerce may have been just the thing to ease the formality of this significant visit47

With their marriage in January 1800, Elizabeth and Robert faced their new responsibilities. As a newly-minted junior partner in Mr Wyatt's law firm, Robert had connections to forge and maintain with the local community; Elizabeth acted as hostess at home and as fellow guest at others' parties, many of which included card games for the same shilling stakes as always. Their visits to the card assemblies continued through that first spring, and Robert was not averse to an occasional late night on his own: "took Betsy

[Elizabeth] to the Card Assembly & after winning 11/6 and taking Betsy home [Robert and

45 Hikni Ibrahim, Leisure and Society: A Comparative Approach (Dubuque, Iowa: William C. Brown Publishers, 1991), 200. 44 This may have been for practical reasons as well as sociable ones. As Amanda Vickery comments, assemblies and other public occasions were "first and foremost stalls in the marriage market." Elizabeth, however, did not record where or how she met her "Mr Hobbs". Vickery, Gentleman's Daughter, 265. 47 Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Record Office DR 8/3. Elizabeth lost lj at Commerce on that occasion; perhaps she was nervous. 50 a friend] returned to the Lion & staid till l."48 These late nights had all but disappeared by the faJl of 1800, as the couple discovered the delights of card games for two "snug by ourselves." On 8 September, Robert wrote: "at home with Wife in Even by fireside ... and played with her at Van'une [vingt-un] & won 7/6." Following the birth of their first son in

October, their visits out tailed off to the occasional card assembly and dinner and cards at the homes of friends. Two more children followed in 1801 and 1802, and the Hobbeses found themselves living the pattern expected of new parents, visiting less and less.49 The family's happy home life breathes through the pages of the parents' diaries, as they played chess together or Elizabeth read aloud.50

As John Smail notes, middling sociability was becoming increasingly split into two aspects. While public-sphere activities centered around male enclaves such as the club or civic meeting, both sexes gathered in private homes under the auspices of the woman of the house.51 Over the eighteenth century, many a middling wife had become less and less involved in the day-to-day running of the shop or office, with a corresponding shift toward the home front In her new capacity as home-maker, she was expected to create and shape a domestic haven for her husband, a comfortable and well-run home and household over which she would wield an authority second only to his own.52 In the process, she also maintained the wholesome, prosperous image that increasingly epitomised the successful and upright middle-class establishment. She was becoming a private-space support system,

48 Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Record Office ER 79/1. 49 Vickery, Gentleman's Daughter, 115. 50 Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Record Office ER 79/1. 51 John Smail, The Origns of Middle-Class Culture: Halifax, Yorkshire, 1660-1780 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), 181. 52 In practice, the wife oversaw the running of the household, although her husband could, if he chose, overrule her decisions. See Koditschek, Class Formation, 221. 51 whose skills as homemaker and hostess were invaluable to her husband and his trade or profession.53

Within this new gender framework, a home-centred lifestyle was increasingly a hallmark of the middle classes by the late eighteenth century, with 'family time' becoming a priority for leisure hours and celebrated in conversation pieces such as Figure 3.54 Activities such as card games could be tailored to the ages of children, whose inclusion in family pastimes cemented family bonds while creating happy memories. This early introduction to such numerate and rule-based activities was an enjoyable way to learn social discipline and the good manners required for co-operative play.

53 Jane Rendall, Women in an Industrializing Society: England, 1750-1880 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), 45; Langford, Polite and Commercial People, 110-111; Small, Origns of Middle-Class Culture, 175. 54 Davidoff and Hall, ¥ amity Fortunes, 359. Figure 3: "The Strong Family" (detail) Charles Philips, 1732. This image shows several generations of a family enjoying leisure time together. Courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

As the children grew, simple games such as commerce were succeeded by whist and other more complex games. Family friends, dropping in of an evening, were often included in the evening ritual. "Call'd by chance at Dr Vincent's & drank Tea there; the family began

Whist; play'd seven rubbers, the six first of which I won, " John Smith happily recorded on a July evening in 1790.55 James Woodforde and his niece-housekeeper, Nancy, played many

55 Sheffield Archives SpSt/60636/6. 53 games of cribbage on quiet evenings at home, enjoying each other's peaceful company and the comfort of their cosy routine.56

Upheavals and losses

The happy customs of home life, however, were all too easily shattered by the loss of a spouse or a child. Sudden griefs, while stalling the more cheerful aspects of sociability, at the same time highlighted middling social networks, as friends and family rallied round for the rituals of death. Mourning periods varied throughout the eighteenth century, entailing different degrees of withdrawal from the social life of the community.

The return to the social round seems to have been left up to the individual. Several diarists mention visits, even quiet games of cards, during the first weeks after a family death.57

John Baker's first dinner out, a few weeks after the death of his beloved "Uxor" in 1774, brought him unexpected relief from the grief and pain he had come to associate with his lonely house.58 His visiting returned to its usual level rather more quickly than his card play did; perhaps he sought smaller groups and quieter company in those first weeks. By June, three months into his widowhood, his social life and play had resumed its normal varied busy-ness, and his comments had regained their old spice. James Oakes' mourning for his wife in late 1802 lasted rather longer, hosting his first family dinner seven months after her

56 See, for example, Beresford, Country Parson, 11:42,165; 111:333, 338; IV:2,13. 57 Fiske, Oakes Diaries, 1:189. 58 Philip C. Yorke (ed.), The Diary of John Baker (.London: Hutchinson, 1931), 279. The late-eighteenth-century idea of "balancing die table' — seating the same number of men as women - seems to have been of litde concern among our writers. This was fortunate for widowers Baker and Oakes: both were fond of company, and, following their respective mourning periods, both returned to their usual pace of socialising. See Dan Cruikshank and Neil Burton's Life in the Georgian City (London: Viking, 1990), 37-38. For Baker's and Oakes's socialising patterns, see Appendices 1 and 5. 54 death, he firmly noted, "No Cards."59 The following month, he described the "very handsome" Election Dinner and its entertainments, noting the "8 or 9 Card Tables in the

Card Rooms" and staying "till Yz past 2 o'clock."60 In staying late at a civic occasion, he was reclaiming his place in the public life of Bury St Edmunds; in attending the entertainment that accompanied it, he was acknowledging the importance of social contacts to his commercial life.

Moving house for work or breaking up housekeeping often meant relocating to another area, with painful partings and new beginnings in different social circles. When the

Reverend James Woodforde took up his Norfolk living in 1776, he found himself in a very sociable neighbourhood. The new parson was welcomed by the families of Weston, and was soon invited to join the weekly social group, made up of local worthies from varying backgrounds. Several of these men and women became lifelong friends, and beyond the

Monday gatherings of the "Rotation Clubb", many cheerful tea- and card-parties enlivened his days.61 Within a few years, he had become a fixture at local dinner- and supper- gatherings, nearly all of which included play at several favourite card games.

The adjustment from a home of one's own to rooms in someone else's house could be a painful one. For many middling people in straitened circumstances, this last- resort option often meant a loss of autonomy and security. Space was often limited, neighbours could be noisy, and landlords were not always understanding of a lodger's needs.62 The widowed John Baker's decision to give up his house at Horsham and move to lodgings in London was eased by the large number of friends awaiting him there. In the

59 Fiske, Oakes Diaries, 11:42. 60 Fiske, Oakes Diaries, 11:44-46. 61 Beresford, Country Parson, 1:196. 62 Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 358; Cruikshank and Burton, Georgan City, 60-61. 55

two years following his move, his card-play increased dramatically, as did his reliance on his

friends' hospitality. In Sussex, he had hosted roughly half the card parties he took part in,

but in London, he played at friends' homes nearly two-thirds of the time.63 Probably his

lodgings were too small or inconvenient to lend themselves to entertaining his large circle.

A final shift in the pattern appears in several of our records, as age and increasing

ill health altered the play of even the most assiduous socialites. The accounts of Elizabeth

Dummer show a steep drop in the number of entries for "oratorio" and "play" [theatre] as

she aged, with a corresponding sharp increase in "card money" entries. These continued at

about the same rate for the last eight years of her life. Taken together with entries, in the

same period, for payments "to maids in my last gout", these changes suggest that her world

was shrinking to the dimensions of her home, and that she played cards more often to

compensate for other, lost, amusements.64 Parson Woodforde's play followed a similar

pattern: as he aged, we see a gradual increase in the proportion of play and entertainments

at his home. Still social but less mobile, he brought his friends to him as much as possible.

However, following a serious illness at the age of fifty-seven, his health and spirits never

really recovered; although he still received visitors, he became physically frail and easily upset. His outings were severely curtailed and his play effectively ceased.65 From then on,

friends came bringing comforts, not card-purses.66

63 See Appendix 1. 64 Northamptonshire Record Office BruASR 103. 65 See Appendix 9. 66 Beresford, Country Parson, V:404,408. 56

Conclusion

In looking back over these stages of life and the transition points that knit them together, the near-constant presence of cards and card games attests to their flexibility and their capacity to adapt to whatever purpose is demanded of them. Beyond the dictates of fashion, their sheer adaptability may go a long way toward explaining both their long- standing popularity and their ubiquity. Cards and card games could be all things to everyone, and even for a single person they could, and did, serve different purposes over time. For young children, they amused while instructing, fulfilling John Locke's precept that play is an essential component of children's learning.67 As more elaborate games were learned, older children could point to their mastery as both a yardstick of progress and as key to the magic door of the adult world. As the year turned, occasions for play could be anticipated and reunions planned. Cards could ease introductions, provide bridges between the very young and the very old, break down reserves, and act as a means of resuming social life after a loss.

In all these uses, and in many more, cards and the games invented around them acted as constructs of their times. In the course of that play, the people bending over their cards made choices and acted on assumptions that were also products of their time, status, and cultural backgrounds. Conversely, these players tailored their card play to fit their sense of themselves and the world in which they moved. As a result, several key points have already become apparent about middle-class card play and its cultural and social realities. Among these are the very social nature of middling play, and the importance of

67 Calvert, Children in the House, 80. 57 genteel behaviour in play situations; the mixed-sex nature of play and the role of women in the creation of middle-class social milieux; the modest stakes that generally prevailed within this society; and the adaptable role of cards and card games within middling social and professional networks. All of these will be discussed in succeeding chapters. 58

Chapter Three

Parlour Games: Social play and the middling sort

To Mr Tho. Fuller's in order to spend the evening there, where my wife and I supped (in company with Mr Will. Piper and his wife and brother, Mr John Vine Jr and his wife, and Mr French) on a buttock of beef boiled, a hind quarter of venison roasted, two raisin suet puddings, turnips, potatoes, gravy sauce, pickles etc. We played at brag, and my wife and I (though contrary to custom) won 4Vzd... near 7 o'clock in the morn ... we all broke up, and that very sober.1

When Thomas Turner, Sussex shopkeeper, sat down to his diary to record his impressions of Mr Fuller's party, he recorded his own priorities along with the menu and the guest list. For his time and class, he was entirely typical; many middling diaries of the eighteenth century record what food was served, who was present, and what entertainment was on offer. In accounting for money won at cards and for the hour (and sobriety) of the party's end, he reflected — probably unconsciously — his sense of the importance of accounting for cash comings and goings, as well as for his use of his God-given time.

Turner's notes for that January evening introduce private-space play, card games enjoyed within the intimacy of a private home, with a chosen company made up of family members and invited or impromptu guests.2 It is important to note that, with only a few exceptions, the card games mentioned by diarists were not the primary reason for their gatherings, but rather a single aspect of a more complex assortment of social rituals.

1 David Vaisey (ed.), The Diary of Thomas Turner 1754-1765 (East Hoathly: CTR Publishing, 1994), 129. 2 Public- and private-space play (as opposed to public- and private-sphere activity) is discussed in the Introduction. 59

However, in setting out the card tables and deciding on the parameters of these get- togethers, middling hosts acted (consciously or otherwise) within a system of behaviours shaped by their world. This chapter examines the social rituals and pitfalls connected with card play in private spaces, and in doing so addresses what those rituals tell us about both the people who practiced them and the social dynamic they sustained.

Hospitality

In planning house parties, even for small numbers of guests, hosts and hostesses poured time and effort into planning every detail for the comfort of their company, close neighbours and rarely-seen visitors alike. If, following Susan Whyman, we picture each household as the centre of an expanding network of hospitality, it becomes clear that each neighbourhood and town was part of a complex social web, in which many networks were interlaced.3 Within this web, strands of mutual obligation and the return of hospitality formed and bound social circles together, keeping relations smooth.4

Behind the face-value facts of hospitable gestures, a finely-tuned system of social symbolism ticked along, utilised and understood by hosts and guests alike. Invitations were extended for a number of reasons going well beyond a wish for a particular person's company. Gestures, like material objects, could carry emotional or social value that far

3 Susan E. Whyman, Sociability and Power in Late-Stuart England: The Cultural Worlds of the Verneys 1660-1720 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 18. 4 Felicity Heal, Hospitality in Early Modern England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 20; Joan Smith, "Men and women at play, gender, life-cycle and leisure" in Sport, Leisure and Social Relations ed. John Home, David Jary and Alan Tomlinson (New York: Roudedge & Kegan Paul, 1987), 51. 60 exceeded their surface worth.5 Within a given social circle, certain people might be invited to some events, but not to others; hosts might include those to whom favours were owed, or those whose society they wished to penetrate. The society of others might be sought with an extra layer of solicitude.6 Some events featured a two-tiered system of hospitality, with a favoured selection of guests enjoying dinner before those that Jane Austen termed the "less worthy" guests arrived.7 Such coded strands of hospitality could reveal a great deal about who held what status within a neighbourhood social system, and what was due to them from others within that system.8

Although some aspects of the role of host — in particular, those surrounding the provision of food and drink, especially tea — were gendered female by the eighteenth century, the work of several historians reminds us that hospitality was not solely a female concern.9 In examining the records of purchases by male consumers, Margot Finn points out that many of the items selected were chosen with great care and attention, in particular to their usefulness in entertaining and feeding friends.10 Susan Whyman's discussion of a paternalistic host's gifting and hospitality networks make plain his careful personal attention

5 Margot C. Finn, "Men's things: masculine possession in the consumer revolution" Social History 25:2 (May 2000), 144. Although Finn's argument centres around the emotional and social value of gifts, this argument, I believe, can also be applied to actions, which were read and interpreted in much die same way. 6 As a fictional example, the middle-class Cole family make a point of procuring a folding-screen from London for the comfort of their social superior, Mr Woodhouse, before presuming to invite him to their home for an evening party. Jane Austen, Emma (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1999), 139. Erving Goffman suggests that such efforts by inferiors may be attempts to create the sort of atmosphere to which a higher-status guest is accustomed. See Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York: Doubleday, 1959), 19. 7 Austen, Emma, 142. John Smith and Abigail Gawthern both mentioned this system of invitation, which continues today at some North American weddings. See Sheffield Record Office SpSt 60636/7 and Adrian Henstock (ed.), The Diary of Abigail Gawthern of Nottingham 1751-1810 (Nottingham: Thoroton Society, 1980), 123. 8 Heal, Hospitality in Early Modern England, 198; Whyman, Sociability and Power, 28; Goffman, Presentation of Self, 29. 9 Elizabeth Kowaleski-Wallace, Consuming Subjects: Women, Shopping and Business in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 20. Amanda Vickery reminds us that both men and women were involved in the rituals surrounding the tea table, even though women presided. See Vickery, The Gentleman's Daughter. Women's Lives in Georgian England (London: Yale University Press, 1998), 207. 10 Finn, 'Men's things', 142. to the importance of his guests.11 While acknowledging women's greater hands-on role in the actual mechanics of hospitality, Felicity Heal also points out that all the actions of a household reflected on (and emanated from) the head of that household, who was, more often than not in middling circles, male.12 Parson James Woodforde reinforced this point in many diary entries, writing of being entertained at "Mr Bodham's" or "Mr

Micklethwaite's" even though a Mrs. Bodham or Micklethwaite was also in evidence.13

Clearly both sexes had roles to play in welcoming guests to their home.

The Favour of Your Company: Invitations

Inviting or being invited by the right people could yield substantial rewards. It was a well-established truism that entertaining was often an effective means of consolidating or advancing one's social standing, especially when going the extra mile in pursuit of particularly important guests. The central importance of the people who were entertained is reflected in the careful lists of guests that appear in so many diaries and letters of the time: hosts basked in the reflection of the guests' glow. Even business contacts could blur into impromptu social occasions. A group of people "met by accident, coming to buy goods in [my] shop," wrote Thomas Turner on 14 January 1763; they

"drank tea with me, and they stayed and spent the even with me and played at brag."14

11 Whyman, Sociability and Power, 23-27. 12 Heal, Hospitality in Early Modern England, 7,179. 13 John Beresford (ed.), The Diary of a County Parson: The Reverend James Woodforde (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 1:311,11:138. 14 Vaisey, Thomas Turner, 264. 62

Turner's ready welcome turned his customers into guests, potentially enhancing his reputation within the community.

Similar opportunities presented themselves for guests, who found that useful acquaintances could be made at a card table, or interesting business news heard. Margot

Finn and Amanda Vickery both comment on the usefulness of social contact in business dealings, whether between tradesmen and their gentry clients or among people of similar station.15 Particular importance was attached to being included in small, intimate gatherings, especially by one's superiors; Parson Woodforde was always happy to be part of a "snugg Party" at cards with Squire Custance's family.16

As though to emphasise the lifelong English passion for card play, celebrations of major life events often included cards, quite literally from one's earliest days. Parson

Woodforde, his clerical duty done, sat down as a guest to cards at a number of christening parties; Tom Rumney braved a "very stormy" day to enjoy dancing and lose Is 6d at the christening of little Ann Dickinson.17 Later milestones included cards as welL To mark his wife's birthday, Nicholas Blundell called in the local fiddler for the evening, and "we had

Carding also, I carded with ... Abraham, Coxhead, Philip Syer, Walter Thelwall, &c."18

Even wedding guests might be entertained with cards. At Tom Rumney's 1806 wedding, those assembled were "remarkably cheerful [and] played at cards" before leaving at midnight In the days immediately following, he and his bride paid their wedding visits in the neighbourhood, winning and losing a few shillings at whist and accepting their friends'

15 Finn, 'Men's Things', 150; Amanda Vickery, The Gentleman 'j- Daughter. Women's Lives in Georgian England (London: Yak University Press, 1998), 208,210. 16 Beresford, Country Parson, 11:111. 17 Beresford, Country Parson, 11:153,188-189,111:359; A. W. Rumney (ed.), Tom Rumney ofMellfell (1764-1835) iy himself as set out in his letters and diary (Kendal: Titus Wilson & Son, 1936), 171. 18 J. J. Bagley (ed.) and Frank Tyrer (transcr.), The Great Diurnal of Nicholas Blundell of Little Crosby, Lancashire (Liverpool: Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, n.d.), 1:153. congratulations.19 "Wedding Day" (wedding anniversary) parties were also excellent opportunities for cards. William Holland invited friends to join him and his wife "to drink tea and sup with us. We played cards and were very merry ,.."20 In 1779, naval hero

Admiral Keppel found himself the recipient of some fulsome attentions from the carding ladies of Bath, who "made a Commerce Party for him & they Judged it proper to compliment him with the Pool [ie. the winnings]."21 Cards were adaptable to many an occasion.

Hosts, guests and card play

"Good hosts," writes Felicity Heal, "need good guests in order to display their talents to the full."22 Within this host/guest duality, each role complements and sustains the other: far from being essential opposites, the two functions share important facets.

Successful hospitality requires effort on the part of both host and guest each role requires consideration and careful attention to the wants and feelings of others, and each role-player must know and follow the socially acceptable steps of this particular pas de deux. Host and guest are drawn together for complementary reasons, which replicate themselves on return visits as the roles are reversed.

The purest of hospitable impulses may be the desire for the "comfort of being in good and well disposed company," and the pleasure of planning for their comfort and

19 Rumney, Tom Rumney, 166-169. 20 Jack Ayres (ed.), Paupers and Pig Killers: The Diary of William Holland, A Somerset Parson, 1799-1818 (New York: Penguin Books, 1986), 50. 21 William Salt Library (Stafford) S.MS.478/8/84-2. 22 Heal, Hospitality in Early Modern England, 192. 64 amusement23 Card games, as staples of eighteenth-century genteel entertainment, were natural inclusions for hosts arranging party pastimes. The choice of games to be played at social functions was guided by a number of factors, and the canny host kept his guests in mind as the tables were set out. Choosing favourite and well-known games was important in fostering easy, familiar enjoyment A simple game such as commerce might be played at one table for less demanding sociability, and one or two other games to amuse more advanced players. Socially-oriented games were always a good bet, bringing players together in partnered or round games, with plenty of face-to-face interaction during hands.24 Changing partners between games or rubbers provided an opportunity to stretch one's legs and to sit down to new faces with fresh enthusiasm. In addition, strategic trick- taking games such as whist and loo required a good deal of careful observation both of cards and of fellow players.25 During play, people revealed themselves to an acute observer, and a lot more could be learned than simply "what was trumps".26 Finally, the considerate host had to make a decision - again, on the basis of his or her knowledge of the guests - on the amounts of money to be bet, and this could be a real quagmire. As Goffman points out, if the stake was too low, some players might lose interest in the game; too high, and timid or cash-strapped players might fear for their purses.27 Attentive hosts were amply repaid for their efforts. "We laughed immoderately after dinner ... What with laughing and

23 East Sussex Record Office Turner MS (15 June 1781). See Erving Goffman, Encounters: two studies in the sociology in interaction (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1961), 66-67 for a discussion of the sorts of variables hosts needed to consider when trying to make sure their card-playing guests enjoyed themselves fully. 24 The term 'round game' emerged in the eighteenth century, with the appearance of large, round gaming tables. A round game, such as brag, could be played by three or more players. David Parlett, A History of Card Games (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 26. 25 Parlett, History of Card Games, 68-69. 26 In a 1739 letter to a friend, Mrs Montagu grumbled that Bath afforded no conversation in the afternoons but "What's trumps?" Quoted in P. J. Corfield, The Impact of English Towns, 1700-1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 59. 27 Goffman, Encounters, 69. 65

eating hot Gooseberry Pye brought on me the Hickupps," recorded Rev Woodforde after a

particularly successful dinner-and-cards day at the parsonage.28

The obligations of host and guest also mirrored and paralleled each other. A

certain standard of politeness was de rigeurva. every circle, and the best hosts were expert

judges of the right level of formality for a given occasion. Card games were flexible in their

formality, and could act as signals of structured entertainment — "our meetings have been ...

in the formal stile, always cards" — or as a delightful release from stiff decorum. "We made

quite a formal circle; but after Tea Mrs Darby broke it by ordering in a Card Table," a guest

noted after a family wedding.29 Host and guest alike were expected to follow established

forms: written or printed invitations begat immediate written responses of acceptance or regret The civilities extended to the following days: "many have called & left their cards, which is always done after a rout & dance," wrote an exhausted hostess in the aftermath of a large and successful party.30 The observation of expected social norms kept the wheel of hospitality turning smoothly.

Generosity was a great virtue in the eighteenth-century host, and was manifest in the gleam of the best silver, on the finest linen, in the best room of the house. This physical setting provided the host - who was, after all, about to stage a performance before an audience of guests - with a reassuring framework of finery.31 More prosaically, such a display complimented guests by lavishing on them the very best the host had to offer, assuring them that they were highly valued and worthy of the utmost effort and regard.

28 Beresford, Country Parson, 1:252. 29 William LeFanu (ed.), Betsy Sheridan's Journal- Lettersfrom Sheridan's sister 1784-1786 and 1788-1790 (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1960), 194; Lady Alice Archer Houblon, The Houblon Family: Its Story and Times (London: Archibald Constable and Company, 1907), 11:150. 30 East Riding of Yorkshire Archives and Records Service DDGR 43/32/9. 31 Goffman, Presentation of Self, 22. 66

-- A CARD PAiTY. -

Figure 4: "A Card Party" attrib. Isaac Cruikshank, 1794. Courtesy of the British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings.

Figure 4, although intended as a satire on card play and its votaries, also shows the careful touches of an attentive host a gout stool for the fat man at the end of the table, and the hovering servant ready to provide refreshment.32 In return for such consideration from the host, good guests showed a modest and gracious appreciation of the attentions lavished on them, flutteringly accepting such fuss as being "very much made off."33

Woe betide the host whose efforts fell short of this high standard! Middling guests were quick to notice when ushered into the "Litde Parlour, not into the Best," and

32 The image also shows the live-and-let-live atmosphere of the gathering: some guests are chatting, some playing, and one man having the best of both worlds. Not all parties permitted such freedom of choice, as we shall see later in this chapter. 33 Heal, Hospitality in Early Modem England, 195; Vickery, Gentleman's Daughter, 195. recognised the "old China" when handed their cups.34 On such details reputations rested.

"He is not looked upon in this neighbourhood so much as he used to be," James

Woodforde wrote of a Mr Hall, "as his visits are merely interested for himself, and that he

never makes any kind of return for the same."35 Failure to return favour for favour was the

worst sort of lack of generosity, and "[deserved] very jusdy to be ridiculed," since it posed a

threat to easy relations within a social circle.36

The local card club presented another, more focussed, venue for hospitality and

cards. Within these small, relatively intimate groupings, members could enjoy regular,

reliable play within a predictable, agreed-upon system of local rules and customs.37 Some

clubs were flexible in their hospitality: the "Rotation Clubb" of Weston Longeville,

Norfolk, gave a ready welcome to guests and visitors of both sexes, whereas Winchester's

male-only George Inn Whist Club elected its members from a waiting list and made no

provision for drop-in players. The men and women of the Potton club split the difference,

allowing play by alternates or out-of-town visitors.38 Clubs offered various perks to their

members, including the latest newspapers, annual feasts or other special parties, and good

company over cards. Some clubs were very particular, even class-specific, in their

34 Ayres, Paupers and Pig Killers, 146-147. Margot Finn comments on guests' awareness of the "social significance" of objects ('Men's Things', 144.) Over the course of the eighteenth century, middling homes increasingly set aside dedicated areas for sociability. See John Smail, The Origins of Middle-Class Culture: Halifax, Yorkshire, 1660-1780 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), 180-181. 35 Beresford, Country Parson, 1:327. 36 Vaisey, Thomas Turner, 176. 37 Dennis Brailsford, A Tastefor Diversions: Sport in Georgian England (Cambridge: The Lutterworth Press, 1999), 168. The middle classes as a group were very conscious of time and its use. The scheduled play of a card club, which set aside particular time slots on a regular basis, would probably have agreed nicely with that sensibility. A further note on clubs: the most famous gaming clubs of the later eighteenth century were, of course, Brooks's and White's of London, but these aristocratic houses of round-the-clock deep play bore little resemblance to the modest gatherings that the middling sort frequented- 38 Beresford, Country Parson, 1:198; Hampshire Record Office 181M84W/1; Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Services X202/22. 68

membership rosters, which may have fostered a nascent class solidarity (or snobbery,

depending on the group).39

Such clubs made sure of adding the delightful litde extras to their card games,

either by having members taking turns at hosting the group to a fine meal or by holding

meetings at local inns. Collections were taken to provide vails (tips) for the inn's servants,

food and wine, tea and coffee, and the warmth of a long-burning fire.40 Nor were the

caterers the only gainers. On hearing of a British naval victory in 1781, the George Inn

Whist Club voted to provide "one Hogshead of the Best Strong Beer" for the "Populace to

drink [the] Gallant Commander's Health." The club's minutes noted that all went off with

an air of "good humour and fun ... in a Masterly Manner for which they [the members] are

so peculiarly noted ..."41 The club's hospitality, normally confined to its own number, was

enjoyed by all and sundry that day.

Naturally, get-togethers could only be truly enjoyable when everyone minded their manners. Thoughtful guests did their best to maintain a civil, easy atmosphere, especially in

small gatherings, which were probably more vulnerable to disagreements over games or bets than larger ones. "Here is a very pretty Collection of good Ladies," wrote Ann Pellet's correspondent in early 1746, "which with the help of the Clithero Ladies make a Plurality

of Card Tables ... each one Strives to outvie the other in civilities, all which makes things go on with great Harmony."42 The efforts of such considerate guests were rewarded, both in

39 Brailsford, A Taste for Diversions, 166. 40 Hampshire Record Office 181M84W/1; Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Services X202/22. Potables were evidendy a very important part of the George Inn Whist Club's meetings. In 1796, when the French wars had driven prices up, the club opted to meet less frequently rather than give up their wine. 41 Hampshire Record Office 181M84W/1. This generosity may have been a paternalistic display of care for the "Populace" by the wealthy men of the town; certainly the words "Masterly Manner" carry that connotation. Alternatively, it may merely have been a shrewd publicity move on the part of the members, perhaps an attempt to draw favourable attention to themselves and their business concerns. 42 Lancashire Record Office DDB Ac 7886/84. 69

the "Harmony" of the occasion and in the reputations they garnered as a result of their

civilities.

Mixed-sex gatherings often had an added sparkle, with cards as weapons in the

battle of the sexes or as an excuse for flirting. In seating themselves around a card table,

players were presented with opportunities to show themselves to best advantage: graceful

manners might be shown in helping a lady to sit, or a pair of pretty hands show up well as

the cards were played.43 A writer to The Rambler wondered whether card play was the result

of a conspiracy of "the Old, the Ugly, and the Ignorant, against the Young and Beautiful,

the Witty and Gay," as a means of levelling the flirtation playing field.44 Certainly some

players took advantage of their opportunities:

Peggy Pitches, who is the greatest little Coquet in Sussex, fixed her Eyes, & armed her dart, at Captain Fuller, - she smiled, tittered, lisped, languished, & played pretty all the Evening... when she found her litde graces ... unobserved, she began to set down her cards ... protesting she did not know how to play, & begging his advice ...45

The card party, frequendy gendered female in the contemporary press, appears in personal

accounts as very much a mixed-sex event.46

While spirited play was often a healthy tension-reliever, adversarial play could

certainly pose dangers to the tranquillity of a gathering; even in jest, war metaphors appeared in many writers' tales. "We battled it at Brag, and I was carried off amongst the

43 Mimi Hellman, '"Furniture, Sociability, and The Work of Leisure in Eighteenth Century France" Eighteenth- Century Studies 32:4 (1999), 427. 44 The Rambler 15 (8 May 1750). 45 Lars E. Troide (ed.), The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (Montreal: McGiD-Queen's University Press, 1988), III: 293. Emphases in original. 46 Vickery, Gentleman's Daughter, 208-209. Horace Walpole frequently connected card play with the female sex. For examples, see W. S. Lewis (ed.), The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), IX:238, XX:41, XXX:437. 70 wounded," wrote a guest after a particularly brisk encounter.47 For John Smith, the company was clearly more important than the money on the table:

26 December 1792 ... some misunderstanding between Smedley & me respecting a bet & therefore I ought not to bet at all or else be quite certain that the parties mutually apprehend the bet 2 January 1793 ... had an eclairissement with Smedley as to our betting when we met at Mrs Clapham's on the 26 of December.48

Smith's distress at the coolness with his friend was patent, as was his relief at its resolution.

Outright quarrels were less common, and often quite dramatic. A young James

Woodforde watched, appalled, as two friends fell out over a game of all fours:

Jan 18 [1776] ... Williams Sen1 and Jeffries played at all fours this evening in M. C. R. [Masters' Common Room, Oxford] They had very high words at last and Williams threw the cards in Jeffries' face, the whole pack, being in a very violent passion. They were both to blame ...49

Tactfully, Jeffries withdrew to his room, defusing the situation. Woodforde's distaste for unpleasantness in social situations reappeared many times in his diary over the ensuing years. Many middling writers echoed his aversion to tense scenes, emphasising the importance of polite and forbearing behaviour in company.

Rituals of card play

Though I feel exceedingly fatigued ... and not quite equal to giving you a brilliant account of our rout, I will endeavour to ... tell you about our gayety ... We borrowed some card tables from [friends] ... Mrs Lund lent some fishes and counters for cards ... there were 28 large wax candles in the drawing room

47 Houblon, The Houblon Family, 11:141. 48 Sheffield Record Office SpSt/60636/8, 9. 49 Beresford, Country Parson, 1:173. 71

& 8 card tables. As soon as dinner was over, all the tables, sideboard &c, & carpet were taken out, three patent lamps lighted & two fiddlers & tabor & pipe seated in a corner. Before seven o'clock, the [door] knocker began to move & continued in motion with litde rest for some hours ... As soon as a good many were assembled, the tea was taken in with buttered cakes, muffins &c ... [description of dancing and buffet supper] ... Whist, Cassino, and Loo was played ... Mrs Dring managed the card tables ...50

As engines of social ease and interaction, card games had much to recommend

them, which may explain their extraordinary staying-power as popular amusements. Many

games involve a good deal of interaction among players, and all present their participants

with a degree of pleasurable suspense and excitement, which yields to a cathartic release of

tension when the hand is complete. Within the rage for play that marked the eighteenth

century, some may have favoured particular games as being "the most fashionable Game of

Cards at present".51 As David Parlett remarks, however, the ultimate aim of card players in

a social environment is not winning, or scooping up the pool, but rather the give and take

of play among friends, the in-jokes, and the comfort of acting out the familiar rituals of

favourite games.52

In large gatherings, deciding who was to play with whom could be fraught with

difficulties. In 1794, Mrs Mary Yates [of Skirwith Abbey, Cumbria] recorded an

"extraordinary peice [sic] of altercation with Miss Waugh, about making [up] the Table, but at last she condescended to play, after behaving as impudently as no woman cd do ..."53

The obstreperous Miss Waugh seems to have resisted playing with certain other people.

Since no more was said, we can only speculate on whether she objected to their social

50 East Riding of Yorkshire Archives and Records Service, DDGR 43/32/9. 51 Beresford, Country Parson, 11:315. 52 Parlett, History of Card Games, 14. 53 Cumbria Record Office, Carlisle D AY 6/7. 72 standing, their personalities, or their habits at cards. Another card player made his objections to another player very personal, as recorded in the minute-book of the George

Inn Whist Club on 3 January 1793. "On the Election [as a member] of Mr Harry Green (of whose Nomination I was not apprised 'till this Evening, having been absent from the

Clubb) I withdraw my Name as a Member. — signed Geo. Hollis."54 Clearly Mr Hollis wanted his overt rejection of Mr Green's society to be recorded for all the club's members to see. Although he did not state his reasons for his withdrawal, such a pointed snub may have originated in a bad business deal or firsthand knowledge of some moral failing on the part of Mr Green. In either case, by removing himself publicly from the latter's social orbit,

Mr Hollis firmly and clearly disassociated himself from Mr Green and his reputation, whatever that might have been.

Whist and quadrille, two standards of social card play, were favourites of John

Salusbury, John Smith, and James Woodforde, all of whom played frequendy and won about half their recorded games.55 As these games required four players (or three, in the case of quadrille's three-handed variant, tredrille), they were by nature social games, often bringing players in from outside the household. By contrast, picquet was a two-hander, a favourite of courting couples.56 Cribbage had greater flexibility, and could be played by two, as the Woodfordes did, or by three or four. Larger groups might play at commerce, an easy-to-learn round game for up to twelve people, a natural for introducing children to both cards and the social world. Most of these lower-risk games had reputations to match:

Horace Walpole scoffed at whist as "an universal opium", while Dean Swift's wife called it

54 Hampshire Record Office 181M84W/1. 55 See Appendices 6, 7, and 9. The card-playing accounts of these three players are among the most complete in my sample. Other diarists noted amounts won or lost over short periods, while for others, only records of expenses (and not gains) are available. This is, of course, far too small a sample to imply any link between skillful whist and quadrille play and thorough record-keeping, but it bears noting nonetheless. 56 Parlett, History of Card Games, 25. 73

"the old sober family game".57 To John Smith, cribbage was "a Game I dislike and at which I have wretched luck".58

Games that took a long time to play made sense for parties that included dinner, tea, and often supper. Lengthy games had the added bonus of allowing enough time, when deciding stakes, for good sense to prevail over hasty instincts. As a result, most players lost less at these social games than they might at faster, more risky ones.59 Recognising the dangers of rapid-turnover games, George Hilton vowed "never to play at any game for above 2s and 6dye game ... never will I play at any quick game [such as] hazed [hazard] ..."60

More involved games such as whist and quadrille, with their complicated rules and their varying versions of play, also made cheating very difficult and kept the course of play running smooth.61

Riskier games generally dealt smaller hands to each player, and were played in larger groups. As a result, each player began the game with less information about the cards' distribution than they would have had, for example, in whist.62 This meant that chance played a greater role in the outcome of games such as loo, brag, and vingt-un, in which losses could mount quickly, than in skill-based games such as whist or cribbage. A stake was an essential part of brag; loo, even if played "low" or "limited", could be very cosdy, depending on the limit set and on the number of players.63 As a banking game, the

57 Lewis, Horace Walpole's Correspondence XVIII:124; Lilian Dickins and Man' Stanton (eds.), An "Eighteenth- Century Correspondence (London: John Murray, 1910), 29. 58 Sheffield Archives SpSt/60636/5. 39 Phyllis Diane Deutsch, "Fortune and chance: Aristocratic gaming and English society, 1760-1837" (unpublished New York University PhD dissertation, 1991), 52 n.104. 60 Cumbria Record Office, Kendal WD MM/Box 32. The author's identity is not entirely certain. 61 Deutsch, PhD dissertation, 52 n.104. The potential for cheating at whist is debatable: in a 1974 paper, M. M. McDowell discusses systems and methods of such skullduggery in some detail. See M. M. McDowell, "A Cursor}' View of Cheating at Whist in the Eighteenth Century" Harvard Library Bulletin 22:2 (1974), 162-175. 62 Parlett, History of Card Games, 70. 63 "Enquire Within," http://w^^.colourcomitn-.net/cgi-bin/fetchsec.py?raiige=: 113-116 31 July 2006; "Enquire Within," http://u^v.colourcountn-.net/cgi-bin/fetchsec.pT?range=95-100 26 May 2005; "Card odds in vingt-un were loaded against punters from the start64 All three of these higher-risk games were mentioned by our writers, frequendy in connection with unusually large outlays. Robert Hobbes found out, as Thomas Turner had, about a long stint at a risky game.

2 September [1800] drove Bro[the]r John home with me & we went to Gillibrands to supper & played at Van'une [vingt-un] till 12 oClock lost 16/- [16j- a substantial loss].65

Some of these riskier games involved less give and take between players, and were less socially oriented as a result66 It is probably no accident that the vast majority of card parties described by middling writers do not feature such games.

Activities for all

At 1 o'clock myself and Sister took a ride to Mr du Quesne it being his rotation and there we dined and spent a very agreeable day with him ... [and a long list of friends]... [Visitor] Mr Holkham is ... a very musical Man, plays well on the violin and therefore we had a Concert also. We had for dinner some Maccarel, a piece of Beef boiled, 3 Fowls rosted, and Bacon, with Tarts etc. We had after dinner vast quantities of Strawberries. At Quadrille this afternoon lost 0.1.0. ... My sister and self did not return to Weston till after 9.67

The weekly rotation club meeting had a happy addition that June day in 1778.

Besides the usual ample dinner, good fellowship, and card games, the company was treated

Games," http: / /www.pagat.com /vying/brag.html 31 August 2004; David Parlett, http://www.davidparlett.co.uk/histocs/loo.html 31 August 2004 64 Parlett, Histoiy of Card Games, 75-76. The house, after all, always wins. 65 Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Record Office ER 79/1. 66 Parlett, Histoiy of Card Games, 5. 67 Beresford, Country Parson, 1:229. 75 to music from the expert hands of Mr Holkham. In Parson Woodforde's account, we glimpse an agreeable picture: a group of people, gathered in a comfortable home for a day's enjoyment, all aspects of which were open to the entire group. To use a modern term, all of the entertainments on that occasion were plenary sessions, in which everyone had an opportunity to enjoy each activity in the midst of the whole company. This system of entertaining appears in many descriptions of home-based parties of the period.

Larger groups often found themselves divided between different social spaces, perhaps with card tables set out in one room and dancing taking place in another.68 We might say that these entertainments took place in parallel. Large Assembly Rooms could be divided by function without a need for physical division: card tables could be set out at one end of the room, and dancing take up the rest of the space. In effect, guests chose their company by the activity they selected, or contrariwise: in following a favourite into the card-room, a guest was committed to at least one game of cards. In making a choice, each person cast him- or herself in a certain light, which might become a label for future socialising. Jane Austen's heroine Emma deplores Mr Knighdey's reluctance to dance,

"classing himself with the husbands, and fathers, and whist-players, who were pretending to feel an interest in the dance till their rubbers were made up."69 Of course, people could and did move between activities and social spaces. Mrs Mary Yates wrote: "The [Assembly]

Room was ... very well filled dancd with Mr Irwin who was very drunk playd at Cards with

68 As relatively light and movable furniture, card tables could be used to create what Mimi Hellman calls "zones of activity": in a large group enjoying several activities at once, their placement determined the composition and arrangement of the participants. Moreover, she argues, each table dictates the posture and position of each player's body, forcing that body to act and move within the polite framework of civilised behaviour. Card tables, far from being inanimate objects, became "social actors," hosting leisure activity while restricting its movements. Gestures must remain small, lest the candlestick be knocked over, emotions must be contained, lest the polite standard of behaviour be violated. See Hellman, "Furniture, Sociability, and the Work of Leisure", 416-424. 69 Jane Austen, Emma (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1999), 218. 76 him Mr Scot and Mrs Redhead ..."70 This type of entertaining made things much easier for

the guest who preferred, for whatever reason, not to play at cards. No tables would be

spoilt by someone's sitting out, and no comments were made when a foursome "sat down

to Cribbage - The rest of the Company Talkers and Lookers on."71

Each system had its strengths, and most writers seem to have taken parties as they

found them. The plenary system, while perhaps allowing greater interaction among a larger company, did not allow the same freedom of choice, as music-lover Henry White found to his disgust at a New Year's Eve party in 1782. "Dined at Redenham with Mr and Mrs

Butcher; Chute Lodge family came to tea, Whist instead of Music, dreadful alternative.

Alas! alas!! alas!!!"72 On occasion, non-players succeeded in imposing their views on the company: "No Cards introduced, Mrs Howman not liking them."73 "Dutchess" Howman had already made herself notorious in Weston for her "consequential Airs"; now she was dictating the entertainment agenda for another host's party.74 Such unfortunate incidents highlighted the weakness of plenary entertaining.

70 Cumbria Record Office, Carlisle D AY 6/7 (26 August 1794). 71 Beresford, County Parson, III: 310. 72 Robert R. H. Clutterbuck (ed.), Notes on the Parishes ofFyfield, Kimpton, Penton Meivsey, Weyhill and Whermell, in the County of Hampshire (Salisbury: Bennet Brothers, 1898), 9. 73 Beresford, Country Parson, IV: 292. 74 Beresford, Country Parson, IV: 273. 77

Figure 5: An example of parallel amusements: "The Wanstead Assembly" William Hogarth, 1728-31. Within this large group, several different activities are being enjoyed at the same time. Courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art, The John Howard McFadden Collection, 1928.

The parallel system (see Figure 5) put more emphasis on the desires of the individual, potentially at the expense of the sociability of the whole group. It may, however, have made things easier for a harried host to manage, and probably yielded fewer grumbles from frustrated guests. Such a system may also have helped hosts to balance the needs of individuals with the demand for the overall success of the occasion, an especially tricky tightrope in large gatherings. This may explain why, as the eighteenth century drew to a close, this style of entertaining figured more and more in diary entries and letters.

However divided the company might have been over entertainments, everyone came together for refreshments. As Simon Varey remarks, the enjoyment of the "Pleasures of the Table" is such a quintessentially social activity that it almost seems too obvious to 78 mention.75 Nearly every single account of social card play at least mentions food or drink to some extent, confirming its essential role in eighteenth-century sociability. In sharing dishes and raising glasses, people spent time with friends and tightened the social web around their gatherings.

The most elaborate parties included dinner, which as the main meal of the day was an excellent opportunity for a host to set the tone for lengthy entertainments. Over the course of the eighteenth century, fashion pushed this centrepiece of hospitality from its original early-afternoon time to a later hour.76 Tea and coffee, as a result, were taken at a later time; card play might precede or follow dinner. Supper, by contrast, was almost an afterthought, often a cold selection of dinner leftovers enjoyed by late-stayers to cards.77

Tea and coffee were commonly served after a large meal, or guests could be invited for "Tea and Cards".78 Such abbreviated entertainments allowed hosts to enjoy friends' company with less planning, and posed fewer difficulties for guests. Although both tea- and card-parties had strong associations with women, many of our writers make clear the mixed-sex rota of both hosts and guests, without distinguishing between gender roles.79

Many hosts provided rather stronger beverage choices, and not all games were played in a state of strict sobriety:

We were very merry and pushed the Botde on very briskly. I gave my Company ... [lists dinner dishes] Madeira and Port

75 Simon Varev, "The Pleasures of the Table" in Pleasure in the Eighteenth Century ed. Roy Porter and Marie Mulvey Roberts (London: Macmillan Press, 1996), 37. 76 For a discussion on fluctuating mealtimes over the eighteenth century, the interested reader is referred to Dan Cruikshank and Neil Burton's Life in the Georgian City (London: Viking, 1990), 29-30; also Christina Hole, English Home Life, 1500 to 1800 (London: B.T. Batsford, 1947), 108-109. 77 Beresford, Country Parson, 111:182-3; Derek Jarrett, England in tbeAg of Hogarth (London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1974), 167. Cruikshank and Burton note that supper was treated as optional; the Rotation Club of Weston specifically left supper off the list of the host's obligations. See Cruikshank and Burton, Life in the Georgian City, 45 and Beresford, Country Parson, 1:198. 78 Fiske, Oakes Diaries, 1:268. 79 Vickery, Gentleman's Daughter, 209. 79

Wine to drink after and at dinner some strong Beer, Cyder, Ale and small Beer ... [his friends] supped and stayed with me till after one. Mr Hindley, Dr Burrows, Mr Bowerbank and myself got to Cards after coffee ... After supper I gave them to drink some Arrac Punch with Jellies in it and some Port wine. I made all my Company but Dr West quite merry ... I carried of my drinking exceedingly well indeed.80

Not yet the parson of Weston Longeville, James Woodforde treated his friends to a good deal of food and drink — especially drink — that July Wednesday in 1774. "We drank 8 botdes of Port one bottle of Madeira besides Arrac Punch, Beer and Cyder," he noted, relishing his role as the generous host Nor was this amount of drink unusual for the period. At eighteenth-century dinners, with their various courses and the lengthy time spent in toasts after eating, a large intake was the norm, and was commonly associated with good humour, even honesty, in a man.81 In this entry of Woodforde's and in another from

1776, the word "merry" is an obvious euphemism for "drunk".82 This word appears in several diaries of the period. A young student wrote, "Playd at whist till nine - began to grow noisy ... at that most noble game calld Brag was pretty succesful we were very merry — came home at one ..." The next day he noted "a most shocking head-ach".83

Although these instances of card play in the midst of many bottles were most likely male-only events, other accounts refer to free-flowing drink in mixed-sex gatherings.

80 Beresford, Country Parson, 1:136-137. 81 Roy Porter, "The Drinking Man's Disease: The Tre-History' of Alcoholism in Georgian Britain" British Journal of Addiction 80 (1985), 386. Women, by contrast, were warned against drink in the strongest terms: "where a woman suffers her Thoughts to be disordered, her Time taken up, and her Reputation injured for the Sake of so short, so trifling a Pleasure ... it is simply impossible that she should ... prove a good Wife, a good Mother, or a good Woman, in that Station where Providence has placed her." See A Present for Women Addicted to Drinking. Adapted to All the different Stations of Life, from a Lady of Quality to a Common Servant (London: W. Owen, 1750), 29-30. 82 Beresford, Country Parson, 1:175. 83 Cheshire and Chester Archives and Local Studies Service DMD/N/4/5. No year or month is available for this short diary fragment; however, unusual phrases used in both this fragment and the 1792 diary of Daniel Vawdreyjr (DMD/N/1/7) suggest that he was very probably the mysterious 'Oxford undergraduate' in the CCALS listings for DMD/N/4/5. 80

Thomas Turner wrote unhappily of an all-night January party where "There was not one sober man in the company. I am sure I was not... I know of no reason except, being in liquor, my wife and I lost at brag between us near or quite 5J."84 From this entry, it is not clear whether Turner's wife was also indulging; even if none of the four women present had drunk a drop, the six men were clearly not inhibited by their presence. In theory, at least, women were considered to have a restraining effect on the behaviour of men. "The Society of the Ladies does a great deal of good," wrote William Holland in 1807. "It regulates and refines the men and keeps them from drunkenness and makes them decent and affable in their manners."85

The innocuous-sounding word "merry", in these cases and others, suggests that the writers felt the need to downplay their consumption of strong waters and its physical and moral effects. These tales, however, represent a tiny minority, as might be expected given the period's general acceptance of drinking that would be considered heavy by today's standards. Many more accounts of social card play mention alcoholic intake only in passing or make no reference to it at all, and none of our writers attribute unpleasant behaviour at cards to over-indulgence. It seems probable that wine and ale were a necessary background part of carding sociability, causing few eruptions and leading to nothing more lasting than a wretched morning after or an apology to a fellow guest.86

84 Vaisey, Thomas Turner, 23. 85 Ayres, Paupers and Pig Killers, 151. 86 As with cards themselves, alcoholic beverages were so common an aspect of eighteenth-century social life that many writers may have taken their presence for granted and thus failed to mention them. 81

Poor sports, bad company

An evening over the green baize is only as pleasant as the company will allow it to

be, and not everyone behaved well under the tensions of card play. Games, with their

many demands on the mind and the spirits, seem to have brought out the worst in some

players; others took their tiresome habits to new levels as they pondered their next moves.

Some pressured their friends to play games they disliked. All posed a threat to easy

sociability, and all were facts of carding life.

Even the most intensely silent game must end at some point, and the relief of

light chat between rubbers or games, or over tea, must have been welcome. Some poor

souls, however, just were not good company and spoilt their fellows' play. Betsy Sheridan,

filling in for her busy sister-in-law at whist, was quickly driven from the table: "I sat down

to the first rubber but was so worried [irritated] with Mrs Linley's incessant prate at the end

of it I deputed Tom to play for me."87 Some players inclined to the opposite extreme, being excessively dull. For John Smith, playing cribbage to amuse his mother's friends was bad enough, but when those friends proved to be "tedious and stupid" company, it was too much to bear. "[D]in'd with my Mother; met Mrs & Miss Adams. - they staid Tea & we bor'd over four hundred Cribbage."88 Perhaps the most crashing bore of all was the hapless Mr Reid: "Mr Reid call'd in the Ev[enin]g... thought he would never have gone, & was the cause of my losing one rubber agst Mr C Clapham."89

87 LeFanu, Betsy Sheridan, 122. 88 Sheffield Archives SpSt/60636/6. 89 Sheffield Archives SpSt/60636/9. It is not clear from this entry whether Mr Reid was actually playing cards when he 'caused' Smith's loss: he could merely have been a looker-on, or the party might have been waiting for his departure before beginning play. In either event, poor Mr Reid was probably not pressed to stay. 82

The novice presented a different problem for experienced players. They all remembered their own beginnings and wished to encourage the neophyte, but the frequent missteps and explanations that trailed after a new player slowed the game and broke the rhythm of the party. Truly poor players were even worse: unimaginative, reckless, or merely silly play was anathema to the expert, who took the game seriously and could not bear to see it treated with scant respect John Baker refused to prolong his agony at

Shergold's Rooms: "[W]hist - Messrs. Wade, Tooke, Gov[ernor] Carter ... and I. The latter played so slow I would not play a 2nd rubber."90 The inveterate whist-player, John

Smith, did not hesitate to blame his partners' poor play for losses:

17 November [1790] I went to Dodds ... play'd 3 rubbers. Lost... the 3d, which I ought to have won twice over a bumper only for Dodds eccentricity.91 17 March [1791] Evg Cards Mrs Ellis play'd two rubbers both of which I lost the last most decidedly by Dr Morris's bad play ...92

Mr Smith almost certainly kept his feelings to himself, but not every player was so scrupulous:

22 Oct [1729] Monday at Night went to Mr Nutons and playd at Loo ... I gave [Mr Nuton] my cards to play he flung my Nave [knave, or Jack] away and so Losst my game I was Anry with him I tallkt watt a nasty trick it was and I went away in a Huff ...93

For some serious card buffs, good play evidendy trumped good manners.

Then there were the poor sports: those who could not lose gracefully, or who behaved badly no matter what cards they held. In February 1753, right in the middle of the

90 Yorke, John Baker, 219. 91 Sheffield Archives SpSt/60636/6 92 Sheffield Archives SpSt/60636/7 93 William Salt Library, Stafford MS 2/41 /42 fols 22v-82v. The knave of clubs was a particularly valuable card in loo, so the writer's disgust is perhaps somewhat understandable. 83

card-playing season, The World published a cutting commentary on the manners of poor

losers at whist, who "burst forth into sallies of fretful complaints of their own amazing ill-

fortune, and the constant and invariable success of their antagonists!" The male and female

of this unfortunate species were dubbed 'Growlers' and 'Fretterers' respectively. As an

example of this behaviour, the author quoted conversation between two Fretterers,

overheard in Thames-Street:

Fretterer 1 ... I believe, madam, you never lost a game in the whole course of your life. Fretterer 2 Now and then, madam. F1 I beg your pardon, madam; I thought the cloven-hoofed gendeman had left off teaching. Pray, madam, would he expect more than one's soul for half a dozen lessons? F2 You are pleased to be severe madam; but you know I am not easily put out of temper. What's the trump?

(The calm lady (F2) then suffered a reversal of fortune, and of temper.]

F2 And now, madam ... is it you or I who have bargained with the devil? I declare it upon my honour, I never won a game against you in my life ... But one has a fine time on't indeed! to be always losing, and yet always to be baited for winning!... But I did not fret and talk of the devil, madam ... nor did I trouble the company with my losings, nor play the after-game; nor say provoking things - No, madam; I leave such things to ladies that — F1 Lord! my dear, how you heat yourself! You are absolutely in a passion. Come, let us cut for partners.94

Effective satire was always based on recognisable characters and situations, and no doubt

the World essay would have made East Hoathly players smile wryly. Of all diarist-players,

Thomas Turner probably best deserved the tide of 'Growler', at least in the pages of his

diary. Although his accounts do not bear this out, he seems to have regarded himself as

most unfortunate at cards: "We played at brag in the even and according to custom my wife

94 The World 1 (15 February 1753). The writer was careful to point out that the players he was discussing were not playing for high stakes in gaming-den situations, but rather in social situations for modest sums. 84

and I lost 2s. IOV2d... O cruel fortune!"95 Sometimes the best cure for bad behaviour was

pre-emptive. Visiting relatives in the country, Dudley Ryder met one poor loser who had

decided on the best way of keeping her composure:

Friday, 16 Sept [1715] ... We played at whisk. [My cousin's] wife is mighty apt to fret upon the having ill cards and losing and says herself she cannot bear to lose, and therefore does not care to play.96

In sacrificing her amusement to the ease and comfort of her guests, Ryder's cousin-by-

marriage epitomised the gracious eighteenth-century hostess.

Forced Play: social pressures

Not all players sat down to cards with the same enthusiasm, or even voluntarily.

In September 1753, a how-I-spent-my-summer-vacation letter appeared in Issue 36 of The

World. Signed "Rusticus", it was supposedly written by a man who had visited friends in

the country, and who had been sorely disappointed to find

that whenever I walked out I must walk alone; and even then was sure to be reproached; in the afternoon, for rising before the bottle was out; and in the evening, for breaking a set at cards! The former part of my conduct disobliged the men, and the latter offended the ladies ... hardly could I contemplate the view from the terrass [sic], before miss Kitty would come running out to tell me that the RUBBERS was UP, and that it was my turn to CUT IN ...97

The unhappy "Rusticus" had discovered what a number of unfortunate guests were to realise: their role was partly to amuse and interest their hosts or fellow-guests, and not necessarily the reverse. Dragged unwillingly from sylvan delights or pressed to play for

95 Vaisey, Thomas Turner, 199 (emphasis mine). In fact, according to the diary as edited by Vaisey, Turner won at cards more often than not See Appendix 8. 96 William Matthews (ed.), The Diary of Dudley Ryder, 1715-1716 (London: Methuen & Co., 1939), 99. 97 The World 36 (6 September 1753). 85 higher stakes than they were comfortable with, these suffering souls yielded, for the most part, to the demands of their more forceful friends. While this brand of selfishness may not have been the norm, enough complaints from the put-upon survive to suggest that it was a wide-spread expectation.

In the time-honoured tradition of the unmarried daughter of the family, Betsy

Sheridan was often called on to make up a table.98 The social scene at Bath only increased this pressure: "The whole Evening has been sacrificed to quadrille and I am sleepy and weary," she yawned in her letter-journal for 1 July 1786.99 Since some games required a set number of players, she was frequendy asked to make a table. She soon learned, however, to make such pressure work two ways:

I stroll'd into the Garden for a litde air and there was pursued by Bogle who swore I must and should play quadrille with him so I was forced to go in and play till ten. I thought it best to comply as I shall probably want his assistance at the card table much oftener than he can want mine.100

Another holidaying lady, Mrs Mary Yates, found to her disappointment that she was not to be allowed to enjoy the seaside delights of Allenby.101 Forced to spend time in the tedious company of fellow house-guests, she decided that living well was the best revenge:

1 Oct won their Money again at Vingtune 2 Oct these women prevented my reading... or doing any thing, I wishd, in the afternoon, playd with them at Cards, and again won their Money in the Evening ...102

98 Davidoff and Hall, ¥ amity Fortunes, 347. 99 LeFanu, Betsy Sheridan, 90. 100 LeFanu, Betsy Sheridan, 94. 101 Mrs Yates does not give the location of "Allenby", and I have been unable to discover its whereabouts. However, from her diary entries, it is clearly a seaside resort town. Cumbria Record Office, Carlisle D AY 6/7. 102 Cumbria Record Office, Carlisle D AY 6/7. 86

A particularly unhappy situation arose in the Vale of White Horse when Parson George

Woodward103 took in a boarder, Mrs Price. Confusing her role as paying tenant with that of

a house guest, he and his wife expected her to keep them company; for the Woodwards,

this meant playing cards of an evening.

Mrs. Price ... is a very good woman, but does not much contribute to Society ... [she is] no great lover of company; and not at all given to any sorts of amusements, such as cards ... so that at present we have not that enjoyment in her, as we expected, by way of an additional companion.

Mrs Price turned out to be impossible to please, and Mr Woodward soon gave her notice to

make other living arrangements. In her efforts to change his mind, she became, very

abrupdy, more sociable. Having heard Mr Woodward say "that [he] didn't like people who would not play a game at whist," she made clumsy attempts to learn to play whist and

picquet. Mr Woodward scoffed at her "qualifying herself for society" and held to his

decision, considering himself "a loser by my experiment of a boarder."104

Pressure to play outside one's comfort zone was another unpleasantness that some guests had to bear. For Thomas Turner, "grieve[d] ... to lose so much money," it was

one more incentive to dislike the post-Christmas revels. Having just lost 3s Id, a relatively large loss by his standards, he grumbled: "Suppose a game of cards innocent of itself, yet the consequences cannot be so if... fortune should run against any one at play, that he lose more than his income will allow of." Turner's biggest wins and losses alike arose from play at friends' homes: were the stakes higher, or was the pressure more intense?105 His hosts

103 Not to be confused with Parson James Woodforde of Weston Longeville in Norfolk. 104 Donald Gibson (ed.), A Parson in the Va/e of White Horse: George Woodward's Letters from East Hendred, 1753- 1761 (Gloucester. Alan Sutton, 1982), 122,126-127. Mr Woodward found that others "who knew more of her than we did ... don't at all wonder at our not liking to keep her, they are only surprised that she ever came here at all..." (Gibson, 126) 105 See Appendix 8. 87 were probably not motivated by greed; Turner himself acknowledged that "we game more for to pass away time than for thirst for gain."106 The thrill of the higher stake may have been too much for Turner's friends to resist

Ladies found themselves imposed upon in the same way, and some felt that a

"thirst for gain" was alive and well at card parties. Writing to a friend, one woman described her mistress' dilemma:

... Ladies as well as Gendemen seems to mind little eles [sic] but Down Right Gaming and the Mercenary itch is so strong on 'em that a Moderate Lady can scarcely come att a Shilling Party not above once in a Moon even than with the utmost Difficulty so that my Mist:[ress] is but Little engag'd with the Beau Monde ...

In a postscript she added:

My Mist obliges me to tell you Madm that tho: I have given her the above Character [of a careful player] yet she was Drawn in the other night to a private party att Whist to lose three and twenty Shillings in a very little time which she thought too Large a sum to engage often in ...107

Mrs Philip Lybbe Powys managed to resist the importunings of her elegant friends, who had mustered "two tables at loo, one quinze, one vingt-une, many whist."

The loo tables, in particular, saw "large sums pass'd and repass'd ... They wanted Powys

[her husband] and I to play at low loo', as they term'd it, but we rather chose to keep our features less agitated than those we saw around us „."108 Arms were also twisted when choosing games: rank novices could be pressured into betting on a game "where chance was the only principle [and the game] could require but little skill," so even a neophyte

106 Vaisey, Thomas Turner, 199-200. Turner's comment supports Chapter Four's argument that greed was not the social player's motivation. 107 Lancashire Record Office DDB Ac 7886/267. 108 Emily Climenson, Passages from the Diaries of Mrs Philip Lybbe Pouys of Hardwick House, Oxon. AD 1756 to 1808 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1899), 186. 88 might play at no disadvantage.109 Although this breathtakingly flimsy justification for playing the riskiest games in one's gaming infancy comes from a novel, enough evidence survives from court cases to lend it the echo of truth.

On the surface, Thomas Turner's comment "nor would I ever play, was it not upon the account of being sneered at by the company" seems simple enough: no one likes to be scorned as a stick-in-the-mud or a tightfisted killjoy.110 On another level, however, we get the impression that Turner was not merely forestalling future sneers, but was acting to dispel the fallout from past scorn. If that was the case, his participation in New Year's revels and his extensive community involvement may have been geared to ensuring that his business would not be adversely affected by his reluctance to join in the fun. His fears for his shop were clearly stated in his journal; he may have hoped to shore up trade by involving himself in the social life of East Hoathly.

Turner's rationale for playing cards highlights a problem that a number of players faced, especially in public settings. Serious peer pressure could raise the social stakes by threatening a reluctant player with exclusion from a clique or class.111 Potentially, more than membership in a group was on the table: the risk of losing larger sums and of being trapped in illegal situations could compound a player's dilemma. Such players pleaded "the

Example of others", which may have been more an excuse after the fact than a goad at the time of play.112

109 Hannah More, The Gamblers or the Treacherous Friend: A. Moral Tale (London: Spence and Coull, 1824), 55-56. 110 Vaisey, Thomas Turner, 199. 111 It is, perhaps, coincidental that my examples all come from (or refer to) male players. 112 Hull City Archives DMI/1/95. 89

Cards, conversation, and sociability

What charms [can] possibly be found to make [play] preferable to innocent mirth and good conversation ... cards put an end to all good conversation, and sometimes to friendship; they promote anxiety, raise, and inflame our worst passions ... whereas conversation refines the understanding ...m

Over the course of the eighteenth century, the middling preoccupation with

genteel behaviour meant an increasing attention to the art of conversation. The emphasis

placed on pleasing one's host or guests with easy, intelligent talk can be traced back to The

Spectator and The Guardian and their efforts to lift English civilisation to a higher plane.114

Through judicious choice of reading materials and careful selection of congenial and genteel company, the best sort of conversationalist would produce a more thoughtful, better educated society, which could only benefit the nation.115 Conversation was expected

to take place in social settings, which gradually moved from public spaces such as the coffee house or club, dominated by men, to the private or social space of the drawing room or the tea table. These spaces permitted the participation of women, whose roles as hostess, restraining and civilising influence, and conversationalist were bound to have an impact on any discussion. For any given party, however, the difficulty was that there was only so much social time available. Was that time to be given over solely to cards, to conversation, or could the two co-exist?

113 London Magazine 49 (October 1780), 453, "Essay on Gaming". 114 Brian Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 237-238. 115 Lawrence Klein, "Coffeehouse Civility, 1660-1714: An Aspect of Post-Courtly Culture in England" Huntington Library Quarterly 59:1 (1997), 48; John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1997), 38. 90

This question became a hot topic with the rise of the Bluestockings, a group of intelligent, well-educated ladies who shared their collective name with Hannah Mote's 1787 poem The Bas Bleu: or, Conversation.116 More explained that Bluestocking gatherings were

"composed of persons distinguished, in general, for their rank, talents, or respectable character, who met frequendy ... for the sole purpose of conversation, and were different in no respect from other parties, but that the company did notplay at cards."111 The Bluestocking goal was to encourage a salon culture in England, in which enlightened members of both sexes would enjoy stimulating discussions on a wide range of topics.118 This culture was established in explicit and diametric opposition to card playing and gaming.119 For the

Bluestockings, sociability was both a means and an end, and they viewed cards as inimical to true social interaction: "We pass the pleasures vast and various/Of Routs, not social, but gregarious."120

Elizabeth Montagu, one of the original Bluestockings, wrote in 1766:

The great duty of conversation is to follow suit, as you do at whist If the eldest hand plays the deuce of diamonds, let not his neighbour dash down the king of hearts, because his hand is full of honours. I do not love to see a man of wit win all the tricks in conversation, nor yet to see him sullenly pass.121

Mrs Montagu's use of a carding metaphor to further the cause of conversation suggests the uphill struggle those ladies faced. Other voices joined the debate, arguing that cards and

1,6 There are many theories and tales concerning the origin of the term "Bluestocking"; even contemporaries were not entirely certain of its true beginnings. 117 http://wwu?.english.upenn.edu/~curran/250-96/Seiisibilin,/morebas.htinl 17 February 2006, "Advertisement" (emphasis mine). 118 Brian Dolan, Ladies of the Grand Tour. British Women in "Pursuit of Enlightenment and Adventure in Eighteenth- Century Europe (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 255. 119 Sarah Pittock, "Bluestocking Culture: English literary Women's Reading, Letter Writing, and Sociability, 1745-1785" (unpublished University of Colorado PhD thesis, 2001), 220. 120 http://www.enghsh.upenn.edu/~curran/250-96/Sensibihty/morebas.html 17 February 2006, lines 162- 163. 121 John Doran (ed.), A lady of the last century (Mrs Elizabeth Montagu): illustrated in her unpublished letters (London: Richard Bendey & Son, 1873), 146. 91 conversation were mutually exclusive, with the former destructive to the latter. Among the venerable sources quoted was Charles Cotton, seventeenth-century author of The Compleat

Gamester, who explained the name of a highly popular card game as being "called Whist from the silence that is to be observed in the play".122 Author Fanny Bumey, hovering at the edge of the Bluestocking circle, was delighted by a gathering she attended in 1776:

We stayed till near 11 o'clock, & had neither Cards, music or Dancing. It was a true Conversation... when we took leave, my Father told Mrs Ord that... he knew 2 or 3 Houses [emphasis in original] even in those times, where Company could be entertained & got together merely by conversation, unassisted by Cards, &c.123

122 Charles Cotton, The Compleat Gamester (London: Henry Brome, 1676), 116. Although this "obvious guess" of Cotton's has been debated and effectively refuted, the mutual exchzsiveness of cards and sociable interaction was firmly established in the minds of many eighteenth-century writers. See Parlett, History of Card Games, 217-218. 123 Troide, Fanny Burney, 11:203. Figure 6: "The Du Cane and Boehm Family Group" (detail), Gawen Hamilton, 1734-5. Photograph by the author. Copyright Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Figure 6, a detail from "The Du Cane and Boehm Family Group", also connotes the mutual incompatibility of cards and serious conversation or thought. Notice the man with his back to the two gaming tables, obviously studying the carving on the urn before him. He may be deep in a discussion with the man to his right about the merits of art, or the work of an artist, or even the scene depicted on the urn. His plain dress and refusal to wear the full-bottomed wig of the man in vogue indicate his disdain for the highest forms of fashion in dress; his turned back rejects the shallow, frivolous nature of the fashion for cards.

A 1783 tract fretted that players missed out on the joys of conversation and the intellectual stimuli it provided: "all the advantage and pleasure (whatever they be) of 93

Conversation, are entirely lost by a Person during the time he is actually engaged ... in

Play."124

For some, conversation was overrated:

I look upon cards as an innocent and useful amusement; calculated to interrupt the formal conversations and private cabals of large companies, and to give a man something to do, who has nothing to say.125

To others, a middle road beckoned:

it is the abuse rather than the use of enjoyments that render them injurious; and if Cards were restrained, so as to become our servants, and we not slaves to them, they might be made subservient to the pleasures of social intercourse.126

This discussion turned on the question of sociability itself: what constituted sociable behaviour? Can card playing be regarded as sociable? Hilmi Ibrahim argues that it at least allows for sociability, especially when it takes place within a recreational setting and among friends.127 For several writers, the card play/sociability link was clear and unequivocal. Mrs

Elizabeth Longsdon wrote to her son in the busy Christmas season: "we find time ... to play a Rubber, I think we have not missed five evenings since Mr Wissmann was with us [two weeks ago] — this will prove to you, we are sociable with our neighbours ..."128 John Smith's diary entry for 12 September 1792 is more explicit on the cards-conversation juxtaposition.

At his friend Dr Vincent's, playing a marathon seven rubbers at whist, he commented that

"the Conversation [was] not without meaning, and very pleasant ..."129 Even if the conversation took place between rubbers — a seven-rubber night was an unusually long

124 Richard Hey, A Dissertation on the Pernicious Effects of Gaming (Cambridge: J Archdeacon, 1783), 29. 125 The World7 (15 February 1753). 126 John Coakley Lettsom, Hints Addressed to Card Parties (London: C Dilly, 1798), 8-9. 127 Hilmi Ibrahim, Leisure and Society: A Comparative Approach (Dubuque, Iowa: William C Brown Publishers, 1991), 246-248. 128 Derbyshire Record Office GB 026 D3580/C257. 129 Sheffield Archives SpSt/60636/8. session, even for this inveterate player — this is an indication that worthwhile conversation

could, and did, take place at card parties.

Card games do, of course, require a certain amount of concentration, which tends

to limit discussion while the hand or rubber is actually being played; what interaction does occur is generally restricted to those at the same table. Erving Goffman calls this sort of encounter focussed interaction, and while he cites both cards and conversation as good examples of such gatherings, combining the two might pose logistical problems.130

However, while acknowledging the fact that any focussed activity walls the participant off from outside influences — such as the absorbed bridge player who does not notice his wine glass being refilled — Goffman also regards the game environment as a social micro-world in itself, populated by the other players at the table.131

Were cards a sociable activity in the truest sense? It seems that they were, but within limits: each person's interaction was tighdy focussed within the group in which they played, even (more tighdy) within the partnership (if applicable) in which they played. At the end of a rubber or a game, the kaliedoscope was turned, new patterns were formed and new interactions began. Probably not all were equally successful but that is a hazard in any social gathering. Another important point is that cards were rarely the sole reason for getting together, so people had plenty of opportunities for "unfocussed interactions" as

Goffman calls them, when people cast their net wider and talked across groups, grouped and re-grouped, enjoyed plenary entertainments and refreshments in a larger and less structured context.132

130 Erving Goffman, Encounters (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1961), 7,18. 131 Goffman, Encounters, 25,27. 132 Goffman, Encounters, 7. 95

Conclusion

Card games were a ubiquitous, fashionable, and fundamentally sociable part of eighteenth-century hospitality, and served many useful functions within the framework of

food and drink, invitations, and seating plans. If they also posed certain hazards to sociability, those were problems that contemporary hosts and guests knew about and were prepared to deal with or work around. The overall picture that arises of play within hospitable settings is of low-stakes, relaxed, companionable play. In addition, it becomes clear that middling card play was quite different from the dangerous vice so vilified in the public press. Satirists, moralists and editorial writers drew on extreme examples of the reckless play of aristocrats to portray cards and gaming as threats to the stability of both social hierarchy and family life. Instead, in the hands of the middle classes, card play emerges as a means of forming and reinforcing social and commercial-professional bonds, as well as furthering mixed-sex sociability in an easy atmosphere. Of course, no bet is a sure thing, and in the next chapter, we will address the ways in which these players managed the risks they took — and the ways in which they reacted when they failed, often spectacularly, so to do. 96

Chapter Four

Saying When: Risk management at work and at play

... the Situation of our Country inclines us to Commerce, and the Genius of our People determines them to Play. The Merchant often risks his whole Effects in one Bottom [ship- load], and the Gendeman often hazards all his Estate upon one Rubber [of cards] ... their Designs are the same, equally tending to advance their Family, and to serve their Country.1

The trading classes of eighteenth-century England knew all about risk. When a

merchant saw one of his ships off on a voyage to the Indies or to South America, he never

knew whether, or in what condition, it would return, nor what price he could fetch for the

goods it brought. Maritime insurance was still in its infancy and business liability unlimited.

Risk was an unpredictable constant. Accepting the many unknowns of trade and

professional practice alike, the middle classes knew that without taking some chances their

prosperity would founder, their economy stagnate. Risk had brought England to her status

as a trading nation; the only way to maintain and expand her wealth was to continue to dare

the deeps.

Why, then, would these people bring risk into their time away from the shop and

the office? When the dinner was eaten and the drawing-room fire lit, what was the appeal

of playing games for money? Was it really a natural choice for these industrious people to

risk their hard-earned cash at cards, or were they rebelling against their customary caution?

And why would they need to play for money at all? Gaming took many forms in the

eighteenth century, some of them of dubious legality; did the middling sort take their chances with the sharpers?

1A Modest Defense of Gaming (London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1754), 18-19. 97

A Means to an End: Risk in the workaday world

Commerce has always been a risky venture, rife with variables and unknowns, a ship at the mercy of sudden and often mysterious forces.2 From the outset of a tradesman's career, potential pitfalls yawned before him: how large a shop to keep? How much stock, and of what quality, should fill its shelves? How much credit should be extended to buyers, and how large a loan should be sought to cover start-up costs? Each of these questions, and all the others that went along with them, could determine the course of the fledgling business and the prosperity of its owner; each choice carried its own load of risk. Similar decisions confronted newly-qualified professionals, particularly those setting up in practice on their own. Could clients of a neighbouring law practice be approached without endangering one's professional ties? Could a young physician afford to keep a coach? Could he afford not to?3 As Margaret Hunt argues, the middle classes faced probably the highest financial risks of any group in eighteenth-century England, unprotected by entailed family estates yet responsible for managing and increasing their personal- and business-based credit. The grim possibility of business failure kept every businessman and his family on a knife edge: "the Tradesman is never safe while he is in

Trade", warned Defoe.4

2 Roy Porter, English Society in the Eighteenth Century (London: Penguin Group, 1991), 81. 3 Risk-averse behaviour - inaction through caution, for example — can be just as 'risky' as overly bold actions. Although the word 'risk' now carries negative connotations, it originally referred to either type, of outcome, favourable or the reverse. See William Leiss and Christina Chociolko, Risk and Responsibility (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994), 4-5 and Mary Douglas, Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural Theory (London: Roudedge, 1992), 23-24. 4 Margaret R. Hunt, The Middling Sort Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England 1680-1780 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 43; Daniel Defoe, The Compete English Tradesman in Familiar Letters (New York: Augustus M Kelley, 1969), 11:175 98

To a point, then, risk and business were close companions. Any business

decision carried the potential for trouble; the key was to keep that potential to a minimum

by knowing the market and one's place within it.5 However, beyond that magic tipping-

point, too much money could be tied up in unsellable stock, too many uncollectable credit

notes issued, or too many risky side investments made. To contemporaries, undue risk was

a major cause of business failure in the eighteenth century: over-extending oneself was

often the last mistake a businessman got the chance to make.6

5 Julian Hoppit, Risk andFmlure in English Business 1700-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 170. 6 Hoppit, Risk and Failure, 164. In his Complete English Tradesman (1727), Daniel Defoe warned against "trading beyond one's stock and giving too large credit", which together he called "over-trading." For Defoe, "credit is a stock as well as money," and its loss could do more harm than reckless spending. See Defoe, Compete English Tradesman, 1:59, 336. 99

Figure 7: "British Commerce" Benjamin West, 1791. The world spreads its treasures at Britannia's feet, while in the background, merchant ships ply the seas to continue British prosperity. Courtesy of the A. M. Brown Memorial Library, Brown University.

As England's mercantile trade began to burgeon in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, strategies for keeping business risks under control began to coalesce into what are today called middle-class values.7 In an age of unlimited liability, when absolute ruin was always a possibility for the merchant classes, these men sought security from the debtor's prison in reputations for honesty and hard work. These were the twin pillars of good credit, which in turn made a man's business into a sound investment for potential investors and sources of cash loans, which were often crucial in tiding out short-

7 Nicholas Rogers, "The Middling Orders" in A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Britain ed. H. T. Dickinson (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 175. 100 term financial crises.8 Contemporary writers urged merchants to strive for profit while staying on the safe side of investment security was the watchword, comfortable gains the goal.9 By the late eighteenth century, the tradesman had become a powerful metaphor for caution and risk-avoidance, held up in contrast with the wicked recklessness of "the

Gamester [who] has the appearance of seeking the Risque for its own sake."10

Even so, the parallels between gambles in business and gambles at the card table were obvious to eighteenth-century writers. "Where is the Difference," demanded an anonymous author, "between the Gamester that trafficks with his Stock at home, and the

Merchant that spends it abroad on foreign Ventures?"11 With increasing trade, more tradesmen became wealthy; some applied their gains to riskier investments that operated outside the usual trading rules. These men (and some women) were a new and daring breed: the speculators.12

Upping the Ante: Stock speculation as gaming

Over and above the everyday risks of the mercantile and professional world, more and more wealth found its way into the nascent stock market Beginning in the 1680s in the coffee-houses of 'Change Alley, private investment in shares of foreign ventures such as the East India Company and newly-invented technologies such as the Convex Lights

8 Defoe, Complete English Tradesman, 1:346. Defoe warned that "credit is a coy mistress ... she is a mighty nice touchy Lady, and is soon affronted; if she is ill used she flies at once, and 'tis a very doubtful thing whether ever you gain her favour again." Defoe, Complete English Tradesman, 1:344. 9 Hoppit, Risk and Failure, 170. 10 Richard Hey, A Dissertation on the Pernicious Effects of Gaming (Cambridge: J. Archdeacon, 1783), 17. 11A Modest Defense of Gaming, 18-19 (emphasis in original). 12 Gerda Reith, The Age of Chance: Gambling in Western Culture (London: Roudedge, 1999), 59. Although the term "speculator" could conceivably be used to refer to an investor in any business concern, I am using it as the eighteenth century commonly used it, as an investor in stocks of publicly-traded companies. 101

Company burst onto the London financial scene.13 Shares in these and many other new companies combined a whiff of foreign mystery with the possibility of enormous returns.14

While some of these ventures were legitimate, many others were mere fronts for quick money-making schemes. As a result, the spectre of vast losses hovered at the elbows of speculators, who frequendy based investment decisions on incomplete or unreliable but plausible information, and who often strained their credit to the breaking point to borrow to purchase shares. If prices tumbled, these rash souls stood to lose not only their money but their credit, ultimately the more difficult to recoup.15 Little wonder that many regarded speculation as "only another term for high gambling," an inversion of the Calvinist ethic of honest pay for hard work at a worthy calling.16 Speculation, with its promises of individual gain, sat in diametric opposition to more conventional work, which stimulated the economy and promoted the prosperity of the nation and the good of its people.17

The comparison between speculation and deep play was an obvious one, relentlessly pounded home by moralists and satirists alike. "Our falling citizen," stormed

Charles Moore in his Treatise on Gaming, "[who] deludes and imposes on others ... [in] the hope of large gains from this 'authorised' species of gambling often ... engages deep and

13 Edward Chancellor, Devil Take the Hindmost: A. History of Financial Speculation (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1999), 35. 14 Chancellor, Devil Take the Hindmost, 31. 15 Hoppit, Risk and Failure, 165. 16 Charles Moore, quoted in Hoppit, Risk and Failure, 180; Chancellor, Devil Take the Hindmost, 28. The influence on the early stock market of the shady "moneyed men", the equivalent of the card-sharper, only reinforced this comparison. Speculative insurance, which in essence allowed investors to place bets on the safe return of merchant vessels or the lifespans of prominent people, made litde attempt to disguise its true nature. See Reith, Age of Chance, 61. The Calvinist or Puritan work ethic was theorised by Weber in 1905, crediting Calvinism's acceptance of the making of profit with a new drive to hard work and capitalist success. See Jacob Viner, Religious Thought and Economic Society ed. Jacques Melitz and Donald Winch (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1978), 151. 17 Gary Hentzi, " 'An Itch of Gaming': The South Sea Bubble and the Novels of Daniel Defoe" Eighteenth- Century Life 17 (February 1993), 36. Those who criticised gaming among the governing class — the aristocracy — linked that play to stock speculation as an agent of economic instability. I would argue that middle-class gamesters risked being painted with the same brush: unfit for business, not credit-worthy, and unreliable. See Phyllis Deutsch, "Moral Trespass in Georgian London: Gaming, Gender, and Electoral Politics in the Age of George III" The HistoricalJournal39:3 (1996), 641-2. 102 hazards many a stake."18 Contemporary comment and satirical drama used the language of the gaming table to explain both the workings of stock trading and the mindset of the speculator. In George Colman's comedy The Man of Business, the young protagonist speculates in "India-stock ... expecting it to be up at three hundred" very quickly. Instead, he finds to his horror that "it has been falling ever since [his purchase]." His friend, reproaching him for this "infamous gambling," bitterly condemns the mania for speculation and its effect on the national economy: "A simple individual to rise to day worth half a million — an undone man to morrow! Are these the principles of commerce?"19 To observers, the speculator presented a frightening portrait of instability and obsession:

[He] wavers as to how best to secure a profit, chews his nails, pulls his fingers, closes his eyes, takes four paces and four times talks to himself, raises his hand to his cheek as if he has a tooth- ache ... and all this accompanied by a mysterious coughing as though he could force the hand of fortune ... [speculators] are full of... insanity, pride, and foolishness. They will sell without knowing the motive; they will buy without reason.20

Leisure, risk and the middling sort

Given that middling men and women spent their days dealing with risk-laden decisions, why on earth would they want to allow similar stressors into their off hours? To

18 Charles Moore, A Full Inquiry into the Subject of Suicide. To which are added (as being closefy connected with the subject) two treatises on Duelling and Gaming (London: J. F. and C. Rivington, 1790), 357-358. 19 George Colman, The Man of Business, A Comedy (London: T. Becket, 1775), 47-50. The London tradesmans' directory (1790 edition) of the Universal British directory of trade and commerce... (London: Printed for the Patentees, 1790-98) lists several stockbrokers whose offices doubled as lottery offices. See, for example, the listing for Homsby, J and Co. of 26 Comhill in The Universal British di.rectory, 185. 20 Joseph Penso de la Vega, quoted in Chancellor, DevilTake the Hindmost, 12-13. For more on the most notorious instance of reckless, ill-informed speculation in die early stock market, see Malcolm Balen's The Secret History of the South Sea Bubble: The World's First Gnat Financial Scandal York: Fourth Estate, 2003); Edward Chancellor, Devil Take the Hindmost, Chapter Five; and Julian Hoppit, "The Myths of the South Sea Bubble" Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 12 (2002), 141-165. 103

sit down to cards after dinner, to form a table at a card assembly or a ball, was to incur

uncertainty and tension, even though the atmosphere was convivial and the tensions might

today be called healthy ones. Why did staking hard-earned money on card games have such

an appeal for these supposedly cautious people?

There have always been those whose favourite leisure activities included the tingle

of danger, physical, emotional, or financial. For these people, the excitement and suspense

inherent in such pursuits is beneficial, perhaps cathartic, as long as the situation resolves

itself and the accumulated tension is fully released, as happens, for example, at the

conclusion of a rubber at whist21 In making a conscious choice to toss coins into the pool,

players exert a different form of control over their actions: new, often expanded boundaries

to their behaviour are framed. Play allows a feeling of freedom, a refreshing rush of

excitement, what Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning call a "tension-balance between

emotional control and emotional stimulation."22 For most players, the wider range of

activities still has its limits, and control is not entirely switched off, merely relaxed.

For many players, the escape from the boredom of routine, safe activities is

enough to loosen the strings of the card-purse. Once play begins, the object is not so much

to win as it is to keep playing, to keep the game rolling along and to continue the

pleasurable thrill, the fearful edginess of a stimulating battle.23 This drive to push the limits

of society's norms is part of the joyous rush of exciting situations.24 As we have already

seen, middling players observed tacidy-set parameters for their play, balancing the risks they

allowed themselves against their natural caution. Playing as they did within their own

21 Ralph Keyes, Chancing It: Why We Take Risks (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1985), 35. 22 Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning, Quest for Excitement: Sport and Leisure in the Civilizing Process (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 115. 23 Reith, Age of Chance, 134,155; Deborah Lupton, Risk (London: Routledge, 1999), 150-1; Elias and Dunning, Quest for Excitement, 106. 24 Elias and Dunning, Quest for Excitement, 100. 104 limits, these players may well have seen their risk as minimal: their stakes, over time, were consistent, their losses generally small. Then, too, the risks they ran over a deck of cards were self-imposed, and they could (and did) excuse themselves at any time. Cards were, of course, an established and expected aspect of genteel sociability, and they had their own special charms for those who enjoyed a little flutter. This socially sanctioned play, kept within bounds, was irresistible to its devotees.

Attitudes to luck and risk at play

Thurs. 15 Nov. [1759] ... After dinner set out for Alfriston ... with James Marchant, Tho. Durrant and Thomas Davy ... we supped with Mr. Elless at his lodgings ... We, together with Mr. Elless and the person at whose house he lodges, played at brag in the even, and notwithstanding we played as low a game as possible it was my unhappy lot to lose 3s... We spent the even and night till past 3 o'clock and, excepting my loss, extreme agreeable, for we had plenty of good liquor and a hearty welcome ...25

Thomas Turner's innocent jaunt to a neighbouring village had turned into an occasion for self-reproach. Even though all concerned "went to bed sober", he had still lost three shillings at cards, a heavy loss by his standards.26 Turner's outpouring reminds us that any game is risky if enough money is dropped onto the table, or if the play keeps up for a long time. Again and again in diaries and letters, references to luck appear, even when describing play at skill-based games. These players understood the dual nature of card games, which balanced, to different degrees, the forces of chance and skill. Even the wiliest player needed good cards to win; dealt poor ones, the best one could do was keep one's

25 Vaisey, Thomas Turner, 193. 26 Vaisey, Thomas Turner, 193. 105 losses down to an acceptable level Interestingly, John Smith gave luck the credit (or the blame) for both wins and losses:

17 June [1789] Dr Vincent at home - play'd with remarkable bad luck, and lost every rubber [of four]. 13 May [1790] Cards & Supper Mrs Ellis's ... play'd 3 rubbers with singular good luck with I won & lost the 4th ...27

So did Parson Woodforde: "I played the finest Sans Prendre Vole to Night, that I ever had

— Not a loosing Card in hand ..."28 With the right cards, skill was not important: as winners sometimes say, 'I couldn *t lose.'

Most players noted large losses without complaint, probably because of a long- established social expectation of losing graciously; even in the privacy of their diaries, whinging is relatively rare. Their comments at such times do, however, afford a glimpse of their attitude to the risks they ran, minimal though they might have been. The Rev William

Stephens wrote in 1793, "Lost my money at Cards as usual. It goes against the grain with a loser to pay for the cards. It is like buying a rope to be hanged with."29 Lawyer Dudley

Ryder, losing six shillings, mused:

Friday, December 30 [1715] ... I find gaming is a very bewitching thing and I could scarce tell how to be willing to leave off. I do not know how one is insensibly drawn in to play on in expectation of regaining what one has lost.30

27 Sheffield Archives SpSt/60636/5; SpSt/60636/6. Losing players never dwelt on the fact that they might have been trounced by better players. 28 Beresford, Country Parson, 11:71. A Sans Prendre Vole (more generally called vole sans prendre) in quadrille was declared when a player believed he could win all the tricks in a game. Several diarists mentioned winning one or seeing one won. Since they were unusual, they made the game that much more exciting. 29 British Library Add MS 46405B vol V (1792-1795). Rev Stephens probably had to pay for the pack of cards used in the evening's play, which seems to have added insult to injury. Perhaps he was chosen by lot to pay for it, or his group may have had a custom of loser buys'. 30 William Matthews (ed.), The Diary of Dudley Ryder, 1715-1716 (London: Methuen & Co., 1939), 158. Ryder's comment echoed The Compleat Gamester, which begins: "Gaming is an enchanting Witchery ..." See Charles Cotton, The Compleat Gamester, or, Instructions How to play at Billiards, Trucks, Bowls, and Chess. Together with all manner of usual and most Gentile Games either on Cards or Dice. To which is added, The Arts and Mysteries of Riding, Racing, Archery, and Cock-Fighting (London: Henry Brome, 1676), 1. 106

Wagers and Managing Risk: The importance of a stake

Given that so many players were at least reluctant to lose their money at cards, what made them accept this risk? Why did even the most diffident players tremblingly push their few shillings into the pool? Why were entries such as "played for diversion, staking no money" made so infrequendy? What set no-wager card games so clearly outside the wagering norm?31

The careful records of wins and losses kept by eighteenth-century account- keepers reflect their middling preoccupation with their financial well-being. As we saw in

Chapter One, well-ordered and detailed account-keeping was vitally important in the business and professional worlds, and the discipline of making daily entries became second nature in childhood.32 Such accounts, noting even minor expenses and gifts, frequendy included entries for wins or losses at cards. The account-book kept for many years by Mrs.

Elizabeth Dummer of Cranbury noted regular amounts drawn for "card money", nearly always for the same amount, £5 5j. She seems to have played until the money was gone, paying up front rather than going into debt, the signature of a controlled, disciplined mind.33 John Smith kept a "Card Account" for each year from January to December, noting the amounts won and lost over that time; a multi-year running balance reassured

31 Vaisey, Thomas Turner, 163; for additional, equally good examples, see Beresford, Country Parson, 11:111 and Sheffield Archives SpSt/60636/6. Subjects' responses in modem studies suggest that a good deal of today's gambling (ie. playing for money) is done in friendly company, both for pleasurable thrills and for banishing boredom, but not for monetary gain. All of the motivations suggested by today's players would have been familiar, to varying degrees, to eighteenth-century middle-class players. See Hilmi Ibrahim, Leisure and Society; A Comparative Approach (Dubuque, Iowa: William C. Brown Publishers, 1991), 246. 32 Gerda Reith sees gaming as embodying the "numerical spirit of the time". Such a concept would probably have resonated with our middle-class account-keepers. Reith, Age of Chance, 60. 33 Northamptonshire Record Office Bru.ASR 103. See Appendix 3. 107

htm that his pastime was not running him into the red.34 Parson Woodforde also kept

careful records, not only of his own gains and losses, but of those of his niece Nancy, whose dismal fortunes at cards resulted in frequent card debts, both to him and to others in

their circle.

This numerate middle-class culture has left us many examples of middling betting

on cards, but the question still remains: why did they bet at all? Did placing a money stake,

no matter how small, really "make it interesting"? Or were the moralists right, and was the

drive for gain behind the spill of coins on the table? Our writers very seldom betray

excessive glee at winning, even in the privacy of their diary pages.35 The matter-of-fact

tones with which they generally noted victory and defeat — with the exception of Thomas

Turner, who tended to wax very cross over losses — suggest that a monetary stake was an

expected part of the game, but no more.36 Losses were to be accepted as calmly as wins, and crowing over beaten opponents was ungracious and was simply not done. A good

example is John Salusbury, who noted laconically,

23 Aug [1757] Mrs Ward & her bror Snablin dined & spent the evening with us. We played at quadrille, at which I won 3s 6d. 6 Sept [1757] Drank tea & spent the evening at Mr Ward's & lost at cards 4J.37

However, the vast majority of our writers do mention wins, sometimes in some detail; they clearly enjoyed coming out on top, even when the actual winnings were very smalL Also, unlike losses, which came out of a player's pocket or purse, winnings did not really have to be accounted for — and yet, time after time, they were carefully, almost lovingly recorded.

34 Sheffield Archives SpSt/60636/9. His Card Account at the beginning of 1793 noted: "Balance in my favour by seven years play and Gambling 3/0/0" 35 Having, of course, been trained from childhood to win gracefully. 36 Vaisey, Thomas Turner, 193. 37 Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Record Service 130 LEI. 108

It is probably safe to say, then, that although these people played to win, they were not playing to earn money - that is, they were not spurred on by greed as a rule.38

It was, of course, natural to enjoy one's winnings, and no one was immune to the pleasure of pocketing a little extra cash:

June 21 [1787]... Mrs Laton and self Partners [at whist] at which I won 0.3.0. Then Mrs Custance and self played another Rubber with Mrs Laton and Mrs Micklethwaite and then we won a full Rubber which gained me more 0.5.0. Then Mrs Laton and self played another Rubber with Mrs Custance and Micklethwaite won then 0.3.0. So that I won in the whole this Evening 0.11.0. N.B. Mrs Micklethwaite gave me a light half Guinea.39

Parson Woodforde, though the most generous of men, couldn't help chortling over his unusual windfall. His nota bene clearly indicates, however, his annoyance at being passed a dud coin; the cash value of his winnings was obviously important to him. Likewise,

Reverend Abdy, travelling to visit family for a wedding, was happy to enjoy all the delights of his reception:

Monday Sep' 10th [1770]... Tea and Coffee and many eatables of the Cake and Bread & Butter kind were brought. We chatted over them for some time, then Cards were called for, & we all sat down to Brag with the most eager desires of winning each others money.

Although his remark appears to evoke a set of greedy players, Mr Abdy himself noted his losses with the lightest of touches. "At Ten o'clock after I had got rid of some loose shillings (which had travelled with me only seven miles & yet seemed very ready to change

38 Many anti-gaming tracts blamed avarice for the cash stake: "What, but the insatiable 'greediness of filthy lucre', could tempt a man to risque the losing of his own possessions for the uncertain hazard of gaining another's?" ranted S. Fawconer in An Essay on Modern Luxury: Or, An Attempt to Delineate its Nature, Causes, and Effects (London: James Fletcher, 1765), 26. 39 Beresford, Country Parson, 11:329. 109 their master), there came a summons to supper."40 Easy come, easy go is the gamester's phrase. If the shillings were not important, winning was the real fun, and whoever won Mr

Abdy's disloyal coins probably lost them the next day with the same insouciance. Perhaps their real "eager desire" was to enjoy beating silly cousin Percy or teasing the groom-to-be.

The truth may lie in the role a money stake plays in a betting card game. In some games, a stake is an inherent component; brag, forerunner of modem poker, is a prime eighteenth-century example. Others, such as whist or commerce, could be played without a stake but traditionally included one as a matter of course.41 Most card players would have expected to need a full play-purse when arriving at their friends' homes, and would have prepared accordingly. Before the game began, then, the purpose of cash was to allow a player into the game. Once at the table, money placed in the pool was reduced to a symbolic token: no longer was it the means to buy stockings, pay the servants, or tip the sedan-chair man. It had become merely a means to an end, and that end was further play.

This is an example of Erving Goffman's concept of "rules of irrelevance", in which players accept a common system of values which relate to that game and that gathering.42

40 Lady Alice Archer Houblon, The Houblon Family: Its Story and Times (London: Archibald Constable and Company, 1907), 118-119. 41 David Parlett, A History of Card Games (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 13. 42 Erving Goffman, Encounters: two studies in the sociology in interaction (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1961), 19-20. 110

Figure 8: (L) 1788 gaming token, head side. Figure 9: (R) 1788 gaming token, tail side. Both photographs by the author. Author's private collection.

The frequent use of gaming tokens, such as the one shown in Figures 8 and 9, was an outward sign of such a common system. As long as one had money, one could continue to relish the cut and thrust, the thrill, the challenge of the game.43 Whenever the game ended, however, money again assumed its former cash value, and another as well: it acted as a measure of success or failure. Our players, in their frequent accountings for both wins and losses, support this theory.

Many of our players' comments reflect the changeable nature of the cash stake.

Dudley Ryder was fascinated by players he saw at Epsom:

Monday, 13 June [1715] ... One would be apt to think that they valued money very little to see how soon a heap of guineas were thrown away. When I looked upon them in this light, as persons that valued a guinea no more than a halfpenny, I was apt to desire to engage with them not doubting but I should win because they valued the money so little.44

43 Reith, Age of Chance, 145. 44 Matthews, Dudley Ryder, 33-34. Was this a sharpers' lure? Ill

Why not, then, just play for token objects? Why does a stake require intrinsic value? It has

been suggested that risking even a small amount of cash sharpens players' focus on the

game, resulting in a well-played, hard-fought match.45 Taking this argument further,

Richard Rosenthal suggests that the money on the table represents not just its own cash

value, but some aspect of the player's very self, her judgement, his worth and standing.46

To fully commit to the game, the gambler must be represented by something of actual

worth - are you not worth much more than a matchstick? Given their sense of the

importance of money to one's value in the community, middling players might have found

this concept a reasonable one.

At home one evening in Weston, James Woodforde wanted to play cribbage with

Nancy, but she demurred, not having enough money to play. He found the solution, giving

her sixpence "to play one Rubber of Cribbage with me." He quickly won it back, "but I

gave her the whole stakes O.5.O."47 The parson could just as easily have said to his niece,

TSlo matter, Nan, let us play for diversion, staking no money,' and the cards could have

been on the table. The fact that Nancy felt she could not play without meeting his

suggested bet and that her uncle felt it necessary to give her sixpence for the game

demonstrates the importance of a money stake. At the end of the game, Mr Woodforde

(having won the lot) demonstrated its restored significance by turning his winnings, the value of which he has carefully noted, into a gift for his niece. Money was both central and

peripheral within the same game; its value varied with its role at any given point in that game.

45 Parlett, History of Card Games, 12. 46 cited by Reith in Age of Chance, 146. 47 Beresford, Country Parson, 11:38. 112

Risks of public-space play

Regardless of the symbolic value of money for the duration of a game, when the game ended, many players found themselves a good deal lighter by their purses, especially when leaving games played in larger groups, sometimes with dubious company. The greatest threat lurked in the seedier public gaming spaces: sharpers. These professional gamesters made their living by cheating or misleading the unwary player, or 'pigeon'. No sharpers appear in any of the personal accounts of play I have examined; rather, their activities are revealed largely by court records. A 1762 case for prosecution told of two swindlers, Clarke and Holmes, who on meeting up with another pair of men at a public house, actually managed to enlist one of the newcomers, Lowes, as an accomplice in the duping of his friend. Fortunately for the pigeon, Tindall, the turncoat turned back:

the Serious Reflection [of the cheat] gave this Dep[onen]t [Lowes] such true Remorse that it put him upon applying soon after to the said Clarke and Holmes to give them the same [Remorse] for the great Injustice they had done [Tindall] and to perswade them to give him up his said two [promissory] Notes ... this Dept possitively Declared he wo'd have no further Hand nor concern but Leave them to stand and fall by themselves ...

When they refused, the remorseful accomplice confessed to his friend, and the two turned the matter over to the law.48

48 Cumbria Record Office, Carlisle D HUD 8/52/4. 113

Figure 10: "Countrymen and Sharpers" Thomas Rowlandson, 1787. Photograph by the author. Yale Center for British Art Photograph Archive. Courtesy of the Yale Center for British Aft, Photographic Archive, Yale University.

Like wolves, many sharpers hunted in packs. Some operated from the card table as Clarke and Holmes did, while others snared their prey by watching their chance from behind a loser's chair. Both types appear in Figure 10. The winking man standing at left may be signalling to the seated man second from right, while in the centre, another shifty- eyed man plies the pigeon with drink and advice. A contemporary pamphlet described the second approach, and is worth quoting in full to appreciate the patience with which these men laid their traps.

... as soon as they perceive he has lost all his Stock [money], then one of the Gang, that's constandy watching there for such Opportunities, takes him aside; Sir, says he, I believe you're a very honest Gentleman; I am very sorry to see you have lost your Money, and would not have a civil Man by any Means 114

exposed, and therefore if you please, I have five or ten Pieces at your Service ... When this is lost too (as it always is in a littie Time) ... the Gendeman that has done him the Favour to cheat him of his Money will... invite him to the Tavern ... the Person that did him the extraordinary Friendship to lend him the ten Pieces, must be sent for too, who in the Interim has made up a new Purse, and is very ready to Credit him with the other ten, till tomorrow Morning, if he has a Mind to try his Luck; but he won't advise him ... every Thing is carried with the greatest Frankness and Indifferency; and so at it they go, 'till the other ten Pieces are gone after the rest ...49

This elaborate process played on the dupe's natural desire to recoup his losses, giving him repeated opportunities to do so even as he was drawn deeper and deeper into the sharpers' net. From the outset, the threat of exposure to embarrassment was evident; however, as the victim's obligation to the sharpers mounted, so did the danger of exposure to the law.

Anyone could inform against a winning or a losing gamester; if the accused was convicted, the informer was protected from prosecution for his own violation of the gaming laws.50

Extricating oneself from such a quagmire could become very expensive, and the advantage lay with the wolves.

To lure pigeons into their establishments, gaming-house proprietors resorted to a number of strategies. Invitations went out to "Merchants, Bankers, and Brokers in the

City" to elaborate daily dinners with plenty of wine.51 One such publican crowed that "he liked Citizens ... better than any one else, for when they had dined they played freely, and after they had lost all their money, they had credit to borrow more." Friends, appealed to

49 Tricks of the Town: Being Reprints of Three Eighteenth Century Tracts (London: Chapman and Hall, 1927), Letter XI, 65-66. 50 The Times, 5 September 1792 (Issue 2404); 18 Geo. 2 (1744) c. 34, "An Act to explain, amend, and make more effectual the Laws in Being, to prevent excessive and deceitful Gaming and to restrain and prevent the excessive Increase of Horse Races", s. IX. 51 This is not to imply that the guests were served more wine than they were accustomed to drinking; in Georgian England, heavy consumption of alcohol was expected behaviour in men (although frowned upon in women). Porter, "The Drinking Man's Disease", 386. 115

for loans, frequently arrived in the gaming house themselves, and once there were often

fleeced in their turn.52

Figure 11: "Cheating at Cards" Thomas Rowlandson, n.d. Rough justice is being administered to the cheat, whose nose is being pulled. Photograph by the author. Courtesy of the Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

A number of alehouse- and public house-keepers were prosecuted for allowing illegal gaming within their premises; some were charged with actually assisting gaming predators in their work. The cheat of Figure 11, caught hiding cards in his clothes, might have been giving the landlord a 'consideration' from his profits. In 1765, landlord John

Harrison of Wheldrake stood accused of aiding and abetting sharpers. The case against

52 The Times, 25 November 1797 (Issue 4050). 116

him detailed how he sold "Spiritous liquors ... in order to make [Barraby, the victim]

drunk", then turned a blind eye to his subsequent fleecing.53 When poor Barraby had lost

everything, the inn-keeper lent him more money on the security of his watch.54 Harrison

was in on the operation at several levels: host, liquor supplier, and pawnbroker-loan shark.

No mention is made of whether he was actually taking a cash percentage from the sharpers;

perhaps the steady sale of alcohol was incentive enough. Harrison was fined £20.55

Deep and addictive play

From first-hand accounts, we might be tempted to conclude that middle-class

players knew how to play within their means, drawing back from dangerous extremes of

card play.56 This was not the whole story, however: second- and third-hand tales of reckless, even self-destructive middling players are mentioned sporadically in these

accounts. The understanding of the nature of addiction was in its infancy in the eighteenth

century, and then was applied to drink rather than to gaming.57 Even so, an awareness of

addictive patterns may be seen in anti-gaming texts:

53 Nor is this a purely metaphorical description: the unlucky Barraby lost his clothing, as well as his money, in the course of his play. The law forbidding unlicensed publicans from allowing gaming anywhere on their premises dated from 1757 and provided for fines ranging from 40/ for a first offense to £10 for subsequent offences. See 30 Geo. 2 (1757) c. 24, "An Act for the more effectual Punishment of Persons who shall attain, or attempt to attain, Possession of Goods or Money by false or untrue Pretences; for preventing the unlawful Pawning of Goods; for the easy Redemption of Goods pawned; and for preventing Gaming in Publick Houses by Journeymen, Labourers, Servants and Apprentices", s. XTV. 54 East Riding of Yorkshire Archives and Records Service QSF/229/C/14. 55 Hiis was a relatively light sentence. In a similar case in 1786, the offending innholder was fined 20 shillings, "confined in Gaol for one month," and his license to sell ale was revoked for three years, effectively ruining him (East Riding of Yorkshire Archives and Records Service QSF/313/B/3). 56 Of course, the careful, deliberate personality of many diary-keepers may be a better explanation. 57 The eighteenth century understood the difference between everyday consumption and what they called "hard drinking" - a progressive and increasingly dangerous set of behaviours that would later come to be called "alcoholism". Still, the word "addiction" was used in discussing the problem, and the symptoms of 117

No Loss [at play] will dishearten, nor any Danger awaken [them] to common Sense; The Madness is generally incurable; Cards and Dice, with some People, have the Force of Magick, and you may as easily recover them from Witchcraft, as from Gaming.58

Some players, driven to crime by their mounting debts, appear in the court records; others

took their own lives. While most cases remained obscure, remembered only in a stray letter

or on a diary page, a few names and details achieved brief notoriety.

Although none of the diarists or letter-writers constructed themselves as reckless

players, they did mention friends or acquaintances who played beyond their means. Their

comments on others' excessive losses are revealing in themselves, and reflect self-imposed

limits on their own play as well as their conduct in general. In recording contrasting results

at loo one evening, Parson Woodforde's choice and arrangement of words is telling. "After

Coffee and Tea we got to Loo, won 0.3.6. My Brother lost 11 or 12 Shillings by playing

over bold and rather impatient withal."59 In noting first his own win and then his brother's

loss, and in criticising his brother's unwise play, he contrasted his own tidy, ordered life

with his brother's long-established ne'er-do-well existence.60

A young clothier of York made a similar comparison, but with a twist of envy. In

August 1784, Mr Strother was still unable to set up in business for himself. He noted the

true addiction were well documented. For a discussion of contemporary writings on addictive drinking, see Roy Porter, "The Drinking Man's Disease: The Tre-Histor/ of Alcoholism in Georgian Britain" British Journal ofAddiction 80 (1985), 385-396; see also A Present for Women Addicted to Drinking. Adapted to All the different Stations of Life, from a Lady of Quality to a Common Servant (London: W. Owen, 1750) and Jonathan White, "The "Slow but Sure Poyson": The Representation of Gin and Its Drinkers, 1736-1751" Journal of British Studies 42 (January 2003), 35-64. 58 Jeremy Collier, An Essay upon Gaming^ in a Dialogue between Callimachus andDohmedes (London: J. Morphew, 1713), 44. Ralph Keyes suggests that gamesters may crave the endorphin rush they receive from playing deep, or at risky games. Naturally-produced opiates, endorphins have been shown to be as addictive as their chemical analog, morphine. See Ralph Keyes, Chancing It: Why We Take Risks (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1985), 146-147. 59 Beresford, Country Parson, 111:165. 40 See Beresford, Comity Parson, Vol. I. Brother 'Jack" had a lengthy history of drinking, disorderly conduct, and extravagant betting on cockfights (see Country Parson, 1:114), and even as a married man, had setded down only slightly. 118

downfall of another young man, "well Situated in a place at York but cou'd not keep

himself within proper bounds ... Raking out late at Nights, Drinking, Whoring, Gaming and

all the fashionable Vices were followed ... Temperance and Sobriety mark the Gendeman

but excess the Blackguard ..."61 Like Parson Woodforde, Strother pointedly contrasted the

Gendeman (himself) with the Blackguard (Foster), who had squandered the advantages

Fate had denied to careful, church-going Strother. His disdain for the fallen Foster is laced

with bitter self-satisfaction.

61 British library Egerton MS 2479. 119

Figure 12: "The Spendthrift", engraving after Robert Pyle, 1760s. Courtesy of the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

Figure 12 shows the unhappy suspense to which such excess brought one. The

Spendthrift's empty purse lies amid the detritus of his high living: cards, an empty wine- glass, and a pipe. His bad luck is suggested by the low value of the pip cards before him, while the dying candle and the clock behind him connote his approaching ruin. If images

and second-hand mentions of fallen risk-takers cannot fully reveal the thoughts of the 120 ensnared addict, Fanny Burney's novel Cecilia portrays, in convincing detail, the agonised downward spiral of a gamester. Deep play and debts of honour begin his fall; he briefly succeeds in deluding himself that "an uncommon run of luck" will retrieve his fortunes; when his reversals at the gaming table finally harden into ruin, he lapses into mad despair.

Resorting to deception and emotional blackmail in his desperate efforts to raise money, he finally sees the "final resolution" of suicide as his only escape, and lays his plans accordingly.62

Suicide was an effective, if drastic, means of escape from gaming-induced ruin.63

When General Braddock's daughter Fanny hanged herself in her lodgings at Bath in 1731, she was discovered to have gone through her entire fortune of £6000:

being infatuated by the love of gaming, met "an unlucky chance" which deprived her of her fortune. She had been heard to say, that no one should ever be sensible of her necessities, were they at the last extremity. She was generally lamented, and in life had been greatly esteemed for courteous and genteel behaviour, and good sense.

Poor Miss Braddock, in paying this high price for her folly, unwittingly and amply repaid her creditors. "Her goods were then sold ... and people striving for something to preserve the memory of the poor deceased lady, the price of everything was so advanced that the creditors were all paid, and an overplus remained for the nearest relation ..."64 That relation was presumably her half-brother, another General Braddock, whose only comment on the occasion was, "Poor Fanny! I always thought she would play till she would be forced to

62 Frances Bumey, Cecilia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 301,431. 63 Moore, Treatise on Gaming, 286. Since gaming debts over ten pounds were, in law, unactionable, it is likely that suicides' gaming debts generally went unpaid. See the next section of this chapter, "Gaming, society, and the law" for a fuller discussion. 64 William Hone, The Evety-Dqy Book (1825-26), 9 September "Fanny Braddock". 121

tuck herself up."65 His laconic remark suggests that his sister had followed a well-trodden, if

tragic, path among despairing gamesters.66

Gaming, society, and the law

On two separate nights late in 1796, constables pounded on the door of Thomas

Moore's house, Number 6 Oxenden Street, Leicester Fields. That area of Westminster was

riddled with gaming houses, "open at all hours of the day and Night". They were well

known to the law but "the Manner in which the Houses [were] fortified with Trap-Doors

for escape on die least Alarm ... renderfed] the necessary Evidence extremely Difficult [to

obtain]." On the night of the second raid,

The House was again entered ... but tho' a great number of Persons were there assembled, the time taken in forcing admittance afforded opportunity of escape, and only about half a Dozen Persons were taken — but many others got away over the Tops of the Neighbouring Houses, as appeared by the tracks upon the Snow ...67

There have always been gamesters to whom the game is all: the repeated thrill of play, its uncertainty, its excitement, and its out-of-body adrenaline rush.68 Given that

65 Lewis, W. S. (ed.) The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973)XX:492. Emphasis in original. 66 See, for example, Lewis, Horace Walpole's Correspondence, XXII:314 on John Darner, and XXXVL210 and n.16 on William Skrine, M.P.; Philip C. Yorke (ed.), The Diary of John Baker (London: Hutchinson, 1931), 312 and n.2 on Richard Otdey. All three faced ruin through gaming, and all committed suicide. The amount of publicity such cases received may have led moralists to overstate the incidence of such final solutions in the gaming community. "The life of a gamester generally terminates either in the duel or in self-murther [suicide]," wrote Charles Moore in 1790. See Moore, Treatise on Gaming, 286. For a full discussion on the evolution of the interpretation of the law in cases of suicide, see Michael MacDonald's "The Secularization of Suicide in England 1660-1800" Past and Present 111 (May 1986), 50-100. 67 National Archives, Kew TS 11/931/3301 (Rex v. Thomas Moore). 68 For more on the psychology of addictive gambling, the interested reader is referred to Gerda Reith's The Age of Chance: Gambling in Western Culture (London: Roudedge, 1999), Chapter 4: "The Experience of Play"; also to Robert D. Herman (ed.), Gambling (New York: Harper & Row, 1967); and to David Parlett's A History 122 gaming was legal only in carefully prescribed situations, many players were in defiance of die law as soon as they sat down to play. The risks they ran as a result were quite separate from the odds posed by their favourite games: in placing themselves outside the law they staked their livelihoods and families, their financial security, and their standing within their communities. For a tradesman or a professional, being caught up in a gaming-house raid could mean blackmail, prosecution under the law, scandal, ostracism and loss of business, and perhaps utter ruin.

England had had gaming laws in place since at least the reign of Richard II, with later monarchs putting their own stamp on efforts to control its spread.69 By the seventeenth century, the church and the state were both nominally charged with enforcing laws against so-called "moral crimes", of which gaming was one. Enforcement, however, was nearly nonexistent, partly because informants, fearing reprisals from aggrieved fellow players, were very thin on the ground.70 Gaming itself, interestingly, was never declared to be illegal; high-risk games such as faro and hazard, however, were specifically outlawed as dangerous to society.71 The laws were intended to control the circumstances of play: for example, play in private homes was legal, although play on Sundays was disallowed. David

Allen speculates that this was the state's way of recognising that gaming was a natural fact

of Card Games (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), Chapter 1: 'Tlayers please". A first-hand account of the sensations and motivations of a gambler can be found in Igor Kusyszyn, "How Gambling Saved Me From A Misspent Sabbatical" in Gambling and Society: Interdisciplinary Studies on the Subject of Gambling ed. William R. Eadington (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1976), 256-258. 69 Reflexions on Gaming and Observations on the Lams relating thereto. In which is considered, The Mischiefs that are occasioned by Gaming-Houses being Encouraged by Persons of Rank and Distinction. And a Remedy Proposedfor the same (London; J. Barnes, n.d-), 16. 70 Edward J. Bristow, Vice and Vigilance: Purity Movements in Britain since 1700 (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1977), 13. The aforementioned protection for informers under the law did not extend to protection from their peers. 71 Keeping a faro-bank for play in private homes was also illegal, as the women charged in the "Faro's Daughters" case of 1796-97 discovered. See Gillian Russell," 'Faro's Daughters': Female Gamesters, Politics, and the Discourse of Finance in 1790s Britain" Eighteenth-Century Studies 33:4 (2000), 481-504. 123 of human nature within society. As it could never be banished, it was to be regulated and its ill effects minimised.72

National danger and social instability were both frequendy linked with gaming. In

1767, a Frenchman wrote a seemingly innocuous letter to Diderot, speculating that "the universal taste for card-playing... has recast and remodelled the human mind," changing society for the better. An anonymous Englishman seized upon the letter as an opportunity to warn his countrymen of both the evils of cards and the need for perpetual vigilance against Frenchified manners and habits. In his "Observations" accompanying his 1768 translation, he warned, "An age rendered less rough by any thing so consummately futile, so effeminate as card-playing, would be soft, but emasculate." Further, cards fostered "the little, dirty selfish [vices] ... which, by the contagion of example, gradually pervading a whole people, [would become] a national character," leaving England not only effeminate but vice-ridden and unable to defend herself against foreign foes.73

Public gaming spaces posed their own threats to both the individual player and, in the jaundiced view of some commentators, the very social hierarchy itself. Around the tables of the many gaming houses of St James's and Westminster, these writers argued, a dangerous and volatile mixture of people rubbed elbows. Footmen reached in front of peers of the realm; apprentices mingled their coins with those of wealthy lawyers. In such an atmosphere, the lower orders would become over-bold and the higher echelons would

72 David D. Allen, The Nature of Gambling (New York: Coward-McCann, 1952), 51. 73 On Card-Playing in a Letterfrom Monsieur de Pinto, to Monsieur Diderot, with a Translation from the Original and Observations by the Translator (London: J. Walter, 1768), 18, 32, 34. 124 be contaminated by their ill-bred gaming fellows.74 Not all agreed with these fears. Satirists poked fun at the alarmists:

Where is the Immorality of Gaming? - Now I think there can be Nothing more moral - It unites Men of all Ranks, - the Lord and the Peasant — the haughty Dutches and the City Dame, - The Marquis and the Footman, all without Distinction play together.75

While the strict preservation of rank in social situations kept people at a coldly formal distance, it could be argued that these informal class contacts over cards and dice had a potentially beneficial effect on those who experienced them.76 If, as Lord Shaftesbury argued in 1737, "We polish one another, and rub off our Comers and rough Sides by a sort of amicable Collision," might not the manners of the lower orders be improved by this exposure?77

Beyond the cross-class mixing that commonly occurred at play, however, stories of very poor men suddenly becoming very wealthy on the strength of a run of luck at gaming alarmed the ruling class. Laws enacted in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were clearly intended to prevent such drastic redistributions of property and the resultant inversion of the social status quo™ With the 1710 "Act for the better preventing of

74 Hey, Pernicious Effects of Gaming 31; Hope Donovan Cotton, "Women and risk: The gambling woman in eighteenth century England" (unpublished Auburn University PhD dissertation, 1998), 182-3. Although there were many perfectly legal public gaming venues, many more were unlicensed and therefore outside the law. This aspect of risky play will be discussed later in this chapter. 75 Susanna Centime, The Gamester. A Comedy (London: J. Knapton, C. Hitch and L. Hawes, W. Bathoe, and T. Lownds, 1760), 36. 76 Peter Borsay, The English Urban Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Provincial Town 1660-1770 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 278. 77 quoted in Lawrence E. Klein, "Liberty, Manners, and Politeness in Early Eighteenth-Century England" The HistoricalJournal32:3 (1989), 602. 78 Reuven Brenner and Gabrielle A. Brenner, Gambling and Speculation: A Theory, A Histoiy, and a Future of Some Human Decisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 59. As the eighteenth century opened, some pointed out the hypocrisy of the governing class — the aristocracy, who were infamous for their deep play - making laws against gaming. Critics claimed the cynical passage of statutes intended to quell gaming in the lower orders, whilst the rulers enjoyed Fortuna's embrace on their own time, threatened public order and "poisoned" the body politic with their bad example. See Thomas Rennell, The Consequences of the Vice of 125

excessive and deceitful Gaming" (9 Ann. (1710) c. 19), Parliament declared any gaming

debt over £10 null and void, including any which involved transfer of property.79 It also

provided for the return of any such money or property that was paid, making it recoverable

at law. In addition, this law acted to prevent anyone from making a living at gaming:

sharpers and other professional gamesters should not be free to practice their parasitic

trade on their betters. Later Acts were passed in 1738 and 1744, their preambles

acknowledging that "many Persons of ill Fame and Reputation" were still preying upon the

"young and unwary Persons" of the realm, thus requiring the closing of loopholes and the

stiffening of penalties.80

As The Times pointed out in 1792, however, the laws' provisions for recovery of

gaming debts did no good in many cases, simply because so few losing players actually took

winners to court. This reluctance was rooted in the aristocratic concept of the 'debt of

honour': gaming debts, being unenforceable at law, would rest solely on the word — that is,

the honour - of the losing player. For anyone with any pretenses to gentility, these

obligations were to be settled on demand; any delay or default would forever brand the

indebted party as a person of parsimony and dishonour.81 "[TJhis same false sense of

honour that prompts a man to sacrifice himself," lamented The Times, "will deter him from

appealing to the Magistrate [ie. going to law]."82

Gaming, as they affect the Welfare of Individuals, and the Stability of Civil Government, Considered: A Sermon (Bath: S. Hazard, 1799), 36 and Reflexions on Gaming, 10. 79 For smaller sums, Small Debts Acts in many counties of England specifically excluded gaming debts from its procedures, making gaming debts of less than 40s uncollectable under the law. 80 18 Geo. 2 (1744) c. 34, Preamble. While the 1710 Act nullified any gaming debts and allowed a loser to recoup his losses at law, this new Act fined anyone winning or losing over £10 five times the value of the win or the loss. 81 Thomas M. Kavanagh, "Enlightenment and The Shadow of Chance: The Novel and the Culture of Gambling in Eighteenth-Century France (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 41-42. The debt of honour applied to women as well as to men, and took a different turn in such cases, as we will see in Chapter Five. 82 The Times, 5 September 1792 (Issue 2404). 126

A substantial proportion of these wins and losses occurred at gaming houses, licensed or, more frequently, otherwise. In statutes of 1751 and 1818, gaming houses were lumped in with bawdy houses under the umbrella term "Disorderly Houses", clearly reflecting Enlightenment fears of the chaotic nature of play. These laws, too, singled out play by the lower orders as a particular danger to the social status quo, and acted in tandem with the gaming laws to keep their behaviour under control.83

In London, a publican might apply for a "licence to keep games" from the

Groom-Porter, the court official who oversaw gaming at the royal palaces and was responsible for regulating "all Manner of GAMES, now Invented ... to the Intent that they may be used as they ought to be, for the moderate Recreation of such Persons only as by the Laws of this Land may so divert and Disport Themselves." A licence issued to John

Stock of Southwark specified the games he was permitted to hold in his house, and who was to be allowed in to enjoy them. "Apprentices and Servants" were to be restricted to

"such times as are allowed them", and no "Idle or Suspected Persons" were to "lurk in or about your House, to Cheat or Cozen anyone." Finally, he was to "Keep Good Orders and

Rules" while play went on, "for the Moderate Recreation of Civilly-disposed Persons and at

Seasonable Times, and Lawful Hours."84

Barred from licensed gaming establishments, the poor and the obsessed of all classes found their way to the hundreds of unlicensed gaming "hells" which sprang up to feed the ever-growing appetite for play. These back-alley rooms, often heavily guarded and

83 Reith, Age of Chance, 70. The 1757 "Obtaining Money by False Pretences, &c., Act" lamented the "Poverty and great Distress" of ruined "Journeymen, Labourers, Servants and Apprentices"; compassionate wording aside, however, the real aim of such laws was to prevent the poor from either acquiring too much wealth or becoming destitute burdens on society (Reith, Age of Chance, 70-71); 30 Geo. 2 (1757) c. 24. The London Magazine commented that the lower sort would have been more convinced of the state's concern for their good if gaming had been banned "to all degrees of men." London Magazine: or, Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer, Vol XXVI (1757), 536. 84 National Archives, Kew CI 10/182.1705 (Stock v. Jeffereyes) 127 known only to their customers, teetered on the knife-edge of betrayal by informers. A surprise raid would bring guards and constables into the room, breaking up tables and pinioning punters en masse. While gaming-house keepers could be fined £200 for "erecting, setting up, maintaining or keeping" illegal games, informers were rewarded for their part in a conviction, and were protected from being charged with gaming offences themselves.85

The account of the raid on Thomas Moore's gaming house (which began this section) makes it clear that catching gamesters in the act was an art in itself. Most raids, however, did manage to trap a few players, often quite a mixed group. An example of the types snared in an unrelated raid appeared in the case preamble of Moore's prosecution:

a notorious Highwayman — some Gendemen of Character — two Merchants — a Bankers Clerk — an Attorney — a Hair-dresser — several Valets — a Captain of Dragoons, & a Black Musician ... - an Ambassador's Secretary — some Apprentices — a Shoemaker - a Breeches-Maker — and two Emigrant Priests ...

The Moore case documents noted that "the Company apprehended at the Def[endan]t's

Home were of the same description [ie. a similar assortment]."86 Evidently, the commingling of ranks so feared by social conservatives was alive and well in Westminster's gaming houses.

On searching the house, Constables Hamilton and Kennedy

found 2 or 3 Persons [in the upstairs front room]... several others hid in Cupboards and Closets, and under the Beds in different Rooms in the House - some on the Landing Places on the Stairs — some in the Cellars, and others on the Tops of the Houses ... the Def[endan]t Moore [was] concealed in a

8512 Geo. 2 (1738) c. 28, "An Act for the more effectual preventing of excessive and deceitful Gaming", Preamble; 25 Geo. 2 (1751) c. 36, "An Act for die better preventing Thefts and Robberies, and for regulating Places of Publick Entertainment, and punishing Persons keeping disorderly Houses", s. V. Venal court officers - for a price - were known to "get rid of... conviction[s]" by arranging for cases to slip through the cracks of the court's schedule. See The Times, 25 November 1797 (Issue 4050). 86 National Archives, Kew TS 11 /931/3301 Rex v. Thomas Moore. 128

Private Closet at the upper-part of the House ...87

Unfortunately, we know nothing of the players actually caught in Moore's house, beyond the suggestion that they represented a cross-section of society, including men who had reputations and trades to protect Their names and the particulars of any charges brought against them have not survived.88

The shadow of more serious offenses hovered over the desperate gamester.

Squeezed into a corner by mounting gaming debts, some turned to crime to recoup their losses. Traveller Sophie von la Roche noted a moving story told by a gendeman friend, in which a lady sympathised with the plight of a young highwayman who had stopped their coach. In giving him her purse, she added,

Young man, it seems to me that some misfortune has brought you to this; let him think how long he might live to be a righteous citizen in his native land, and how soon ... an evil hour might lead him to a wretched death.' In moved tones he thanked her for her kindness ... the lady received a letter containing ... a confession that he had really come to such a desperate pass through bad luck in gambling, but her voice ... had moved his soul.89

This story may well have been apocryphal; it was certainly sentimental enough to appeal to moralists and reformers. Its hearers, familiar with the trope of the gamester-turned- criminal, seem to have accepted it without question.

A more reliable tale appears in the Proceedings of the Old Bailey. A young man working in a London bank had misappropriated funds entrusted to him through powers of attorney, and he had compounded his crime by committing fraud in his efforts to replace it.

87 National Archives, Kew TS 11 /931 /3301 Rex v. Thomas Moore. No mention is made of any men of rank. Either none were apprehended, or their names were withheld for some reason. 88 Possibly as a result of their having turned King's-evidence against the gaming-house keeper, or perhaps as a result of bribes. It would be interesting to examine the records of any actions taken against them. 89 Clare Williams (trans, and ed.), Sophie in London: Being the Diary of Sophie von la Roche (London: Jonathan Cape, 1933), 236. 129

His confession detailed his descent into stock speculation, then his resort to the gaming table:

Still finding myself followed by ill-luck ... I had recourse to the gaming-table, at Phillips's and Nelson's, in Pall-mall, and likewise Searle's, in Covent-Garden, at which place I lost £7000 ... I have lost immensely at pharo [faro, a high-stakes card game], and also at hazard; in short, every guinea ... is gone in that way ...90

He was sentenced to die. He was twenty-two years old.

On a more elemental level were those gamesters who fell out over a game gone wrong, and who settled things with their fists or other weapons. An account of a 1711 trial reveals how

the Prisoner and the Deceased had been Gaming together, and the Prisoner having won 6d. the Deceas'd snatch'd up the Stakes, which the Prisoner demanding as his right, the Deceased threw it at him, and swore D- him he should fight him for it... the Prisoner gave the Deceas'd a wound in his right side, of which he instandy died.91

Duels, though illegal, frequendy arose from gaming disputes. Like the debt of honour, the duel had its origins in the traditions of the nobility; both were diametrically opposed to the middling paradigm of thrift, caution, moderation and restraint. Over the eighteenth century, however, the concept of 'honour' seems to have bled down from its original disciples, with the result that middle-class men did occasionally turn to the formulae of the duel in defense of their reputations.92 This transferrence of attitudes seems to have been particularly pronounced in England at times of increasing social mobility. The upwardly-mobile often bought into the mindsets of the class they sought to penetrate. As

90 "The Proceedings of the Old Bailey", www.oldbaileyonline.org/html units/ 1790s/tl 796051 l-27.html 2 August 2005 Henry Weston, Deception: forger)-, 11 May 1796. 91 "The Proceedings of the Old Bailey", www.oldbaileyonline.org/html units/17lOs/tl711010-19.html 2 August 2005Thomas Pern', Killing: murder, 10 Oct 1711. 92 V. G. Kiernan, The Duel in European History: Honour and the Reign of Aristocracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 16-17. 130

odd as it may seem, to be challenged was to be acknowledged as a gendeman, a man of

standing and gentility: it was, in effect, a compliment.93 Contemporary writers were

bemused by the concept of the debt of honour, demanding caustically, "who is now a man

of fashionable honour? — he, who pays his debts: - his tradesman's? — no; - his debts of

play."94 Accusations of cheating were common incitements to duels. Dudley Ryder related:

Monday, 24 October [1715] ... [Cousin Billio] told us of a duel that Mr Dixon fought, he and another, with two officers upon the occasion of their being cheated by them at cards. Dixon disarmed his man, but his friend was wounded by the other.95

Refusing to make good one's losses was the ultimate disgrace: under the code of the debt of

honour, losses at play were to be paid on demand, in preference to any other. Occasionally,

a loser might resort to a challenge to get out from under such a debt. Although drastic, this

option had the virtue of settling the matter, either by doing away with a creditor or by allowing the defaulter an exit that might redeem his reputation - if only posthumously.96

93 Donna T. Andrew, "The code of honour and its critics: the opposition to duelling in England, 1700-1850" Social History [Great Britain] 5:3 (1980), 415. Middling people who presumed to the status implied by the duel were an irritant to the nobility, who considered it their purview. See Antony E. Simpson, "Dandelions on the Field of Honour: Dueling, the Middle Classes, and the Law in Nineteenth-Century England" Criminal Justice Histoiy 9 (1988), 104. 94 Moore, A Treatise on Gaming, 384. 95 Matthews, Dudley Ryder, 123. Bath's first Master of Ceremonies, Captain Webster, was killed in a duel arising from a gaming dispute. It is thought that the ban on swords brought in by his successor, "Beau" Nash, arose from the effect this and other duels had on his "scheme for spa harmony." See Trevor Fawcett, Bath Entertain'd (Bath: Ruton, 1998), 35. 96 Simpson, "Dandelions on the Field of Honour", 116. This was a highly risky option on many levels, and probably not a common one. 131

Conclusion: Gaming and the middle-class ethos

From the records, then, middling play clearly ran the gamut from the mild thrill of a few shillings after supper to the very edge of madness at a St James's faro-table. Can we say, then, that playing cards for money was consistent with middle-class attitudes and behaviour? Can we argue the opposite, that middling players of all stripes were kicking at their strait-laced traces as they took up their cards?

While the stereotype of the grimly joyless businessman has dominated some characterisations of middle-class life, the written record insists on a broader view.

Certainly, caution and careful business decisions were the lodestar of the merchant and professional class; in an age of unlimited liability, how could it have been otherwise? It is an oversimplification, however, to argue that gaming, as an exemplar of aristocratic status display and libertine enjoyment, was an inversion of a bourgeois "narrow economic rationality".97 If the middle classes had found gaming to be a complete antithesis of their way of life, there would have been no need of such screeds as Reflections on Gaming and the stern warnings of The Complete English Tradesman. In addition, too many people have left accounts of happy evenings over cards for a middling/gaming disconnect to be believable.

Across-the-board play in such a wide assortment of situations seems to suggest that once players had settled the amount of risk they could work around, they were perfecdy comfortable in their choice of pastime.

Card play, carried to excess, was at best a distraction and at worst an agent of ruin, but any obsessive pursuit had that potential. The majority of surviving first-hand

97 Bataille, quoted in Reith, Age of Chance, 151. Even if the argument is directed at excessive play, the sheer numbers of middling card players call such generalisations into question. 132 accounts of play in the middle ranks speak of sociable gatherings, friendly interactions, restrained stakes, and genteel decorum. Descriptions of edgier, riskier games and the duels which sometimes followed come down to us mainly at second hand, often filtered through the disapproving lens of the law, which concerned itself more with the whose-house and what-games details. Narratives of high-stakes play in dark corners appear more often in novels and plays; they may rely on first-hand experience, or second-hand accounts, but this is difficult to assess.98

Risk in card-playing situations may have held fewer terrors for the middling sort than the moral questions posed by anti-gaming agitators, including those attacking rash speculation in the stock market. In the cauldron of eighteenth-century commerce, any connection with vice or unstable judgement could be fatal to a business. For the trading and professional classes, optics were as important as realities: the merchant, his staff, and his family could not afford to be seen to indulge in so dubious an activity as gaming.99

Fathers were warned to rein in their sons, to forestall their descent to depravity, to prevent the spread of vice in the next generation of England's economic engine.100

Even in the face of such criticism, however, others noted the parallels between success in business and at play. "Partnership in Whist is an Emblem of Partnership in

Trade," declaimed a character in a play of 1753. "It shews how much depends upon good

Partnership; and I will venture to say, That a good Whist-Player will make both a good

98 For example, Hannah More's novel The Gamblers depicts the swirling vortex of play in a gaming-house, complete with the feelings and sensations of the novice player. Given her fame and reputation as a moralist, her description is probably not based on personal experience. 99 Private play amidst their own circle seems to have posed no such clanger to their reputations. 100 Hey, Dissertation on the Pernicious Effects of Gaming, 68; Gentleman's Magatgne 1:10,441; Hunt, The Middling Sort, 49. 133

Partner and a good Merchant"101 In business, profits have always been a measure of a merchant's success; similarly, one's winnings at whist (or any game) could act as a numerical measure of a player's success. The careful score-keeping, the accounting of amounts won and lost, and the order and discipline of our players' favourite card games echoed, and fully suited, their tidy lives. Balancing the needs of generous hospitality and genteel consumption with careful control over business and household spending, most middling people aimed for moderation, rather than any rigid denial of the agreeable aspects of life.102

Although many wealthier merchants and professionals scorned and rejected the mad excesses of some notorious aristocrats, they did adopt many of the pastimes and lifestyle patterns of the tided classes.103 In the process, they adapted them to suit and reflect their mores, generally choosing to play at less risky games and for smaller stakes. In fact, subjecting such a potentially reckless activity to new restraints was in itself a very middling idea. By bringing card play for money into their time away from the risk-tolerant environment of the workplace, these players may have been normalising risk, blunting its

"dangerous edge", demonstrating the damping effect of moderation and control on this potential powder-keg.104

101 The Polite Gamester; or, The Humours of Whist. A Dramatic Satire, As Acted every Day at White's, and other Coffee- Houses and Assemblies (London: M. Cooper, 1753), 18. See also Phyllis Deutsch, "Fortune and chance: Aristocratic gaming and English society, 1760-1837" (unpublished New York University doctoral thesis, 1991), 53. 102 Jonathan Barry, "Bourgeois Collectivism? Urban Association and the Middling Sort" in The Middling Sort of People: Culture, society, and politics in England, 1550-1800 ed. Jonathan Barry and Christopher Brooks (New York: St Martin's Press, 1994), 102. Of course, social occasions provided excellent opportunities for furthering business deals and making contacts, as we have already seen. 103 Hunt, The Middling Sort, 50. 104 The term "dangerous edge" is borrowed from an interesting study on risk-taking behaviour. Hie author sketches a system of zones, extending from the "safety zone" through the "danger zone" to the "trauma zone". The "dangerous edge" hovers just outside the "protective frame" at the boundary of the danger and trauma zones, at the tipping point between daring and recklessness. See Michael J. Apter, The Dangerous Edge: The Psychology of Excitement (New York: The Free Press, 1992), 24. 134 135

Chapter Five

The Lady Staled: Middling women, card play, and the gamestress stereotype

When our Women ... fill their Imaginations with Pipps and Counters, I cannot wonder at the Story I have lately heard of a new-born Child that was marked with the five of Clubs.1

Card play was everywhere in the eighteenth century: at home with the family, at gatherings of friends, at large assemblies and routs. Card parties were a staple entertainment in polite society, an afternoon or evening pastime for both sexes, and mixed company in private-space play was common. Routs, large card parties with many tables, were often hosted by women and became an essential feature of London society in the late eighteenth century.2 At the same time, famous gamesters, including women, set dangerous fashions for late-night play and reckless living.

It was inevitable, then, that gaming and card play in particular should attract public attention, and not always of the most flattering sort Social trends and fashion's innovations were always an irresistible target for satire and the distortions of caricature, which blossomed in the up-and-coming art form that typified the eighteenth century: the satirical print In these widely-available and unforgettable images, anyone might recognise their own hairstyle, favourite amusement, or free-spending shopping habits. As the century advanced, victims included social climbers, arrivistes, and vice-ridden aristocrats. High stakes, low morals, questionable company, and dubious choices were all pilloried in written and graphic satire depicting card play, especially among women. Beyond their obvious

1 The Guardian 120 (29 July 1713). 2 Emily Climenson, Passagesfrom the Diaries of Mrs Philip Lybbe Powys of Hardmck House, Oxon. AD 1756 to 1808 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1899), 282. 136 entertainment value, these mocking depictions of society reveal a great deal in their shifting

emphases and evolving questions.3

Attacking from another angle was a vast array of moralising pamphlets, periodical editorials, and essays. From its beginnings, the periodical and literary presses had been mouthpieces for what Stephen Howard calls "moral didacticism", especially with regard to women and their behaviour.4 Conduct books, novels, and plays joined real-life accounts of both notorious and exemplary women, forming a composite picture of ideal womanly behaviour, and displaying recognisable bad examples as well.5 For women, gaming was a particularly problematic vice, depicted as a fount of disorder, moral turpitude, and domestic chaos; in the hands of the burgeoning popular press, a stereotype of the gamestress arose.

The female player was associated with certain risks unique to her sex. Traditional views of women emphasised their moral weakness and ready susceptibility to temptation; card play offered opportunities for high stakes and late nights in mixed company, posing obvious dangers to the easily-swayed lady. Other perceived risks had been shaped by the new thinking of the Enlightenment, which regarded women as the less rational sex, intellectually incapable of understanding the probability of disaster inherent in risky games.6

In addition, in the later eighteenth century, a trend toward a newly-theorised home-centred domestic role for women was being articulated. In 1755, Jean-Jacques

Rousseau used the term "domesticity" to refer, not simply to the household economy as in

3 For more on satirical prints, see Diana Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996); Cindy McCreery, The Satirical Ga^e: Prints of Women in Late Eighteenth Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004); and B. E. Maidment, Reading Popular Prints, 1790- 1870 (Manchester Manchester University Press, 1996). 4 Stephen Howard, " 'A bright pattern to all her sex': representations of women in periodical and newspaper biography" in Gender in Eighteenth-Century England: Roles, Representations and Responsibilities ed. Hannah Barker and Elaine Chalus (London: Longman, 1997), 232. 5 Paul Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727-1783 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 604, 606. 6 The Young Gentleman and Lady Instructed (London: Edward Wicksteed, 1747), ii, 142-3; Dorinda Outram, The Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 137 the seventeenth century, but to a whole new social construct, which imposed gendered expectations and limitations on the female sex. The home was the moral centre of the family, nurtured and upheld by woman in her exclusive roles of assiduous wife and tender mother.7 Women of the middle and upper classes had always been expected to take responsibility for the running and management of the household; for middling women in particular, this duty required day-to-day attention to the details of the family's spending and upkeep. Card play, with its chancy potential for economic havoc and hours spent away from the home, raised the spectre of financial and domestic chaos. In the discourse surrounding the female gamester, a larger picture emerges of eighteenth-century expectations and attitudes toward women, whose card play became a focal point for warnings and cautions about the distaff side generally. Why was the gamestress so feared, and did representations of card-playing women reflect the realities of everyday play for coundess middling women?

For contemporary writers, the goddess Fortuna surrounded herself with devoted female slaves. "Gaming is an enchanting Witchery," declaimed The Compleat Gamester in

1676, giving an updated twist to the old association between women, witchcraft, and morally-questionable practices.8 Later writers agreed that gaming was a natural enough weakness for women.9 Ladies, according to a 1760 pamphlet, had an "almost universal

7 Barbara Corrado Pope, "The Influence of Rousseau's Ideology of Domesticity" in Connecting Spheres: Women in the Western World, 1500 to the Present ed. Marilyn J. Boxer and Jean Quataert (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 138,140. 8 Charles Cotton, The Compleat Gamester (second edition, London: Henry Bowie, 1676), 1. Women had long been regarded as particularly vulnerable to the lures of Satan, both in popular culture and in elite beliefs well into the eighteenth century. See Owen Davies and Willem de Blecourt (eds.), Beyond the Witch Trials: Witchcraft and mage in Enlightenment Europe (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), 86. 9 Phyllis Deutsch, "Moral Trespass in Georgian London: Gaming, Gender, and Electoral Politics in the Age of George III" The Historical Journal 39:3 (1996), 640. 138

Propensity to Gaming," so were easily seduced by the turn of a card.10 Contemporary thinkers regarded women as the less rational sex, intellectually impaired by their delicate sensibilities, unable to withstand the wild emotional swings so natural to many card games.11 The dangers of such excitements to these unstable creatures were grave indeed.

Others saw things differendy. A 1754 satire claimed that

the Ladies have the Powers of Gaming in greater Perfection than the Men: what Enthusiasm in their Hopes! what Judgement in their Fears! what Skill in changing Places ... when the Wind of Fortune is in their Teeth! how dextrously do they shuffle! how critically do they cut!... then they calculate! thought cannot keep pace with them: doubdess they play the Whole Game with greater Success than we [men] can pretend to do.12

These conflicting views of lady players, while acknowledging the inherent excitement of card games, expressed gendered concerns over the spell those games cast Why were women singled out as particularly vulnerable to that fascination?

Agents of Anarchy: The gamestress v. domesticity

Critics saw the female votary of disorder and chance as a major threat to the patriarchal structure of society on several levels. It was an accepted truism that a woman's responsibilities within society were primarily to her husband, her children, and the smooth supervision of her household, whatever its size and whatever her station in life.13 Middling

10 Erasmus Jones (attrib.) Luxury, Pride and Vanity, the Bane of the British Nation (London: E. Withers, 1760), 29. 11 G. J. Barker-Benfield, The Culture of Sensibility: Sex and Society in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 23; Hope Donovan Cotton, "Women and risk: The gambling woman in eighteenth century England" (unpublished Auburn University PhD dissertation, 1998), 49. 12 A Modest Defense of Gaming (London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1754), 16. 13 John D. Ramsbottom, "Women and the Family" in A Companion to Eighteenth-Centuiy Britain ed. H. T. Dickinson (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 210. 139 women in particular were expected to "discharge [their domestic duties] in person, an avocation which cannot be judiciously performed, without considerable knowledge and attention."14 It was readily assumed, then, that the household suffered when its mistress was obsessed with card play at all hours. "She is so bewitch'd to Gaming, that she loves a

Pack of Cards much better than her Children," tutted a 1714 pamphlet, "and thinks every

Knave in the Pack, a better Companion, than her Husband."15

Pastimes, argued writers of both sexes, ought to be worthy uses of the time women spent on them, "regulated upon principles of reason".16 Dancing, music, and fine clothes were dismissed as vanity and frivolity, in favour of serious reading (preferably not novels) and conversation, family-based leisure pursuits which would inform and improve.17

In their blasts against the gamestress, critics emphasised the gulf between the woman as home-maker and mother and the undutiful, neglectful slattern who "exhibited [her] person in public places" and snapped her fingers at her God-given responsibilities.18 Women were

14 Priscilla Wakefield, Reflections on the Present Condition of the Female Sex (London: J. Johnson, 1798), 100. 15 Adam and Eve Stript of their Furbelows: Or, the Fashionable Virtues and Vices of both Sexes expos'd to publick View (London: J. Woodward, 1714), 53; Beth Kowaleski-Wallace, "A Modest Defense of Gaming Women" Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 31 (2002), 32. 16 Wakefield, Present Condition of the Female Sex, 99. Plays, lauded as "an entertainment of the reason" if witty and morally irreproachable, were to be approached with caution: playwrights in want of a good audience often fell back on "immodest action, empty show, or impertinent activity." See The Young Gentleman and Lady Instructed in such Principles of Politeness, Prudence, and Virtue, As will lay a sure Foundation for gaining Respect, Esteem, and Satisfaction in this Life, and Eternal Happiness in a future State; Interspersed with such Observations and Maxims, as demonstrate the Danger and Folly of Vice, and the Advantage and Wisdom of Virtue (London: Edward Wicksteed, 1747), 11:127. 17 Thomas Gisbome, An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1797), 206- 207; William Stafford, "Narratives of Women: English Feminists of the 1790s" History 82:265 (1997), 36; and Naomi Tadmor, " In the even my wife read to me': women, reading and household life in the eighteenth century" in The Practice and Representation of Reading in England ed. James Raven, Helen Small, and Naomi Tadmor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 165. By the late eighteenth century, most middle- class homes were well stocked with books and book societies and circulating libraries were springing up around England. See Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 155-157. 18 Wakefield, Present Condition of the Female Sex, 77. Stephen Howard points out an ironic inconsistency in the way individual women were often portrayed in the public press. Obituaries of many women who indulged in fashionable pursuits were careful to explain such pastimes as being perfecdy compatible with a moral, virtuous life. See Howard, " 'A bright pattern to all her sex'", 236. 140

frequently represented as playing against the express wishes of their husbands, and this

denial of the authority of the man within a marriage struck a subversive note. In Vanbrugh

and Cibber's The Provok'd Husband, Lord Townly's reproaches to his card-playing wife fall

on unreceptive ears:

Lord Townly: Now then recollect your thoughts, and tell me seriously why you married me? Lady Townly: ... to give you, at once, a proof of my obedience and sincerity — I think — I married — to take off that restraint that lay upon my pleasures while I was a single woman. Lord Townly: How, madam! is any woman under less restraint after marriage than before it? Lady Townly: Oh, my lord, my lord! ... Wives have infinite liberties in life, that would be terrible in an unmarried woman to take.19

In brushing aside her husband's claim on her submission to his authority, Lady Townly is

an agent of disruption, undermining the natural family order and inviting anarchy.

As a wife but not yet a mother, Lady Townly manifests the gamestress as a direct

threat to the patriarchal line. In pursuing her own pleasure every night, she defies her

husband, risks money, and neglects her home; worse, she spurns her most elementary role

as a wife, the one only she can fill: the production of legitimate heirs for her husband (and,

by extension, his family).20 Not only was she unlikely to conceive a child from the card

table, but her continued play posed a threat to any pregnancy she might manage to achieve

between games. The New Female Instructor warned that "cards, or any kind of gaming ...

should be particularly avoided during pregnancy. The temper is then more liable to be

ruffled by the changes of luck, and the mind to be fatigued by constant exertions of the

19 John Vanbrugh and Colley Cibber, The Provok'd Husband; or, a Journey to London. A Comedy. (London: John Bell, 1791), 18. 20 Gillian Russell, " 'Faro's Daughters': Female Gamesters, Politics, and the Discourse of Finance in 1790s Britain" Eighteenth-Centwy Studies 33:4 (2000), 484. 141 judgement and memory."21 Even when children had arrived, the lifestyle of the gamestress was still beyond the pale. A gaming mother who spent her nights away from her children was both neglectful and a malign influence: "What a Race of Warriors, Patriots, and

Statesmen, is poor Britain to expect... from the Wombs of such dissolute Mothers?"22

A spirited (and satirical) defense from a "dissolute Mother" appeared in The

Rambler in 1750:

What if I was unfortunate at Brag? [My husband] says ... that Women have not Heads enough to play with any Thing but Dolls, and that they should be employed in Things proportionable to their Understanding, keep at Home, and mind family Affairs ... I do stay at Home, Sir ... I have had six Routs this Winter, and sent out ten Packs of Cards in Invitations to private Parries. As for Management, I am sure he cannot call me extravagant, or say I do not mind my Family. The Children are out at Nurse in Villages as cheap as any two litde Brats can be kept, nor have I ever seen them since; so he has no Trouble about them ...23

In satirising the gaming woman as unnatural mother and indifferent wife, the trope of the domestic ideal of the dutiful wife as household manager and economiser is turned on its head. For this creature, "staying at Home" morphs into being "At Home" in the social sense - that is, receiving guests at her routs and "private Parties." Her solution to managing her household and "minding [her] Family" is to farm her "Brats" out, distancing herself further from her expected duties as nurturer. Effective satire depends on the recognisable type; this piece manages to mock two types at once.

21 Old maids were the only ladies for whom gaming was relatively safe, presumably because they wouldn't be exercising their reproductive powers in the near future, if at alL See The New Female Instructor, or, Young Woman's Guide to Domestic Happiness: Being an Epitome of all the Acquirements Necessary to Form the Female Character, in Every Class ofUfe (London: Thomas Kelly, 1824), 77. For more on the early modem attitude toward pregnancy, especially the effect of the mother's emotions on the unborn child, see Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford, Women in Early Modern England 1550-1720 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 151- 152. 22 "On the Practice of Gaming among Ladies of Quality" The Midwife 2:5 (1751), 212. 23 The Rambler 15 (8 May 1750). This letter* may well have been written by a man. 142

Whose Money Is It, Anyway? Money matters and the female card player

She's a profuse Lady, tho' of a miserly Temper ... the Desire of Success, wheedles her Ladyship to play, and the incident Charges and Disappointments that attend it, make her as expensive to her Husband, as his Coach and six Horses.24

In eighteenth-century England, every wife was in a sense "expensive to her

Husband": as she said her wedding vows, her financial independence vanished into a tangle of arcane and often contradictory legal systems. If she brought property to the marriage, she might have some control over it or access to it - or not If her husband and father had arranged a pre-nuptial setdement for her maintenance, she might have money at her disposal - or not For our purposes, the important point is whether she had any right to the money she carried to card parties and wagered on her games. Was it hers, her family's, or her husband's? How did her wins and losses reflect on her role as wife, household manager, and helpmeet?

Common law called a wife a feme covert in return for her husband's protection

{coverture) of her person, her children, and her property, that property became his at marriage to use, administer, and profit by. At least in theory, the system robbed her of any sort of financial agency, as she relinquished the power to make contracts and obtain credit as a feme sole (single woman),25 As Amy Louise Erickson, Margot Finn, and Joanne Bailey have convincingly argued, however, coverture was honoured (at least sometimes) in the

24 Adam and Eve Stript of their Furbelows, 51. 25 Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 200-201; Amanda Vickery, Gentleman's Daughter Women's Lives in Georgian England (London: Yale University Press, 1998), 73. 143

breach as well as the observance. Middle-class women made the most of the freedoms they

retained within the system, acting as independent consumers under the law of agency.26

Women of the middle classes typically brought property of varying sorts to their new

families, as well as access to a network of potential financial support.27 In many cases, pre-

nuptial settlements arranged for separate incomes for wives, covered under equity law and

termed "separate estates". Feme-sole businesswomen who continued to trade after

marriage advertised their change of name and address, but kept their businesses, at least in

theory, separate from those of their husbands.28 The entrepreneurial woman was

recognised as an economic force, even if she was often hidden behind her husband's name

in a business run by both. Many middle-class women ran successful businesses, and took

advantage of a variety of opportunities in trade, whether as independent businesswomen or

as partners with sons, husbands or other women.29 Enterprise was applauded, even in

women; if banks looked askance at loan applications from would-be female traders, their

families, including their menfolk, were often more forthcoming.30

26 For a full discussion of the law of agency (Margot Finn calls it the law of necessity) and women as consumers, see Amy Louise Erickson, Women and Property in Early Modern England (London: Roudedge, 1993); Margot Finn, "Women, Consumption and Coverture in England, c. 1760-1860" The HistoricalJournal 39:3 (1996); and Joanne Bailey, "Favoured or oppressed? Married women, property and 'coverture' in England, 1660-1800" Continuity and Chang 17:3 (2002). 27 Margaret R. Hunt, The Middling Sort Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England 1680-1780 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 23. 28 Margaret Hunt and Amy Louise Erickson discuss separate estates and the equity law that governed them in some detail. See Hunt, The Middling Sort, 156-162; Erickson, Women and Property, Chapter 2. In addition, both Hunt and Hannah Baiter delve into the family dynamic and the social and legal aspects of women in trade. Hunt notes several cases wherein a feme sole was unable to keep her business from being dragged down into debt, even broken, as a result of her husband's bankruptcy. See Hunt, The Middling Sort, Chapter Five, and Hannah Barker, The Business of Women: Female Enterprise and Urban Development in Northern England 1760-1830 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), Chapter 4. 29 For an interesting discussion of the business presence of lower-middle-class women in the industrial towns of Sheffield, Manchester, and Leeds, see Barker, The Business of Women, Chapter 4. A wife's earnings could be vital to a family's survival if the husband was unable to work or had business troubles of his own. Children's author and proto-feminist writer Priscilla Wakefield kept her husband afloat after he lost his inheritance in rash investments. See Bridget Hill, "Priscilla Wakefield as a Writer of Children's Educational Books" Women's Writing 4:1 (1997), 11. 30 Barker, The Business of Women, 125. 144

Both separate estates and feme-sole incomes gave women access to money which was unquestionably theirs and could well have found its way to a card table. A less clear- cut option, pin money, was considered to belong to the wife but was doled out to her by her husband.31 As money to cover her day-to-day expenses - and cards were a normal part of the day for many women - pin money may have been wagered as well. What this means for this study is that middle-class women who played cards with their earnings or their pin money were wagering their own cash, not their husbands'; by extension, their card winnings

(or debts) were theirs as well.32 It should be noted that my sample of female card players appears to include neither independent businesswomen, nor any who received money from separate estates or pin money, at least none that are clearly designated as such. For example, I cannot be sure whether account-book entries such as "Receiv'd of Mr Dummer for my own expences £30.0.0" refer to pin money, an annuity, or some other form of income; she did note income from annuities and legacies. Mrs Dummer did draw "Card

Money" from the same account where she recorded pin-money-esque purchases, but that is as much as can be drawn from her accounts.33

Difficulties arose when a wife lost more than she could afford to pay. In theory, at least, coverture's protection clause came into effect at this point, holding her husband responsible for her debts. Depending on the extent of her folly, the repercussions could

31 Pia money was intended to pay a wife's expenses "for her Cloaths, and such other Uses and Purposes as she shall think fit", and was hers to spend and account for, if called upon to do so. It was considered a sort of separate property which the wife held under coverture, which was neither controlled by the husband nor accessible to his creditors. Susan Staves, "Pin Money" Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture 14 (1985), 53. Pin money and the goods it bought were sometimes treated as "creatures of equity" and dealt with in the equity courts; at other times, it was treated as though the woman were a feme sole (or a man), with outright ownership. Legal rulings over the eighteenth and into the nineteenth centuries were far from consistent. Staves, 'Tin Money", 54. 32 Some husbands took it upon themselves to see that their wives had money for play, and took pride in doing so. John Baker noted complacently, "Put IW [four guineas] Uxor's [wife's] play-purse." Philip C. Yorke, The Diary ofJohn Baker (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1931), 111. 33 Northamptonshire Record Office Bru.ASR 103. See Appendix 3. 145 endanger the whole family, for if a woman could not be imprisoned for debt, her husband certainly could, thus cutting off his contribution to the household finances. Many women kept card accounts, or at least noted how much money they set aside for cards, when, and how often. This habit of tracking the source and eventual fate of every shilling probably stood middling players of both sexes in good stead; by definition, a careful accountant knows his or her situation and what it portends. By contrast, the stereotypical gamestress of stage and novel kept no accounts, keeping her husband and herself in the dark, and trembled at the prospect of discovery. She borrowed from fellow players in her efforts to recoup her losses, and from these added debts many rather predictable stories, tragic or comic, arose.34

Collateral victims of the female gamester, in tales or tracts, included the honest tradesmen who supplied her with the finery she required for her outings, and thus the middling sort make an appearance as suppliers and creditors of Faro's priestesses (who may, of course, have been middling themselves).35 The trope of the hard-working, careful businessman, made to wait for money long owed, was a popular, easily-recognised one in novels and plays of the time.36 In two plays, The Provok'dHusband and The Female Gamester, the gaming-obsessed, deeply-in-debt wife takes the money her husband gives her to settle

34 See, for example, John Vanbrugh and C. Cibber, The Provok'd Husband; or, A Journey to London. A Comedy. (London: John Bell, 1791); Gorges Edmond Howard, The Female Gamester. A Tragedy (Project Gutenberg Ebook #7840, www.gutenberg.net 17 February 2004); and The Lady's Last Stake in Maureen Sullivan (ed.), Colley Cibber Three Sentimental Comedies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973). Nor was this a mere fictional device: Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, was a hopelessly addicted gamestress whose play and subsequent debts repeatedly inflicted this cycle on herself and her family. See Amanda Foreman, Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire (London: HarperCollins, 199). 33 "Faro's Priestesses" was one of many derogatory terms used for gamestresses. See, for example, The Rape of the Faro-Bank: An Heroi-Comical Poem, in Eight Cantos (London: T. Barnes, 1800?), 18. 36 In Cecilia, Fanny Burnev shocks the reader with Mr Harrel's callous indifference to his nine-month-old debt to his carpenter, who can no longer work or provide for his family. Frances Burnev, Cecilia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 75. 146

accounts with a tradesman, and plays it away.37 In so doing, she acts as the fulcrum of the

diametrical opposition between the Puritan work ethic (money for hard work) and the

allure of the gaming table (money for nothing). Worse, she calls her husband's reputation

into question and endangers his credit and thus his financial stability, worst of all, she has

failed in her duty of submission to his authority, and in her central obligation as a

housewife to manage the household finances and expenditures.38

An opposite view presents the gamestress as financial free agent, empowered

beyond the restraints of eighteenth-century law and custom. Hope Cotton points out the

connection between speculation in the stock market (in which many women engaged) and

gaming, and suggests that women involved in either activity aspired to a quasi-legitimate

financial independence. Investment income earned by a woman's own money, like winnings at cards, belonged to her in law as well as in fact, offering a measure of

empowerment. More prosaically, as Peter Borsay speculates, the gamestress may have been pushing the bounds of her social and cultural restraints. Debarred from most occupations, patronised by men as the weaker vessel, at the gaming table she found a type of level playing field, and made the most of the opportunities it offered her.39 A contemporary satirist agreed. "[Since] they cannot flourish at the Bar, or bluster in a Campaign ... [ladies] may exercise their genius at Whist, or their Courage at the Brag-Table; the Card Assemblies are still open to their Industry."40 The "Industry" of these busily idle women contrasted sharply with that of the businesswoman in her shop or the housewife planning a meal for her family. In sweeping her winnings from the table into her card purse, the gamestress

37 The Prvvok'd Husband, 130-133; The Female Gamesterhi (p 3 Gutenberg ebook) 38 The Female Gamester I:ii (p 10 ebook) 39 Hope Cotton, "Women and risk", 167; Peter Borsay, The English Urban Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Provincial Town 1660-1770 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 250. 40 A Modest Defense of Gaming, 16. 147 defied the Calvinist warnings against the waste of God-given time, against getting something for nothing.

Figure 13: "Loo" Isaac Cruikshank, 1796. Courtesy of the British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings.

Winning women appear in satirical prints as well. In Figure 13, "Loo", the young and lovely winner draws our eyes immediately. The coins on the table and in her lap tell us that the winning hand she holds is not her first. She connotes financial success, triumph, and power: she is a winner at cards and in life, beautiful and young. She sits apart from the losing players, smiling out at the viewer. As she turns her body and her face to the viewer, we feel a greater connection with her than with the others. She is open to our gaze, and seems to welcome it, even as she holds herself triumphant over it. This image conveys the 148 gaming woman in control, successful, owing nothing to any man, ready and able to decide for herself. This is the gamestress as an independent financial agent, however domestic the setting might appear.

Figure 14: "Lady Godina's Rout: _or_ Peeping-Tom spying out Pope-Joan — Vide Fashionable Modesty" James Gillray, 17%. Courtesy of the British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings, London. Figure 14, "Lady Godina's Rout", presents a large card-party of many tables. The central figure is a beautiful young woman, scantily dressed in a filmy gown with a deep decolktage.41 The game is Pope-Joan, and she, too, holds the winning card. In her coolly confident pose she projects fashionable and sexual freedom, the independence of victory, and a willingness to take risks, all of which amount to an escape from male dominance (if

41 She has been tentatively identified as Lady Georgiana Gordon, hence the name "Godina" in the tide, which is an obvious reference to the Lady Godiva legend. 149 not the male gaze).42 In this image, a fashionable woman pushes the boundaries of decent, controlled behavior, defying the dangers inherent in daring fashions, both in dress and in leisure pursuits.

The successful, quasi-independent winning women of "Loo" and "Lady Godina's

Rout" represented one side of the eighteenth-century debate about the role of the woman in society. The trope they presented posed a real challenge to the middling ideal of the woman at the heart of the home and family, a prevalent theme by the 1790s, when these prints appeared.43 Women with any sort of autonomy — financial, social, sexual — relied less on husbands, fathers, or brothers, and further undermined the ideal, already endangered by such women as the notorious "Faro's Daughters".44 These hostesses of illegal gaming- houses were at the eye of a cause-celebre case of 1796-97, which brought the gamestress under the lens of public scrutiny as never before and linked her already poor reputation with criminality. Women's squandering money at the gaming table was bad enough, but in playing in illegal situations, they embodied social disorder as well as economic chaos. More practically, the money a woman wagered was unavailable for productive use by male family members. The gap between such money's potential both for investment and for loss represented a danger to entrepreneurial men, many of whom depended direcdy on the resources available from female relatives.45

42 "Before Victoria" www.nypl.org/research/chss/victoria/ref/ps prn cd38 555.html 8 September 2007 43 Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 169. 44 For a full account of the case, see Gillian Russell, '"Faro's Daughters'", 481-504. 45 Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 279. 150

Carnal Matters: The body at stake

A somewhat ironic twist on the gaming/woman link was the perception, common to moralistic tracts of the time, that gaming made women unfeminine. "Let no body tell me of the Respect that is due to the Ladies," ranted the author of Luxury, Pride and Vanity,

"these are no Ladies ... the Rights of the Sex are Advantages, which They are too Mannish to support any Claim to."46 The gaming woman was constructed as a "third gender", displaying the confidence and aggression of a man, but still presenting herself as a woman.47

This ambiguity in the character of the female gamester manifests itself in her physical body:

... there is not, among all the misshapen, grim Animals, which are proclaimed unnatural... so detestably the Reverse of what she was intended for, as this ... voracious, dry Harpy in Masquerade! this half-human Tyger in Petticoats!48

This diatribe followed theories of physiognomy, which held that one's moral worth (or lack thereof) was revealed in one's outward appearance.49 The female body had always been a battleground of interpretation and representation: revered by Renaissance artists as the highest example of symmetry and proportion, yet feared by the Church as the source of sin and the fall of souls. The emphasis placed by later-eighteenth-century polite culture on modesty and restraint resulted in a new view of the body, unmentionable and shameful,

"closed" in a way it had not previously been.50

46 Jones, Luxury, Pride and Vanity, 28. 47 Hope Cotton Dixon, "The Gambling Woman's Revolution: An Alternative Gender, An Alternative Epistemology" Eighteenth-Century Women 3 (Nov 2003), 129. 48 Jones, Luxury, Pride and Vanity, 28. 49 Roy Porter, Bodies Politic: Disease, Death and Doctors in Britain, 1650-1900 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 42-43. 50 Porter, Bodies Politic, 31. 151

In one important respect, however, attitudes to the body remained unchanged.

The centuries-old fear and mistrust of women as daughters of Eve, treacherous, seductive, and vain, remained.51

i ,1'Aiaii f&nnA/Hut/ }>intAf£T\-*+/i* lawlrsA'4 vrrr. "ft XlPJS .111(1 i>15ATH eontmtWcf L or.An lis SAY oitWO>I.\>'. .i.-t •.•<•• •.if >

Figure 15: "Life and Death Contrasted - or, An Essay on Woman" (detail) anon., c. 1760. Courtesy of the Wellcome Library, London.

Figure 15 combines vanitas symbols, including playing cards, fashionable dress and accessories, and an elaborate hairstyle, with memento mori elements and a skeletal half-figure

51 Mendelson and Crawford, Women in Earfy Modern England, 30. 152 whose grin mocks the lady's smile. All that makes her body desirable and attractive in life is lost to her in death. In case the rather heavy-handed frivolous life/ugly death dichotomy is not evident to its viewers, the print includes gender-specific admonitory texts to hammer home the point: "She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth" (I Timothy 5:6); "in the midst of life we are in death", from the Book of Common Prayer, and Hamlet's hissings to

Yorick's skull, "now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come." This image, "An Essay on Woman", is one of a pair of prints. Its companion piece, "Death and Life Contrasted - or, An Essay on Man", features similar symbols and texts. Unlike "Essay on Woman", however, the verses and quotations employed are gender-neutral, lacking the focussed attention to the sex of the gamester as such. By singling out women players for gender-specific warnings, the image implies that women's vanity and vice, though she might share both with her male counterpart, carries a special burden of sinful responsibility and doom. In these images, memento mori ("remember you must die") becomes "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), as worldly vices actively hasten one's passage to judgement This association was not lost on contemporaries. "The

Duchess of Devonshire [a notorious gamestress] died," noted Nottingham businesswoman

Abigail Gawthern in her diary in March 1806. "She had been a most beautiful woman but from dissipation she lost her life."52

As acolytes of Faro, women added a new and fatal dimension to their allure.

Detractors harped on the dangers to the female body from the mental and physical rigours of gaming, which hazarded both beauty and health. Appealing to the vanity of lady players,

The Guardian declaimed:

52 Adrian Henstock (ed.), The Diary of Abigail Gawthern of Nottingham 1751-1810 (Nottingham: Thoroton Society, 1980), 122. 153

Now there is nothing that wears out a fine Face like the Vigils of the Card-Table ... Hollow Eyes, haggard Looks, and pale Complexions, are the natural Indications of a Female Gamester ... I never knew a thorough-paced Female Gamester hold her Beauty two Winters together.53

Mrs Philip Lybbe Powys, writing later in the century, thought the same. "I always observe even those who have [money] to lose have no less a tinge of the rouge in their countenances when fortune does not smile," she wrote. "Oh! what a disfiguring thing is gaming, particularly to the ladies."54

The female gamester's body, however, was also at stake in a more concrete and immediate sense, as Steele warned:

But there is still another Case in which the Body is more endangered ... All Play-debts must be paid in Specie [cash], or by an Equivalent. The Man that plays beyond his Income pawns his Estate; the Woman must find something else to Mortgage when her Pin-mony [sic] is gone: The Husband has his Lands to dispose of, the Wife her Person.55

The difficulty lay in the fact that gaming debts were "debts of honour", to be paid immediately on demand; payment could not, in honour, be postponed. It was much easier for a man to arrange a loan for the prompt repayment of such a debt than it was for a woman, who was less likely to own property in her own name. Moreover, a married woman could not easily negotiate a loan independent of her husband; what she was left to negotiate with - her body - necessarily became a disputed site. Any loan made to her in such a situation might come from a man who sought to place her in his debt, taking advantage of the imperative of the debt of honour. This risk was unique to the female

53 The Guardian 120 (29 July 1713). If gaming truly destroyed beauty, the lovely young women of "Loo" and "Lady Godina's Rout" must have been at the beginning of their card-playing careers. 54 CHmenson, Mrs Philip Lybbe Pouys, 186. 55 The Guardian 120 (29 July 1713). 154 gamester: once her money was gone, her reputation was the only thing left on the table, and could as easily be permanently lost56

The woman who had lost all her ready cash at the card-table could be placed on the horns of a somewhat paradoxical moral dilemma. In paying debts of honour, she must be dishonoured by surrendering her person and reputation to her seducer/creditor. If such a debt of honour was claimed from and paid by a married woman, she endangered the legitimacy of any children she might have, thus further jeopardising the paternal line of inheritance. Even if a woman avoided this drastic step, however, her husband might question her commitment to her marriage. Lord Townly, driven to distraction by his wife's obsession for card play, laments the fact that there is no provision for divorce

... for... this adultery of the mind ... When a woman's whole heart is alienated to pleasures I have no share in, what is it to me, whether a black ace, or a powdered coxcomb has possession of it57

In a discussion of female chastity, Margaret Hunt points out that a man who could not protect his womanfolk from dishonour was unworthy of patriarchal control. I would argue that gaming, as an "adultery of the mind", likewise rendered the "cuckold" impotent.58

56 Kowaleski-Wallace, "A Modest Defense of Gaming Women", 30. 57 Vanbrugh and Cibber, The Provok'd Husband, 134. 58 Margaret Hunt, The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England, 1680-1780 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 93. 155

Figure 16: "The Lady's Last Stake" William Hogarth, 1758-1759. Courtesy of the Albright-Knox Aft Gallery, Buffalo, New York.

Figure 16, "The Lady's Last Stake", depicts Act V, Scene ii of Colley Cibber's play of the same name. The unscrupulous Lord George has maneouvered Lady Gentle into a debt of honour, or a card debt, of two thousand pounds. Honour and etiquette demand that such debts be repaid on demand, in kind if not in cash. Poor Lady Gende cannot bear to lose her husband's trust by yielding to her suitor's suggestions, and trembles for her reputation, which is endangered no matter which course she takes. If she confesses her debt to her husband, she will lose his trust, perhaps his love; if she grants Lord George his wish, she will lose her self-respect, and his silence cannot be relied upon in any case.

She sits at the centre of Hogarth's painting, next to the fire into which she has flung the treacherous cards. Her indecision is clearly written on her face, and her 156

ambiguous pose echoes the alternatives she faces. Her lower body, led by her right foot,

points toward the hearth and a letter from her husband, both reminders of the happy home

life she shares with him. At the same time, her upper body leans toward her suitor and the way out of her debt that he offers her (and himself). One hand pushes away from the fire

and the social and sexual danger it represents; the other seems poised to place itself in her

suitor's hand. She writhes in the trap of social obligations, set for her by Lord George and by her own love of deep play. Cibber's play and Hogarth's painting speak to a view of woman as lacking the moral strength of man, ready to yield to the temptation of play even

though it may spell her ruin. In her failure to resist the wager, she brings the reality of

financial and sexual shame on her husband and herself.

Again, satirical prints provide the Janus-face of this hapless victim. Returning to

Figure 13, "Loo", we see the successful gamestress, whose lap full of coins recalls Zeus' golden shower into the lap of Danae; her winnings are coupled to her sexual potential, likewise, her light gown and her slighdy spread knees add force to the suggestion of her sexual availability.59 As a winner, however, she exerts complete control over her sexuality; she will decide the success or failure of her suitors. The text below her, "A Flush", suggests a flush of triumph or of excitement of another kind.60

The fashionable lady at the centre of "Lady Godina's Rout" (Figure 14) is another privileged character. Intent on her win and comfortable in her own self-construction, she utterly ignores the threat posed by the serving man who leans so close to her, ostensibly to

39 Pamela Gossin, " 'All Danae to the Stars': Nineteenth-Century Representations of Women in the Cosmos" Victorian Studies 40:1 (1996), 68. There was a strong association of female gaming with sexual immorality; in addition, the term Tight-skirt' denoted a woman of easy virtue. My thanks to Dr Bevedy Lemire for this point. 60 This print was a black-and-white engraving; it would be interesting to know whether the artist would have reddened her cheeks in a mezzotint. 157 trim the wick of the candle.61 His intrusion into her orbit invokes the shadow side of fashion, and the risks to which its dictates exposed its devotees: lust, cross-class contamination, voyeurism, financial ruin, and loss of sexual reputation. By playing in public, she sets herself up as a "female Adventurer", free with more than mere money, her intellect and finer feelings "vilely prostituted" at cards.62 The word prostituted is a loaded one, invoking the streetwalkers of Seven Dials. The female gamester, already vulnerable to her own unique danger, was thus constructed as easy, perhaps even eager, prey.63

Finally, in indulging in a visible spectacle around a gaming-table, women theoretically put themselves on display in a manner that clashed with the middle-class domestic ideal. Gaming, especially in large assemblies and routs, was a watchable performance, and women on such "stages" mirrored professional actresses on actual stages, whose easy morals had been assumed since Restoration times.64 Women were subject to the power of the male gaze and the related issue of male penetration of a woman's orbit.

The arrows of the unsuccessful or lower-ranking men seem to glance off the shields of the victorious women of "Loo" and "Godina", and how relieved poor Lady Gende would have been if Lord George had been content merely to ogle her. As emblematic fashionable women, all three are represented as distinguishing themselves in company, and the "power of the gaze", on these occasions at least, holds no terrors for them.65

61 The position of the wick-trimmers reveal the flimsiness of this excuse, while the wick-trimmers and candle evoke the sexual act 62 The Guardian 120 (29 July 1713). 63 Dixon, "Gambling Woman's Revolution", 134-5. 64 Kowaleski-Wallace, "A Modest Defense of Gaming Women", 33. 65 For more on the concept of the power of the male gaze, see John Berger, Ways of Seeing (New York: The Viking Press, 1973), 46-47; also Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, Practices of hooking: an introduction to visual culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 76-81. 158

Audiencing: Images, their producers, and their viewers

The runaway popularity of graphic satire spawned an industry to supply its eager

market. In London alone, there were over 200 engravers and about 71 printsellers by the

turn of the nineteenth century, some of whom became famous through their connections

with prominent satiric artists.66 This specialised sector of the printing industry relied on the

quality of their products and the allure of their shop windows, in which prints and

engravings were displayed for all to see. Smaller operations, such as that of Gillray's

publisher Hannah Humphrey, combined the production and sale of prints in one premises;

others contracted out the printing process and concentrated solely on the retail side. Many

prospered and enjoyed a comfortable middle-class standard of living.67 Their customers

were people with money to spend, mosdy from the wealthier middle and upper classes.

Many collections became the basis for "print parties" in middling homes, as the tone of

satiric prints became more moderate and their respectability more established.68 Although

sales figures for satirical prints are difficult to estimate, Herbert Atherton suggests that with

short print runs and limited numbers of copies, their circulation probably did not exceed a

few hundred for the most popular prints.69 The possession of such limited-edition works

of art probably enhanced their value for their owners, and may have fed the eagerness with which they were displayed in homes.

66 McCreery, The Satirical Ga%e, 17-25. Interestingly, a number of women flourished in this trade: Hannah Humphrey, Mary Darly and Jane Hogarth were all prosperous printsellers and skillful businesswomen. Darly not only ran the shop she and her husband owned, but was the etcher responsible for many of their most popular prints. 67 McCreery, The Satirical Ga%e, 24-25. 68 Mark Hallett, 'James Gillray and the Language of Graphic Satire" in James Gillray: The Art of Caricature ed. Richard Godfrey (London: Tate Publishing, 2001), 27; McCreery, The Satirical Ga^e, 31-32. 69 Herbert M- Atherton, Political Prints in the Age of Hogarth (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), 63. 159

What effect did these images, and others like them, have on their original

audiences? Can we ever know? The sources are nearly silent on the subject Although contemporary writers make passing mention of purchases of satirical prints and their interest as collectibles, very little survives in die way of actual opinions on their content, artistic merit, or persuasiveness. First-hand commentary on graphic satire is most plentiful in the memoirs and letters of foreign visitors, who both enjoyed and marvelled at the wide range of subjects featured in prints. Their accounts made plain the importance of these images to the culture and society of eighteenth-century England, and recommended them to other visitors as a window on the English world.70 As a result of the lacuna of home- grown evidence, not a lot is known about prints' impact on their audiences. Why were certain prints more popular than others? Answers to this question would help us to understand eighteenth-century mentalities and priorities in social and political matters, especially valuable in a rapidly changing social landscape. In seeking those answers, we may at least speculate on the reception of these images by their intended viewers. This is tricky, especially given the remoteness of their time, but the attempt is still worthwhile; if the approach must often be oblique, at least some conclusions may be reached.71

The lack of first-hand reactions may hold its own significance.72 It may be due to an eighteenth-century perception that graphic satire did not meet the standards of polite art or literature, or it may simply reflect prints' status as an expected and natural part of the cultural landscape. In the case of the two satirical prints discussed in this chapter, the whiff

70 McCreeiy, The Satirical Ga%e, 32-33. 71 Early semiotic analyses concentrated solely on the site of the image itself and the signs that create its meanings. More recendy, however, Meike Bal and Norman Bryson have urged that the creation of meaning at the point of the act of viewing be admitted to semiotic examination. See Gillian Rose, Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials (London: Sage Publications, 2001), 72; and Meike Bal and Norman Bryson, "Semiotics and Art History" Art Bulletin 73:2 (1991), 184. 72 Bal and Bryson, "Semiotics and Art History", 186. 160 of female sexuality may be sufficient explanation. Genteel viewers might have tittered with their friends over such prints, and probably included them in their collections, but they might have balked at committing opinions to paper on racy subjects.73 The bawdy days of the Restoration were giving way to the delicacy of middle-class morality, and certain subjects were becoming unmentionable, particularly in mixed company.74

So what did the middle classes think of these images, in particular those dealing with the various aspects of the gamestress?75 Of the easily-read signs in the images, the gamestress as sexual objective would probably have been the most recognisable, especially since the signs were well-emphasised. In each case, the woman is the focal point of the image; the parted knees of the "Loo" girl and the low neckline and gauzy draperies of Lady

Godina are particularly obvious.76 Card-playing women were depicted, not merely as consumers of pleasure and fashionable activities, but as pleasurable objects in themselves, much as prostitutes were represented in many nineteenth-century images.77 However, for middling women in particular, the contrast between the card-playing women of the prints and their own circle of friends and fellow players would have been immediately apparent

The settings for their play might be similar - assembly rooms, card tables at large local

73 McCreery, The SatiricalGa^e, 32. In making this point, I leave aside discussion of "The Lady's Last Stake", which (as far as I have been able to discover) was never engraved for mass distribution. 74 G. J. Barket-Benfield, The Culture of Sensibility: Sex and Society in Eighteenth-Centuiy Britain (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 38, 78-79, 99. 75 These three images were probably viewed and, in the case of the prints, purchased by people of some means. A contemporary account describes the Hogarth oil in "its first appearance" at a Spring-Garden exhibit, probably attended by middling and aristocratic people. Such an exhibit probably charged an admission fee, prohibitive for those without extra money to spend; this would tend to tip the viewing balance toward the middle and upper classes. See Charles Moore, A Treatise on Gaming (London: J. F. and C. Rivington, 1790), 370 note [P]. 76 McCreery, The Satirical Ga^e, 140. Maidment wonders whether contemporary audiences were able to understand the humour and interpret the artists' allusions; I believe that the long-term success of this genre argues in favour of comprehension to at least some degree. Multiple levels of meaning may have been appreciated more by those of a more extensive education, but satire is rich in meanings, and even the most basic and literal of readings usually yields humour for the less-sophisticated viewer. See Maidment, Reading Popular Prints, 2. 77 Lynda Nead, Myths of Sexuality: Representations of Women in Victorian England (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 179. 161 gatherings - but the stakes, the company, even the hours, were as different as could be. No flesh-and-blood middle-class counterpart to Lady Gentle appears in the primary sources;

Lady Godina's extremes in fashion and sexual independence had no place in the moderate leisure culture that the middling sort were fashioning for themselves. Also, in placing many of these dramas within the context of aristocratic play, many prints and satiric plays drew attention to the well-established reputation of the nobility for irresponsible dissipation on a number of fronts. Sexual immorality, reckless wasting of money, time spent in idleness and the extremes of fashion had all become hallmarks of the stereotypical aristocrat by the last years of the eighteenth century. In reinforcing the connection between these vices and the poor financial judgement of the ruling elite, these images and texts stoked the fears of their middle-class audiences, already concerned for England's future under the domination of such leaders.78

Conclusion: Representation and the middling woman's reality

While these prints and texts may have been an attempt to define the limits of socially acceptable behaviour, their depictions of women playing cards as financially and morally irresponsible, as slaves to fashionable pastimes and as sexual free agents do not reflect reality for the vast majority of female card players. This disjuncture between representation and reality raises another question: why was women's play so virulendy and specifically targetted for criticism? Although many prints, plays and articles featured the male gamester, their message was not stridendy anti-male per se. While middling sons were

78 Phylllis Deutsch, "Moral Trespass in Georgian London", 637-38. 162 warned away from a variety of vices, lest their behaviour endanger the family or its business interests, those fears focussed on the potentially wild years of youth.79 Women of all ages, as card players, were specifically targetted, for reasons which are not altogether clear.

Perhaps cards were another convenient stick with which to beat the distaff side; perhaps fear of female agency in the bedroom or the counting-house was the root cause. On the other hand, the Enlightenment view of women as intellectual lightweights might have led to a distrust of their understanding or their self-control. Certainly women were thought to be easily snared by the giddy excitement of the gaming table.

In asking why the gamestress stereotype was so fully developed - that is, why she was perceived as a threat on so many levels - we must ask again, who were the audiences for those diatribes? To men, the subtext would have been 'keep your women within bounds; look at what a passion for card-playing can do to home/family/society.' Women would have viewed the gamestress as a good bad example: 'watch your behaviour, especially in public spaces and in company; you don't want to appear to be that sort of woman.' As they enjoyed their own games within their preferred settings, middling women operated against this background of disapproval, and, consciously or otherwise, almost certainly took it into account in their own play. Considering the popularity of such prints as we have been discussing, card-playing women certainly knew about the unhappy fate awaiting the gamestress. The same applies to the satires and the many critical essays that had flooded the press over the century. Playing within this social and moral context, women writers made no mention of the special risks and dangers incurred by women players. Since they never hesitated to comment on ungracious or unseemly behaviour by other women, we

79 Hunt, The Middling Sort, 49-53. 163

must assume that "the gamestress" as a flesh-and-blood being was a stranger to them.80

The gamestress stereotype did not apply to middling women, their play, or that of their

friends. Their calm notations in their accounts and diaries bear this out

In contrast to the many publicised portraits of aristocratic gamestresses, I have

found no first-hand accounts of any scandalously compromising behaviour by women

players from the trading classes. Of course, the same discretion that kept genteel women

silent about the prints' salacious subtexts might have prevented them from committing

anything damaging to paper. However, aside from a few deep-playing ladies mentioned

briefly by Mrs Powys, no women fitting any part of the gamestress stereotype appear at alL

A rare mention of carding money changing hands between a man-woman pair who were

not related or married comes from Gervase Leveland's description of a game in 1765.

"Very merry," he wrote, "play'd at Commerce went halves with Miss Saunders."81 Even the

notorious Fanny Braddock case drew more pity than censure in the pages of Gentleman's

Magazine in September 1731. As we saw in Chapter Four, Miss Braddock, "gready

esteemed for her courteous and genteel Behaviour," had unhappily tumbled into the jaws

of "that hazardous Dependance, Gaming."82 Nowhere in the public press was her reputation, sexual or otherwise, questioned, and her case was not used as an object lesson until years later.83 Even then, the gamestress stereotype was not invoked: no mysterious seducer was imagined, no out-of-control priestess of Faro painted.

80 The exception to this was Mrs Philip Lybbe Powys, whose diaries mentioned several such women; in each instance, however, she declined to associate herself and her play with them. 81 British Library Add MS 19211. Although Mr Leveland had previously referred to Miss Saunders as "a very agreeable young Lady," these entries hardly suggest a campaign of seduction. 82 Gentleman's Magazine 1 (September 1731), 397. http://www.bodlev.ox.ac.uk/cgi- bin /ilej /imagel ,pl?item=page&seq= 1 &size= 1 &id=gm. 1731.9.x. 1 .x.x.397 4 November 2005 83 M. L. Weems, God's Revenge Against Gambling (Philadelphia: printed for the author, 1812), 23-24. 164

As we saw in Chapters Two and Three, middle-class women sat down to cards in a range of settings, from the nighdy cribbage game to large card assemblies. Most diarists mentioned men and women at play together, "keeping Christmas" or gathering for card- club meetings at homes or at inns. Travellers enjoyed come-by-chance games with friends or strangers in inn parlours, and wedding guests relaxed over their cards following a long day's celebrations. Women-only games might be formal affairs widi invitations and tea; certainly, card- and tea-parties were considered women's province.84 More casual, impromptu games appear in entries such as young Charlotte Clover's: "Miss Palmer came and call'd us to go to Aunt Coxfords we carried our work [sewing] but did not do much we playd Cards after tea."85 The picture Charlotte's brief entry paints for us is consistent with the "domestic ideology" of home-based womanhood and private-space sociability, a fact of middling life by the turn of the nineteenth century. Women, ran the rationale, were uniquely qualified to create homes of the highest moral standards, the perfect family setting for respectable middle-class businessmen or professional men.86 Within this orderly, restrained reality, card play helped to create and maintain neighbourhood bonds, not to wreck families on the rocks of deep-play debt or strain marital financial arrangements.

Mixed company at the card table was not a temptation to sexual sin, but perfecdy natural in an age when couples socialised in pairs and grown children joined in their parents' round of visits. These women were not "gamestresses" in any sense but the most basic: the disconnect between them and Lady Godina was complete.

84 Vickery, Gentleman's Daughter, 209. 85 Norfolk Record Office MC 115/1, 585X3. 86 Jane Rendall, Women in an Industrializing Society: England, 1750-1880 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), 45. 165

Chapter Six

The Business of Cards: The commercialisation and formalisation of card play

At a time when the perfidious enemies of our country have rendered all foreign trade precarious and uncertain, to what happier resources can we fly than the commerce of game? By what means is the circulation of money, the life and spirit of trade, more speedily promoted? What other business can boast of such large returns? and ... what debts in any other kind of commerce are more punctually discharged?1

As card play became an indispensable part of the polite sociability of eighteenth- century England, a whole industry grew up around it to supply its wants and to provide its acolytes with every adjunct to comfort and enjoyment. The real "commerce of game" embraced many pastimes and pursuits. Time for play, once thought of as unproductive and wasteful of time, energy and potential earnings, was recognised as an untapped source of profit.2 Leisure itself became a consumer good, a commodity, and entrepreneurs leapt to explore (and exploit) its many possibilities. At the same time, the middle classes found that prosperity and changes in working practices made leisure time available to them. Within the context of the eighteenth century's consumer revolution, these innovations formed the basis for a multi-faceted polite leisure culture.3

As the economy expanded and hired assistants assumed more of the day-to-day running of businesses, time away from the workplace became an inviting possibility.

Having money and many opportunities to spend it allowed tradesmen, professionals, and

1 The World 181 (17 June 1756). 2 Dennis Brailsford, Sport, Time, and Society: The British at Play (London: Roudedge, 1991), 47. 3 Neil McKendtick, "The Consumer Revolution of Eighteenth-century England" in The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialisation of Eighteenth-Century England by Neil McKendtick, John Brewer and J. H. Plumb (London: Europa Publications, 1982), 9. 166

their families to experience the full joys of the polite world. From the vantage point of our

leisure-saturated modern world, it is startling to realise that for the vast majority of the

eighteenth-century middle classes, commercialised leisure time was an entirely new thing.4

These people kept abreast of their entertainment options through the many advertisements

and newspapers that appeared during this period, as the commercial exploitation of many

pastimes offered the prospect of a pretty profit.5 From the theatre to the racetrack, from

the card-assembly to the promenades of Bath, consumers of leisure activities and the goods

that went with them became part of a new and agreeable lifestyle.

Supplying this framework of polite amusement was a wide range of businesses

and services. Feeding the genteel fascination with card games and their sociable potential,

Hoyle and his successors professed to lay bare the mysteries of whist and, over time, a wide

variety of other games as well. Under the aegis of such entrepreneurial writers, these games

and their sociable trappings began to acquire a patina of tradition and customary practice.

In becoming more regulated, more formalised, card play fell neady within the

Enlightenment framework, and suited the structured, orderly thinking celebrated in that

age. The makers of playing cards and the tables round which they were used also found an

eager market in the increasingly wealthy middle classes.

Private play was probably most enjoyable in small gatherings. As fashionable card parties became too large to be comfortably hosted in most middling homes, the purpose- built assembly room was born, forming what J. H. Plumb calls a "transitional stage between

4 J. H. Plumb, Georgian Delights (Boston: little, Brown and Company, 1980), 9. 5 J. H. Plumb, "The Commercialization of Leisure in Eighteenth-Century England" in The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialisation of Eighteenth-Century England ed. Neil McKendrick, John Brewer and J. H. Plumb (London: Europa Publications, 1982), 267. 167 private and fully public entertainment."6 In balancing the leisure requirements of large groups with the admission restrictions still desired by polite society, assemblies became the first truly semi-public venues for card play. On a larger scale, leisure sites and the trades which supplied them fuelled the economic engines of resort towns such as Bath, providing work and opportunity for many. For those who flocked to such places, life was "lived in public": the whole town was geared to pleasure, and all were to be pleased together.7 From private play to wholly public enjoyment, this continuum was well and eagerly served as the market for fashionable leisure, and its accoutrements, expanded over the years of the eighteenth century.

The whole continuum hinged on consumption: the purchase, not merely of things, but of leisure itself. Before turning to case-studies of production and purchasing, we must examine the patterns of consumption among the middling sort, as they browsed in the shops and mingled in the assembly rooms.

Polite Consumption

By the middle of the eighteenth century, the purchase and ownership of luxury and semi-luxury objects had emerged as an expression of gentility, and the middle classes had firmly established themselves as consuming members of polite society.8 Since most in that society embraced card play as a genteel activity, the purchase of cards themselves and

6 Plumb, "Commercialization of Leisure", 282-283. 7 David Gadd, Georgian Summer. Bath in the Eighteenth Century (Bath: Adams & Dart, 1971), 58. 8 Amanda Vickery, Gentleman's Daughter. Women !r Lives in Georgian England (London: Yale University Press, 1998), 161; Maxine Berg, "New commodities, luxuries and their Consumers in eighteenth-century England" in Consumers and luxury: Consumer culture in Europe 1650-1850 ed. Maxine Berg and Helen Clifford (Manchester. Manchester University Press, 1999), 64. 168 of the enjoyable little extras that went into a card party was also part of polite consumption.

England's thriving trading economy spawned a broad prosperity, and the rewards fell disproportionately to merchants and professionals, who were eager to spend their new- gotten wealth.9 The boom in foreign imports, especially of goods such as cottons from

India and mahogany from the West Indies, provided consumers with a dazzling array of choices. Moreover, domestic manufacture of similar luxury items, with distincdy English stylistic expressions, was on the rise.10 In purchasing, displaying, and using such things in both their everyday lives and their special-occasion entertaining, the middle ranks projected genteel standing. Politeness could be assessed by one's taste in material goods, nearly as readily as by one's poise or the grace of one's curtsey.11 Within England's social framework, with its fluid boundaries enabling social mobility, purchasing power made this sort of transition possible: one really could buy one's way (or perform one's way) to genteel status.12

Even the act of consumption itself — the shopping excursion — developed into a polite pastime at the same time as it furthered a fashionable lifestyle through the items it brought to the home. This process was smoothed by a sea-change in the nature of the shop itself, which was evolving from a bespoke workshop where objects were

9 Peter Borsay, The English Urban Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Provincial Town 1660-1770 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 200. 10 John Gloag, British Furniture Makers (London: Collins, 1946), 25. 11 Paul Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727-1783 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 66-67, 71. Although much has been made of conspicuous consumption by the aristocracy during the eighteenth century, Loma Weatherill notes that in fact elite possession of luxury goods has been overstated, while that of the middle classes has been consistendy underrated. The merchant class, in particular, often used their homes as showrooms, displaying not only their new gentility but the goods they offered for sale. See Loma Weatherill, Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in Britain, 1660-1760 (London: Roudedge, 1996), 171 and Nancy Cox, The Complete Tradesman: A Study of Retailing, 1550-1820 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), 138. 12 McKendrick, "Consumer Revolution", 20. Mimi Hellman cautions that the search for meaning must not stop at the point of purchase: that objects convey meaning through their usage as well as through simple possession. See Mimi Hellman, "Furniture, Sociability, and the Work of Leisure in Eighteenth-Century France" Eighteenth-Century Studies 32:4 (1999), 417. 169 commissioned into a retail environment. Suddenly, shops were full of ready-made items, and the delights of browsing and window-shopping were quickly apparent to shoppers and sellers alike.13 Merchants created genteel shopping spaces paralleling assembly rooms, offering tea and cosy seating nooks to customers, engaging them in pseudo-social rituals and blurring the line between economic and leisure interactions. Helen Berry notes that observing the "unwritten social rules of encounter" within these shopping spaces was in itself an exercise of a very Addisonian polite behaviour.14 The shop assistant's fawning over the ladies, the customers' gracious replies to the proprietor's small talk, the move from tea- table to counter as the actual inspection of goods began, all constituted a socio-economic dance with genteel overtones.15

Many of these shoppers were women. For urban middle-class women, shopping formed a part of their daily morning ritual, as routine as the afternoon's round of visits.16

Letters and diaries of women of the polite set reveal how seriously they took their responsibilities as consumers. Many undertook the bargaining and comparison-shopping themselves, rather than trusting the task to servants who had no personal stake in finding the right quality for the best price.17 Although nominally under the control of the male head of the household, expenditures on household goods were regularly left in the hands of

13 Roy Porter, "Material Pleasures in the Consumer Society" in Pleasure in the Eighteenth Century ed. Roy Porter and Marie Mulvey Roberts (London: Macmillan Press, 1996), 25; Claire Walsh, "Shops, Shopping, and the Art of Decision Making in Eighteenth-Century England" in Gender, Taste, and Material Culture in Britain and North America, 1700-1830 ed. John Styles and Amanda Vickery (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 158. 14 Helen Berry, "Polite Consumption: Shopping in Eighteenth-Century England" Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 12 (2002), 377; John Stobart, "Shopping streets as social space: leisure, consumerism and improvement in an eighteenth-century county town" Urban History 25:1 (1998), 5-6. 15 Stobart, "Shopping streets", 6; Berry, "Polite Consumption", 389. Female customers were routinely flattered and fluttered over by (especially) male shop assistants, who were a favourite target for satirists, including Ned Ward and Robert Southey. Fanny Burney's Evelina remarked: "They [the male shop assistants] recommended caps and ribbands with an air of so much importance, that I wished to ask them how long they had left off wearing them!" (Evelina (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), 27). See also Paul Langford, "The Uses of Eighteenth-Century Politeness" Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 12 (2002), 319. 16 Berry, "Polite Consumption", 380. 17 Walsh, "Shops, Shopping, and the Art of Decision Making", 162. 170 women. As disposable incomes increased, this included the purchase of the raw materials of entertaining: fine wax candles, a set of card-tables, perhaps some new mother-of-pearl gaming counters. The stereotype, not altogether accurate, of the "producing man and the consuming woman" was firmly in place in the eighteenth century.18

To some contemporaries, all this feverish purchasing of beautiful non-essentials

smelt of social-climbing opportunism, with the trading class aping their betters at the expense of their financial health. Granted, huffed one writer in 1765, "exorbitant wealth naturally produces an attention to pleasureable enjoyments," but over-indulgence in luxury goods could turn the head of the steadiest tradesman.

Whether tempted by inborn pride, or seduced by the power of all-prevailing fashion, every impertinent inferiour treads on the heels of his betters ... Many would rather risque the ruin of themselves and their dependants, than not gratify their vanity of distinguishing themselves in a degree of superiority, or at least an equality with their neighbour.19

The difficulty for many in the trading and professional ranks, as Daniel Defoe recognised, was finding and treading a middle path. In order to maintain one's credit, a certain amount of outward show was needed, but the purchase of appropriately fashionable goods was a subde trap. "Expensive living," he wrote in The Complete English Tradesman, "is a kind of

18 Vickery, Gentleman !r Daughter, 164,168. If the over-consuming woman made her husband look powerless, the under-consuming wife could make her husband look ungenerous and mean. See Jennie Batchelor, "Fashion and Frugality: Eighteenth-Century Pocket Books for Women" Studies in Eighteenth-Centuiy Culture 32 (2003), 8. Men did, of course, take an active role in purchases for the home; their shopping trips tended, however, to target specific goals (Berry, "Polite Consumption", 381). In addition, as we will see later in this chapter, businesswomen took an active role in the supply side of leisure. For more on men's consumer activities, including their frequent reliance on women in the selection of items, see Margot Finn, "Men's things: masculine possession in the consumer revolution" Social History 25:2 (May 2000), 134-155; Amanda Vickery, "His and Hers: Gender, Consumption and Household Accounting in Eighteenth-Century England" Past and Present 2006 1 (Supplement 1), 12-38; and Walsh, "Shops, Shopping, and the Art of Decision Making", 162-168. 19 S. Fawconer, An Essay on Modern Luxury: Or, An Attempt to Delineate its Nature, Causes, and Effects (London: James Fletcher, 1765), 4-6. 171 slow Fever."20 Displaying a certain level of prosperity, presenting an assurance of a successful business or professional practice, was part of the cost of doing business, as potential clients and investors paid attention to such details.

Historians of the eighteenth-century consumer phenomenon now agree that the middle classes bought many of the same items as did the gentry and nobility, but this behaviour did not make them emulators. Instead, they bought goods that were already on the market, the result of consumer demand for new, even exotic items that projected an image of gentility and good taste.21 Moreover, these middling consumers did not adopt the stereotypically licentious aristocratic lifestyle: they decorated their homes, entertained their friends, and enjoyed their new possessions according to their own lights.22 Instead of copying an alien standard, they used their newly-acquired purchasing power to achieve a new respectability with distinctive material forms. Indeed, Keith Wrightson argues, these consumers were a motive force in fashion, innovative and knowledgeable, who defined their sense of self in part through their purchases and the surroundings they created for themselves.23 Surveying the secondary literature surrounding emulation theories, Amanda

Vickery concludes that different groups' purchases of similar goods might actually have enhanced their understanding of each other. "A shared material culture," she notes, "is

20 Daniel Defoe, The Complete English Tradesman in Familiar "Letters(London , 1727; reprint New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1969), 1:111; also cited in Lawrence E. Klein, "Politeness for plebes: Consumption and social identity in early eighteenth-century England" in The Consumption of Culture 1600-1800: Image, Object, Text ed. Ann Bermingham and John Brewer (London: Roudedge, 1995), 373. 21 Maxine Berg, Luxury & Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 39. The middle classes did not always buy the most expensive items available; rather, they took advantage of the range of quality that the market provided. Berg, Luxury and Pleasure, 35. 22 For more on the emulation debate, see Maxine Berg and Helen Clifford, Consumers and luxury: Consumer culture in Europe 1650-1850 (Manchester Manchester University Press, 1999); Margaret Hunt, The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender, and the Famity in England, 1680-1780 (Berkeley. University of California Press, 1996); John Smail, The Origins of Middle-Class Culture: HaSfax, Yorkshire, 1660-1780 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994); and Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). 23 Keith Wrightson, Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain (London: Yale University Press, 2000), 299-300. 172

often a factor in social solidarity and cohesion."24 If, as Douglas and Isherwood write in

The World of Goods, individuals use consumer goods to build and maintain their own self-

constructions, the middle classes and the nobility were painting similar portraits of their

distinct polite sociabilities.25

This eager demand for luxury goods was not greeted with enthusiasm by all

observers. Many writers lumped such consumption with more obvious vices in their

discussions of economic and moral snares lying in wait for the nation. If only Britain could

rid herself of such pernicious habits, they sighed, to what heights might she not rise?26 So it

is not surprising that the 1714 appearance (and manifold reprintings) of Bernard

Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees appalled such authors with its caustic cynicism.

Mandeville's thesis, argued both in verse and in prose, was simply that personal and petty vices were necessary evils for any forward-going, thriving economy and society. Not only were these sins ineradicable components of human nature, they actually served as stimuli to

employment, industry, and invention. If somehow vices and their sequelae were to be

eliminated, the nation would grow stale, its energy would dissipate, and its economy would dwindle to a shadow of its former self. "Fraud, Luxury and Pride must live," wrote

Mandeville, "While we the Benefits receive." For trade and industry to thrive and progress, consumer demand for material goods (or even for illicit activities) must be present and cultivated.27

Naturally, gaming ranked high among the evils deplored by Mandeville's opponents. A 1765 attack on the "epidemical rage, the love of play" was expanded to

24 Vickery, Gentleman's Daughter, 163. 25 Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood, The World of Goods (New York: Basic Books, 1979), 68. 26 Thomas Rennell, The Consequences of the Vice of Gaming, As they Affect the Welfare of Individuals, and the Stability of Civil Government, Considered: A Sermon, Preached in the Cathedral Church of Westminster (Bath: S. Hazard, 1799), 36. 27 F. B. Kaye (ed.), Mandeville's Fable of the Bees 2 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1957; reprint of 6lh edition, 1732), 6, 36-37. 173 disqualify the devotees of all amusements, suspect or otherwise, from any public worth.

"What can possibly be more pernicious in its tendency," the pamphlet continued, "than this reigning passion for pleasure: which renders us contemptible in private life, and unfit to be trusted in public?"28 Other writers zeroed in on Mandeville's discussion of the benefits of pleasure to the country's trades: "nothing perhaps could more effectually ruin the

Commerce of a nation, than an universal prevalence of Gaming," wrote Richard Hey in

1783.29 This was a long-running debate that echoed and re-echoed through the eighteenth century from the time of the Fable"s first appearance.30

For a number of trades, however, gaming and similar entertainments represented a substantial cash cow, and a number of them found their livelihoods threatened by such morality drives.31 During the Parliamentary debate on the 1710 anti-gaming bill, a petition protested that if "All PubHck Rooms and Places of Gaming... tho' for never so small a

Sum, (nay tho' it were only for Diversion) [were] Prohibited ... The Consequence ... will be the Ruin of many Thousand Families, that never had Gaming for any Thing considerable."32 The World lent Mandeville's points satirical support:

it [gaming) secures our money in the kingdom, and keeps it in perpetual circulation ... Can any other argument be necessary to procure an unlimited indulgence to a commerce, from which so many advantages spring, and which is so evidendy conducive to the public good?33

28 S. Fawconer, An Essay on Modern Luxury: Or, An Attempt to Delineate its Nature, Causes, and Effects (London: James Fletcher, 1765), 25,28. 29 Richard Hey, A Dissertation on the Pernicious Effects of Gaming (Cambridge: J. Archdeacon, 1783), 80. Perhaps tellingly, Hey made no attempt in his paper to refute Mandeville's economic argument beyond this one flat statement. 30 E. J. Hundert, The Enlightenment's Fable; Bernard Mandeville and the Discovery of Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 7-14. 31 Hunt, The Middling Sort, 120-1. 32 Hampshire Record Office 44M69/G2/188, n.d. c. 1710. 33 The World 181 (17 June 1756). 174

Even those who disagreed with Mandeville would have had to admit that many trades were

the beneficiaries of the eighteenth century's passion for card play, and the gainful

employment of thousands depended upon its continued popularity. The remainder of this

chapter will examine several aspects of the 'business of cards' as case studies of a

sometimes precarious, often lucrative, leisure economy.

According to Hoyle: The formalisation of card play

Edmond Hoyle frustrates the historian at every turn. His name has entered the

English language; his slim books were hands-down bestsellers in their day; the rich and

noble vied for his time and attentions; and yet we know almost nothing about the man

himself. Probably born around 1672, he seems to have been a barrister who in the 1740s as

an elderly man was making tidy money as a tutor at whist. Since he charged a guinea (£1

1J) for every lesson, most of his students were almost certainly wealthy middle- or upper-

class people, anxious to learn this newly-fashionable card game.34 Whist itself seems

originally to have been a plebian sort of game, but its adoption and enthusiastic redesign at the hands of a group of players at the Crown coffee-house reshaped its play, and earned it a place at the tables of the beau monde.35 Hoyle's role at this stage of the game's development

34 M. M. McDowell, "A Cursory View of Cheating at Whist in the Eighteenth Century" Harvard Ubraty Bulletin 22:2 (1974), 164. Catherine Perry Hargrave quotes a 1753 London newspaper: "There is a new kind of tutor lately introduced into some Families of Fashion ... namely a Gaming Master; who attends his Hour as regularly as the Music, Dancing and French Master, in order to instruct... in Principles of the fashionable Accomplishment of Card playing." See Hargrave, A Histoiy of Playing Cards and a Bibliography of Cards and Gaming (New York: Dover Publications, 1966), 206. 35 David Parlett, A History of Card Games (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 58; Paulson, Popular and Polite Art in the Age of Hogarth and Fielding (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), xi. 175 is uncertain, but he did teach the newer version, and soon immortalised the revised game in print.36

For his students' use, he composed a litde handwritten guide to the game's strategy, which was copyrighted in late 1742 as A. Short Treatise on the Game of Whist.31 It is debatable whether Hoyle was urged to publish it by admiring students, as is implied in the

first edition's "Advertisement", or was driven to publication by the appearance of pirated copies, made from his original students' handouts.38 Whatever his motivation, the book and the numerous editions it went through made household names of him and his publisher, Thomas Osborne. Certainly neither man was blind to the realities of publishing piracy: "whoever shall presume to Print or Vend a Pirate Edition," they warned, "shall be

Prosecuted... The Proprietor has already obtained an Injunction against Nine Persons for pirating or selling pirated Editions." To further protect their investment, the two advised that "No Copies of this Book are genuine, but what are signed by Edmond Hoyle and

Thomas Osborne."39

36 Ronald Paulson, Popular and Polite Art in the Age of Hogarth and Fielding (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980), 90. 37 The full tide is A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist. Containing the "Laws of the Game: And also Some Rules, whereby a Beginner may, with due Attention to them, attain to the Playing it well. The author's name was given only as "a Gentleman". Confusion persists as to the publication date of Hoyle's first book. Some sources, including Britannica Online, give the publication date as 1743. David Parlett notes, however, that it was officially registered at Stationers' Hall in November 1742. See Parlett, History of Card Games, 59 and Britannica Online "Hoyle, Edmond" http://search.eb.com.proxy.hil.unb.ca/eb/article-9041259 2 May 2007. 38 Short Treatise, "Advertisement". 39 Edmond Hoyle, "Advertisement", The Accurate Gamester's Companion: Containing infallible Rules for playing The Game of Whist to Perfection in all its Branches (London: Thomas Osborne, 1748). 176 ftyjfofkjA1 c pfu-jOwiK

Figure 17: The genuine article: signatures of Hoyle and his publisher, which distinguished Hoyle's own work from fraudulent, pirated facsimiles. From a 1748 edition.

Print runs were sold out neariy as fast as they could be produced, and Hoyle was rivalled only by whist itself as a topic of fashionable conversation.40 Later editions featured a wider variety of games, individually and in collections, as Hoyle took advantage of his star status.41

The Short Treatise signalled the beginning of a new philosophy of card play.

Before the Hoyle phenomenon began, the stated purpose of nearly all card and game manuals was

... to preserve Gendemen as much as may be from those Cheats and Abuses which are too frequendy put upon 'em by Sharpers, they are not only here taught how to be arm'd against their Injuries; but also (for Fear of any Imposition) the true manner of playing upon the square [fairly] ..42

Their unstated purpose was to profit from giving that advice: one such pamphlet sold for the tidy sum of 3s a copy.43 Most also gave some advice on methods of play at various fashionable games; in publishing his treatise, Hoyle followed their well-beaten path. His biggest innovation, however, lay in his approach to success at cards. In a radical shift,

40 McDowell, "Cheating at Whist," 169. 41 Parlett, History of Card Games, 60. 42 Theophilus Lucas, Memoirs of the Lives, Intrigues, and Comical Adventures Of the most Famous Gamesters and Celebrated Sharpers In the Reigns of Charles II, James II, William III and Queen Anne (London: Jonas Brown, 1714), Preface. Emphases in original. 43 The Whole Art and Mystery ofModem Gaming Expos'd and Detected; Containing an Historical Account Of all the Secret Abuses Prodis'd in the Games of Chance (London: J. Roberts, 1726). 177

Hoyle emphasised skill at the game in hand, which he deemed more crucial than any attempt to out-smart cheats who might be at the table.44 As a further hedge against the forces of fortune, he urged his players to use the wits they'd been blessed with. By noticing and remembering what cards had already been played — or, almost as key, what cards had not been played in certain situations — a player would be able to form at least a partial picture of other players' hands.45 Also, the wise player would make use of the science of probability, aided by card memory, in forming a strategy. Hoyle provided numerous sample calculations to demonstrate his points, assuring his students that his method would be "Easy to those who understand Vulgar Arithmetick only."46 In arguing that odds were calculable, that risk could be minimised, Hoyle was applying a viewpoint very typical of the

Enlightenment: order could be imposed on a ftighteningly disorderly world.47

Ironically, although Hoyle's name has come to be synonymous with rules and rule-books, the books he authored do not actually include any rules for his games, not as we understand rules today.48 His concern, as set out on his original tide page, was to assist players who were already familiar with the game's mechanics to "attain to the Playing it

44 Paulson, Popular and Polite Art, 92-93. 45 Later editions of Hoyle's book included a method called an "Artificial Memory", which involved arranging one's cards in one's hand in accordance with Hoyle's plan. Detractors pointed out that an experienced cheat, familiar with the system, would be able to determine the composition of any hand so arranged. See McDowell, "A Cursory View of Cheating at Whist," 170. 46 Edmond Hoyle, The Polite Gamester: Containing Short Treatises On the Games of Whist, with an Artificial Memory, Quadrille, Backgammon, Piquet and Chess. Together with an Essay Towards making the Doctrine of Chances Easy to those who understand Vulgar Arithmetick only (Dublin: George and Alexander Ewing, 1761). The title page of the original book, A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist, promised to "[direct] with moral Certainty, how to play well any Hand or Game, by shewing the Chances of your Partner's having 1, 2, or 3 Certain Cards." 47 Paulson, Popular and Polite Art, 95. 48 Parlett, History of Card Games, 47. Parlett distinguishes between the "rules" of a game (mechanics of play, equipment needed, &c) and its "laws," which include its etiquette and its course of play. Strategy, emphasised by Hoyle, is a separate consideration altogether. See Parlett, History, 48. Although Hoyle's name as a rules authority has survived as a copyright in North America, it has become almost extinct in his home country. See Britannica Online "card game (Rules and Hoyles)" http: /' /search.eb.com.proxy.hil.unb.ca/eb /article-1126 2 May 2007 and "Legal Notice" http: / /www.hoylegaming.com /product.asp?id=447 15 May 2007 178 well."49 To that end, he provided a number of examples, with strategic advice and comments on the use of probability for each situation. For Hoyle, anything worth doing was worth doing to the very best of one's ability, a concept that the middle class doubdess found eminendy sensible.

Imitations poured into bookshops, many invoking Hoyle's name in open attempts to exploit his runaway success. In rushing to publication, Hoyle and these opportunists were all riding the crest of England's print-culture, which began at the very end of the seventeenth century with the lifting of restrictions on the press. Middling and aristocratic consumers' demand for such fashionable leisure-time items as card manuals was increasing with the popularity of the games they featured, and that trend would continue throughout the long eighteenth century.50 A list of Hoyle's own publications and those of his imitators runs to many pages, and amply demonstrates the insatiable market for instruction and information on currendy-popular games.51 Adding to the attraction of such books and pamphlets was their across-the-board appeal to both sexes. Unlike many sporting and games writings, these books were not obviously directed at men and male-gendered pursuits. Rather, they appealed to both men and women, as purchasers, as readers, and as disciples of the gospel of Hoyle and his ilk.

This flood of card and game manuals revealed another irony in Hoyle's work.

The man-midwife of a systematic approach to games and their play-systems was actually not a very logical writer, nor was he a careful and organised editor.52 Several of his

45Short Treatise, title page. 5° Julian Hoppit, A Land of Liberty? England 1689-1727 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 440-441. 51 For a Est of publications by Hoyle and his acolytes, see Appendix 10. 52 Paulson, Popular and Polite Art, 95. 179 successors, in acknowledging the force of his authority and his pioneering role in the growth of games (and game manuals), gendy criticised his style and approach:

... without disparaging the merit of [Hoyle's] work, it must be obvious to every reader, that his manner was gready confused, and his meaning frequendy unascertained ... the writer takes for granted that the reader must be acquainted with such general rudiments as he himself is ... and, therefore, [writes] ... for adepts, instead of... for novices.53

Games and sports of all descriptions were becoming more structured as the eighteenth century progressed.54 Richard Mandell proposes the Industrial Revolution as a catalyst for this trend toward organisation of leisure activities. Society, he argues, "became transformed by industrialization, [and] the qualities of rationalization, standardization, calculation, and measurement became ever more integrated into English life and culture."

As cultural phenomena, sports (and games as well, one assumes) were swept along in this cataloguing, compartmentalising wave.55 At least as good a case, however, can be made for the influence of Enlightenment thinking, with its emphasis on order and a rational oudook at work and at play. Hoyle's work itself, according to Ronald Paulson, is an example of an earlier oral tradition — in this case, instruction in the playing of games — solidifying into the new, eighteenth-century reality of print culture.56

This transition from a popular oral tradition to a polite printed text parallels whist's own progress from tavern game to parlour entertainment. The old game of chance with its trove of "unknown cards" was subsumed into a partners' game, requiring co-

53 James Beaufort, Hoyle's Games Improved: Being Practical Treatises on thefollowing Fashionable Games, V/%. Whist, Quadrille, Piquet, Back-Gammon, Chess, Billiards and Tennis. With the established Rules of Game (Boston: William Spotswood, 1796), iii-iv. 54 Dennis Brailsford, Sport, Time and Society: The British at Play (London: Roudedge, 1991), 14. 55 Richard D. Mandell, Sport: A Cultural History (New York Columbia University Press, 1984), 151. 56 Paulson, Popular and Polite Art, x-xi. Paulson suggests that the cards' numerical-sequence hierarchy of whist mirrored that of the social hierarchy itself; the unpredictable twists allowed by trump cards paralleled the reality of social mobility. See Paulson, Popular and Polite Art, 98-99. 180 operation, intelligent and attentive play, and a strategic sense for success.57 Could it be purely coincidental that these were the very qualities that defined a skillful businessman?

Of course, the element of chance was still present, but its role had been reined in; Hoyle's philosophy of maximising one's chances of success while minimising risk had penetrated the game itself. Whist had become a mind game, ideally suited to the temperament and skill-set of the middle classes. Hoyle, with his emphasis on calculation as a tool for successful play, was giving his readers the best advice he had on minimising the element of chance in the games they played. Gary Cross argues that such manuals as Hoyle's were important because of the rules they compiled, which lent a measure of reason and logic to unpredictable game situations. As Cross points out, the more familiar players are with the possible twists of a particular game, the more likely they are to make "a rational assessment of risk."58 Since risk management in business was second nature to many middling players, it is no wonder that they were among the target market for the many products of Hoyle's pen. Rules themselves, orderly and impartial by definition, were a natural resort for the middle classes; comfortable within a rational and restrained framework, they were comfortable with structuring their leisure hours as they did their working days.

Polite sociability, as we saw in Chapter Three, was forming its own frameworks as the eighteenth century advanced. Hoyle's games, particularly the newly-gentrified whist, had become worthy of the time and the card-purses of polite society. In revitalising and updating the game's structure, Hoyle may have been influenced by the standards and

57 Paulson, Popular and Polite Art, 90-91. 58 Gary Cross, A Social Histoiy of Leisure since 1600 (State College, PA: Venture Publishing, 1990), 52. 181 framework of genteel politeness.59 As a professional man, and as a sensation as tutor and author, Hoyle epitomised the rising star of the ascendant middle class as a whole.

Established rules were, in themselves, an expression of the formalising trend in card play which gathered momentum in Hoyle's day and as a result of his work. Today's players are comfortable with the concept of standardised rules for their favourite games; in the eighteenth century, traditional practices varied widely from place to place, and often over time as well.60 However, as travel for pleasure became fashionable and feasible, and card play in resort towns became more popular, people from different parts of the country probably found that a standard set of rules solved a lot of problems at Bath or

Scarborough. On their return home, moreover, they may have taken those rules with them, spreading "away rules" throughout the country. By 1796, James Beaufort's Hoyle's Games

Improved could boast the inclusion of "The established Rules of Game"; in the fifty years since Hoyle's first publication, rules had come to be thought of as things to be defined and established.61

Hoyle enjoyed over twenty years of personal fame, dying in 1769 at the age of ninety-seven; his name and authority survived still longer in the pages of his successors.

Beyond the brisk sales (and frequent pirating) of his books, Hoyle and his work found their way onto the stage, and into the pages of novels and the verses of poems. In 1743, hard on the heels of A Short Treatise in its original edition, the satirical play The Humours of Whist appeared, and was republished ten years later as Hoyle continued to turn out his books and maintain his fame. The pseudo-Hoyle character "Professor Whiston" notes the parallels

59 Paulson, Popular and Polite Art, 96. 60 Parlett, History of Card Games, 49. 61 Beaufort, Hoyle's Games Improved, title page. 182

between the English construction of national character and their success at "the only

genuine old English game":

Our Solidity is shewn in the Gravity observed in playing [Whist]: Our Judgment is shewn in playing it well: And the Choice we make of Partners affords a fine Lesson to our Statesmen, never to go to War without good Allies.62

The author of the quasi-instructional Whist: A Poem in Twelve Cantos invoked the spirit of

Hoyle, who saw to it that "random strokes disgrace our play no more/But skill presides, where all was chance before."63 Henry Fielding's novel Tom Jones listed the attributes of

Hoyle's ideal whist-player, while writers to periodicals groaned over their instruction at

Hoyle's knee.64 The supreme accolade — certainly the most lasting — was his assumption into the English language. "According to Hoyle" has come to mean "doing things exacdy

right" or "playing by the definitive rules" and serves as an example of a popular-culture motifs absorption into everyday speech and usage.65 Ultimately, this lionised figure, this vast authority, is the culturally significant reality. Hoyle, the barrister-cum-whist tutor, became a larger-than-life force in England's polite leisure culture, shaping card play in a way that was never managed before.

62 The Polite Gamester. Or, The Humours of Whist. A Dramatic Satire, As Acted every Day at White's, and other Coffee- Houses and Assemblies (London: M. Cooper, 1753), 24. 63 Alexander Thomson, Whist: A Poem in Twelve Cantos (London: J. and B. Bell, 1791), 13. 64 Fielding quoted in Paulson, Popular and Polite Art, 95; The Rambler 15 (8 May 1750); Gentleman's Magazine 25 (February 1755). 65 The Canadian Oxford Dictionary (Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press, 1998), 687; Paulson, Popular and Polite Art, x. 183

Providers and Provisioners: Supplying the carding industry

Consumers' appetites for the agreeable accoutrements of social life, and their

eager quests for new sensations in entertainment, fed the eighteenth century's fast-growing

leisure industry. As Roy Porter writes, "For the first time there emerged sizeable bodies of

professional actors, theatre managers, painters, sportsmen ... and other people whose

business it was to provide entertainment for the public at large."66 Some of those people

produced the cards that players drew and discarded, while others fashioned the elegant

tables round which those players sat. Still others served the tea and poked the fire in the

assembly room, or played the music which added to the ambience of the gaming space.

The card industry was both a producer and an employer within the English economy.67

66 Roy Porter, "Material Pleasures in the Consumer Society" in Pleasure in the Eighteenth Century ed. Roy Porter and Marie Mulvey Roberts (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996), 23. 67 Gerda Reith argues that "with its flamboyant squandering of money, gambling is ... an occasion of pure waste ... [one of the] activities which are pursued for their own sake and whose principle is pure consumption." In the most direct and immediate sense, this is accurate; but I would argue that the gaming industry, past and present, does stimulate production and employs many people. See Reith, The Age of Chance; Gambling in Western Culture (London: Roudedge, 1999), 150. 184

Figure 18: Display of gaming ephemera in the Eighteenth-Century Gallery, Museum of London. The two small round boxes on either side of the playing cards hold whist counters. Photograph by the author. Courtesy of the Museum of London.

London had been the epicentre of the English playing-card industry since 1628, when the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards was incorporated. (See Figure

18.) This body's Charter regulated the London trade in playing cards and protected its members' sales, which had been sorely undercut by foreign-made and county-made cards.68

When foreign imports were cut off at the Company's inception, Customs duties paid by importers to the Crown ceased to flow. In compensation for this loss of income, the King

68 "The Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards", http://www.makersofplayingcards.co.uk/the org role.html 4 May 2007 185 demanded a duty of 2s per gross of card packs produced for the domestic market69

Production figures are unavailable, but one estimate suggests that more than 500,000 packs of cards were produced in London each year in the early seventeenth century, a number that would have grown over the eighteenth century as card-makers' numbers increased.70

The Company's activities on behalf of its members continued for nearly a century after its establishment, with varying degrees of success. The poorly-enforced foreign- import ban was reiterated by royal proclamation in 1684, and the Company set up an office to seal all domestic-market packs of cards and regulate their selling price.71 In 1709, the Bill for the better preventing of excessive and deceitful Gaming was introduced in Parliament; the

Company, foreseeing trouble for its members, lobbied hard and prevailed against an anticipated ban on cards in public places. It suffered a reversal inl711-12, however, in its protest against a proposed tax of Gd/pack, which was intended to fund England's European war machine. In its appeal, the Company pointed out that the wholesale price for each pack of cards was, at most, "Three-Half-Pence the Pack, out of which [the card-makers']

Profit is exceeding small." If the trade fell off as a result of the new tax, "the Card-makers

... and their Families must needs starve."72 The tax was enacted, and the following year the card-makers were told that one card in every deck produced had to carry the maker's mark

69 Roger Tilley, A History of Playing Cards (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1973), 111. This duty was not ended until 1960. 70 Roger Tilley calculates that the Crown-appointed Inspector of Playing Cards would have had to approve the seals on more than 500,000 packs of cards every year before realising his expected profit. See Tilley, History of Playing Cards, 110. 71 Hargrave, A History of Playing Cards, 180. 72 Reasons Humbly Offer'd to the Honourable House of Commons, by the Company of Card-makers, Against the Tax upon Playing-Cards (London? 1711). The industry did manage to survive, despite these levies. 186 on the printed side; the ace of spades was chosen as the designated card, as shown in Figure

19 (below).73

Over the eighteenth century, the playing-card market boomed as the fashion for games took hold; more taxes and new laws were enacted at intervals to curb fraud by card- makers. Some were using old seals and stamps; others were pretending their cards were for export to get around paying the domestic-market duty.74 As an attempt to curb illegal production, from 1756 on, the ace of spades of all domestic packs carried a distinctive duty stamp, shown in Figure 19 (below).

73 Tilley, Histoiy of Playing Cards, 111-112. Over 150 London makers' marks were registered over the course of the eighteenth century. Although many makers had several marks, and marks were often sold with a closing business, this large number of brands still suggests a thriving market for playing cards. For more on makers' marks and London's trade in playing cards, see J. G. Thorpe and M. H. Goodall, Early London Cardmakers: Marks and Apprentices, 1560-1760 (n.p.: Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards, 2001), 35-67. 74 Tilley, History of Playing Cards, 112; 29 Geo. 2 (1756) c. 13 "An Act for granting to His Majesty an additional Duty on Cards and Dice", s. VI. For a detailed description of the duties and stamps used in the years between 1712 and today, see Hargrave, A Histoiy of Playing Cards, 185-186. In The Polite Gamester Or, The Humours of Whist (1753), the Hoyle-character "Professor Whiston" brags (p. 24) that "the Card-makers have already complimented me on the Increase of their Trade, occasion'd by my Book, which of course increases the Revenue; and ... several [men] have had Tides conferr'd with less Pretentions." 187

lasilissisisiiis

Figure 19: Domestic-market ace of spades, c. 1795, showing the maker's mark and the notation "six pence add'l duty" in two positions; an additional sixpence duty would have been levied on the wrapper. Cary Collection of Playing Cards. Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Nearly all of England's card-makers were based in London, relying on the paper- mills of the counties to produce the paste-board stock used for making playing cards.75

Trade directories of the late eighteenth century list only a few businesses specialising in the making of playing cards; a number of others describe themselves as "card-makers", at least one of whom produced playing cards as a sideline.76 The standard English pack of fifty-

75 A. E. Richardson, Georgian England: A Survey of Social Life, Trades, Industries & Art from 1700 to 1820 (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1967), 68; Tilley, History of Playing Cards, 133. 76 Bailey's Northern [Trade] Directory of 1781 listed three London firms of playing-card makers, while the Universal British directory of 1792 named four, two of which, Henry Hart and Sons and Gibson and Gisborne, appeared in both directories. Henry Hart's company declared bankruptcy in November 1797. See The Universal British directory of trade and commerce: comprehending lists of the inhabitants of London, Westminster, and borough of Southwark; and of all the cities, towns, andprincipal villages, in England and Wales... (London: Printed for the Patentees, 1790-98). ("Exeter Working Papers in Book History", http://bookhistoty.blogspot.com/20Q7/01/london-l775-1800-h.html 26 May 2007); by contrast, Gibson and Gisborne moved from Soho to Cavendish-square and prospered, surviving in various forms to at least 1825 ("Devon Libraries Local Studies Service: The London Book Trades 1775-1800: a topographical guide", http://www.devon.gov.uk/etched? IXP =1& IXR=121432 26 May 2007). James Stopforth of Artillery- 188 two cards in four suits is thought to have originated in the seventeenth-century French pattern now called "Rouen Number Two", one of the most common import designs and brought to England by immigrant card-makers in the eighteenth century.77 Court cards were printed, usually using engraved woodblocks and four to five colours added by stencil; the number or "pip" cards, by contrast, required stencilling only, a much quicker and cheaper process.78 (See Figures 20 and 21, below.)

JS' *" " i

Figure 20: (L) An eighteenth-century court card: King of hearts. Courtesy of the East Riding Archives and Local Studies Service, DDGR/38/166. Figure 21: (R) An eighteenth-century pip card: ten of spades. Courtesy of the East Riding Archives and Local Studies Service, DDGR/38/166.

lane in Bishopsgate produced playing cards for export. See Bailey's Northern Directory, Or, Merchant's and Tradesman's Useful Companion, For the Year 1781 (Warrington: William Ashton, 1781); Universal British directory vol i (1790); and Hargrave, A History of Playing Cards, 187. 77 George Beal, Playing Cards and their Story (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1975), 52. Beal notes that the French suits (Coeurs, Carreaux, Trifles, Piques) were re-named by the "insular English" as the now-familiar Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades. See Beal, Playing Cards, 45,56. 78 Tilley, History of Playing Cards, 134; Hargrave, A History of Playing Cards, 187. The value of court cards in most games far outstrips that of pip cards; this value differential in production method may be a case of semiotic meaning embedded at the site of production. 189

Figure 22 (L) Knave of clubs, Ludlow & Co., c. 1800. Gary Collection of Playing Cards. Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Figure 23 (R) Knave of clubs, C. Blanchard, c. 1765. Cary Collection of Playing Cards. Courtesy of the Beinecke Rate Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

As Figures 22 and 23 demonstrate, cards varied in quality and style over time and between makers. Cards produced for the export market were sometimes particularly shoddy:

... there are a kind of Cards made for Exportation which are thinner and not so well glazed consequendy a trifle cheaper ... [domestic-market cards] are more than the Difference of Price preferable ...79

79 Derbyshire Record Office D5430/31/6/26. See also McDowell, "Cheating at Whist", Plates VI and VII, which show both domestic- and export-market cards. The latter are much more crude, and were printed on poor-quality cardboard. 190

Although small changes in design occurred over the next 150 years, the basic French

patterns remained recognisable until the mid-nineteenth century, when double-headed

court cards made their appearance.

Satirical and whimsical 'themed' packs of cards appeared in die late seventeenth

century, lampooning the Popish Plot and the events of the short reign of James II.

Eighteenth-century examples featured the music and lyrics of Gay's Beggar's Opera, or

satirical accounts of the South Sea Bubble scandal of 1720.80 Although ordinary games

could be played with them — a standard card-image was printed in one corner of each card

— these cards were harbingers of the satiric-print culture that entertained the eighteenth

century so widely, and were widely collected.81

80 The Car}' Collection at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library includes several examples of themed packs. See http://beinecke.librarv.vale.edu/carvcards/default.asp for a searchable online image database. 81 For an illustrated overview of these wonderful themed series, please see Hargrave, A Histoiy of Playing Cards, 191-198. 191

Figure 24: Playing card wrappers from Hardy & Sons of London, eighteenth century. Courtesy of the Guildhall Library Department of Prints and Maps, City of London.

Playing cards were usually sold in stationers' shops or by general merchants such as Thomas Turner of East Hoathly, Sussex.82 Engraved wrappers such as the ones shown in Figure 24 served as advertising, so were often very elaborate, and carried the maker's name and address as well as brand or style illustrations.83 Stationers, too, featured playing cards in their own advertising and trade cards, as Mr Henry Adams's card (Figure 25) illustrates.

82 Turner's diary mentioned several wholesale purchases of playing cards; he paid 6d for a pack in 1755. David Vaisey (ed.), The Diary of Thomas Turner 1754-1765 (East Hoathly: CTR Publishing, 1994), 19. See also Reasons Humbly Offer'd to the Honourable House of Commons, by the Company of Card-Makers, Against the Tax upon Playing-Cards (London? n.p., 1711), which mentioned that the wholesale price was 1 Vzd per pack at that time. 83 I have not been able to find any evidence for direct retail sale by card-makers themselves, but the featuring of makers' addresses so prominently in wrappers' designs is surely suggestive. 192

Figure 25: Stationer's tradecard, eighteenth century, showing examples of a wide variety of items for sale; note the playing card at lower left. Photograph by the author. Courtesy of the Guildhall Library Department of Prints and Maps, City of London.

During times of scarcity, such as the years of the French and Napoleonic Wars, paper shortages drove up the prices of many items, including playing cards. Sending purchases to a Derbyshire relative, a London man wrote:

The Parcel with Teas and Four Packs of Cards will set out from London next Monday ... the Cards are of the best kind and as clean as we generally find such as have been used, but on Account of the late additional Duty on Paper New Cards are advanced to 3/6 a Pack, and in Consequence second Hand Ones from 2/- to 2/3 ...84

84 Derbyshire Record Office D5430/31/6/26. 193

This purchase of second-hand cards epitomises the middling approach to the purchase of

socially important non-essentials associated with leisure activities, buying the best available

within a given price range. These playing cards, frivolous items in themselves, reflect

middle-class thrift in a time of retrenchment: enjoying the little extras while still submitting

to the necessity of the times.85

The tables that held the cards and counters, and framed the face-to-face

encounters of card play, were part of a boom in furniture design and production. In the

last years of the seventeenth century, the basic items of furniture — chests, cabinets, tables,

and chairs — suddenly became more varied, their designs more ambitious and technically

innovative. This trend continued over the eighteenth century, which saw a dizzying variety

of woods, decorations, and assembly techniques flood an eager market for genteel beauty

and specialised function in furnishings. These relatively expensive and long-lasting goods

mirrored their purchasers' prosperity; the uses their owners found for them and the settings

in which they were displayed and enjoyed carry their own load of meaning.86 We can learn

a lot from these pieces: how were they used in entertaining? Were they kept for their

designated function, or was their versatility exploited for maximum value? How important were they to the leisure hours of card players?

The demand for these beautiful yet functional items was fed by vast numbers of cabinet-makers, carvers, gilders, upholsterers, and other highly skilled and specialised tradespeople. Although production was centred in the capital - The Universal British directory of 1790 listed 150 cabinet-makers in London alone — the counties turned out items of fine

85 This is an isolated example of this sort of economy. It would be interesting to compare the purchasing habits of given families or groups of people during periods of national prosperity and periods of belt- tightening. 86 Molly Harrison, People and Furniture: A Social Background to the English Home (London: Emest Benn, 1971), 5- 6. 194

quality and their designs often influenced London styles.87 Furniture-brokers and

warehouse-keepers in county cities and in London supplied both urban and rural buyers

with ready-made or bespoke items.88

The basic table — legs and flat top — began to appear in a variety of forms, to serve

a range of functions, in the years of Queen Anne's reign and continued to diversify

throughout the Georgian period.89 Work tables, night tables, tea tables, dressing tables - all

became functional expressions of genteel routines and pastimes, as did the card table. The

earliest surviving examples of tables intended specifically for card play date from the late

seventeenth century, and many new designs appeared over the following decades, as the

fashion for card play heightened consumer demand.90

The thriving import market in exotic woods and other materials created new

possibilities in design and decorative features as well. While walnut had been the wood of

choice in the early Georgian years, mahogany's wide planks, rich grain and colour, and its wonderful carvability made it a favourite with craftsmen and customers alike by mid- century. For the educated buyer, the delicate carvings and architecturally-influenced designs that mahogany made possible were irresistible: beauty, balance and noble proportions combined.91 Satinwood was also very popular in the late eighteenth century, while sycamore, tulipwood and rosewood added to the spectrum of colour and tone. New decorative finishes were possible with these woods. Marquetry (intricate inlays) evolved beyond using metals and semi-precious stones in its elaborate designs, using exotic woods

87 Universal British directory vol i; Harrison, People and Furniture, 81. 88 Amanda Vickery notes that large furniture purchases such as dining-room sets were often ordered, or at least authorised, by the man of the house. Smaller, individual items more often record the wife as purchaser. See Vickery, Gentleman's Daughter, 167-168. 89 Eighteenth Century Furniture (London: Quantum Books, 1999), 10,34; Harrison, People and Furniture, 83. 90 Edward T. Joy, Gaming (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1982), 26; Eighteenth Century Furniture, 41. 91 John Gloag, British Furniture Makers (London: Collins, 1946), 27. 195 for colour and delicate details not achievable with the older materials.92 Mahogany veneer allowed a wider range of buyers to take its beauty home, and wood-inlay designs became more intricate over the century.

The changing designs of card tables reflect their use in a variety of entertainment contexts. The light, elegant pieces designed by Thomas Sheraton and George I lepplewhite in the later eighteenth century were intended to be moved around within rooms, as the need arose, by ladies.93

Figure 26: Demi-lime mahogany card-table with boxwood stringing, c. 1785. Photograph by the author. Courtesy of the GefTrye Museum, London.

Shapes varied as well: a design book of 1788 featured a semi-circular ("demi-lune", as appears in Figure 26, above) and a rectangular card table; a D-shape became very stylish at

92 Dena Goodman, "Furnishing Discourses: Readings of a Writing Desk in Eighteenth-Century France" in Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires and Delectable Goods ed. Maxine Berg and Elizabeth Eger (New York, Palgtave Macmfflan, 2003), 79-80. 93 Edward T. Joy, The Book of English Furniture (New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1964), 64. 196

about the same time.94 Although most tables were designed for four players, special three-

sided tables were available for three-handed ombre or quadrille's three-handed cousin,

tredrille.95 Smaller tables were used for the two-player game of picquet.96 "Round" games

such as loo and brag, which could involve a greater number of players, were usually played

at large circular tables.

Nearly all smaller card tables had hinged tops, which opened out for play but took

up much less room when not in use. These tops, when opened, were supported by a

swinging leg ("gate-leg") as shown in Figure 27 (below) or, after 1715, by a "concertina"

mechanism, which allowed the frame of the table to expand outward under the opened

94 Joy, Gaming, 33; Eighteenth Century Furniture, 41. 95 Joy, Gaming, 33. 96 Joy, Gaming^ 27. 97 Eighteenth Century Furniture, 41; Joy, English Furniture, 43. Mimi Hellman comments that the gate-leg posed a very real threat of social disaster for the unwary or overexcited player; if it were bumped, the whole game would quite literally collapse into ruin. See Hellman, "Furniture, Sociability, and the Work of Leisure", 423- 424. 197

Figure 27: Mahogany card table with shaped folding top lined with green felt, c. 1765. Note the outward-pivoting leg which supports the opened top. The table's drawer (not visible) is partitioned off to hold four packs of cards. Photograph by the author. Courtesy of Fairfax House, York.

Other design features included platforms at the corners to support candlesticks and recessed wells to hold coins and counters. Most tables were lined with long-wearing green baize or felt, as shown in Figure 27 (above), although velvet was used on occasion.

Gaming-house tables were often fitted with moving parts of a more dubious sort. In

February 1751, Gentleman's Magazine reported on a gaming-house raid, noting: "There were

3 tables broken to pieces [by the raiding guards] ... under each of them were observed 2 iron rollers, and 2 private springs, which those who were in the secret could touch, and stop the turning [of the dice] whenever they had any youngsters to deal with, and so cheated them of their money."98 The 'deconstruction' of these tables, assuming they were

98 Gentleman's Magazine 21 (February 1751); East Riding of Yorkshire Archives and Records Service QSF/ 179/D/8, an appeal from a court-appointed joiner who requested compensation "For breaking a Gaming Table in pieces ... and spoiling an Ax & a Saw in the doing thereof." 198 replaced by the gaming-house keepers, would have been a further stimulant to the economy, though probably one not intended by the enforcing officers.

For middle-class consumers, faced with a variety of choices in tables and a fixed amount of space in the home, the most practical solution was a table that could serve a range of purposes.

Figure 28: Sabicu, satin-wood, and mahogany games table, c. 1800. Photograph by the author. Courtesy of Fairfax House, York.

Some tables were made to accommodate several different games, such as backgammon, chess or draughts (checkers), and cards, as Figure 28 (above) shows. This example, with its exotic woods and elegant, varying functionality, embodies the adaptive skills, optimism and inventiveness of provisioners to the wealthy middle class. Figure 29: A card table becomes a side table: mahogany card table, c. 1715. Photograph by the author. Courtesy of the Geffrye Museum, London.

From a practical standpoint, card tables, when closed, could serve as side tables

(see Figure 29, above), which made them ideal for the finite entertainment and living space of the eighteenth-century home. Since card tables were often sold in sets of two or four, they could be used in groups for various purposes; as small, light pieces, they were well suited to adapt to a range of entertaining or decorating situations, and were the most economical option for middling consumers."

In 1763, royal cabinet-maker William Vile charged £2 4s for "the use and porterage of 4 mahjogany] Card Tables for the Time of the Entertainment of the Venetian

Ambassador."500 In renting out his unsold stock, Vile managed to be paid for a chance to advertise his wares, demonstrating both his business acumen and the importance of

99 Eighteenth Century Furniture, 41; Helena Hayward and Pat Kirkham, William and John Unnell: Eighteenth-Century London Furniture Makers (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1980), 112. 100 Joy, Gaming, 33. 200 purpose-built card tables to an elite card party. Although most card games could be played at any sort of table, clearly the built-in conveniences and features of the card table had become part of gaming's genteel substructure. When Mrs Grimston of York was making

arrangements for a rout and dance in 1812, she took pains to augment her own carding equipment "We borrowed some card tables ... Mrs Lund lent some fishes & counters for

cards."101 Polite hospitality demanded no less.

Semi-Public Play: Assemblies

Entertaining large groups put a strain on middling homes, many of which were not large or elaborate enough to accommodate extensive guest lists and provide the

standard of hospitality that polite society had come to expect.102 Assemblies and balls

solved this problem neady, permitting large, mixed-sex groups to dance, gossip, and play

their favourite games in comfort103 As these large new public-space entertainments became popular, purpose-built assembly rooms appeared in shire towns and county seats,

and smaller towns turned to their inns to provide suitable space for genteel gatherings.

Supplying the setting, ambience, and refreshments for such entertainments became a multi-

faceted industry over the eighteenth century, as entrepreneurs and local worthies scrambled to satisfy the demands of these types of entertainment, still evolving into formal patterns.104

101 East Riding of Yorkshire Archives and Records Services DDGR 43/32/9. 102 Plumb, "Commercialization of Leisure", 282. 103 Langford, Polite and Commercial People, 101. As Langford notes, until the appearance of assembly rooms, most public leisure spaces were either considered to be male preserves (such as coffeehouses) or of doubtful repute (such as taverns). 104 In discussing public-space carding venues, we wiD not be returning to the gaming-houses of Chapter Four. Gaming-house keepers were less concerned with providing a pleasant atmosphere for play than with avoiding the long reach of the law. 201

In passing from the drawing rooms of private homes to larger and more widely accessible locales, card play moved into a new and ambiguous space, a semi-public space. As spaces for hire and therefore subject to selective admission, assembly rooms and inn ballrooms were not fully-public spaces, at least not while particular parties were taking place. Nor were they entirely private, since they were, after all, intended to turn a profit and were theoretically open to any group that could engage them or subscribe to their schedules. They were liminal spaces, adaptable to many functions and social requirements, which made them ideal for hosting large, but still select, groups. Large gatherings, as John

Smail points out, were neither public nor private, having elements of both.105

The assembly was also the first large-scale stage for mixed-sex socialising outside church-based or formal social rituals such as weddings or funerals. Many places - taverns, coffee-houses, even inns under certain circumstances - were considered either the exclusive province of men or unfit for respectable women. As neutral, secular settings, assemblies allowed genteel women to dance, chat, play cards and compare their own finery with that of their neighbours, without fear of being exposed to gossip or unbecoming treatment106 A number of assemblies were actually directed by women, either as managers or as consultants in taste and decorum.107

Faced with the problem of space requirements for the new large gatherings, inn landlords and town officials turned the difficulty into an opportunity, adding ballrooms to existing public buildings with a view to semi-public genteel use.108 These spaces were adaptable for a number of uses, from concerts to theatricals, and in smaller towns were

105 Smail, Origins of Middle-Class Culture, 165-166. 106 Langford, Polite and Commercial People, 101. 107 Vickery, Gentleman's Daughter, 240. 108 Borsay, English Urban Renaissance, 157. 202 adequate for polite leisure activities.109 Taking advantage of the new phenomenon of print advertising, managers of assembly rooms and concert halls made sure to bring their upcoming entertainments to the notice of the well-heeled and the fashionable. Newspapers and printed notices were a huge catalyst in the rapid growth of public-space commercial leisure, piquing interest and drawing customers from their homes to sample new experiences in a new and evolving environment.110 Exploiting the expansive reach of the newspapers was only one example of the shrewdness of these "entrepreneurs of leisure", who were mosdy energetic, ambitious men of middling standing.111

As trends in leisure pursuits changed and developed, however, the inn ballroom and the guildhall were no longer large or elaborate enough to support these popular entertainments. By 1770, the number of towns with recorded assemblies had topped sixty, creating a new sort of leisure market and putting pressure on town planners.112 The galloping urban renewals of the eighteenth century were fuelled and funded by the middle classes, who wanted more recreational venues of a standard to bring credit to their communities. These city fathers were willing to contribute their time and effort to see them built. Public walks, assembly rooms, and town halls were constructed or renovated in the image of, and to serve the needs of, the polite society of the age.113

Large public balls and assemblies were first held in spa and resort towns and, like so many other leisure trends, took root across England as travellers returned to their own

109 Borsay, English Urban Renaissance, 147. 110 Plumb, Georgian Delights, 13-14. 111 Borsay, English Urban Renaissance, 213-214. Borsay singles out town councils and innkeepers as particularly active in promoting urban leisure culture, both through financial support and community campaigns. Not only were the middle classes the motive force behind the new assembly rooms, they were the target clientele. See Plumb, "Commercialization of Leisure", 284. 112 John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1997), 547. Brewer comments that the true number was probably much higher. 113 Jon Stobart, "Culture versus commerce: societies and spaces for elites in eighteenth-century Liverpool" Journal of Historical Geography 28:4 (2002), 473; Borsay, "Urban life and Culture", 202-203. 203 homes.114 Beautifully designed, convenient assembly rooms were built in many shire towns and county seats, which had the population and the financial wherewithal to support them.

Towns could point to their elegant new establishments as expressions of their prosperity and forward thinking.115 To this end, Liverpool's town hall was renovated several times over the eighteenth century, adding ballrooms, card rooms, and tea rooms; Newcastle built not one but two assembly rooms in the same period. York's Assembly Rooms (Figure 30, below) are still cited as a fine example of the English Palladian style, with their lofty forty- foot ceilings and graceful columns.116

Figure 30: Ballroom, York Assembly Rooms, Blake Street, York. Although currently used as a restaurant, the Rooms are opened for civic functions five days a year. Courtesy of the York Conservation Trust, York.

114 Plumb, Georgian Delights, 33. U:> Borsay, English Urban Renaissance, 28-29. 116 Stobart, "Culture and commerce", 474; "Newcasde Arts Centre", www.newcastle-arts- centre.co.uk/r.j.charleton.htm 6 June 2007; Borsay, English Urban Renaissance, 159. 204

Many of the designs for these new facilities included space set aside specifically for card

play, which by mid-century had become as much a part of an assembly as the tea table.

Perhaps more so: the York rooms were opened every Wednesday "for carding without

music or dancing."117

As we saw in Chapter Two, assemblies were a regular part of the excitement

surrounding race meetings or quarterly assizes, and drew eager participants from all around

the hosting town. By contrast, 'subscription' balls and assemblies were held at regular

intervals throughout the winter months; because fees were paid in advance, organisers had

ready cash to engage professional musicians and arrange for excellent food and wines. A

subscription to 'a quarter' — ten Monday evenings of dancing away the winter — at York's

Assembly Rooms cost 2s 6d, with the average attendance ranging from 200 to 280.118

Subscriptions and other forms of entry fees not only allowed assemblies to provide the amenities that their guests so enjoyed; they also helped to define the company that would grace the dances and sip the tea.119 Even a small fee acted as a barrier to "Improper

Persons" and created an ambience of gentility and standing which was an important part of the assembly experience.120 At the same time, a subscription fee spread the cost of a season's entertainment among a large group of people, thus bringing fashionable society within the reach of a larger clientele - emblematic of the relatively permeable social hierarchy of the age. The result, as Peter Borsay notes, was the definitive semi-public

117 Botsay, English Urban Renaissance, 161. 118 Borsay, English Urban Renaissance, 154. 119 Plumb, Georgian Delights, 34; Langford, Polite and Commercial People, 101. 120 Stephen Turner, "Mistress of the Masquerade" Blackwood's Magazine 321:1927 (March 1977), 206; Langford, Polite and Commercial People, 101. 205 space: not as expensive or exclusive as aristocratic entertainments, yet retaining the standards of genteel culture.121

Some assembly rooms and ballrooms, such as those at inns, were privately owned and run as commercial ventures. Others, such as York's Blake Street rooms, were administered by a board of directors appointed by shareholders, which gave local ownership greater input in the actual operations of those spaces. Beyond managing the assemblies and maintaining the buildings, the directors vetted applications from outside interests who wished to hire the rooms for concerts, travelling entertainers, or meetings of genteel societies.122 Although the upkeep of such buildings must have been a drain on finances, they were often very profitable: a Dame Lindsay of Bath apparendy realised over

£8000 in only a few years of running one of its Rooms.123

Assemblies and balls offered more than occasions for dancing and a rubber or two at whist: they were stages on which the middling sort paraded their image of themselves and, increasingly, of their class through these performative rituals.124 Such self- constructing performances by patrons of public leisure venues were key to their enduring popularity. As J. H. Plumb notes, so tightly knit were eighteenth-century social circles that their members bumped up against one another nearly every time they ventured out.

Competition within these groups fostered the growth and the rapid progress of fashions, which in turn demanded what Peter Borsay calls "arenas of display" in which to show them off. Assembly rooms and public walks, Borsay argues, "most reflected the elegance of

121 Borsay, "English Urban Renaissance, 219. 122 Borsay, English Urban Renaissance, 160-161. 123 Borsay, English Urban Renaissance, 215. 124 Smail, Origins of Middle-Class Culture, 186. 206

Georgian urban culture," providing thinly-disguised opportunities for "personal display."125

The see-and-be-seen imperative of polite society was neady summed up by Dr Johnson.

To James Boswell's comment that there could not be many happy people at London's

Pantheon, he replied, "Yes, Sir, there are many happy people here. There are many people here who are watching hundreds, and who think hundreds are watching them."126

The design of many assembly rooms, with their large, airy rooms and generally open construction, fostered circulation among the guests, promoting a "positive human friction" that recalls Lord Shaftesbury's dictum that people must "polish one other."127

Enlightenment sociability turned on the ideal of a polite, civil society, built on the interaction of rational and sociable people; seen from this perspective, semi-public venues for leisure activities embodied the spirit of the age.128 The creation of spaces to house rule- based card play was integral to this process.

A Whole New Kind of Town: Bath

From the earliest ages, dear mother, till now, All statesmen and great politicians allow, That nothing advances the good of a nation, Like giving all money a free circulation ... What thanks to the city of Bath then are due From all who this patriot maxim pursue! For in no place whatever that national good

125 Plumb, Georgian Delights, 146; Borsay, English Urban Renaissance, 150. 126 Quoted in Gillian Russell, "The Peeresses and the Prostitutes: The Founding of the London Pantheon, 1772" Nineteenth-Century Contexts 27:1 (March 2005), 22. This may not have been as frivolous as it sounds: as Maxine Berg notes, the observation of self and others within a social context is all part of Norbert Elias's "civiKsing process". See Berg, "In Pursuit of Luxury: Global History and British Consumer Goods in the Eighteenth Century" Vast & Present 182 (February 2004), 99. 127 Peter Borsay, "Urban Life and Culture" in A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Britain ed. H. T. Dickinson (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 202; Lawrence Klein, "Liberty, Manners, and Politeness in Early Eighteenth- Century England" The HistoricalJournal32:3 (1989), 602. 128 Borsay, "Urban Life", 202. 207

Is practis'd so well, and so well understood. What infinite merit and praise does she claim in Her ways and her means for promoting of gaming! And gaming, no doubt, is of infinite use That same circulation of cash to produce ...129

Bath, "queen of the spas", shot to prominence in the early years of the eighteenth

century when Queen Anne brought her royal cachet and her well-known invalidism to its

medicinal waters.130 Like most watering-places, Bath's original draw was its thermal baths,

touted as an effective treatment for a range of ills. As wealthy invalids began to spend a

good deal of time there, it quickly became evident that a lot of money could also be spent,

if the town's facilities and shops provided something to spend it on.131 That Bath enjoyed a

bustling resort economy over the eighteenth century was in due large part to the influence

of the middle classes. These canny businesspeople read the market's potential and

responded with a broad range of services, goods, and leisure activities that added to Bath's

appeal. At the same time, a growing number of prosperous tradesmen and their families were bringing their newly-disposable incomes and their increasingly discerning tastes to the

town. How did these two forces shape Bath as a resort destination, and how did card play

extend itself into its very public entertainments?

Considering its later status as the shrine of eighteenth-century polite leisure, Bath

had a rather unpromising start in the last years of the Stuarts. Late in the seventeenth

century, as its waters attracted more and more of the gouty upper classes, card sharpers and

confidence tricksters arrived in their wake. Even after Queen Anne's visits in 1702 and

129 Christopher Anstey, The New Bath Guide (Bath: Adams & Dart, 1970), 19-20. 130 Borsay, English Urban Renaissance, 31. Although it had its imitators, Bath is generally acknowledged to be the gold standard of Georgian spa culture and will be the focus of this discussion of the leisure-driven economy of a resort town. 131 Plumb, Georgian Delights, 15. 208

1703, the town had few amenities to offer visitors, and had become notorious for duelling,

late nights, and shady gaming practices.132 Fittingly, perhaps, this culture of risky enjoyment

ended abrupdy with the duelling death of the Master of Ceremonies, Captain Webster. His

successor, Richard "Beau" Nash, reshaped the social life, and ultimately the economic

future, of the town.

Nash began his long reign with a long-sighted revision of Bath's operations.133

Realising that the duels and disorder arising from deep play and late hours were not

conducive to Bath's success as a resort destination, he devised and successfully enforced a

restrained, orderly code of conduct for its assemblies and other public venues. A daily

round of activities took shape: the Pump Room in the morning, followed by a promenade,

shopping, or a visit to the circulating libraries, then tea and the evening's theatre, dancing or

cards.134 Nash banned private card-parties (routs), maximising attendance at the assembly rooms, which drew a large part of their revenue from admission fees and the sale of

amenities and refreshments.135 Sojourns in Bath became increasingly public affairs, enjoyed in the company of large numbers of fellow-visitors. In banning private parties and the high

stakes that often accompanied them, Nash was doing more than giving Bath a gloss of polite moderation; group activities for all visitors were being encouraged and social interactions fostered.136 All were to enjoy Bath's amusements together and all were to be

132 Russell T. Bamhart, Gamblers of Yesteryear (Las Vegas: Gambler's Book Club, 1983), 10-11. 133 Nash held die office of Master of Ceremonies from 1705 until his death in 1761. For a complete list of Bath's Masters of Ceremonies, see Trevor Fawcett, Bath Entertain'd: Amusements, Recreations and Gambling at the -Century Spa (Bath: Ruton, 1998), 10. 134 David Gadd, Georgian Summer. Bath in the Eighteenth Century (Bath: Adams & Dart, 1971), 63-65. 135 Fawcett, Bath Entertain'd, 74. 136 Gadd, Georgian Summer, 56. 209

treated with respect and courtesy, decreed Nash: snobbery was inappropriate and ridiculous

in such mixed company.137

Nash also urged the upgrading of Bath's infrastructure, and was the driving force

behind the rapid expansion of its lodging facilities and the improvement of its approach

roads. Public buildings and walks were planned and a Pump Room was built in 1706 for

the comfort of those drinking the waters.138 Bath's first Assembly Room was built in 1709,

and shops began to grow up in its vicinity. Under Nash's influence, Bath's nascent service

economy was beginning to explore its potential.

The realisation of that potential took Bath from a small provincial town of 3000

souls to a smart resort area of 35,000 over the course of the eighteenth century.139 The

roadworks begun at Nash's urging connected with England's improving transportation

system; travel for leisure blurred into travel as leisure as people embraced the notion of the

extended holiday.140 Coach companies and roadside inn services on the routes linking Bath

to other centres grew to meet the influx of travellers, with standard fares to and from the various destinations.141

137 Gadd, Georgian Summer, 58. 138 Gadd, Georgian Summer, 26-27. 139 Langford, Polite and Commercial People, 106-107. 140 Plumb, Georgian Delights, 13-14. 141 P.J. Corfield, Impact of English Towns, 1700-1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 54-55. Davidoff and Hall note that many inn-keepers owned coaches and managed coaching routes; see Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 299. The Strangers' Assistant and Grade to Bath (Bath: R. Cruttwell, 1773) gave fares from Bath to various destinations, noting the weight-limit for luggage and the charges for overage. In view of the variety and number of Bath's shops, one suspects that many exceeded the 10-14 lb weight allowances; most probably availed themselves of the post-wagons and other carriers. See Strangers 'Assistant, 90-96. 210

Coaches Leaving Bath's Inns | Destination Departures per week London 106 Birmingham and points north 10 Bristol and the Hot-wells 119 Exeter and points west 20 Oxford 9 Salisbury and points south 17 Shrewsbury I Table 1: Many coaches used Bath's inns as departure points. Source: Universal British Directory., 1791.

As Table 1 shows, in 1791 nearly three hundred coaches rumbled out of Bath every week.

Penelope Corfield estimates that these scheduled-service coaches carried an average of eight passengers, which suggests a travelling public of about 800 people weekly from

London alone.142 Connections to points north were easily made at Birmingham, while

Royal Packets [ships] sailed daily between South Wales and Waterford, serving the Irish tourist trade.143

Because so many of its visitors stayed for extended periods - the better to benefit from the waters or from the change of air — Bath had an ever-growing "captive audience", who had many hours to fill each day.144 Shops, lodging-houses, public walks, and assembly rooms proliferated and flourished in response to this abundance of visitors. A strong employer, Bath's service economy was still seasonal: fluctuations in job openings and worker availability were facts of life in a resort town.145 Nevertheless, Bath's economy bloomed under the infusion of visiting money.

142 Corfield, Impact of English Towns, 54. This, of course, does not take into account the wealthier travellers, who used their own carriages or hired them for their parties. For a more detailed listing of coaches leaving Bath's inns, see Appendix 11. 143 Universal British directory, ii:115. 144 Corfield, Impact of English Towns, 52. 145 Corfield, Impact of English Towns, 63. 211

Trades and Businesses in Bath | Clothing & Beauty 196 Culture & Entertainment 36 Food & Drink Merchants 66 Lodging 391 Luxury Goods 36 Victuallers 80 Total leisure-related businesses 805 Businesses with no direct leisure connection 287

Table 2: Bath's economy had become a service economy over the eighteenth century. Source: Universal British Directory, 1791.

The Universal British directory (vol ii, 1791) affords a vivid picture of Bath's highly visitor-oriented business life.146 As Table 2 indicates, nearly 74% of its businesses direcdy served the town's leisure market147 A disproportionate number of shops and services catered to the fashionable aspect of Bath life, offering everything from the latest muslins and the softest gloves to elegant coiffures and the jewels and feathers to show them to best advantage. Considering the vital importance of personal display within polite sociability, especially within the context of Bath's many arenas for such display, one can only salute its tradespeople for their business acumen. The range of items offered for sale was astonishing to contemporaries: "I suppose there is nothing in the kingdom curious or valuable," wrote the Reverend John Penrose from Bath in 1766, "but you might serve yourself of it here."148

146 Universal British directory, ii: 86-116. For a more extensive look at Bath's leisure-trade businesses, see Appendix 12. 147 This figure does not include Bath's many physicians, who could reasonably be counted as serving a spa town's clientele. However, since these practitioners would certainly not have regarded themselves as being part of the leisure industry, I have left them outside my calculations. 148 quoted in Borsay, Urban English Renaissance, 35. 212

Of course, all these visitors had to be housed, as did any servants they brought with them. In 1791, the best rooms generally went for 10s/ 6d per week in season, which ran from 1 September to 31 May; the off-season price was ls/6d.U9 Of the rooms rented, very few offered the option of board (meals), which provided an excellent opportunity for victuallers to feed the hungry (at a price, of course). Perhaps reflecting the gendered nature of hospitality and the provision of food, a substantial segment of lodging- and boarding- houses were run by women.150 Fully a third of the lodging-house keepers in Bath in 1791 were women, while landlords' wives may have played a large role in the lodging side of the family business.151 For most Bath landladies, managing lodgings was their sole employment, and some successfully sustained their trade over many years.152

As Bath evolved, so did its target clientele. No longer the preserve of the aristocracy, Bath welcomed a growing number of prosperous middling people over the century.153 While some took up residence there and added to its array of shops and services, many more were visitors who kept the consumer pot simmering. In addition to fuelling the retail economy, Bath's guests took full advantage of the entertainment options on offer, proving to be avid consumers of leisure activities. The social whirl revolved

149 Universal British directory, ii:113. Taking advantage of the ubiquity of servants, renters charged the same price for their rooms year-round: 5s/3d per week. 150 Of the 100 female lodging-house keepers in Bath in 1791, 9 (9%) offered a boarding option; of their 194 male counterparts, only 11 (6%) offered food. See Appendix 12. 151 In comparing a 1773 listing (Strangers'Assistant and Guide to Bath) of Bath's lodging-house keepers with the 1791 Universal British directory lists, I found nine cases which appeared to indicate the wife's running of the husband's lodging business at the same address after his death. Owing to linkage issues, this number may be inaccurate, but this was a well-documented phenomenon in the eighteenth century, and I may well have under-estimated the extent of such arrangements in Bath. 152 Of Bath's landladies in 1791, only one in ten had another listed trade (landlords were five times as likely to work at another trade). In comparing the 1773 and 1791 listings, I found eleven instances of women who were apparendy keeping lodgings under the same name at the same address in both years (that is, over a period of nearly twenty years). 153 Corfield, Impact of English Towns, 57-58. 213

around the assembly rooms, which provided gracious settings for balls, tea, cakes, self-

display and, of course, cards.

The two Assembly Rooms built during the first decades of the century were

private ventures, at first relying on the proceeds of gaming as important sources of

funding.154 Even as dancing gradually moved to the forefront of Bath entertainments, card

play continued to be a natural and expected aspect of an evening's amusement.155 The

publicly-funded Upper Assembly Rooms that opened in 1771 had not one but two card-

rooms, one of which was the elegant Octagon Room, shown in Figure 31.156 Holding

perhaps twelve large card-tables for round games, the Octagon Room could accommodate

nearly a hundred players; guests might pop in for a game and then return to the dancing, or

sit down to an evening's play.157

154 Fawcett, Bath Entertain'd, 4. 155 When one set of assembly rooms was extended and renovated in 1749-50, part of a ballroom was converted to a card-room sixty feet in length. See Fawcett, Bath Entertain'd, 6-7. 156 Fawcett, Bath Entertain'd, 7; Universal British directory, ii:90. Costing more than £20,000, the Upper Assembly Rooms' construction was funded by the subscription of seventy people. Its success was regarded as a shining example of co-operation between polite sociability and commercial interests. See Russell, "The Peeresses and the Prostitutes", 14. 157 For this estimate and for permission to reproduce the image of the Octagon Room, the author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Ms. Maggie Bone, Museums Publicity Officer for Heritage Services, Bath and North East Somerset Council. 214

Figure 31: The Octagon Room, Upper Assembly Rooms, Bath. This graceful room, 48 feet in diameter, was used for large card assemblies. Courtesy of Bath and North East Somerset Council, UK.

The Upper and Lower Rooms shared the week's events between them, and admission was

by subscription. Subscription fees, interestingly, were graded along gender lines: a season's

subscription cost each gentleman IOJ, while ladies paid only 5J. The rooms were "always

open for the company to walk and play at cards, except Sundays ... when cards are not allowed."158

The "company" in question was a mixed one, which posed its own challenges.

Despite Nash's insistence that all should be treated with courtesy in Bath's public venues,

the entree to assemblies does seem to have been dependent on social standing.159 Although the professional classes were urged to subscribe to assemblies, the trading classes and

153 Universal British directory, ii:91. The question of Sunday play will be discussed in Chapter Seven. 159 Gadd, Georgian Summer, 57-58. 215 merchants (that is, many of Bath's own leading citizens) were, oddly, barred from subscription lists. Unsurprisingly, they started their own assemblies around 1779, holding them in the town's elegant Guildhall, under the auspices of their own Master of

Ceremonies.160

Card play was a staple entertainment at Bath. "Cards [at Bath] are the universal mode," noted the London Magazine in 1737.161 The Assembly Rooms catered assiduously to their card-playing clientele, making packs of cards available for in-house use or outright purchase. The Upper Assembly Rooms prepared for its opening in 1771 by stocking its shelves with two gross (ie. 288) packs of whist cards and one gross (144) packs for picquet162 Hoyle and his ilk found a ready market for their card manuals at Bath; books full of warnings of sharpers' strategies also sold briskly.163

As Bath's many visitors fanned out across the country, they took its innovations with them. "That ease and open access first acquired [in Bath]," wrote Nash's first biographer, "our gentry brought back to the metropolis, and thus the whole kingdom by degrees became more refined ..."164 To credit one man with the invention of the polite society of Britain is a stretch; however, Bath's patterns of behaviour, including rituals of card play, are recognised as having influenced practices in other parts of Britain.165 The ease with which people from all strata of society met and interacted in company can be

160 Fawcett, Bath Entertain'd, 9. I have been unable to discover when, if ever, this class distinction in assemblies ceased, nor whether visiting tradesmen and merchants were prevented from subscribing. Given the vital importance to Bath of the tourist trade, it seems highly unlikely that they would have been left out. 161 quoted in Russell T. Bamhart, Gamblers of Yesteryear (Las Vegas: Gambler's Book Club Press, 1983), 26. 162 Fawcett, Bath Entertain'd, 22,47. 163 Fawcett, Bath Entertain'd, 47. 164 quoted in Gadd, Georgian Summer, 25, 58. 165 Fawcett, Bath Entertain'd, 9; Gadd, Georgian Summer, 25-26. Nash's eleven famous rules of conduct of 1742 were, initially, intended as a joke — many were unenforceable, and he knew it — but such was the power of his personality that visitors took them perfectly seriously. Corfield, Impact of English Towns, 58; also page 64 for a list of Nash's Rules to be observ'd at Bath. 216 traced direcdy back to his firm, but benign, insistence on courteous treatment for all.

Nash's strictures did level the playing field, especially for newcomers; as the code spread beyond Bath, it added lustre to its reputation for gentility and elegance.166

By the end of the eighteenth century, Bath's tourist trades were well established.

Its standard prices for many services and the orderly routine it offered (or imposed upon) its patrons would have been very congenial to its large middle-class clientele. By the turn of the nineteenth century, if its rituals had become somewhat ossified, they perhaps had their own charms for these visitors as they basked in Bath's discreet, decorous ways.167

Conclusion

The middle classes were vitally important to the leisure industry, and not only on the supply side. Middling consumption increased dramatically over the century and, as the market for luxury items grew and prospered, even frivolities could now represent a serious business opportunity. The consumer revolution of the eighteenth century was recognised in its day to be a whole new economic engine, and leisure pursuits, cards in particular, were now legitimate oudets for consumers. From the purchase of a new pack of cards for private play, through a subscription to a winter's card-assembly for the family, to the very public joys of a stay in Bath, consumers had an enormous variety of opportunities to get out and have fun. Their counterparts, the tradespeople welcoming shoppers and managing

166 Corfield, Impact of English Towns, 58. 167 The overarching stress on politeness was key to Nash's rule and to the smooth functioning of large public venues, but, for some, it brought Bath to the brink of dullness. "The only thing one can do one day one did not do the day before is to die," sighed Mrs Montagu; quoted in Roy Porter, English Society in the Eighteenth Century (London: Penguin Books, 1990), 227. 217 the assemblies, exploited the same continuum of leisure possibilities, private to public. In the process, both acted to strengthen the genteel paradigm of polite sociability.

The trend toward the formalisation of card games and their rules of play reflected both Enlightenment rationality and the orderly mind and fondness for organisation so integral to the middle class business and professional pursuits. As Hoyle rose to fame and as Bath's visitors brought its rites and routines home to the counties, the concept of a

"right way" or "the way" to play cards and arrange card parties became more natural.

Moreover, these new parameters helped players to make well-informed decisions about the games (and the stakes) with which they were comfortable, and enabled them to play within their self-imposed limits. It also provided those in the business of cards with a stable context in which to market their wares, both materials and experiences. In thumbing through their dog-eared copies of Hoyle's Short Treatise, these players kept restraint on the table along with the cards and counters. Not only was card play firmly established, by the end of the century, as an essential component in many forms of entertainment, it was also accepted as a polite pastime, which could be tailored to suit any company of people.

"There are plenty of amusements," wrote a visitor from Cheltenham in 1788; "you need not be at a loss how to spend your money."168

168 Gloucester Record Office D5310/21. 218

Chapter Seven

There Might Be No Harm: Morality and social practice

As England's obsession with gaming grew over the eighteenth century, all types of play came under increasingly intense attacks from moralists and reformers of various stripes. Taking full advantage of a wide range of print media, these writers flooded the market with messages warning of the many aspects of the perils of gaming. Some regarded reliance on the forces of chance as inimical to society and a threat to the future, moral and material, of the nation. Others stressed the idle and wicked use of time, that irreplaceable resource, on mindless games; still others bewailed players' squandering of money which could have been put to so many worthier uses.1 Readers were warned of the criminal activities that hovered close to the gaming table, and of the financial, social, and spiritual damage inflicted on innocent families of players.

These criticisms were originally aimed at the governing aristocracy, whose deep play and late hours had become notorious. More and more, however, as men and women of all ranks mingled their money and their personal space, these attacks diffused across class boundaries. What was immoral for one group had become immoral for all.2 If vice had spread from the top down, then morality must follow the same path: for the lower orders to be reformed and improved, the upper and middle classes had to be above

1 Pope'sBath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette 4:16 (26 January 1764). A writer to The London Magagne told of the dilemma of a fashionable friend, whose help was sought by a worthy woman. "She read her letter, it is true, with tears ... yet refused to comply because ... she had an engagement that made it impossible for her to spare a single guinea ... what engagement do you think it was, that thus steeled her heart? ... A card party... [at which she lost] one hundred and nine guineas." London Magazine 39 (1770), 19. 2 Phyllis Diane Deutsch, "Fortune and chance: Aristocratic gaming and English society, 1760-1837" (unpublished New York University PhD dissertation, 1991), 170-171. 219 accusation themselves.3 As a result, those in the middling station began to feel the heat of these diatribes. Religious groups railed against card play among the clergy; professional and commercial men found their integrity and trustworthiness linked to their behaviour and that of their families.4 Views surrounding play on Sundays and holidays were also in flux, in part because of changing work patterns. Many diarists commented, or significandy failed to comment, on several moral issues surrounding card play. Were they aware of the aspersions cast on card players and gamesters? Their remarks on their own practices, and on those of their acquaintances, reveal the frequent disconnect between the ideals of prescriptive literature and the realities of the social world.

Voices of Admonition: Moralists and reformers

As the seventeenth century folded into the eighteenth, England's print culture took root and expanded rapidly, progressing from cheaply-printed broadsheets to sophisticated periodicals and elegandy cruel satirical prints. In tandem with this explosion of available reading material, literacy grew by what it fed on, and in turn revealed and influenced public opinion among a growing middle-class readership.5 Printed plays, poems, and essays were soon joined by the serially-published novel; sermons and award-winning

3 Edward J. Bristow, Vice and Vigilance: Purity Movements in Britain since 1700 (New York: Rowman and Iitdefield, 1977), 40; The Gaming-Humor Considered, and Reproved (London: Tho. Cockerell, 1684), 40. 4 Brian Lewis, The Middlemost and the Milltowns: Bourgeois Culture and Politics in Early Industrial England (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 40. Profligate sons posed a particular danger to the reputations of middling fathers. See Margaret R. Hunt, The Middling Sort Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England 1680- 1780 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), Chapter Two, "A Generation of Vipers: Prudential Virtue and the Sons of Trade." Gaming was regarded by some as being even more reprehensible than sexual incontinence. See Hunt, The Middling Sort, 68. 5 John Brewer, "This, that and the other: Public, Social and Private in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries" in Shifting the Boundaries: Transformation of the languages of Public and Private in the Eighteenth Century ed. Dario Castiglione and Lesley Sharpe (Exeter University of Exeter Press, 1995), 4. 220 university papers also found their way into readers' hands. Following in the tradition of social reformers Addison and Steele, those with a moral axe to grind were quick to turn to this new mass medium to get their messages out.

The vital moral sparks from reforming organisations caught, faltered, and sputtered out over the period, sometimes reigniting, often disappearing for long periods.

The Society for the Reformation of Manners concentrated on sexual sins, setting the tone for its successors in regarding moral laxity as the ruin of the nation.6 Although its activities ceased in the 1730s, successor groups shared its core middle-class membership; they also reflected the middling disdain for aristocratic high living, and their fears for an England ruled by such extravagant wastrels. These fears were voiced by King George III in his 1787

"Proclamation for the Encouragement of Piety and Virtue, and for the Preventing and

Punishing of Vice, Profaneness and Immorality."7 The Proclamation Society, formed by

William Wilberforce in an effort to enforce those standards, also fizzled out, only to be revived in 1802 as the Society for the Suppression of Vice. These groups were supported by Christian reform movements such as the Evangelicals of the Church of England and various Dissenting sects.

Even though gaming was not the primary focus of these groups' concerns, it received plenty of notoriety in the popular press. Moralising writers frequendy lumped gaming in with other vices, often portraying it as the soft edge of a quicksand of sinful behaviour. "What the Gaming-House leaves, the Tap-House, Tavern, and Whore-House

4 Hunt, The Middling Sort, 103. It is interesting to note that Sir Richard Steele was a member of his local Society for the Reformation of Manners. See Bristow, Vice and Vigilance, 19. 7 Bristow, Vice and Vigilance, 38. That proclamation banned all Britons from, among other things, playing at cards on Sundays, whether in public settings or in private homes. See Dennis Brailsford, A Taste for Diversions: Sport in Georgian England (Cambridge: The Lutterworth Press, 1999), 84. 221 receives: for Gamesters seldom want [ie. lack] other expensive Vices."8 An indignant High

Sheriff of Lancashire wrote: "[Worldly people] see no more harm in cards and dancing at home than in the assembly ... Where will they stop?"9 This notion of card play as a point on a slippery moral slope reinforced moralists' desire to curtail, or better yet, end its dominance as a leisure activity. For these aims to succeed, these publications would have to reach a receptive audience; moreover, that audience should preferably be in a position to affect change through their own leisure habits. Although few published tracts singled out a target audience, they were almost certainly aimed at the literate middle classes, whose concern for the state of the nation's morals was well known. They also had the means to purchase these items and circles of influential friends with whom they could share them.

Finally, as an increasingly sociable set of people, their actions could potentially sway fashion away from the dubious merits of card play, and of gaming generally.10

* The Gaming-Humor Considered, 47. Emphasis in original. 9 quoted in Lewis, The Middlemost and the Milltowns, 41. 10 The nobility and gentry would have been in a much stronger position to influence the course of fashion in leisure activities, but since they, as a group, were linked with the problem of excessive play, they would not, perhaps, have been such a receptive audience for a message of social change. 222

A N EXHORTATION IN CHRISTIAN LOVE, TO ALL WHO FREQDENT HORSE-RACING, COCK-FIGHTING,

THROWING AT COCKS, GAMING,

PLAYS, DANCING,

MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENTS, OR ANT OTHER. VAIN DIVERSIONS. The THIRD EDITION.

Figure 32: Title page of one of the many anti-gaming tracts of the eighteenth century, published in Newcastle in 1770.

The vast majority of anti-gaming literature was concerned with the mayhem caused by the addicted player, who lived his or her life from game to game and who cared nothing for family, reputation, or finances.11 However, as we have seen in previous chapters, this picture does not apply to middling players as revealed in their diaries and letters; they mainly played on social occasions, at low-risk games which involved a lot of social interaction and took hours to play. Their stakes were low and kept firmly within bounds; high-loss games were, generally, not repeated.12 Moreover, judging by the stories and remarks they recorded and traded with friends, they were painfully aware of the snares lying in wait for the thoroughgoing gamester.

11 The addictive nature of gaming and its mental-health aspects were beginning to be understood by this time. See Thomas Gisborne, An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1797), 205, for an example of an eighteenth-century perspective. The most pitiable victims of gaming, according to many writers, were the innocent families, especially the children, of obsessed players. See Fawconer, Essay on Modern "Luxury,36 , for an example. 12 See, for example, John Beresford (ed.) The Diary of a Country Parson: The Reverend James Woodforde (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 111:131, and Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Record Office ER 79/1. 223

They would have recognised themselves in the qualifying remarks of the few moralist publications that saw the shades of grey between extremes of play. Their authors took pains to specify that their strictures were not meant to apply to "innocent Diversions," and acknowledged that "many of the gravest and best characters in the kingdom play at cards every night in their lives as habitually as they take snuff, and just as innocendy."13

These words were written for such low-stakes players as those of Figure 33; the bespectacled lady was the artist's publisher and landlady, Hannah Humphrey, a successful businesswoman.

setoffs 7—' 1 - _ | i x "11 I

i A'o-Fxsr.r)' JVtlLST.

Figure 33: "Two-Penny Whist" James Gillray, 17%. Courtesy of the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

13 Reflexions on Gaming and Observations on the Laws relating thereto. In which is considered, The Mischiefs that are occasioned by Gaming-Houses being Encouraged by Persons of Rank and Distinction. And a Remedy Proposedfor the same (London: J. Barnes, n.d.), 9; Lord Thomas Erskine, Reflections on Gaming Annuities, and Usurious Contracts (London: T. Davies, 1777), 4. 224

Many authors, however, regarded any card play as wasteful idleness and cards themselves as "the devil's picture beuks."14 They could not be called diversions, not when they "administer no considerable exercise to the body, and ... exceedingly amuse and entangle the mind."15 Cards were a snare which too ftequendy led to obsession and ruin:

Cards were at first for benefits design'd, Sent to amuse, and not enslave the mind: From good to bad how easy the transition! For what was pleasure once, is now perdition.16

For the same reason, even low stakes were sinful: not only could that money have been used for other, higher purposes, but "they who begin with venturing small sums, easily learn to risk larger"; the descent into hell is easy.17 The message from the pulpits was clear: by uncoupling the getting of money from honest toil, players were undermining the principle of work as virtuous activity; the introduction of the pagan element of chance made matters worse. Unearned money was tainted with sin.18 All people of respectable station should take care to avoid cards, since their example would guide the conduct of their inferiors; play by the clergy was particularly reprehensible.19 Card-playing parsons, grumbled an Evangelist clergyman, were the thin edge of the wedge, providing a very poor example for their flocks.20 At best, time spent at play was "cut, as it were, out of life, and consigned ... to vacuity and oblivion."21

Middling players moved and played within the context of this widespread disapproval. Many of their remarks concerning their own play, and that of others, reveal

14 Gerda Reith, The Age of Chance: Gambling in Western Culture (London: Routledge, 1999), 83. 15 Josiah Woodward, A Dissuasive from Gaming (London: J. F. and C. Rivington, 1785), 7. This author should not be confused with the Rev George Woodward, whom we first met in Chapter Two. 16 Charles Moore, The Gamester. A Tragedy (reprint Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards Brothers, 1948), "Epilogue". 17 Gisborne, An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex, 192. 18 Reith, The Age of Chance, 82. 19 The Gaming-Humor Considered, 40. 20 Lewis, The Middlemost and the Milltowns, 40. 21 Gisborne, An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex, 197. 225 their absorption of these messages; their accounts of their play itself show us what parts of the sermons they took seriously.22

Doctor, Lawyer, Parson, Merchant: Middling players' moral realities

In addressing their campaign to middling readers, reform-minded writers framed their arguments to resonate with a particular middle-class concern: the link between respectable, upstanding behaviour and a reputation for trustworthiness in a business or professional man. The belief that moral failings inevitably led to mercantile ruin was particularly firm in the trading class. Extravagance and vice were to be avoided if possible, rooted out if they occurred.23 How could a tradesman be trusted when he followed the

"reigning passion for pleasure", which made him "contemptible in private life, and unfit to be trusted in public?"24

For this group, anxious to build and maintain a good public reputation, hard work warded off such dangers, and this work ethic was to be firmly instilled in the next generation. Unfortunately, inherited wealth was a poor incentive to hard work and virtue:

... a wise Man wou'd never leave his Children so much money as to put them beyond Industry; for that is too often putting them beyond Happiness. The heaping up Riches for posterity is, generally speaking, heaping up Destruction; and entailing of large Estates, entailing Vice and Misery.25

22 For an example, see Jack Ayres, Paupers and Pig Killers: The Diary of William Holland, a Somerset Parson, 1700- 1818 (New York: Penguin Books, 1986), 99. 23 Hunt, The Middling Sort, 37. 24 S. Fawconer, An Essay on Modern Luxury: Or, An Attempt to Delineate its Nature, Causes, and Effects (London: James Fletcher, 1765), 28. 25 Gentleman's Magazine 1:10. 226

Horace Walpole agreed. "Parents are much to be pitied! how difficult for fondness and prudence to be both satisfied ... Sons can barely avoid the contagion of gaming."26

Part of the problem, as moralists pointed out, was that the thriving economy was making many traders and professionals very rich indeed, and they were eager to spend their new wealth on the commodities and products that flooded the market. The temptations of materialism and conspicuous consumption, ranted the reformers, exposed tradespeople to vice and corruption on an unprecedented scale.27 Rich living led to rich lifestyles, which naturally, they argued, led to dissipation and idle vice. Gaming epitomised this lifestyle as

"the peculiar scandal of the present age, the pernicious custom, which engrosses most of our time and thoughts."28 Shopkeeper Thomas Turner, after a losing night at cards, wrote:

... for tradesmen to lose anything considerable [at cards], it is a-lessening the stock-in-trade and perhaps injuring the creditors ... can a tradesman gaming have any palliation? No! It is impossible.29

Turner's hand-wringing on that occasion went further than the loss of money. His comments suggested that a tradesman who regarded money so lighdy as to risk it at a casual game did not merit the reputation he himself craved, that of the responsible and cautious businessman. Although Turner himself thought that his set "game[d] more for to pass away time than for thirst of gain," many moralising writers saw even low-stakes players as ruled by greed and avarice, or pushed by pride to flaunt their freedom with their ready

26 W. S. Lewis (ed.) The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), XXV:414. 27 Paul Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727-1783 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 367. 28 Fawconer, Essay on Modern Luxury, 25. Another tract of 1802 agreed, commenting that card play was perfecdy innocent within bounds, but that "the trading part of the nation [ie. the middle classes] who vainly attempt, by luxury and dissipation, to rival the nobility in the least amiable part of their characters" endangered the economy by allowing themselves to be diverted "from a steady adherence to the important business of [their lives]." Essays, Anecdotes, Tales with some originals, by a Debtor, During his Confinement in Prison (Newcasde upon Tyne: M. Angus & Son, 1802), 37. 29 David Vaisey (ed), The Diary of Thomas Turner 1754-1765 (East Hoathly: CTR Publishing, 1994), 199-200. 227 money.30 "The existence of a stake, however minute," huffed Thomas Gisbome in 1797,

"proves that application is made to die avaricious feelings of die mind," which feelings can only increase with time and familiarity.31

Several writers, some of whom may have been writing with tongue in cheek, suggested donating carding winnings to charitable causes:

As Gaming is become fashionable, and the Increase of the Poor a general Complaint, I propose to have a Poor's Box fix'd up ... which may contain all Money that shall be won at Cards ... and that a proper Person be appointed in every Parish to ... distribute it among the Poor every Sunday.32

Some players did exacdy that Biweekly "charitable card assemblies" were held in Stamford in 1755, and on New Year's Day, 1782, Parson Woodforde and his set "by general consent" gave all their quadrille winnings to the unfortunate Betsy Davy.33 Thomas Turner, bewailing the loss of a substantial sum at brag, hinted that he might have given that money to a worthy cause:

I think almost to give over ever playing at cards again, for I think it quite inconsistent with that which is right, for if we reflect how much more service this 3j. would have done had it been given to some necessitous but industrious poor than to be fooled away in this manner, therefore of consequence if there could have been more good done with what I lost I was not a-doing tight when I was a-losing it34

30 Vaisey, Thomas Turner, 200; Essay on Modern Luxury, 26; Richard Hey, A Dissertation on the Pernicious Effects of Gaming (Cambridge: j. Archdeacon, 1783), 4-5. 31 Gisborne, An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex, 193. 32 Gentleman's Magazine 2:24 (December 1732). 33 Peter Borsay, The English Urban Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Provincial Tom 1660-1770 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 266; Beresford, Country Parson, 11:1. 34 Vaisey, Thomas Turner, 193. Coming from a parish officer of the Church of England, this soliloquy has interesting Wesleyan overtones. Many moralists hoped that if gaming and similar wasteful activities were actively outlawed, the time and energies formerly spent in those pursuits would be pouted instead into the elevation of social well-being. See Reuven Brenner with Gabrielle A. Brenner, Gambling and Speculation: A Theory, a History, and a Future of Some Human Decisions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 49. 228

Turner was not a complete hypocrite: he was, after all, a charitable man, although he never mentioned channelling his winnings at cards into his largesse. However, that sort of ethical gnashing of teeth was entirely absent from entries describing his winning nights.

It is interesting that this expEcidy moralistic diatribe comes from a layman. Many clerical diarists, by contrast, have left only casual references to cards, mentioning their place in the social and church calendar and the proper place of a clergyman in the leisure life of the neighbourhood. Very few of them availed themselves of the escape clause mentioned by Mrs Powys: "a clergyman may, you know, easily keep clear of gaming, even with the approbation of the most polite."35

Probably the busiest card-playing clergyman-diarist was the Reverend James

Woodforde, Parson of Weston Longeville in Norfolk. Until illness and old age prevented it, he played regularly and enthusiastically with a wide circle of family members, friends and neighbours, enjoying a variety of games for comfortably low stakes.36 Card playing was so much a part of his life that "no cards" nights warranted special mention; he left few justifications for his play, which he clearly felt required none. The Rev William Holland of

Somerset seems to have needed to set out his reasons for play, reconciling his cloth with his social life by invoking his neighbourly duty. "I went [to a card assembly]... out of compliment to the Northeys and besides I do not chuse altogether to appear to keep aloof from my neighbours."37 He may have felt that spending time with his parishioners in the role of friend and fellow guest would help him in his capacity as parson. By presenting himself as a sociable man who enjoyed good company, ready to indulge in a little

35 Emily Climenson, Passagesfrom the Diaries of Mrs Philip Lybbe Pouys ofHardmck House, Oxon. AD 1756 to 1808 (London : Longmans, Green and Co., 1899), 178-179. 36 See Appendix 9. 37 Jack Ayres (ed.), Paupers and Pig Killers: The Diary of William Holland, A Somerset Parson, 1799-1818 (New York : Penguin Books, 1986), 99. 229

entertainment, he stepped away from a judgemental clerical role and became more

approachable.

The writings of other clergymen suggest a litde too much protesting, although to

varying degrees and for different reasons. The Rev John Smith seems to have believed in

the concept of retributive justice: "[W]e were set down to Vingt Un & gambled 'till near six

[a.m.?]. am afraid I got Cold coming home, in addition to the deserv'd punishment of

losing my Money."38 The Rev William Stephens, an occasional card-player, speculated on

the relative influences of God and Fortune. "Where shall we suppose Chance ends and

Providence begins?" he mused, adding that "Bishop Beveridge ... thinks it wicked to play at

Cards because for to play at Cards is a Lot [Chance] and you are setting the Deity at woth

[?naught] for your Entertainment."39 The bishop's somewhat dualistic view was echoed by

the lamentations of a Calvinist preacher: "O ungrateful I, after all I did but litde for God,

but much for Satan, tho he trembled at my prayers, he was pleased with my card playing."40

The Reverend John Penrose found that tea parties at Bath might carry a hidden sting:

... this afternoon we all paid a Visit to Mrs and Miss Leigh, the first Tea-Visit we have made ... Our Visit... was not protracted to any considerable Length: for one Mr Hutchinson ... and his Lady, drank Tea with us, and immediately after, sat down to Quadrille. You must suppose, it suited our Inclinations to get away as soon as decendy could be.41

He did not elaborate on his reasons for abstaining from cards, but other letters home

suggest that his calling probably swayed his choice. He derided Bath as a 'Tlace of

38 Sheffield Archives SpSt/60636/9. Smith evidendy decided to take his chances, and continued his play unabated. 39 British Library Add MS 46405B vol V. 40 Northamptonshire Record Office B(HH)/32. 41 Brigitte Mitchell and Hubert Penrose (eds.), letters from Bath 1766-1767 by the Rev John Penrose (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1983), 38. 230 extremist Vanity," a "sad corrupting Place", and had no time for "Lovers of Pleasures more than Lovers of God."42

Standards and expectations for clerical behaviour altered and evolved over the years. Mrs Philip Lybbe Powys, dining at the Dean's House in Canterbury, mused:

August 20 [1798] ... to dinner; in the evening had a card-party — only five tables — the seventeen Deans in that drawing-room looking down upon us [from their portraits] as if smiling at the difference of the times, some of them most likely never having seen a card-table.

"However," she ended, "I hope they approved."43 Although James Woodforde deeply respected his father, the Reverend Samuel Woodforde held somewhat sterner views on cards and when they might be enjoyed. As a young man, James wrote, "My Father would not play cards, it being Passion Week ... N.B. No cards this week at Parsonage which I think is not amiss, though there might be no harm."44 When Rev Woodforde's sister and her husband Sam came to visit, the household refrained from playing of an evening "on account of Sam who disliked it." The reason for Sam's disapproval may be found in an earlier entry: "In the evening Sam spoke in favour of the Methodists rather too much I think."45 Methodist disapproval of betting and gaming pastimes was well known, based on their "something for nothing" allure, and their waste of money that could be put to better uses.46 The parson, however, lasted only a few days before deciding that enough was enough, winning 9d from Nancy at cribbage and gendy disregarding his brother-in-law.47

42 Mitchell and Penrose, "Lettersfrom Bath, 31,138,174. 43 Climenson, Mrs Philip Lybbe Pouys, 315. 44 Beresford, Country Parson, 1:73. 45 Beresford, Country Parson, 1:273-274. 46 J. Wesley Bready, England: Before and After Wesley (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), 313. This view also prevailed among Calvinist congregations. See Reith, Age of Chance, 82. 47 Beresford, Country Parson, 1:276. 231

Other Dissenting sects held similar, often stronger, views on card play. When the

Society of Friends in Gloucester heard rumours of misbehaviour by one of their number, they were quick to act Thomas Bowly had a bit of a past, having already been questioned about visits to public houses. In February 1803, he had been "for some time past in the practice of attending places of diversion and Card playing," and, worse, was still doing so.

Several members were deputed to "make him a visit thereon." The report of that visit "not being satisfactory," another call was planned for later in the year. In September, the miscreant "gave them to understand that he had more disrelish for attending places of amusements &c than heretofore ... and thought he shou'd not again be in the practice of it" The Friends, still uncertain of his reformation, toyed with the idea of expelling Mr

Bowly. The matter was finally dropped in December, with Bowly's assurances that "he was not now in such practices."48

Views were mixed on the subject of card play on Sundays and holidays. While many Europeans enjoyed Sundays filled with games and sport, the English were still dealing with the vestiges of Puritan sabbatarianism; laws governing Sunday play were still on the books in the early nineteenth century, as we see in Figure 34.49

48 Gloucester Record Office D1340/B1/M3. It is difficult to be sure of the religious affiliation of a number of the sampled writers. Unless deafly stated, I have tended to assume Church of England, especially in die case of published writers identified as D.D., since Dissenters were not eligible to enter either of the two universities. A study of denominational differences in card play (or attitudes to it) would be interesting, if reliable sources were available. 49 Dennis Brailsford, A Taste for Diversions: Sport in Georgian England (Cambridge: The Lutterworth Press, 1999), 83. 232

Figure 34: "Mrs Figs Card Party Disturbed"George M. Woodward and Isaac Cruikshank, c. 1807. The whist-players have played past midnight on Saturday, and are about to be taken to Jail for playing cards on Sunday. In practice, this law was seldom enforced. Courtesy of the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

From the late seventeenth century to the opening of the nineteenth, everyone from monarchs to Dissenting ministers repeatedly expressed hopes for the keeping of the sabbath as a properly sober, pious, and largely joyless day.50 In the late eighteenth century,

Evangelicals pointed to Sunday recreation as "one of the worst types of desecration" and a sure ticket to further, more heinous sins.51 Even so, Sunday play at home was a special

50 Stuart Andrews, Methodism and Society (London: Longman Group, 1970), 68-69. As Maurice Quinlan writes, given the fact that work was forbidden on Sundays, the incidence of play and other leisure activities on Sundays is hardly surprising. See Quinlan, Victorian Prelude: A. History of English Manners, 1700-1830 (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1965), 206-8. 51 Robert W. Malcolmson, Popular Recreations in English Society 1700-1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 105. One pamphlet of 1714 derided the card-playing woman, "Tho' she was bred a Protestant," as having a "mighty Veneration for the Romish Religion, because they allow gaming on Sundays, to be an innocent Diversion." See Adam and Eve Stript of their Furbelows: Or, the Fashionable Virtues and Vices of both Sexes expos'd to publick View (London: J. Woodward, 1714), 53-54. Virulent anti-Catholic feelings ran deep in 233 temptation when a hardworking Papa's only free hours might fall on Sunday. Increasingly, middle-class families used the Lord's Day to enjoy one another's company in pastime rather than prayers.52

Several diarists played cards on an occasional Sunday or the occasional holiday, but only one, attorney John Baker, played frequendy on Sunday.55 Since he only recorded one instance of any specific objection to the notion of Sunday play, his circle of friends were probably comfortable with doing so as well. Parson Woodforde made concessions to his calling by declining to play on Sundays, Good Friday, Easter, and Christmas Day, but made no attempt to interfere with others' pleasure and passed no judgements. Others, lay and clerical, played the occasional game on a Sunday or a Good Friday, but generally in quiet settings and small parties. A rare explanation came from Betsy Sheridan, whose correspondent had been twitting her about it

I like your beating me on [the] shoulders about card playing on Sundays. You know it is a thing I very early learn'd to consider as perfecdy indifferent in itself... If I thought I did wrong I should not do it, as it is I do it with the same indifference that I would sing dance or play Chess which you know is the way in which I have spent many a Sunday Evening and I hope innocendy.54

To Betsy, Sunday play was not a moral issue: her intention was not to profane the Sabbath, merely to enjoy another sort of innocent entertainment. Her logic echoed that of Horace

Walpole, who pointed out the hypocrisy of ladies who spent their weekdays battling over

England at that time: that very year, a new dynasty came from Germany to rule Britain, solely because they were the senior Protestant branch of the royal family. In England, to link card play with Roman Catholicism was to demonise it indeed. 52 Langford, Polite and Commercial People, 574. 53 See Appendix 1. 54 William LeFanu (ed.), Betsy Sheridan's Journal: Lettersfrom Sheridan's sister 1784-1786 and 1788-1790 (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1960), 37. 234 the card table, then on Sundays substituted vicious gossip about their acquaintances for the relatively harmless cards.55

In representing card playing (on Sundays or otherwise) as an innocent pastime,

Betsy aligned herself with most writers, who used the same words to describe a like indulgence. Time, and its effective use in the business and professional world, had become a peculiarly middling concern over the eighteenth century. A strong work ethic and a sense of time discipline should lead, all things being equal, to success in business or professional life, and the wealth that went with it56 For many, enjoying wealth meant enjoying the happy liberty of leisure and release from the workaday world; the reward for efficiency was the freedom to be inefficient57

Many reformers disagreed. "Do we need any artifice to hasten the flight of our speedy and irretrievable moments, which pass away of themselves swifter than our very thoughts?" thundered Josiah Woodward in A Dissuasive from Gaming.58 The very notion of a pastime was anathema to the stricter sort, who saw time as an irreplaceable resource, given by God, which "you cannot properly call your own."59 While some middling writers were perfecdy at ease with cards as a 'pass-time', others seemed, however faindy, to morally justify their choice. Parson Woodforde and his niece whiled away an anxious night over cribbage, as they sat up with their sick young friend, Betsy Davie.

Betsy Davie very bad today ... Nancy and myself sat up in the Study all the night long as she was so ill, and we thought her dangerously so. We amused ourselves most of the night by

55 Lewis, Horace Walpole's Correspondence, XXXI: 437. 56 Hunt, The Middling Sort, 56. 57 Lewis, The Middlemost and the Milltowns, 363. 58 Josiah Woodward, A Disswasive from Gaming, 8. 59 An Exhortation in Christian Love, to all who frequent Horse-Racing, Cock-fighting, Throwing at Cocks, Gaming Plays, Dancing Musical Entertainments, or any other Vain Diversions (Newcasde: I. Thompson, 1770), 30. The notion that time was a gift of God, not to be wasted, dates to the late middle ages. See Jacques Le Goff, Your Monty or Your Life: Economy and Religion in the Middle Ages (New York: Zone Books, 1988), 39. 235

playing Cribbage. We played 12 Rubbers at 6d per Rubber at which I won 0.1.0.60

Sometimes the two would play cribbage when Nancy herself was ill, and needed to be

"diverted".61 Similarly, Betsy Sheridan's evenings usually included "a litde picquet" to amuse her gouty father and take his mind from his pain.62 Thomas Turner's sagging business could make for very slow days. One afternoon, in late May 1757, he and Thomas

Davy "in the afternoon and even played, I conject, above 50 games of cribbage and then left off just as we begun, having neither won nor lost. A very melancholy time; nothing to do ..."63 Nicholas Blundell found relief from the elements at his card table: "We played at

Cards most of the afternoone it being very wet"64

Other players frankly acknowledged a genuine struggle with the disturbing intimation of idleness and poor use of leisure time. An East Sussex diarist made uneasy references to spending his days "usefully", "innocendy", or "idle":

8 February [1781] Had Mrs Simpkin & two Cousins to tea & Cards & won. The pleasure of innocent recreation. 20 February Spent this Day too Idle. Hetty Timp: drank Tea with me. Played at Cards.65

An Oxford undergraduate piously declined to waste his time on play with a friend, who tcWanted me to play at cards — I woud not considered I was sure to lose — sustain the most irreparable losse of all losses, the loss of time ..." These lofty sentiments might have been more convincing if he had not spent the same evening playing at Brag with another gaggle

60 Beresford, Country Parson, 1:300-301. 61 Beresford, Country Parson, 11:296. 62 LeFanu, Betsy Sheridan, 55. 63 Vaisey, Thomas Turner, 99. 64 J. J. Bagley (ed.) and Frank Tyrer (transcr.), The Great Diurnal of Nicholas Blundell ofLittle Crosby, Lancashire (Liverpool: Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, n.d.), 1:42. 65 East Sussex Record Office FRE/744-5. 236

of players: "was pretty succesful [at cards] ... came home at one."66 What was a little time

wasted among friends?

Our college man was one of many diarists who mentioned the time they arrived

home or crawled between the sheets. This may have been a recognition, conscious or

otherwise, of the importance of accounting for one's time, even time spent in leisure. The

fifteenth-century aphorism "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy,

and wise" could have epitomised the middling attitude to an increasingly clock-conscious working life.67 Very late nights at cards were fairly common, and all-nighters occurred

occasionally as well. Thomas Turner noted smugly:

Mr Elless and James Marchant and myself and wife sat down to whist about 7 o'clock and played all night till 7 in the morning... We spent the night very pleasant and, I think I may say, with innocent mirth ...68

Turner clearly felt a need to justify his many hours of "innocent" play; James Woodforde, the cleric, did not.

August 14, Friday [1795] ... After Coffee and Tea we got to Cards, lost 0.0.6. We made it late to bed to night, after 12. o'clock. August 19, Wednesday... At Cards this Evening, Quadrille, won 0.2.0. We were very merry to night & kept it up late.69

Woodforde, by that time, had recorded nearly thirty years' worth of card games, and had long before settled their risk to his soul and their value to his leisure hours.

66 Cheshire and Chester Archives and Local Studies Service DMD/N/4/5. 67 Although some sources credit Benjamin Franklin with actually coining this saying, The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (ed. Elizabeth Knowles, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) dates it to the late fifteenth century (p. 599, quote 4); Hunt, The Middling Sort, 53. Noting one's bedtime may also have been a long- established habit, much like recording each day's weather, which many of eighteenth-century diarists also did. 68 Vaisey, Thomas Turner, 130. 69 Beresford, Country Parson, IV:219. 237

Conclusion

The two Carmans and Sam. Jenner and myself played a few games of whist in the evening; I won VAd. At home all day and thank God very busy... Oh, what pleasure does a busy active live give!70

Thomas Turner's happy entry for 5 April 1763 breathes optimism and peace of mind. He had, evidendy, squared his low-stakes card play with his very scrupulous conscience since we last heard from him in February 1760. Although he and other middling players were clearly aware of the debate surrounding their favourite pastime, they were also, for the most part, quite comfortable with their own play. This might appear contradictory but for the fact that they clearly did not regard their play as the target of the anti-gaming campaign. For the most part, they did not play in illegal or high-risk circumstances, and almost all their play took place in the context of sociable gatherings.

Moreover, on the few occasions when losses exceeded a comfortable limit, they took steps to amend their behaviour, and none recorded playing contrary to their own ethical guidelines. When they saw, or heard of, those who crossed moral boundaries, their accounts make it clear that such actions were just too far beyond the pale for their comfort

Many of their comments reveal not only their views with respect to current opinions, but their own backgrounds and the outer edges of their own moral universes.

When Parson Woodforde's family sat down to quadrille on Good Friday 1790, he neither played nor sat in judgement on those who did.71 Although a number of writers kept careful records of the amount of time spent at cards, or of the time their evenings ended, most

70 Vaisey, Thomas Turner, 268. 71 Beresford, Country Parson, 113:181. 238 seemed to regard leisure time as time well spent So-called "idle pastimes" became legitimate opportunities to relax, enjoy the company of one's children or neighbours, and catch up on the latest news between rubbers.

Some made a point of writing down popular songs about gaming, and even jokes at moralists' expense. Why would these people have noted these "catches"? Something about their sly snook-cocking must have appealed to those who recorded them: perhaps they were a subversive way of smiling at the prevailing climate of thought. A West Sussex farmer wrote out several verses of a gamesters' song, and a quote from The Provok'd

Husband about women's card play.72 A young, up-and-coming curate, John Thomlinson, recorded the story of "a great Gamester having won a great sum of money &c told one of his acquaintance that mett him, that he had been fulfilling the commandmts — He had fed

73 the Hungry, cloath'd ye naked & ye rich he had sent empty away." Perhaps Thomlinson hoped to use this line himself one day.

Paradoxically, a lack of mention of the moral issues surrounding card play suggests much the same as do specific comments. If ethical and moral questions preyed on the minds of these writers — whatever they decided, in the end, to do - surely these would have appeared as frequent disquisitions in their diaries and letters. Instead, such comments are intermittent, second-hand, or missing entirely. For every uneasy mention about the rights of carding, there are many more accounts of "merry" or "pleasant" evenings.

Clearly, guilt was not a guest at those happy gatherings.

The many surviving descriptions of low-key, low-risk, low-stakes card parties paint a consistent, if multi-faceted, picture of middling leisure. By their own accounts, the

72 West Sussex Record Office Add MSS 30840. 73 British Library Add MS 22560. 239 middle classes took their values with them to the drawing room, and kept them at their elbows while the cards were out. For these players, enjoyable play meant being comfortable in one's conscience and secure in one's public image. Anything else was not worth the candle. 240

Conclusion

Riches, cards, and duelling, have furnished constant topics for abuse ... and yet [people] will still hoard, play, and fight. Why should they? All universal passions we may fakly pronounce to be natural, and should be treated with respect. The gratification of our passions are our greatest pleasures, and he that has most gratifications is of course the happiest man. This ... is true ... provided we pay no more for pleasure than it is worth.1

Studying the leisure hours of a group of people, particularly such a varied assortment as the middle classes of eighteenth-century England, provides a unique perspective on their lives and attitudes. In reading diaries and other personal records from so many different authors, living in such a wide range of places and occupying so many niches in the English economy, many themes - and variations on themes - become apparent In a sense, it comes as no surprise that middling values and mentalities were so consistent across the spectrum; after all, even very different trades and professions were trying to scratch out a living under similar conditions and restrictions. Without the security that came with owning land, operating within the economic context of unlimited liability and uncertain markets, the middle classes evolved a set of protective mechanisms that served them well throughout the eighteenth and into the nineteenth century.2 Those who prospered found that their wealth allowed them certain new opportunities in the social round, which they were quick to take advantage of. Side by side with their new social prominence went greater exposure to a wider, possibly wealthier clientele; a wider circle of

1 William Jackson, Thirty Letters on Various Subjects (London: T. Cadell, 1784; reprint New York: Garland Publishing, 1970), 6-7. 2 Margaret R. Hunt, The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England, 1680-1780 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 40. 241 acquaintances could spread the word of one's law practice or one's fine stock of silverware.

The middling sort were not blind to the advantages of their prosperity, and many peopled the assembly rooms and the streets of Bath for more than mere pleasure.

The world of polite sociability, and the card games that formed such a large part of it, developed rituals and customs that tell us a great deal about the people who observed them. The types of entertainments people chose to attend, the hours they were willing to keep, the company they mixed with and the behaviour they remarked on are all richly descriptive of the cultural worlds of the day. Those who declined its delights, by contrast, have their own tales to tell: in refusing the pull of the card table and explaining their scruples in letters or on journal pages, they shed light on the debate on card play which rumbled throughout the eighteenth century. Both groups revealed their priorities, their concerns, their expectations, and their underlying principles in their discussions of their leisure hours.

The picture they paint for us is of card play as an overwhelmingly social affair.

These people were sitting down to cards with family, friends, neighbours, and members of their profession or trade. Whether they were primarily concerned with forging (and reinforcing) kinship, community, or commercial bonds is less important than the atmosphere in which they did so. Their stories of cribbage by the fireside or of glittering assemblies in Bath all emphasise the merry society in which they gathered. Of course there were undercurrents of local jealousies, marriage-market schemes, or professional manoeuverings on occasion, but the current of sheer enjoyment that runs through their writings is undeniable. These players played for fun.

They also played throughout their lives. Simple card games smoothed the path to the drawing room for many children, who found themselves included in adult gatherings 242 and doing adult things. As they grew older and took on responsibilities such as apprenticeships in counting houses and warehouses, or places at the universities, cards were both forbidden fruit and social lubricant, a pivotal and loaded pastime for young men in particular. With marriage and the arrival of children, with the start of a working life, circumstances and social circles inevitably changed; new arrivals were welcomed with dinner, tea, and a rubber at whist. Older folk taught their favourite old games to the young, who might know only the newer, fashionable games, and the circle continued to turn.

Within England's burgeoning economy, a many-headed leisure industry arose to meet the eager demands of the newly prosperous; the middling sort were in the enviable position of being both supplier and consumer to these trades. Knowing opportunity and daring to exploit it, many businessmen and women scrambled to fill barely-perceptible economic gaps, some realising hefty profits. New entrepreneurs built on their work as leisure trades expanded with the growth of such resort towns as Bath. And as time went by, the middle classes brought their wealth to these new holiday places, enjoying the new phenomenon of the extended vacation, spending their money and driving the economy ever onward.

As the leisure bandwagon accelerated its pace and grew ever more alluring, the always-fearful moralisers increased their fulminations, attacking card play from many angles and for a plethora of evils. Printshop windows were papered with graphic satires depicting players of both sexes as dissipated, as obsessed with fashionable vanities, and, often, as sexually immoral. Sermons and pamphlets cautioned readers against the many sins of play and its looming consequences. Gaming at cards was wasteful of time, of money; it took time away from the business and the family; it promised something for nothing, a win from a wager, ill-gotten gains for no proper effort. It threatened the social order, it enslaved the 243 young, and it was especially dangerous to women, who were too frivolous in any case and who stood to lose their beauty and their reputations. And in the face of these widespread images, rantings and warnings, the middling sort setded contentedly to their cards, swapping their shillings and chatting between rubbers. The ladies let their knotting slip into their laps as they took up the next hand; the shopkeeper and his friend played cribbage when business was slow.

In turning away from the high-flying, deep-playing excesses of the aristocracy, the middling sort actively (if unconsciously) created a new leisure culture to suit their own needs. Their choices of activities, consumer goods, and pursuits, as well as those they as tradespeople offered to the English economy, acted to shape the way the nation enjoyed itself. They were comfortable with their restrained gentility because it reflected their values and their ways, buying lovely things, playing games, enlarging their worldview through reading and social activism. At the same time, they kept their peace of mind and their security; for the sake of their families and their social and financial stability, undue risks were minimised or discontinued if they threatened. They moved within fashionable society, while shaping it and its delights to suit their middling paradigm, paying no more for their pleasure than it was worth. 244

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Appendices

Appendix 1: John Baker's card play

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Thurs 26 7 1757 cards assembly friends Sat 28 7 1757 whist assembly friends Tues 16 8 1757 cards lodgings friends tea Fri 30 9 1757 whist Losack friends dinner Thurs 20 10 1757 whist Losack friends dinner Thurs 27 10 1757 cards lodgings friends dinner Sat 3 12 1757 whist son's family Tues 3 1 1758 whist 4.5 guin assembly friends Mon 24 4 1758 whist 10.5 guin friends' friends Tues 25 4 1758 whist 13 guin assembly friends Thurs 27 4 1758 whist 12 guin assembly friends Fri 28 4 1758 quadrille 0/9 inn friends Wed 3 5 1758 cribbage inn ftiends Thurs 20 7 1758 whist assembly friends Sun 30 7 1758 cards Tuite friends Mon 28 8 1758 whist friends' friends Sat 7 10 1758 cards Tuite friends Sun 24 12 1758 cards Tuite friends Mon 25 12 1758 whist lodgings friends Sun 4 2 1759 cards Bannister friends dinner, supper Mon 19 3 1759 quadrille 3 guin Bannister friends dinner Sun 29 4 1759 cards 8 guin Tuite friends dinner, supper Thurs 3 5 1759 whist 17 guin Kirwan friends dinner Tues 15 5 1759 cards 4_6_6 friends' friends Thurs 17 5 1759 quad/whist 3_13_6 Tuite friends Fri 18 5 1759 whist 10_4_0 Tuite friends Mon 11 6 1759 whist 10_7_0 Tuite friends Sun 17 6 1759 whist 1_8_6 Tuite friends Mon 24 9 1759 whist Holman friends Thurs 27 9 1759 cards 8_19_0 Tuite friends supper Sat 6 10 1759 cards 33.5 guin inn friends Mon 15 10 1759 whist 8_8_0 home friends dinner Tues 23 10 1759 cards Holman friends Mon 29 10 1759 quadrille 13/0 Tuite friends Fri 2 11 1759 quadrille 1_10_0 Neaves friends Thurs 24 1 1760 whist 20_9_6 coffeehs friends Tues 12 2 1760 cards Tuite friends Fri 15 2 1760 quadrille 5/0 Bannister friends Wed 14 5 1760 cards 4.5 guin inn friends Mon 19 5 1760 whist 10/0 home ftiends Fri 20 6 1760 quadrille home friends dinner Sun 7 12 1760 commerce Wood'ton friends tea, supper Tues 2 6 1761 quadrille home friends dinner, supper Tues 7 7 1761 whist assembly friends Appendix 10, continued

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Thurs 8 10 1761 whist ball friends Sun 17 1 1762 quadrille Morris friends dinner Mon 22 2 1762 quadrille Skerrett friends dinner, supper Sun 18 4 1762 quadrille Stanley friends dinner Mon 19 7 1762 quadrille assembly friends breakfast Sat 14 8 1762 quadrille assembly friends tea Mon 16 8 1762 whist assembly friends Wed 15 9 1762 quadrille P'ston friends dinner, supper Fri 17 9 1762 whist assembly friends Tues 21 9 1762 whist assembly friends Mon 4 10 1762 pkquet home friends Tues 12 10 1762 cards assembly friends supper Fri 22 10 1762 quadrille Herring friends Tues 2 11 1762 whist P'ston friends dinner, supper Sun 14 11 1762 quadrille home friends dinner, supper Tues 23 11 1762 quadrille St Andre friends dinner Tues 21 12 1762 quadrille Tuite friends Mon 25 4 1763 picquet home friends Wed 27 4 1763 whist 3.5 guin son's family Thurs 21 7 1763 quadrille home friends dinner Mon 22 8 1763 whist home friends Wed 7 3 1770 quadrille Bannister friends dinner Mon 19 3 1770 cards Barington friends Sat 24 3 1770 loo Langdale friends Wed 28 3 1770 cards lodgings friends dinner, supper Sun 8 4 1770 loo Payne friends Sun 6 5 1770 quad/loo Selby friends Sun 17 6 1770 cards Manning friends Wed 20 6 1770 loo Macarty friends Sun 24 6 1770 loo Payne friends tea Sat 30 6 1770 cards home friends dinner Fri 10 8 1770 whist Buigoyne friends Thurs 16 8 1770 loo home friends dinner, supper Tues 4 9 1770 whist assembly Fri 2 11 1770 quad/whist lodgings friends dinner, supper Wed 2 1 1771 cards Miller friends dinner Tues 14 5 1771 whist home friends tea Mon 24 6 1771 whist assembly friends Mon 29 7 1771 quad/wh/loo Shergold friends Mon 5 8 1771 cards Shergold friends Wed 14 8 1771 quadrille Pelham friends dinner Fri 16 8 1771 whist Shergold friends Wed 21 8 1771 whist Shergold friends Mon 9 9 1771 whist Richmond friends dinner, coffee/tea Fri 20 9 1771 whist Richmond friends dinner Tues 24 9 1771 quad/whist Richmond friends Wed 13 11 1771 quadrille Litchfield friends Tues 19 11 1771 quadrille Litchfield friends Appendix 10, continued

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Fri 24 1 1772 quadrille home friends Thurs 13 2 1772 quadrille Tuite friends Thurs 20 2 1772 cards Mount ftiends Thurs 27 2 1772 cards Banister friends Sat 29 2 1772 quadrille home friends dinner Tues 12 5 1772 whist Banister ftiends dinner Fri 15 5 1772 whist Douglas ftiends supper Thurs 28 5 1772 quadrille friends'? friends Sat 30 5 1772 whist/loo home friends Sun 14 6 1772 whist home ftiends tea Mon 22 6 1772 whist lodgings ftiends dessert, suppei Tues 23 6 1772 whist home ftiends Thurs 9 7 1772 quadrille assembly friends Mon 10 8 1772 whist lodgings friends supper Thurs 27 8 1772 picquet home friends Sun 30 8 1772 picquet home ftiends Thurs 3 9 1772 picquet home ftiends dinner Fri 18 9 1772 picquet home ftiends Thurs 1 10 1772 quadrille Blunt ftiends Wed 4 11 1772 whist assembly friends Sat 7 11 1772 whist assembly friends Tues 10 11 1772 cards assembly friends Wed 11 11 1772 quad/whist assembly ftiends Thurs 12 11 1772 quad/whist assembly ftiends Fri 13 11 1772 quad/whist assembly friends Thurs 31 12 1772 picquet lodgings friends wine Mon 18 1 1773 whist Boson friends Fri 22 1 1773 picquet home family Mon 22 3 1773 quadrille King friends dinner Tues 1 6 1773 quadrille home ftiends Wed 14 7 1773 whist home ftiends Sat 17 7 1773 quadrille home friends Sun 25 7 1773 whist home ftiends Thurs 26 8 1773 quad/whist Tredcroft friends Mon 30 8 1773 whist home friends Fri 24 9 1773 quadrille inn ftiends tea, supper Sat 25 9 1773 whist home ftiends Mon 25 10 1773 whist Stanley friends dinner Sun 21 11 1773 quadrille Bostock friends dinner, supper Fri 26 11 1773 whist home friends dinner, supper Tues 25 1 1774 whist home friends Fri 4 2 1774 quadrille home friends dinner Tues 12 4 1774 whist Woodward ftiends tea Thurs 9 6 1774 whist Oliver friends dinner Thurs 14 7 1774 whist Tredcroft ftiends dinner Thurs 8 12 1774 quadrille lodgings friends dinner Thurs 12 1 1775 quad/crib home ftiends dinner Sat 25 2 1775 quad/whist Akers friends Sat 11 3 1775 whist Taylor ftiends dinner Appendix 10, continued

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Sat 6 5 1775 whist Smith friends Tues 9 5 1775 cards Spooner friends Sat 20 5 1775 whist Manning friends Mon 26 6 1775 whist inn friends Tues 25 7 1775 whist Andrew friends dinner Thurs 27 7 1775 whist assembly friends Tues 1 8 1775 whist assembly friends Thurs 3 8 1775 quadrille lodgings friends supper Tues 8 8 1775 whist assembly friends Mon 14 8 1775 whist Ballard friends dinner Sat 19 8 1775 whist assembly friends Thurs 24 8 1775 whist assembly friends Fri 1 9 1775 cards Wbrugh friends Sat 2 9 1775 cards assembly friends Mon 4 9 1775 cards Notris friends Fri 29 9 1775 whist Woodward friends dinner Thurs 5 10 1775 quad/whist home friends dinner Sat 30 10 1775 whist Woodward friends dinner Tues 2 1 1776 quadrille Woodward friends dinner Thurs 4 1 1776 whist 1_0 home Thurs 11 1 1776 whist Tredcroft friends dinner, tea Wed 7 2 1776 cards 1_0 friends' Wed 6 3 1776 quad/whist 1_0 Tredcroft friends dinner Thurs 21 3 1776 picquet Banister friends dinner Mon 25 3 1776 cards 1_6 Manning friends Mon 25 3 1776 cards 2_6 Manning friends Thurs 4 4 1776 cards 1_6 Manning friends Thurs 18 4 1776 whist 1_0 Blunt friends coffee/tea Sat 20 4 1776 whist Blunt friends dinner, coffee/tea Mon 6 5 1776 whist assembly friends Fri 24 5 1776 cards 1_6 Maturing friends Tues 4 6 1776 whist 1_6 Manning friends Wed 17 7 1776 whist 1_6 inn strangers Tues 1 10 1776 cards lodgings friends tea Mon 14 10 1776 whist 1_0 Blunt friends Tues 29 10 1776 quadrille 1_6 Manning friends Thurs 31 10 1776 quadrille friends' friends Wed 6 11 1776 cards 1_6 Manning friends Sun 17 11 1776 picquet home friends Sat 23 11 1776 picq/whist friends' friends dinner Thurs 19 12 1776 whist Woodward friends tea, supper Fri 31 1 1777 quadrille lodgings friends dinner, tea, supper Thurs 6 3 1777 whist home friends dinner, coffee/tea Sun 4 4 1777 whist Manning friends dinner Wed 7 4 1777 quadrille Duke friends dinner, tea, supper Tues 29 4 1777 whist 1_6 Manning friends Wed 7 5 1777 cards 1-6 Manning friends Fri 30 5 1777 whist home? friends Fri 20 6 1777 whist 1_6 Oliver friends dinner, tea 280

Appendix 12, continued

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Tues 8 7 1777 whist 1_0 Manning friends dinner Wed 23 7 1777 picquet home landlady Tues 12 8 1777 whist 1_6 Manning ftiends Thuis 14 8 1777 whist 1_6 Manning friends dinner, supper Thurs 11 9 1777 quadrille lodgings friends Wed 17 9 1777 whist inn ftiends Mon 22 9 1777 picquet inn friends Sun 28 9 1777 quad/comm Bell friends Sat 11 10 1777 picquet lodging friends Sat 18 10 1777 whist lodging friends tea Tues 21 10 1777 whist Manning friends dinner Tues 4 11 1777 cards Calmall friends Fri 7 11 1777 quadrille home friends Mon 17 11 1777 quadrille Winter ftiends Tues 18 11 1777 quadrille Nevinson ftiends Fri 21 11 1777 quadrille Morgan friends Sat 22 11 1777 quadrille Nicholay ftiends Mon 24 11 1777 whist Wood'ton friends Wed 26 11 1777 quadrille Hubert ftiends supper Mon 1 12 1777 quadrille home friends Fri 5 12 1777 cards Nicholay friends Sun 7 12 1777 whist friends' friends tea Mon 8 12 1777 quadrille Bicknell friends Wed 10 12 1777 picquet home friends Mon 15 12 1777 cards home friends Sat 20 12 1777 quadrille Nicholay friends Mon 22 12 1777 picquet home ftiends Tues 23 12 1777 quad/comm home friends dinner Thurs 25 12 1777 whist friends' friends dinner Sat 3 1 1778 quadrille Winter friends Tues 6 1 1778 picquet home ftiends Mon 12 1 1778 cards Calmall ftiends Thurs 29 1 1778 picquet home friends tea Tues 3 2 1778 quadrille home friends Wed 4 2 1778 quadrille Wood'ton friends Tues 17 2 1778 quadrille Winter friends supper Wed 18 2 1778 cards White ftiends Thurs 26 2 1778 cards Winter friends Sun 1 3 1778 whist 1_0 Manning friends Mon 9 3 1778 whist 1-0 Nicholay friends Wed 11 3 1778 quadrille Mason friends Fri 13 3 1778 quadrille White friends Sat 14 3 1778 quadrille Winter friends Fri 20 3 1778 quad/picq Nicholay friends Sat 28 3 1778 whist 1_0 Nicholay friends Sun 29 3 1778 whist 1_6 Manning friends Mon 6 4 1778 picquet home friends Tues 7 4 1778 whist 1_0 home friends Tues 12 5 1778 cards 1_0 Manning friends 281

Appendix 12, continued

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Fri 17 7 1778 quadrille Wood'ton friends Thurs 6 8 1778 quadrille Winter friends Fri 7 8 1778 quadrille Winter friends tea Sat 22 8 1778 picquet home friends supper Sun 25 10 1778 whist Winter friends supper Sun 6 12 1778 whist lodging friends dinner Wed 9 12 1778 picquet home friends Sat 12 12 1778 picquet home friends Tues 29 12 1778 quadrille home? friends 282

Appendix 2: Nicholas Blundell's card play

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Thurs 12 11 1702 cards 3_10_0 S'brick family supper Tues 5 1 1703 cards 6/0 Ince family supper Wed 22 9 1703 cards home Tues 14 12 1703 cards Aigburth friends drink Fri 31 12 1703 cards home wife Fri 21 1 1704 cards home wife Sun 10 9 1704 cards home friends supper Wed 20 12 1704 cards Andey friends dinner Thurs 21 12 1704 cards 12/0 SWk family Wed 27 12 1704 cards S'brick family Wed 18 4 1705 cards 4/0 Poole friends Fri 20 4 1705 brag Poole friends Wed 15 8 1705 cards Ince family Thurs 22 11 1705 cards 2/0 Fri 28 12 1705 cards Ormskirk friends dinner Thurs 3 1 1706 cards home friends Sun 27 1 1706 cards 0/6 Sat 18 5 1706 cards 7_4 Durham Thurs 7 11 1706 cards Ormskirk friends dinner, supper Fri 27 12 1706 cards 2_6 home family Mon 20 1 1707 cards S'brick friends Thurs 31 7 1707 cards 3/0 Tues 9 9 1707 cards home friends supper Sat 1 11 1707 cards home friends Mon 15 12 1707 cards home friends supper Mon 29 12 1707 cards home family dinner Thurs 1 1 1708 cards home family supper Fri 2 1 1708 cards home family dinner, supper Sat 7 2 1708 cards 1/0 Mon 9 2 1708 whist home friends dinner, supper Mon 14 6 1708 cards home friends dinner, supper Fri 25 6 1708 cards family Wed 8 9 1708 cards Aldred friends Sun 21 11 1708 cards Tickley friends supper Tues 30 11 1708 cards Aldred friends supper Tues 21 12 1708 cards 2_6 Mon 27 12 1708 cards Aldred friends dinner, supper Thurs 13 1 1709 cards 7_6 Sun 16 1 1709 cards home friends dinner, supper Wed 20 7 1709 cards home friends Tues 26 7 1709 cribbage home friends Sun 23 10 1709 cards home friends supper Fri 14 7 1710 picquet home friends Tues 8 8 1710 cards 5_6 283

Appendix 12, continued day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Thurs 30 11 1710 cards 0/8 Fri 1 12 1710 cards Gelibrond friends supper Wed 27 12 1710 whist home friends dinner, supper Fri 29 6 1711 cards home friends dinner Thurs 2 8 1711 cards home firiends dinner, supper Sun 26 8 1711 cards Aldred friends Tues 28 8 1711 cards home friends supper Wed 5 9 1711 cards Newhouse friends supper Tues 11 9 1711 cards Ince friends supper Mon 17 9 1711 cards Aldred friends supper Fri 28 12 1711 cards home friends Tues 6 1 1713 cut home friends Wed 21 1 1713 cards home friends dinner Tues 20 10 1713 cards home family Wed 4 11 1713 cards home friends supper Sun 8 11 1713 cards home friends Sun 22 11 1713 cards home friends supper Fri 25 6 1714 cards Coggrave friends dinner Mon 20 9 1714 cards 1_10_0 Tues 21 9 1714 cut/30-40 Aldred friends Wed 29 12 1714 30-40 home friends dinner Thurs 6 1 1715 cut F'poole friends dinner Sat 4 6 1715 loo home friends supper Wed 29 6 1715 loo Ince firiends supper Tues 3 1 1716 30-40 London friends supper Fri 9 3 1716 crib/whist London friends dinner Mon 23 9 1717 cards Aldred friends dinner, supper Thurs 3 10 1717 cards Ince friends dinner, supper Tues 8 10 1717 cards home friends supper Fri 1 11 1717 cards home friends dinner Mon 30 12 1717 cards Aldred friends dinner, supper Thurs 10 7 1718 cards home family dinner Fri 5 9 1718 cards Ince friends dinner Mon 1 8 1720 cards York friends Wed 3 8 1720 cards York friends dinner Sat 13 8 1720 cards York friends dinner Thurs 29 9 1720 cards Ince friends supper Mon 26 12 1720 cards Ince friends supper Wed 28 12 1720 cards home friends dinner, supper Thurs 29 12 1720 cards Sefton friends supper Thurs 16 2 1721 cards Clifton friends Tues 19 9 1721 cards Crisp friends Sat 6 1 1722 cards Boode friends Mon 25 3 1723 cards home friends Sat 25 7 1724 cards Tues 12 4 1726 cards home family Thurs 14 4 1726 picquet home family Thurs 11 1 1728 cards home friends 284

Appendix 3: Elizabeth Dummet's card accounts

mm yyyy entry type drawn 5 1736 pocket 2/13/0 26 5 1736 pocket 1-1-0 2 7 1736 pocket 2_2_0 1736 pocket 2_2_0 6 9 1736 pocket 2_2_0 21 9 1736 pocket 2_2_0 7 10 1736 pocket 2_1_0 6 11 1736 pocket 2_2_0 19 11 1736 pocket 2_2_0 11 1 1737 pocket 3_3_0 20 1 1737 pocket 2_1_0 14 2 1737 pocket 2_2_0 9 3 1737 pocket 3_3_0 16 4 1737 pocket 1/19/1 25 4 1737 pocket 5_5_0 24 5 1737 pocket 2_5_0 31 5 1737 pocket 2_2_0 25 7 1737 pocket 2_2_0 17 8 1737 pocket 2_2_0 14 9 1737 pocket 3/10/7.5 15 10 1737 pocket 4_4_0 21 11 1737 pocket 3_3_0 30 12 1737 pocket 3/14/9 16 2 1738 pocket 3_3_0 3 3 1738 pocket 3_1_0 4 4 1738 pocket 2_2_0 29 4 1738 pocket 0/10/0 19 5 1738 pocket 3_12_0 11 7 1738 pocket 2_2_0 29 7 1738 pocket 3_3_0 17 10 1738 pocket 2_2_0 2 12 1738 pocket 5_5_0 19 12 1738 pocket 5_5_0 6 3 1739 pocket 1_10_3 14 4 1739 pocket 3_3_0 4 5 1739 pocket 3_3_0 31 5 1739 pocket 0/4/0 1/2 27 7 1739 pocket 4_12_0 16 8 1739 pocket 3_3_0 28 11 1739 pocket 2_2_0 8 1 1740 pocket 4_4_0 14 4 1740 pocket 3_3_0 20 10 1740 pocket 6/14/0 20 12 1740 pocket 3_12_0 285

Appendix 12, continued

dd mm yyyy entry type drawn notes 21 1 1741 pocket 3_12_0 13 4 1741 pocket 3_12_0 29 6 1741 pocket 3_0_0 4 12 1741 lost at cards 4_2_0 16 12 1741 pocket 2_10_7 6 2 1742 pocket 5_4_0 13 3 1742 pocket 5_5_0 17 4 1742 diversions 1_14_6 3 8 1742 pocket 2_2_0 26 2 1743 pocket 5_5_0 4 1743 pocket 4/14/6 15 11 1743 pocket 5_5_0 15 12 1743 pocket 4_1_6 12 3 1744 pocket 6/15/0 "pocket money past" 26 3 1744 pocket 5_5_0 "money taken into pocket" 10 10 1744 pocket 4_4_0 14 1 1745 pocket 3_3_0 20 3 1745 pocket 2_2_0 15 6 1745 pocket 2_2_0 8 7 1745 pocket 4_4_0 30 9 1745 pocket 3_3_0 16 12 1745 pocket 5_5_0 19 5 1746 pocket 2_2_0 18 8 1746 pocket 3_3_0 30 1 1747 pocket 3_3_0 29 6 1747 pocket 3_3_0 19 10 1747 pocket 3_3_0 5 1 1748 pocket 3_3_0 2 4 1748 for my own use 5_5_0 1 7 1748 pocket 5_5_0 10 8 1748 pocket 3_3_0 10 9 1748 pocket 3_3_0 22 12 1748 pocket 3_3_0 7 2 1749 pocket 3_3_0 19 5 1749 pocket 8_8_0 18 7 1749 pocket 1_1_0 8 8 1749 pocket 1_1_0 20 8 1749 lost at cards 4_0_0 11 11 1749 pocket 2_2_0 25 11 1749 pocket 2_2_0 12 2 1750 pocket 3_3_0 21 3 1750 private use 5_5_0 20 6 1750 pocket 2_2_0 10 9 1750 pocket 3_3_0 14 12 1750 pocket 2_2_0 17 12 1750 pocket 2_2_0 6 2 1751 pocket 3_3_0 23 2 1751 private use 5_5_0 Appendix 10, continued

mm vyyy entry type drawn notes 7 10 1751 card money 5_5_0 "taken for card money in last 23 12 1751 pocket 3_3_0 29 1 1752 private use 5_5_0 9 4 1752 pocket 2_2_0 17 6 1752 pocket 2_2_0 20 11 1752 pocket 2_2_0 5 2 1753 pocket 2_2_0 12 2 1753 private use 5_5_0 3 3 1753 cards 5_5_0 11 6 1753 pocket 2_2_0 22 12 1753 pocket 2_2_0 15 3 1754 pocket 2_2_0 22 3 1754 card money 5_5_0 6 4 1754 private use 5_5_0 14 9 1754 card money 2_2_0 28 10 1754 pocket 2_2_0 21 12 1754 pocket 2_2_0 3 3 1755 pocket 2_2_0 18 3 1755 private use 5_5_0 2 5 1755 card money 5_5_0 "card money for the winter" 14 5 1755 pocket 2_2_0 21 10 1755 card money 5_5_0 16 1 1756 pocket 2_2_0 10 2 1756 private use 5_5_0 12 4 1756 pocket 0_3_0 2 6 1756 card money 10_10_0 "card money from Xmas" 4 12 1756 pocket 3_3_0 28 2 1757 pocket 2_2_0 3 5 1757 card money 5_5_0 "for cards in the winter" 5 9 1757 pocket 2_2_0 14 2 1758 pocket 2_2_0 12 5 1758 card money 5_5_0 18 1 1759 pocket 2_2_0 12 2 1759 card money 5_5_0 23 3 1759 card money 5_5_0 21 3 1759 pocket 5_5_0 2 10 1759 card money 5_5_0 23 4 1760 card money 5_5_0 "card money in the winter" 28 7 1760 card money 5_5_0 25 8 1760 pocket 2_2_0 15 12 1760 card money 5_5_0 12 1 1761 pocket 2_2_0 26 3 1761 card money 5_5_0 29 6 1761 pocket 3_3_0 9 1 1762 pocket 2_2_0 19 10 1762 pocket 2_2_0 8 11 1762 card money 5_5_0 17 1 1763 card money 5_5_0 28 3 1763 pocket 3_3_0 Appendix 10, continued

mm yyyy entry type drawn 28 11 1763 pocket 3_3_0 17 2 1764 card 5_5_0 18 6 1764 pocket 3_3-0 26 6 1764 card money 5_5_0 16 11 1764 pocket 3_3_0 24 6 1765 pocket 2_2_0 288

Appendix 4: Hobbes-Ashfield card play

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Thurs 2 2 1797 cards 0/6 home friends tea, supper Mon 3 4 1797 cards 1/0 Lords ftiends tea Tues 14 11 1797 whist 2_6 Lords friends dinner, tea Wed 13 12 1797 quadrille 1/0 home friends tea, supper Sat 16 12 1797 tredrille 1/0 home ftiends tea, supper Tues 26 12 1797 whist 1/0 Lords friends tea Wed 27 12 1797 quadrille 0/6 home friends dinner Fri 4 1 1799 commerce 7/0 West ftiends dinner, tea Thurs 10 1 1799 commerce 10_6 West ftiends tea, supper Wed 16 1 1799 commerce 3_6 Webb ftiends tea Thurs 17 1 1799 commerce 6_6 uncle family dinner Thurs 24 1 1799 commerce 1/0 Batt'bee ftiends dinner, tea Wed 6 2 1799 tredrille 0/6 home ftiends tea, supper Tues 19 2 1799 commerce 1/0 Wynter ftiends dinner, tea Wed 20 2 1799 cards 0/2 Lords ftiends Mon 25 2 1799 commerce 5_6 assembly tea Tues 19 3 1799 commerce 3_6 Webb ftiends dinner Thurs 28 3 1799 commerce 5_6 uncle ft/family dinner Fri 29 3 1799 commerce 3/0 Gregory friends tea Mon 22 4 1799 commerce 1_6 assembly dinner Wed 24 4 1799 commerce 1/0 christ'ing friends dinner, supper Sat 26 4 1799 commerce 4_6 Wynter ftiends tea, supper Thurs 31 7 1799 commerce 0/6 West friends dinner, supper Mon 12 8 1799 commerce 4/0 West friends tea Tues 13 8 1799 commerce 3_6 home friends dinner, tea Mon 2 9 1799 commerce 7_6 uncle ft/family dinner Tues 3 9 1799 commerce 0/6 races fr/family Wed 4 9 1799 commerce 9/0 home family supper Fri 6 9 1799 commerce 5/0 uncle ft/family dinner Sat 7 9 1799 commerce 2_6 uncle ft/family dinner, supper Mon 9 9 1799 commerce 3_6 home fr/family dinner, tea, supper Thurs 12 9 1799 commerce 1/0 home fr/family dinner, supper Tues 15 10 1799 commerce 6/0 assembly fr/family Fri 8 11 1799 commerce 3/0 Williams friends tea Tues 12 11 1799 commerce 3_6 assembly friends Fri 15 11 1799 commerce 1/0 Witworth friends tea Wed 20 11 1799 commerce 4/0 home ft/family dinner, supper Thurs 21 11 1799 commerce 7/0 home ft/family tea Fri 22 11 1799 commerce 2/0 Hunt friends tea Mon 25 11 1799 commerce 2/0 home fr/family dinner Fri 29 11 1799 commerce 3_6 Newman friends tea Sat 30 11 1799 commerce 15/0 home family supper Mon 2 12 1799 whist 1_6 Halford ftiends tea Wed 11 12 1799 commerce 8_6 home family supper 289

Appendix 12, continued

day dd mm vyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Tues 31 12 1799 commerce 3/0 West friends Tues 18 2 1800 commerce 4/0 assembly Mon 17 3 1800 quadrille 6/0 home fr/family tea Sat 29 3 1800 cards 7/0 West friends tea, supper Tues 1 4 1800 cards 11_6 assembly friends Fri 4 4 1800 cards home fr/family tea Fri 11 4 1800 cribbage 0/6 home family Sat 12 4 1800 quadrille 2_6 West friends Fri 18 4 1800 cards 3_6 home fr/family tea Wed 23 4 1800 quadrille 2/0 home fr/family tea Mon 28 4 1800 commerce 9_6 Bree friends tea Mon 5 5 1800 cards 2/0 home fr/family Wed 6 8 1800 tredrille 1/0 home family Wed 27 8 1800 cards 8/0 Gregory friends Thurs 28 8 1800 vingt-un 6_6 Gillibrand friends dinner, supper Tues 2 9 1800 vingt-un 16/0 Gillibratid friends Mon 8 9 1800 vingt-un 7_6 home family Tues 9 9 1800 cards home family Tues 23 9 1800 quadrille 1/0 Higgins friends tea Fri 26 9 1800 quadrille 6/0 home friends dinner, supper Tues 21 10 1800 cards 4/0 club friends Tues 20 1 1801 cards 15/0 Crosswell friends tea Fri 30 1 1801 cards 4/0 home fr/family supper Sat 14 2 1801 cards 8/0 Bree friends tea Mon 6 4 1801 commerce 8/0 West friends supper Mon 30 11 1801 whist 1_6 Bree friends tea, supper Mon 22 2 1802 whist 1/0 home friends supper Fri 10 12 1802 cards 8_6 Donnin friends Fri 31 12 1802 cards Worts friends tea, supper Mon 3 1 1803 cards 3/0 club friends dinner Sat 30 12 1809 quadrille 1_12_6 home Thurs 4 1 1810 cards 2/0 home fr/family dinner Fri 5 1 1810 cards 1/0 home fr/family tea, supper Tues 9 1 1810 cards 1/0 Maron friends tea, supper Fri 12 1 1810 cards 1_6 home fr/family dinner 290

Appendix 5: James Oakes's card play

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Thurs 6 2 1786 cards Symonds friends supper Thurs 23 3 1786 cards assembly comm'y Fri 8 3 1788 cards Hasted friends tea Mon 19 10 1789 cards assembly comm'y Thurs 30 9 1790 cards assembly comm'y dinner Fri 19 11 1790 cards Pickup friends tea Wed 24 8 1791 cards ball comm'y Fri 26 8 1791 cards ball comm'y Fri 23 9 1791 cards home friends tea Tues 26 6 1792 cards home friends tea Fri 26 4 1793 cards Hovell friends tea Thurs 9 5 1793 cards Gamham friends tea Thurs 30 1 1794 cards assembly comm'y tea Fri 14 2 1794 cards Gamham friends tea Wed 3 9 1794 cards Rooms comm'y Mon 24 11 1794 casano home friends tea Thurs 18 12 1794 cards assembly comm'y Thurs 12 2 1795 cards ch'blc ball comm'y tea Thurs 19 2 1795 cards assembly comm'y Mon 23 11 1795 cards Goddard friends tea Thurs 10 12 1795 cards assembly comm'y Thurs 7 1 1796 cards assembly comm'y Thurs 21 1 1796 cards assembly comm'y Wed 3 2 1796 cards Ranby friends Fri 5 2 1796 cards home friends tea Tues 23 2 1796 cards Knowles friends tea Thurs 25 2 1796 cards assembly comm'y Tues 24 5 1796 cards Palmer friends tea Thurs 10 11 1796 cards Gamham friends tea Tues 13 12 1796 cards Gosling friends tea Thurs 26 1 1797 cards assembly comm'y Wed 15 2 1797 cards Gosling friends Thurs 31 5 1798 cards Denton friends tea Wed 19 3 1800 cards home friends tea, supper Mon 31 3 1800 cards Wright friends tea Fri 5 9 1800 cards Gould family Thurs 2 10 1800 cards assembly comm'y dinner, tea/coffee Thurs 6 11 1800 cards assembly comm'y tea, wines Thurs 19 2 1801 whist/quad chide ball comm'y Thurs 31 12 1801 whist assembly comm'y supper Thurs 14 1 1802 cards Angel comm'y dinner Mon 22 3 1802 cards White friends tea, supper Thurs 30 9 1802 cards assembly comm'y dinner, tea, supper Thurs 11 11 1802 cards ball comm'y supper 291

Appendix 12,continue d

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Mon 19 12 1803 cards Toosey friends tea Thurs 12 1 1804 whist Angel comm'y dinner, tea Thurs 23 8 1804 cards home family dinner, tea Thurs 4 10 1804 whist assembly comm'y dinner, supper Thurs 15 11 1804 whist assembly comm'y Fri 31 10 1806 cards baU comm'y dinner, tea, supper Fri 8 5 1807 cards baU comm'y dinner, supper Thurs 1 10 1807 cards assembly comm'y dinner, supper Thurs 14 1 1808 cards Angel comm'y dinner, tea, supper Thurs 12 1 1809 cards Angel comm'y dinner, tea, supper Fri 13 10 1809 cards ball comm'y Thurs 21 12 1809 cards assembly comm'y Thurs 22 2 1810 cards assembly comm'y Thurs 26 7 1810 cards assembly comm'y dinner, tea Fri 23 11 1810 whist Cullum friends dinner, tea Fri 14 12 1810 cards Malkin friends tea, supper Fri 2 8 1811 cards home comm'y dinner, tea Thurs 22 8 1811 cards assembly comm'y dinner, tea, supper Thurs 16 1 1812 cards Angel comm'y dinner, tea Fri 14 8 1812 cards home friends dinner Tues 29 9 1812 cards home friends supper Thurs 1 10 1812 cards assembly comm'y dinner, supper Fri 9 10 1812 cards assembly comm'y Thurs 12 1 1813 cards Malkin friends supper Mon 1 2 1813 whist son's comm'y tea, supper Mon 25 12 1815 cards Gould family dinner Tues 6 2 1816 cards Leathe friends Thurs 15 2 1816 cards assembly comm'y Thurs 14 1 1817 cards Mapletoft friends Fri 7 2 1817 cards home friends dinner Tues 8 12 1818 cards home friends tea, supper Tues 1 1 1822 cards home family dinner Tues 19 11 1822 cards sister's family tea Thurs 1 1 1824 whist/cards home family dinner, supper Mon 14 3 1825 cards sister's friends Sat 31 12 1825 cards home family dinner 292

Appendix 6: John Salusbury's card play

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Tues 7 3 1757 whist 4_6 Swan inn friends Thurs 11 8 1757 whist 4_6 assembly friends Fri 19 8 1757 whist Swan inn friends Mon 22 8 1757 whist 5_6 Johnson friends dinner Tues 23 8 1757 quadrille 3_6 home friends dinner Thurs 25 8 1757 whist 1_6 dinner Tues 30 8 1757 whist 2/0 friends' friends Wed 31 8 1757 whist 3/0 Bell inn friends dinner Thurs 1 9 1757 picquet 0/6 home? friends Tues 6 9 1757 cards 4/0 Ward friends tea Wed 7 9 1757 commerce 0/6 Watkins friends dinner Thurs 8 9 1757 picquet 0/6 Tues 13 9 1757 whist 3/0 home friends dinner Wed 14 9 1757 picquet 2/0 Ward friends tea Fri 16 9 1757 picquet 1/0 Ward friends tea Sat 17 9 1757 whist/quad 0/9 Hutton friends dinner Tues 20 9 1757 whist 0/6 Swan inn friends Fri 30 9 1757 picquet 0/6 Ward friends tea Tues 4 10 1757 quadrille 0/6 home friends dinner Tues 11 10 1757 quadrille 1/0 home friends dinner Tues 18 10 1757 quadrille 2_3 Ward friends tea Tues 25 10 1757 whist 2/0 Ward friends dinner Sat 29 10 1757 cards 5_6 Hutton friends dinner Sat 19 11 1757 ombre 3_6 Ward friends tea Thurs 22 12 1757 cards 19_6 Bull inn friends tea, supper Tues 27 12 1757 quadrille 1_6 Ward friends Sat 31 12 1757 quadrille 0/6 home friends dinner, supper Tues 10 1 1758 quadrille 2_6 home friends dinner Wed 11 1 1758 cards 5_4 Ward friends dinner Fri 13 1 1758 picquet 1/0 Ward friends Sun 15 1 1758 whist 1/0 friends' friends Fri 20 1 1758 tredrille 4_6 Hutton friends Sat 21 1 1758 picquet 0/6 Ward friends tea Fri 27 1 1758 tredrille 0/6 Hutton friends dinner Thurs 2 2 1758 whist 3/0 Hutton friends dinner Mon 6 2 1758 whist 8/0 home friends dinner Mon 13 2 1758 cards? 12/0 Hutton friends Tues 28 2 1758 quadrille 3_4 Ward friends dinner, supper Wed 1 3 1758 quadrille 6/0 home friends dinner Thurs 23 3 1758 picquet 1/0 Swan inn friends Tues 28 3 1758 quadrille 2_9 Ward friends tea Fri 31 3 1758 quadrille 0/6 Gough friends Mon 3 4 1758 whist 5_6 Bell inn friends Wed 5 4 1758 quadrille 9/0 home friends tea 293

Appendix 12,continue d day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Sat 29 4 1758 tredrille 1/0 Ward friends tea Tues 2 5 1758 whist/quad 4_3 home friends dinner Wed 3 5 1758 quadrille 2_6 Hutton firiends dinner Fri 5 5 1758 tredrille Ward friends tea Tues 9 5 1758 quadrille 4_4 Ward friends Thurs 11 5 1758 picquet 1/0 Ward friends tea Sat 13 5 1758 picquet 3/0 Ward ftiends tea Tues 16 5 1758 whist/quad home friends dinner Fri 19 5 1758 quadrille 1_6 Scott friends dinner Wed 24 5 1758 tredrille 0/6 Ward friends tea Fri 26 5 1758 quadrille 0/6 Ward friends dinner Tues 30 5 1758 quadrille 10_2 Ward ftiends dinner Wed 31 5 1758 quadrille 0/6 home friends tea Thurs 1 6 1758 quadrille 1/0 Hutton friends dinner Tues 6 6 1758 cards? 3/0 Hutton friends Fri 9 6 1758 whist Georgeinn friends dinner Sun 11 6 1758 quadrille 3/0 Scott friends Fri 16 6 1758 quadrille 3_3 Hutton friends Sat 17 6 1758 cards 0/6 Hutton ftiends Tues 20 6 1758 quadrille 2/0 home friends dinner, supper Tues 27 6 1758 tredrille 0/4 Ward friends Tues 4 7 1758 quadrille 1_9 home friends tea Fri 7 7 1758 whist 1_6 Johnson friends dinner Tues 11 7 1758 quadrille 4_5 Ward friends tea Sat 15 7 1758 quadrille 1_6 Hutton ftiends dinner, supper Mon 17 7 1758 cribbage 3/0 Potter friends Fri 21 7 1758 whist 2/0 Scott friends Sat 22 7 1758 quadrille 4_6 Moreton friends dinner Tues 25 7 1758 quadrille 1/0 Ward friends tea Sat 29 7 1758 quadrille 4/0 Ward ftiends Tues 8 8 1758 quadrille 0/6 Ward ftiends tea Mon 4 9 1758 quadrille 2_7 Hutton friends tea Tues 5 9 1758 quadrille 0/7 Ward friends tea Wed 6 9 1758 whist 1/0 Scott friends dinner Thurs 7 9 1758 quadrille 1/0 Hutton friends dinner Mon 11 9 1758 quadrille 0/7 Ward friends dinner Wed 13 9 1758 quadrille 3/0 Hutton friends Thurs 14 9 1758 picquet 2/0 Ward friends tea Mon 18 9 1758 quadrille 0/6 Swan inn friends Tues 19 9 1758 quadrille 0/6 Ward friends tea Thurs 21 9 1758 quadrille 3/0 friends' friends tea Tues 26 9 1758 quadrille 0/6 Ward friends Fri 29 9 1758 quadrille 1/0 Hutton ftiends Tues 3 10 1758 whist 3/0 home ftiends dinner Wed 4 10 1758 ombre 0/6 Capon ftiends dinner Thurs 5 10 1758 cards 1/0 Ward friends dinner, supper Sat 7 10 1758 quadrille 0/6 Hutton friends Mon 16 10 1758 cards 5_3 Scott friends 294

Appendix 12,continue d

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Fri 20 10 1758 whist 2/0 Hutton friends Sat 21 10 1758 whist 1_6 home friends Mon 23 10 1758 whist 3/0 Ward friends dinner Tues 24 10 1758 whist 1_6 home friends dinner Wed 25 10 1758 whist 0/6 Ward friends Thurs 26 10 1758 whist 1/0 friends' friends Thurs 2 11 1758 whist 3_6 Ward friends tea Fri 3 11 1758 quadrille 4/0 Hutton friends Tues 7 11 1758 quadrille Ward friends tea Wed 8 11 1758 quadrille 3_10 Ward friends dinner Thurs 9 11 1758 whist 1_6 Hutton friends supper Sat 11 11 1758 quadrille 2_6 Hutton friends Tues 14 11 1758 quadrille 0/6 Hutton friends Wed 15 11 1758 whist 4_6 home friends tea Sat 18 11 1758 quadrille 0/6 Ward friends tea Mon 20 11 1758 whist 3_6 home? friends Tues 21 11 1758 quadrille 1_9 Snablin friends Wed 22 11 1758 cards 8_6 Hutton friends Thurs 23 11 1758 quadrille 1/0 Ward friends tea Sat 25 11 1758 quadrille 2/0 Ward friends dinner, supper Tues 28 11 1758 quadrille 1_6 Hutton friends dinner Wed 29 11 1758 whist 3_6 Hutton friends dinner Tues 5 12 1758 quadrille 7/0 Ward friends tea Tues 19 12 1758 quadrille 1/0 Ward friends tea Mon 8 1 1759 cards 19_6 Scott friends Tues 9 1 1759 quadrille 3_6 Ward friends tea Fri 12 1 1759 whist 3/0 Hutton friends dinner Sat 13 1 1759 quadrille 0/6 Ward friends tea Mon 15 1 1759 quadrille 1_4 Ward friends tea Tues 16 1 1759 whist 5_6 home friends dinner Thurs 18 1 1759 quadrille 2_6 Ward friends Mon 22 1 1759 quadrille 5/0 Ward friends tea Mon 29 1 1759 quadrille 2_4 Ward friends tea Tues 30 1 1759 whist 3/0 Ward friends Fri 2 2 1759 picquet 0/6 Ward friends tea Sat 3 2 1759 quadrille 3_4 Ward friends tea Mon 5 2 1759 cards 1/0 home friends dinner, tea Tues 6 2 1759 cards 5_6 Swan inn friends dinner Wed 7 2 1759 quadrille 0/4 Ward friends dinner Fri 9 2 1759 quadrille 0/6 Hutton friends Sat 10 2 1759 picquet 1/0 Ward friends tea Tues 13 2 1759 whist 5_6 Ward friends tea Sat 17 2 1759 whist 5/0 Unicom friends Tues 20 2 1759 quadrille 1/0 Ward friends tea Sat 24 2 1759 whist 0/6 home friends dinner Thurs 1 3 1759 picquet 0/6 Ward friends tea Fri 2 3 1759 whist 3/0 Swan inn friends Sat 3 3 1759 picquet 0/6 Ward friends tea Tues 6 3 1759 quadrille 1_8 home friends tea 295

Appendix 12, continued

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company Sat 10 3 1759 quadrille 0/6 friends' friends Tues 13 3 1759 whist friends' ftiends Fri 16 3 1759 picquet 0/6 friends' friends Tues 20 3 1759 whist 1/0 friends' friends Mon 26 3 1759 picquet 0/6 friends' ftiends Tues 24 4 1759 quadrille 4_6 friends' friends Wed 25 4 1759 tredrille 1/0 friends' firiends Fri 27 4 1759 quadrille 0/6 firiends' friends Sat 28 4 1759 quadrille friends' friends Mon 30 4 1759 picquet 0/6 friends' friends Tues 1 5 1759 quadrille 1/0 friends' ftiends Sat 5 5 1759 tredrille 1_5 friends' friends Fri 11 5 1759 whist friends' friends Sat 12 5 1759 whist 3_6 friends' friends Tues 15 5 1759 picquet 2/0 friends' ftiends Fri 18 5 1759 quadrille 0/6 ftiends' ftiends Sat 19 5 1759 quad/whist 2/0 ftiends' ftiends Wed 23 5 1759 quadrille 1/0 ftiends' friends Thurs 24 5 1759 picquet 0/6 friends' friends Mon 28 5 1759 cards? 0/6 home firiends Tues 29 5 1759 quadrille 1_6 friends' friends Wed 30 5 1759 whist/tred 5_6 ftiends' friends Fri 1 6 1759 picquet 1_6 friends' friends Mon 4 6 1759 whist 1/0 Swan inn ftiends Tues 5 6 1759 quadrille 1_6 home friends Wed 6 6 1759 quadrille 3/0 friends' friends Thurs 7 6 1759 picquet 2/0 friends' friends Fri 8 6 1759 quadrille Scott friends Tues 12 6 1759 whist 0/6 home ftiends Sat 16 6 1759 whist 6/0 friends' friends Mon 18 6 1759 tredrille 1_6 friends' ftiends Tues 19 6 1759 quadrille friends' friends Thurs 21 6 1759 whist 18/0 friends' friends Tues 26 6 1759 whist 1_6 home ftiends Wed 27 6 1759 whist 1/0 friends' ftiends Mon 2 7 1759 whist 2/0 ftiends' ftiends Tues 3 7 1759 picq/quad 0/3 friends' friends Thurs 5 7 1759 picquet 0/6 friends' friends Mon 9 7 1759 tredrille 3_8 friends' friends Wed 18 7 1759 whist 5_6 friends' ftiends Thurs 19 7 1759 picquet 2_6 friends' friends Sat 21 7 1759 whist 7_6 firiends' friends Tues 24 7 1759 whist 2_6 ftiends' friends Sat 15 9 1759 whist 0/6 home ftiends Mon 17 9 1759 picquet 1_6 friends' ftiends Tues 18 9 1759 quad/whist 3/0 friends' firiends Thurs 20 9 1759 picquet 0/6 friends' firiends Fri 21 9 1759 whist 2_6 firiends' ftiends Mon 24 9 1759 picquet 1/0 friends' friends 296

Appendix 12, continued day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company Thurs 27 9 1759 whist 9/0 friends' friends Fri 28 9 1759 whist 0/5 friends' ftiends Mon 1 10 1759 quadrille 1_6 friends' firiends Wed 3 10 1759 whist 8/0 firiends' ftiends Sat 6 10 1759 quadrille 4/0 home ftiends Mon 8 10 1759 whist 5_6 friends' ftiends Wed 10 10 1759 whist 1/0 Swan inn ftiends Thurs 11 10 1759 whist 3/0 friends' firiends Mon 15 10 1759 picquet 0/6 friends' ftiends Tues 16 10 1759 quadrille 1_4 friends' friends Wed 17 10 1759 picquet 1_6 friends' ftiends Fri 19 10 1759 quadrille 0/6 friends' friends Tues 23 10 1759 whist 3/0 ftiends' friends Wed 24 10 1759 whist 1/0 friends' friends Thurs 25 10 1759 quadrille 0/6 friends' friends Sat 27 10 1759 picquet 1_6 friends' friends Mon 29 10 1759 picquet 2/0 friends' friends Tues 30 10 1759 quadrille 0/3 ftiends' friends Fri 2 11 1759 whist 0/3 Swan inn firiends Sat 3 11 1759 quadrille 1_6 ftiends' friends Mon 5 11 1759 whist 1/0 Bell inn ftiends Tues 6 11 1759 whist 2/0 friends' firiends Appendix 7: John Smith's card play

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Sun 18 1 1789 whist 3/0 Vincent friends supper Wed 28 1 1789 whist 7_6 Ward friends supper Mon 2 2 1789 whist Ellis friends Wed 4 2 1789 whist Dodd friends supper Sat 7 2 1789 whist 8_6,1/0 1_1,1/0 Wingfield friends supper Wed 11 2 1789 whist 1_1_0 5/0 Debary friends supper Wed 18 2 1789 whist 7_6 Smedley friends tea, supper Mon 23 2 1789 whist 0/6 Ellis friends tea, supper Mon 16 3 1789 comce/whist Ellis friends Wed 18 3 1789 whist Vincent friends supper Fri 20 3 1789 cards 17_6,5/0 Debary friends supper Fri 27 3 1789 whist 1/0 Ward friends Thurs 2 4 1789 whist 2/0 Ellis friends Wed 15 4 1789 whist Ellis friends tea, supper Thurs 16 4 1789 whist Ellis friends tea

Sat 18 4 1789 whist 2_6r3s,ls home friends supper Mon 20 4 1789 whist home friends tea, supper Tues 21 4 1789 whist ls,3s,5s mother's friends tea Wed 6 5 1789 whist 7/0 home friends supper Mon 11 5 1789 whist Smedley friends Fri 15 5 1789 whist 3_6 Smedley friends supper Wed 17 6 1789 whist 14/0 home friends Fri 10 7 1789 whist 2/0 Vincent friends supper Mon 13 7 1789 whist 2/0 Vincent friends supper Fri 28 8 1789 cribbage 7_6,15_6 Gannon H friends Tues 1 9 1789 cribbage Gannon H friends Fri 4 9 1789 cribbage 4/0 Gannon H friends Wed 16 9 1789 whist 9_6 Clapham friends supper Mon 21 9 1789 whist 6_6 Clapham friends dinner Wed 23 9 1789 whist 4/0;l_l_ 0 Manners friends tea, supper Tues 29 9 1789 whist 5/0 Clapham friends supper Thurs 1 10 1789 cribbage Adams friends tea Tues 6 10 1789 picq/vingtun 6/0 Clapham friends dinner Tues 13 10 1789 whist Vincent friends dinner Wed 14 10 1789 whist 4_6 8/0 Clapham friends Fri 23 10 1789 whist 1/0 Smedley friends supper Wed 28 10 1789 cribbage mother's family dinner Thurs 29 10 1789 cribbage Plunder H friends tea Fri 30 10 1789 whist 9/0 Dodd friends supper Fri 6 11 1789 whist 13/0 Ward friends supper Wed 11 11 1789 cribbage 0/6 Vincent friends supper Sat 14 11 1789 picquet 1/0 Ellis friends Mon 16 11 1789 whist 2/0 Clapham friends Thurs 19 11 1789 whist 2/0 Clapham friends supper 298

Appendix 12,continue d day- dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Sat 21 11 1789 picq/whist 2/0 1/0 Ellis friends supper Fri 27 11 1789 whist 2_6 home friends supper Fri 11 12 1789 whist 1/0 Vincent friends Sat 12 12 1789 picq/whist 1/0,4_1 home/DY friends tea Tues 15 12 1789 whist 7/0 Vincent friends supper Fri 18 12 1789 whist 11_6 Hoare friends dinner, supper Wed 23 12 1789 whist Ellis friends Thurs 24 12 1789 whist 3/0 Clapham friends supper Fri 25 12 1789 whist 3/0 mother's friends dinner, tea Fri 1 1 1790 vingtun/whist 10_6 Hoare friends dinner Thurs 7 1 1790 whist 17_6 Clapham friends Fri 8 1 1790 whist 9_6 Manners friends Thurs 14 1 1790 whist 14/0 Vincent friends tea, supper Tues 19 1 1790 whist 4_6 Clapham ftiends supper Thurs 21 1 1790 whist Cox ftiends dinner Thurs 28 1 1790 vingtun/whist 1/16/0 Clapham friends supper Wed 3 2 1790 whist 4_6 Clapham friends supper Thurs 4 2 1790 vingtun/whist 7_6 Clapham friends dinner, supper Thurs 11 2 1790 whist 3/0 Vincent friends Fri 12 2 1790 whist 4_6 Clapham friends Mon 15 2 1790 whist 6_6 Clapham friends supper Tues 23 2 1790 whist 5/0 Vincent friends dinner Thurs 25 2 1790 whist 13_6 Clapham firiends dinner Tues 9 3 1790 cribbage mother's friends dinner Wed 10 3 1790 vingtun/whist 13_6 Hoare firiends dinner Fri 12 3 1790 whist 4_4_0 Clapham friends tea Mon 15 3 1790 whist 1/0 Clapham ftiends supper Sat 20 3 1790 whist 5_6 Clapham friends Thurs 25 3 1790 whist 9/0 Clapham firiends Tues 30 3 1790 whist Clapham friends supper Thurs 1 4 1790 vingtun/whist 4/0 Manners friends supper Fri 9 4 1790 whist 7_6 Clapham friends tea Mon 12 4 1790 whist 5/0 Vincent friends Thurs 15 4 1790 whist 1/0 Clapham friends supper Fri 23 4 1790 whist 7/0 Vincent friends tea, supper Wed 5 5 1790 whist 3_6 Clapham friends supper Wed 12 5 1790 picquet Ellis friends Thurs 13 5 1790 whist 1_12_6 Ellis friends supper Wed 19 5 1790 whist 3_6 Clapham friends supper Fri 21 5 1790 picquet Ellis friends supper Mon 31 5 1790 picquet Ellis friends Thurs 3 6 1790 cards home firiends dinner Fri 11 6 1790 cribbage ch dinner dinner Fri 25 6 1790 whist 0/2 2_6 Pinsent friends tea Fri 30 7 1790 whist 17/0 Vincent friends tea Thurs 5 8 1790 whist 15/0 Manners firiends dinner, supper Sat 25 9 1790 picq/whist 3/0 Camb'ge friends Fri 31 9 1790 whist 7/0 2/0 Camb'ge friends 299

Appendix 12,continue d

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Fri 22 10 1790 whist 7_6 Clapham friends Tues 2 11 1790 whist 3/0 Clapham friends supper Fri 12 11 1790 picq/whist 2_6 Ush supp supper Wed 17 11 1790 whist 1/0 Dodd friends Fri 19 11 1790 whist 9/0 Wingfield friends supper Wed 24 11 1790 whist 1/0 Ward friends Fri 10 12 1790 whist 0/6 2_6 Vincent friends dinner Fri 17 12 1790 whist 6/0 Wingfield friends dinner Wed 29 12 1790 whist 2/0 Ellis friends Thurs 30 12 1790 whist 4_6 Ellis friends Mon 3 1 1791 whist 4_6 Vincent friends supper Tues 4 1 1791 whist 4/0 Dodd friends dinner Thurs 6 1 1791 whist 3/0 Grant friends dinner Sat 8 1 1791 picquet Ellis friends Mon 10 1 1791 whist 10_6 Dolling friends Fri 21 1 1791 whist 1_1_0 Clapham friends dinner Fri 28 1 1791 whist 7/0 Debary friends supper Sat 29 1 1791 crib/whist 6/0 Vincent friends Fri 4 2 1791 whist 5_6 Smedley friends tea Wed 9 2 1791 whist 1_6 Clapham friends supper Wed 16 2 1791 whist 11/0 Wingfield friends supper Fri 18 2 1791 whist 1_3_0 6/0 Clapham friends supper Mon 28 2 1791 whist 8_6 Wingfield friends Wed 2 3 1791 whist 4_6 Clapham friends Fri 4 3 1791 whist 4/0 Vincent friends supper Tues 8 3 1791 whist 4/0 Smedley friends supper Wed 9 3 1791 whist 11_6 Ellis friends supper Thurs 10 3 1791 whist 13/0 Ellis friends supper Tues 15 3 1791 whist 16_6 Ellis friends dinner Thurs 17 3 1791 whist 11/0 Ellis friends Tues 29 3 1791 whist 2/0 Debary friends v few notes re: Thurs 7 4 1791 whist 16/0 Vincent friends Tues 3 5 1791 whist 1/0 Vincent friends Mon 6 6 1791 whist 4_6 Clapham friends Sat 23 7 1791 cards 1_3_6 Bexley Tues 9 8 1791 whist 10_6 Manners friends Mon 15 8 1791 whist 7/0 Vincent friends Thurs 6 10 1791 whist 0/6 home friends Thurs 20 10 1791 whist 5/0 Vincent friends Thurs 27 10 1791 whist 0/6 Dodd friends Fri 28 10 1791 whist home friends Tues 1 11 1791 whist 6/0 6_6 home friends Sat 5 11 1791 cards Wingfield friends Fri 18 11 1791 whist 15_6 Debary friends Sat 26 11 1791 whist 1/0 home friends Tues 29 11 1791 picq/whist Manners friends Wed 30 11 1791 whist 3/0 Vincent friends Fri 2 12 1791 whist 2/0 home friends Tues 6 12 1791 whist home friends 300

Appendix 12,continue d

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting compa Sat 10 12 1791 whist 0/6 home friends Fri 16 12 1791 whist 9/0 Dodd ftiends Sat 17 12 1791 cards 8/0 Descar'rs friends Fri 23 12 1791 cards 1/0 Wingfield ftiends Wed 28 12 1791 whist 1/0 Clapham ftiends supper Fri 30 12 1791 whist 7/0 home friends Wed 4 1 1792 whist 12/0 Thurs 5 1 1792 whist 4_6; 5_6 Wed 11 1 1792 whist 2_6 Clapham ftiends Tues 17 1 1792 picq/whist 15/0 8_6 Clapham friends Tues 24 1 1792 whist 2_6 home friends Wed 25 1 1792 whist 1/0 Vincent friends Fri 27 1 1792 whist 1_3_6 home friends Fri 3 2 1792 whist 2/0 Clapham friends Tues 7 2 1792 whist 0/6 home friends Fri 10 2 1792 whist 1/0 Vincent friends supper Tues 21 2 1792 whist 1/0 home friends Sat 25 2 1792 whist 2/0 home friends Fri 2 3 1792 whist 6_6 home friends Tues 13 3 1792 whist 1/0 home friends Fri 30 3 1792 whist 1_6 home friends Thurs 5 4 1792 whist 1_6 home friends Tues 24 4 1792 cards 6_6 home friends Wed 25 4 1792 whist 1_6 home friends Thurs 26 4 1792 whist 5/0 home friends Tues 1 5 1792 whist 4/0 home friends Thurs 10 5 1792 whist 2_6 home friends Fri 22 6 1792 whist 3/0 home friends Wed 4 7 1792 whist 8/0 Vincent friends Tues 10 7 1792 whist 6/0 Vincent friends Tues 24 7 1792 cards 13/0 Vincent friends Fri 3 8 1792 whist 0/6 home friends Wed 12 9 1792 picq/whist 1/0 0/6 Vincent ftiends Thurs 20 9 1792 whist 3_6;1_6 1_6 home friends Sat 29 9 1792 whist 15/0 Vincent friends Fri 5 10 1792 whist 4/0 home friends Fri 12 10 1792 whist 1/0 home friends Tues 16 10 1792 whist 0/6 home friends supper Sat 17 11 1792 whist 3/0 home friends Mon 26 11 1792 cards 14/0 Tues 18 12 1792 whist 1/0 home friends Wed 19 12 1792 whist 6/0 home friends Wed 26 12 1792 whist 7_6 home friends Wed 2 1 1793 cards 1_7_0 Smedley friends Wed 9 1 1793 whist 3/0 home friends Thurs 10 1 1793 vingtun 1_3_6 Dodd friends Fri 11 1 1793 whist 3/0 home friends Tues 15 1 1793 whist 1/0 home friends Wed 16 1 1793 whist 0/6 home friends Appendix 10,continue d

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company Fri 25 1 1793 whist 7_6 home friends Sat 26 1 1793 whist 5/0 home friends Mon 28 1 1793 commerce 3_6 Fri 8 2 1793 whist 4/0 Wingfield friends Mon 18 2 1793 picquet 0/6 Tues 12 3 1793 cards 3/0 home friends Mon 18 3 1793 cards 3/0 1/0 Tues 26 3 1793 picq/whist 11/0 Vincent friends Thurs 28 3 1793 whist 4/0 home friends Mon 6 5 1793 cards 11/0 6_6 Mon 13 5 1793 cards 14/0 Thurs 30 5 1793 whist 9/0 Vincent friends Mon 24 6 1793 whist 1_6 Mon 1 7 1793 cards 3/0 Mon 16 9 1793 cards 14/0 Mon 23 9 1793 cards 10/0 Fri 18 10 1793 whist 7/0 Vincent friends Mon 28 10 1793 whist 5/0 Mon 9 12 1793 whist 10_6 Mon 16 12 1793 whist 3/0 302

Appendix 8: Thomas Turner's card play

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Thurs 28 2 1754 cards 0/2 home? friends Fri 26 9 1755 cribbage 0/1.5 home? friend Tues 25 11 1755 brag 0/1.5 home wife/friends tea Fri 2 1 1756 cards 0/7.5 home w/fr/svts Wed 21 1 1756 cribbage 0/1 home friend supper Mon 26 1 1756 brag 5/0 friends' wife/friends supper, liquor Tues 10 2 1756 cards 0/2 friends' wife Tues 2 3 1756 cribbage 0/3 home friend Fri 15 10 1756 cribbage 0/2 home friend supper Thurs 3 2 1757 cribbage 1/0 home friend supper Tues 31 5 1757 cribbage home friend Thurs 6 10 1757 cribbage 0/1 home friend Thurs 5 1 1758 brag 0/4.5 friends' wife/friends supper Mon 9 1 1758 whist 1_10 home wife/friends Thurs 26 1 1758 cards 0/7.5 friends' wife/friends supper Mon 30 1 1758 brag 0/3.5 friends' wife/friends supper Thurs 2 2 1758 brag 0/3.5 friends' wife/ friends supper Wed 15 2 1758 brag 0/1 home wife/friends tea Wed 22 2 1758 brag 1_2 friends' wife/friends supper, liquor Tues 7 3 1758 brag 1_6 friends' wife/ friends tea Fri 10 3 1758 brag 4/4.5 friends' wife/friends supper, liquor Wed 13 9 1758 cribbage 0/1 home friend Thurs 14 9 1758 cribbage home friend supper Thurs 23 11 1758 brag 2_2 friends' wife/friends liquor Thurs 14 12 1758 whist friends' wife/friends supper Thurs 4 1 1759 cards 2/2.5 friends' wife/friends supper Fri 5 1 1759 loo 0/4.5 home wife/friends supper Tues 9 1 1759 brag 3_8 friends' wife/friends supper Tues 16 1 1759 brag 3_7 friends' wife/friends supper Tues 23 1 1759 brag 3_2 friends' wife/friends supper Thurs 25 1 1759 brag 0/1 home wife/friends tea, supper Fri 26 1 1759 brag 1/7.5 home wife/friends tea, supper Thurs 1 3 1759 brag 2_10 friends' wife/friends dinner, supper Wed 6 6 1759 cribbage 0/1 home friend Mon 22 10 1759 cribbage 0/6 home friend Thurs 15 11 1759 brag 3/0 friends' friends supper Fri 23 11 1759 brag 0/6.5 friends' wife/friends supper, liquor Wed 16 1 1760 cards 1/4.5 friends' wife/friends supper Fri 18 1 1760 brag 1_4 friends' wife/friends dinner, supper Thurs 24 1 1760 brag 3_7 friends' wife/friends dinner, supper Tues 29 1 1760 brag 2/10.5 friends' wife/friends dinner, supper Thurs 31 1 1760 whist home wife/friends Fri 1 2 1760 brag 2/2.5 friends' wife/friends tea, supper Tues 5 2 1760 brag 0/6 home wife/friends tea, supper, liqi 303

Appendix 12, continued

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Thurs 14 1 1762 brag 1/3.5 friends' friends dinner, tea/coff, supper Wed 5 1 1763 brag 0/7.5 friends' friends supper Fri 14 1 1763 brag 2/2.5 home ftiends tea Fri 4 2 1763 cribbage home friend Tues 5 4 1763 whist 0/3.5 home friends tea Sat 25 2 1764 cribbage home friend Thurs 22 3 1764 cribbage home friend Fri 16 11 1764 laugh/lay dn 0/7 friends' friends supper Mon 28 1 1765 whist friends' ftiends dinner, tea/coff, supper Thurs 28 3 1765 loo 0/1 ftiends' friends tea, supper Thurs 9 5 1765 cribbage 0/6 home friend 304

Appendix 9: James Woodfotde's card play

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Tues 13 9 1768 quadrille 2/0 home friends/sis dinner, supper, bev' Fri 11 11 1768 whist 0/6 home friends/bro Fri 3 2 1769 quadrille home ftiends Wed 27 7 1774 whist 1/0/6 Oxford friends dinner, coffee Fri 14 4 1775 quadrille 1/0 Norwich friends coffee/tea Thurs 18 1 1776 all fours Oxford friends Mon 13 1 1777 quadrille 1_3 friend's friends dinner Mon 20 1 1777 quadrille 0/3 home friends dinner, tea Tues 30 6 1778 quadrille 1/0 friend's friends dinner Fri 29 10 1778 cards 9/0 friend's friends dinner, supper Thurs 23 12 1778 cards 2_6 home friends dinner Tues 9 2 1779 loo 2/0 friend's ftiends dinner, supper Wed 31 3 1779 whist 1_6 squire's friends dinner, tea Thurs 15 4 1779 whist 2/0 squire's friends Tues 18 5 1779 quadrille 2_6 home ftiends dinner Thurs 21 10 1779 quadrille 0/6 friend's friends dinner, supper, tea Mon 14 2 1780 cribbage 0/9 home niece Thurs 30 3 1780 quadrille 0/6 home friends dinner Tues 16 1 1781 cribbage 1/0 home niece Fri 17 5 1781 quadrille home niece dinner, tea Wed 22 5 1781 quadrille 2_6 friend's friends dinner Fri 4 10 1781 commerce 0/6 squire's friends dinner, tea Sat 5 10 1781 quadrille home friends dinner, tea Sat 2 11 1781 quadrille friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Fri 6 12 1781 quadrille 2/0 home friends dinner, supper Thurs 26 12 1781 quadrille 2_6 friend's friends dinner, supper Mon 1 1 1782 quadrille 1_6 home friends dinner, supper Wed 3 1 1782 loo 1_6 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Mon 22 1 1782 cards friend's friends dinner Wed 24 1 1782 loo squire's friends dinner, supper, tea Mon 29 1 1782 quadrille 1/0 friend's ftiends dinner Wed 31 1 1782 limited loo 2_6 home friends dinner, tea Wed 6 3 1782 cribbage 0/6 home niece Thurs 28 3 1782 limited loo 3_6 squire's ftiends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 30 4 1782 quadrille 1_6 friend's friends dinner Thurs 9 5 1782 loo squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 14 5 1782 quadrille 1/0 home friends dinner Fri 2 8 1782 quadrille 1/0 Cole niece Thurs 17 10 1782 quadrille 4/0 home friends dinner Tues 5 11 1782 cribbage 2/0 home niece Mon 25 11 1782 loo 18/0 squire's friends dinner, tea Thurs 12 12 1782 quadrille 2/0 friend's friends dinner Fri 20 12 1782 whist 1_6 home friends dinner, tea Mon 14 1 1783 quadrille 1/0 friend's friends dinner 305

Appendix 12, continued

day dd mm vyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Tues 8 4 1783 quadrille 2/0 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 15 4 1783 quadrille 4/0 friend's friends dinner, tea Tues 22 4 1783 quadrille 2/0 home friends dinner, tea Wed 30 4 1783 quadrille 4/0 friend's friends dinner Tues 13 5 1783 quadrille 0/6 friend's friends dinner Mon 19 5 1783 quadrille 0/6 friend's friends dinner, tea Thurs 5 6 1783 loo 4/0 home friends dinner, tea Tues 15 7 1783 quadrille 0/6 friend's friends dinner Fri 25 7 1783 quadrille 2/0 home friends dinner Tues 29 7 1783 quadrille 2/0 friend's friends dinner Tues 5 8 1783 whist 4/0 squire's friends dinner, tea Fri 29 8 1783 loo 1/0 out friends dinner, coffee/tea Fri 5 9 1783 whist 4/0 friend's friends dinner, tea Wed 10 9 1783 loo 9/0 squire's friends dinner, tea Fri 3 10 1783 quadrille 4_6 home friends dinner, supper, tea Mon 13 10 1783 whist 5/0 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Wed 15 10 1783 quadrille 1_6 home friends dinner Tues 4 11 1783 quadrille 1/0 friend's friends dinner Wed 12 11 1783 quadrille 3/0 friend's friends dinner Fri 5 12 1783 loo 3/0 friend's friends dinner Fri 12 12 1783 quadrille squire's sq &wife dinner, tea Tues 30 12 1783 cribbage 2/0 home niece Thurs 1 1 1784 cribbage 1_6 home niece Wed 21 1 1784 cribbage 2/0 home niece Mon 26 1 1784 cribbage 1/0 home niece Fri 6 2 1784 cribbage 1_6 home niece Thurs 19 2 1784 cribbage 1/0 home friends Wed 27 2 1784 cribbage 1/0 home friends Thurs 28 2 1784 cribbage 1/0 home friends Wed 7 4 1784 vinct' one 1/0 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Wed 21 4 1784 vinct1 one 5/0 friend's friends dinner, tea Thurs 13 5 1784 loo 4/0 friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 18 5 1784 quadrille 0/6 friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 1 6 1784 loo 4_6 squire's friends dinner, tea Tues 20 7 1784 quadrille 1/0 friend's friends tea, dessert, wine Tues 10 8 1784 quadrille 0/6 friend's friends dinner Wed 18 8 1784 cards 0/6 home friends dinner, supper, tea Tues 21 9 1784 quadrille 1_6 friend's friends dinner, tea Wed 22 9 1784 whist 1/0 friend's friends dinner, supper, coff/tea Thurs 25 11 1784 loo 5/0 home friends dinner, coffee/tea Thurs 23 12 1784 cribbage 1/0 1/0 home niece Mon 27 12 1784 cribbage 0/6 home niece Thurs 6 1 1785 cribbage 2/0 home niece Wed 12 1 1785 cribbage 0/6 home niece Tues 25 1 1785 cribbage 1/0 home niece Sat 29 1 1785 cribbage 1/0 home niece Mon 31 1 1785 cribbage 1/0 home niece Mon 14 2 1785 quadrille I/O home sq &wife coffee/tea 306

Appendix 12, continued

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Thurs 25 5 1785 loo 0/6 friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Wed 14 6 1785 quadrille 2/0 friend's friends dinner, tea Sat 24 6 1785 loo 4_6 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 15 8 1785 loo squire's ftiends dinner, coffee/tea Fri 20 10 1785 quadrille 1/0 home ftiends tea Tues 28 11 1785 quadrille 4/0 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Mon 23 1 1786 loo 1/0 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Thurs 27 1 1786 cribbage 2/0 home friends Thurs 10 2 1786 loo 4/0 home sq &wife dinner, coffee/tea Wed 15 3 1786 cards squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 25 4 1786 loo 6/0 home ftiends tea Thurs 18 5 1786 quadrille 0/6 friend's ftiends dinner, tea Fri 26 5 1786 loo 1_6 home friends dinner, coffee/ tea Fri 2 6 1786 quadrille 0/6 friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Fri 28 7 1786 quadrille 1_6 Cole bro/friends dinner, tea Sat 26 8 1786 quadrille 1_6 Cole niece Mon 28 8 1786 quadrille 1/0 Cole bro/ftiends dinner, tea Tues 29 8 1786 quadrille 1/0 Cole bro/friends dinner Tues 12 9 1786 quadrille 0/6 Cole sis/ftiends Tues 19 9 1786 quadrille 2_6 Cole bro/friends Sat 23 9 1786 quadrille Cole ftiends Tues 26 9 1786 quadrille 0/6 Cole bro/ftiends Sat 30 9 1786 quadrille 2_6 Cole friends Thurs 12 10 1786 quadrille 2_6 inn friends tea Tues 7 11 1786 cribbage 2/0 out ftiends dinner, coffee/tea Thurs 9 11 1786 loo 5/0 home friends coffee/tea Fri 10 11 1786 cribbage 2/0 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 19 12 1786 cribbage 1/0 home friends dinner, supper, coff/tea Wed 3 1 1787 quadrille 0/6 friend's friends dinner, supper Tues 9 1 1787 cribbage 0/6 home niece Wed 10 1 1787 cribbage home niece Tues 16 1 1787 cribbage 0/6 home niece Thurs 18 1 1787 cribbage home niece Thurs 25 1 1787 cribbage 2/0 home niece Fri 26 1 1787 cribbage 1/0 home niece Thurs 29 3 1787 cribbage 1-6 squire's friends dinner, coffee/ tea Tues 3 4 1787 quadrille 2/0 home sq &wife coffee/ tea Tues 8 5 1787 quadrille 1/0 friend's friends dinner, tea Mon 11 6 1787 quadrille 3/0 friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Thurs 21 6 1787 whist 11/0 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Thurs 26 7 1787 quadrille 0/6 friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 7 8 1787 quadrille 3/0 friend's friends dinner, tea Sat 18 8 1787 whist 2/0 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Wed 22 8 1787 cribbage 1/0 friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 28 8 1787 vingt' one 1/0/0 friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Thurs 30 8 1787 cards 2_6 friend's friends dinner, supper, coff/tea Thurs 11 10 1787 quadrille 2/0 squire's ftiends dinner, tea Tues 11 12 1787 quadrille 3/0 home friends dinner, supper, coff/ tea Wed 12 12 1787 quadrille 0/6 home friends dinner, supper, coff/tea 307

Appendix 12,continue d day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Thurs 27 12 1787 cribbage 1_6 home niece Fri 28 12 1787 cribbage 0/6 home niece Fri 4 1 1788 cribbage home niece Mon 21 1 1788 commerce 0/6 home sq&wife coffee/tea Sat 12 4 1788 commerce 0/6 home sq&wife coffee/tea Tues 20 5 1788 quadrille inn friend tea Fri 23 5 1788 loo 2/0 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Sat 27 6 1788 commerce 4/0 squire's sq&wife tea Mon 30 6 1788 cribbage 2/0 home niece Thurs 18 9 1788 cribbage 1/0 friend's friends dinner, coffee Sat 20 9 1788 whist 3_6 home friends dinner, supper, tea Wed 24 9 1788 whist 1/0 home friends dinner, supper, tea Sat 27 9 1788 whist 1/0 home friends tea Tues 30 9 1788 whist home friends tea Wed 1 10 1788 whist 2/0 home friends tea Sat 4 10 1788 whist 2/0 home friends supper, tea Wed 8 10 1788 whist 1/0 home friends dinner, supper, tea Mon 20 10 1788 loo 4_6 squire's friends dinner, tea Thurs 23 10 1788 whist 1/0 home friends dinner, supper, tea Fri 24 10 1788 whist 1/0 home friends Sat 25 10 1788 whist 2/0 home friends tea Wed 29 10 1788 whist 1/0 home friends dinner, supper Thurs 30 10 1788 whist 5/0 home friends dinner Sat 1 11 1788 whist 1/0 home friends tea Wed 5 11 1788 whist 1_6 home friends tea Fri 7 11 1788 whist 8/0 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Thurs 13 11 1788 cards 1_6 friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Fri 14 11 1788 whist 3/0 home friends tea Mon 17 11 1788 whist 1_6 home friends Sat 13 12 1788 whist 1/0 home friends dinner, tea Mon 15 12 1788 loo 5/0 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Fri 26 12 1788 whist 0/6 home friends tea Sat 27 12 1788 cards 4_6 home friends tea Wed 31 12 1788 cards 4_6 home friends Thurs 1 1 1789 cards 2/0 home friends Fri 2 1 1789 cards home friends tea Wed 11 3 1789 limited loo 9/0 home friends dinner, coffee/ tea Thurs 2 4 1789 quadrille 0/9 Norwich friends tea Wed 29 4 1789 cards 2_6 home friends dinner, supper, tea Thurs 30 4 1789 cards 2/0 home friends dinner, supper, tea Wed 27 5 1789 whist 2/0 home friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 2 6 1789 limited loo friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Wed 15 7 1789 quadrille 0/6 home relatives tea Tues 1 9 1789 quadrille 1/0 home relatives dinner, supper, coff/tea Wed 2 9 1789 quadrille 1/0 home relatives Thurs 1 10 1789 loo 4/0 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 3 11 1789 quadrille 1_6 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Wed 25 11 1789 loo 3_6 squire's friends dinner, coffee/ tea Sat 5 12 1789 quadrille 1_6 home niece 308

Appendix 12, continued

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Thurs 10 12 1789 quadrille 1/0 home niece Mon 14 12 1789 quadrille 1/0 home niece Sat 19 12 1789 quadrille l/o home niece Mon 21 12 1789 quadrille 1_6 home niece Wed 23 12 1789 quadrille 3_6 home niece Mon 28 12 1789 quadrille 0/6 home niece Tues 29 12 1789 whist 0/6 friend's firiends dinner Thurs 31 12 1789 quadrille 0/6 home relatives Fri 1 1 1790 wh/quad/loo 2/0 home firiends dinner Sat 2 1 1790 commerce 1/0 home friends supper, tea Wed 6 1 1790 quadrille 1/0 home niece Fri 8 1 1790 commerce 2_6 home friends dinner Thurs 14 1 1790 quadrille 0/6 home niece Thurs 21 1 1790 commerce 5/0 home sq&wife coffee/tea Fri 22 1 1790 loo 3_6 home bro/friends dinner, coffee/tea Sat 23 1 1790 quad/comm 1_6 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 26 1 1790 quadrille 1/0 home niece Wed 27 1 1790 quadrille home niece Thurs 28 1 1790 cards 1/0 home firiends dinner, coffee/tea Sat 30 1 1790 quadrille home niece Tues 2 2 1790 quadrille home niece Mon 8 2 1790 quadrille home niece Mon 15 2 1790 quadrille 0/6 home niece n If Tues 16 ^ 1790 quadrille \}j 0 home niece Wed 17 2 1790 quadrille 0/6 home niece Thurs 18 2 1790 quadrille 1/0 home niece Mon 22 2 1790 quadrille home niece Wed 24 2 1790 quadrille 0/6 home niece Thurs 4 3 1790 cards home niece Mon 8 3 1790 quadrille 0/6 home niece Sat 13 3 1790 quadrille 0/6 home niece Thurs 18 3 1790 quadrille 0/6 home niece Fri 19 3 1790 quadrille 0/6 home niece Sat 20 3 1790 quadrille 1_5 home niece Fri 26 3 1790 quadrille 2/0 home niece Thurs 1 4 1790 quadrille 0/3 home niece Tues 6 4 1790 quadrille 0/5 home niece Wed 7 4 1790 quadrille 0/10 home niece Thurs 8 4 1790 whist 3_6 friend's ftiends dinner, supper, coff/tea Fri 9 4 1790 cribbage home brother Sat 10 4 1790 quadrille 1_1 home niece Wed 14 4 1790 quadrille 1_2 home niece Sat 17 4 1790 quadrille 1_10 home niece Fri 23 4 1790 loo 3_6 home friends dinner, tea Mon 26 4 1790 quadrille home niece Wed 28 4 1790 quadrille 1/0 squire's friends dinner Thurs 29 4 1790 quadrille 1/0 home niece Sat 8 5 1790 loo 0/6 home relatives dinner Sat 22 5 1790 quadrille 0/10 home niece 309

Appendix 12, continued

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Tues 25 5 1790 quadrille 1_9 home niece Wed 26 5 1790 quadrille 1_6 home niece Fri 28 5 1790 Pope-Joan friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 1 6 1790 whist home friends dinner, coffee/tea Fri 4 6 1790 whist 1_6 friend's friends tea Mon 21 6 1790 quadrille 1/0 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Mon 5 7 1790 commerce 0/6 home sq&wife coffee/tea Sat 10 7 1790 commerce 0/6 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Thurs 15 7 1790 limited loo 4/0 home friends coffee/tea Mon 19 7 1790 quadrille 1/0 friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Fri 23 7 1790 commerce 2/0 home sq&wife coffee/tea Tues 10 8 1790 whist 1/0 friend's friends dinner, wine Tues 17 8 1790 cribbage 0/6 friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Wed 15 12 1790 quadrille 2-6 home friends dinner, supper, tea Thurs 23 12 1790 commerce 0/6 home sq&wife coffee/tea Tues 11 1 1791 commerce 0/6 squire's sq&wife dinner, coffee/tea Sat 15 1 1791 commerce 0/6 home sq&wife dinner, coffee/tea Wed 9 2 1791 loo 1_6 home friends dinner, coffee/tea Mon 14 2 1791 loo squire's friends dinner, tea Thurs 10 3 1791 limited loo 0/6 squire's friends dinner, coffee Fri 20 5 1791 quadrille 1/0 squire's friends dinner, tea Fri 1 7 1791 commerce 3_6 home sq&wife coffee/tea Mon 4 7 1791 commerce 0/6 squire's sq&wife dinner, coffee/tea Tues 12 7 1791 quadrille 1_6 friend's friends dinner, supper, tea Wed 13 7 1791 whist 1/0 friend's friends dinner, supper, tea Thurs 4 8 1791 quadrille 0/6 friend's friends dinner, coffee Mon 8 8 1791 quadrille 3/0 home friends dinner, coffee/tea Fri 19 8 1791 loo 0/8 home friends coffee/tea Sat 10 9 1791 loo 5/0 home friends coffee/tea Thurs 6 10 1791 loo 1/0 squire's friends dinner, tea Sat 5 11 1791 cribbage friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Fri 11 11 1791 Pope-Joan 2/0 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 31 1 1792 cribbage 0/6 home niece Wed 1 2 1792 cribbage 0/6 home niece Fri 3 2 1792 cribbage 0/6 home niece Wed 8 2 1792 cribbage 0/6 home niece Thurs 9 2 1792 cribbage 0/6 home niece Fri 10 2 1792 cribbage 0/6 home friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 14 2 1792 cribbage 0/6 home niece Thurs 16 2 1792 cribbage 0/6 home niece Sat 18 2 1792 cribbage 0/6 home niece Mon 20 2 1792 cribbage home niece Tues 21 2 1792 cribbage 0/6 home niece Thurs 23 2 1792 cribbage 0/6 home niece Fri 24 2 1792 cribbage 0/6 home niece Mon 27 2 1792 cribbage 0/6 home niece Fri 2 3 1792 cribbage 0/6 home niece Tues 26 6 1792 limited loo 0/6 squire's friends dinner, coffee/tea Fri 13 7 1792 loo 1_6 home sq&wife dinner, coffee/tea 310

Appendix 12, continued

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Thurs 20 12 1792 whist 1_6 home friends dinner, tea Fri 18 1 1793 cribbage 0/6 home niece Thurs 24 1 1793 cribbage 0/6 home niece Fri 1 2 1793 cribbage 0/6 home niece Sat 2 2 1793 cribbage 0/6 home niece Sat 9 2 1793 cribbage 0/6 home niece Fri 15 2 1793 cribbage home niece Sat 16 2 1793 whist 1/0 home ftiends dinner Sat 23 2 1793 cribbage 0/6 home niece Sat 2 3 1793 cribbage 0/6 home niece Sat 9 3 1793 cards home niece Tues 4 6 1793 whist 2/0 home friends tea Wed 7 8 1793 quadrille 1/0 Cole brother dinner Wed 14 8 1793 quadrille 0/6 Cole relatives Wed 28 8 1793 quadrille 1-6 Cole relatives tea Mon 2 9 1793 quadrille 1/0 Cole relatives coffee/ tea Tues 3 9 1793 whist 1/0 Cole friends Sat 7 9 1793 quadrille 0/6 Cole relatives Mon 9 9 1793 quadrille 1_6 Cole relatives Wed 18 9 1793 quadrille 1/0 Cole relatives Fri 20 9 1793 whist 3_6 Cole relatives Sat 21 9 1793 quadrille 0/6 Cole relatives dinner, tea Tues 24 9 1793 whist 1_6 Cole relatives tea, supper Thurs 26 9 1793 cribbage 1_6 Cole relatives Sat 28 9 1793 quadrille Cole relatives tea Wed 12 3 1794 quadrille 1/0 home friends dinner, coffee Tues 6 5 1794 quadrille friend's friends Tues 13 5 1794 whist 1_6 home friends coffee/tea Tues 20 5 1794 quadrille friend's friends coffee/tea Thurs 22 5 1794 whist 4_6 home friends dinner, coffee/tea Fri 30 5 1794 quadrille 1/0 friend's friends tea Tues 10 6 1794 whist 0/6 friend's friends coffee Mon 23 6 1794 whist 0/6 friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Mon 30 6 1794 quadrille 1/0 Norwich relatives tea Tues 15 7 1794 quadrille 3/0 friend's friends coffee/tea Fri 1 8 1794 quadrille 1/0 friend's friends coffee/tea Thurs 7 8 1794 quadrille 0/6 friend's friends tea Thurs 18 9 1794 limited loo home friends coffee/ tea Wed 1 10 1794 cards home ftiends coffee/tea Thurs 9 10 1794 cribbage 3/0 home friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 30 12 1794 cribbage 0/6 home niece Tues 24 3 1795 loo 1/0 home friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 28 4 1795 quadrille 0/6 home friends Tues 12 5 1795 quadrille 1/0 friend's friends tea Fri 22 5 1795 quadrille 0/6 home friends coffee/tea Mon 25 5 1795 cards 1_6 home friends dinner, coffee/tea Wed 17 6 1795 quadrille friend's friends coffee/tea Mon 10 8 1795 quadrille 1/0 Cole relatives Fri 14 8 1795 cards 0/6 Cole relatives dinner, coffee/tea 311

Appendix 12, continued

day dd mm yyyy game won lost setting company food/drink Wed 19 8 1795 quadrille 2/0 CstleCary relatives beer/cider Fri 21 8 1795 quadrille 0/6 Cole relatives tea Wed 26 8 1795 cards 2/0 CsdeCary relatives coffee/tea Thurs 27 8 1795 whist 1_6 Cole relatives dinner, supper Fri 28 8 1795 whist 1/0 Cole relatives dinner, coffee/tea Sat 5 9 1795 quadrille 1/0 Cole relatives Thurs 10 9 1795 cards 0/6 Cole relatives dinner, tea Mon 14 9 1795 whist 3/0 Cole relatives Wed 16 9 1795 quadrille 1/0 Cole relatives dinner, supper Sat 19 9 1795 quadrille Cole relatives wed 23 9 1795 limited loo 4_6 Cole relatives tea Tues 29 9 1795 whist 1_6 Cole relatives dinner, coffee/tea Wed 30 9 1795 whist 0/6 Cole relatives coffee/tea Mon 5 10 1795 cribbage 0/6 Cole relatives Wed 7 10 1795 quadrille Cole relatives Thurs 15 10 1795 commerce 0/6 Cole relatives Fri 16 10 1795 loo 2/0 Cole relatives supper Tues 20 10 1795 quadrille Cole relatives dinner, coffee/tea Thurs 22 10 1795 commerce 1/0 Cole relatives Fri 23 10 1795 commerce 1/0 Cole relatives supper Tues 24 11 1795 quadrille home friends dinner, coffee/tea Wed 9 12 1795 quadrille 1/0 home friends dinner, coffee/tea Thurs 24 12 1795 quadrille 0/6 home friends dinner, coffee/ tea Tues 23 2 1796 whist 3/0 home friends dinner, coffee/tea Thurs 17 3 1796 whist 3/0 home friends dinner, coffee/tea Thurs 24 3 1796 quadrille 0/6 home friends dinner, coffee/tea Fri 8 4 1796 limited loo home friends dinner, coffee/tea Thurs 14 4 1796 quadrille 1/0 friend's friends dinner, supper, coff/tea Wed 20 4 1796 quadrille friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 28 6 1796 quadrille 2/0 home friends coffee/tea Thurs 28 7 1796 quadrille 1/0 friend's friends coffee/tea Mon 12 9 1796 quadrille 1_6 friend's friends tea Wed 14 9 1796 quadrille 2/0 home friends dinner Fri 16 9 1796 quadrille 2/0 friend's friends coffee/tea Thurs 5 1 1797 whist 3_6 friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Fri 6 1 1797 whist 2_6 home friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 2 5 1797 limited loo 5/0 home friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 30 5 1797 cards 1_6 home friends coffee/tea Tues 20 6 1797 commerce 1/0 friend's friends dinner, coffee/tea Tues 27 6 1797 commerce 1_6 home friends dinner, coffee/tea Thurs 28 9 1797 loo 1/0 home friends dinner, coffee/ tea Fri 9 1 1801 cards home 312

Appendix 10: Hoyleiana

Beaufort, James. Hoyle's Games improved. London: S. Bladon, 1775,1788; Philadelphia, 1796.

Beaufort, James. Hoyle's Games Improved. London: Osborne & Griffin, 1788.

Bellecour, l'Abbe. Nouvelle edition, augmentee du jeu des echecs par Philidor, du jeu de whist, par E. Hoyle, <&°c. Amsterdam- 1786.

Bellecour, l'Abbe. Nouvelle edition, augmentee dujeu des echecs par Philidor, dujeu de whist, par E. Hoyle, <&c. Lyon, 1805.

Bergholt, Ernest. Hoyle's Games Modernised... With chapters on Auction and "Lilly" Bridge. London: 1913.

Botelho, L. de Vasconcellos (trans.). Breve Tratado do Jogo do Whist... Tradu^do da lingoa Ingle^a. Lisboa (Lisbon): 1768.

Browning, Captain. Hoyle's Games Modernised. London: George Roudedge & Sons, 1909.

Browning, Hanworth Stephen. Hoyle's Games Modernised, &°c. London: G. Roudedge & Sons, 1921.

Dawson, Lawrence H. Hoyle's Games Modernised. London: G. Roudedge & Sons, 1923.

Dawson, Lawrence H. Hoyle's Games Modernised. London: G. Roudedge & Sons, 1942.

Dawson, Lawrence H. (ed.) Hoyle's games modernised The complete Hoyle's games. London: Roudedge & Kegan Paul, 1950.

Dawson, Lawrence H (ed.). Hoyle's games modernised. Hoyle's card games. London: Roudedge & Kegan Paul, 1979.

Ebwell, Professor (ed.). Hoyle's Games up-to-date. Chicago: 1911.

E.T. (ed.) Hoyle's Games. Philadelphia: 1845,1855,1879.

Foster, Robert Frederick. Card Games and how to play them, etc. (A condensed Hoyle. Edited by K F. Foster.) Cincinnati: United States Playing Card Co.: 1907.

Foster, R. F. The Official Rules of Card Games. Hoyle up-to-date. Publishers'fifteenth edition of rules of popular games. Cincinnati: United States Playing Card Co., 1911.

Foster, R. F. The Official Rules of Card Games... Publishers' eighteenth edition... Cincinnati: United States Playing Card Co., 1914.

Frere, Thomas. Hoyle's Games. Illustrated edition. Boston: 1857. 313

Appendix 12, continued

G.H—. Hoyle's Games, improved and enlarged by new andpractical treatises, with the mathematical analysis of the chances of the mostfashionable games of the day. London: Longman & Co., 1835,1842,1847.

G. H. Hoyle's Games, improved and enlarged. London: Longman & Co., 1853,1859.

Gard, T. Hoyle's guide to the turf. London: 1814.

Hoffman, Professor (Lewis, Angelo John]. Hoyle's Games modernised, edited by Professor Hoffmann. London: George Roudedge & Sons, 1907. (other editions: 1898,1900, 1909)

Hoffman, Professor [Lewis, Angelo John]. The modern Hoyle, or How to play whist-euchre... New and revised edition. With additional sections by Professor Hoffman. London & New York: Frederick Warne & Co., 1910.

Hoyle, Edmond. A short treatise on the game of whist. London: John Watts, 1742.

Hoyle, Edmond. A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist. London: W. Webb, 1742.

Hoyle, Edmond. A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist... By a Gentleman. London: W. Webster, 1743.

Hoyle, Edmond. A Short Treatise on the game of Back-gammon, <&c. London: F. Cogan, 1743.

Hoyle, Edmond. A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist. 2nd ed. London: F. Cogan, 1743.

Hoyle, Edmond. An artificial memoiy. Dublin: George and Alexander Ewing; London: F. Cogan, 1744.

Hoyle, Edmond. A short Treatise on the Game of Piquet. London: 1744.

Hoyle, Edmond. A short treatise on the game of whist. Dublin: G. and A. Ewing, 1745.

Hoyle, Edmond. A Short Treatise on the Game of Quadrille, <&c. London: 1745.

Hoyle, Edmond. The Polite Gamester, containing short treatises on the games of Whist, Quadrille, Back-gammon, Piquet and Chess. Together with an Artificial Memoiy, or, an Easy method of assisting the memoiy of those that play at the game of whist. Dublin: G. & A. Ewing, 1745.

Hoyle, Edmond. A Short Treatise on the Game of Quadrille, &c. Dublin: George & Alex. Ewing, 1745. 314

Appendix 12, continued

Hoyle, Edmond. A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist. ?3"d ?6th ed. London: T. Osborne, 1746.

Hoyle, Edmond. A short Treatise on the Game of Piquet. 2nd ed. London: T. Osborne, 1746.

Hoyle, Edmond. A Short Treatise on the Game of Quadrille, &c. 2nd ed. London: T. Osborne, 1746.

Hoyle, Edmond. A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist ...To which is added, an Artificial Memoiy, <&c. 7th ed. London: T. Osborne, 1747.

Hoyle, Edmond. A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist. 8th ed. London: T. Osborne, 1748.

Hoyle, Edmond. A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist. 10th ed. London: T. Osborne, 1750.

Hoyle, Edmond. Mr. Hoyle's Treatises of Whist, Quadrille, Piquet, Chess, and Backgammon. London: T. Osborne, 1750.

Hoyle, Edmond. The polite gamester. Dublin: G. and A. Ewing, 1752.

Hoyle, Edmond. A Short Treatise on the game of Back-gammon, <&c. Dublin: George and Alexander Ewing, 1753.

Hoyle, Edmond. An Essay towards making the Doctrine of Chances easy to those who understand Vulgar Aritbmatick only. London: J. Jolliff, 1754.

Hoyle, Edmond. A Short Treatise on the Game of Quadrille, <&c. Dublin: George & Alex. Ewing, 1754.

Hoyle, Edmond. A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist. 10th ed. London: T. Osborne, 1755.

Hoyle, Edmond. Mr. Hoyle's Games. London: Thomas Osbome, 1755.

Hoyle, Edmond. Mr. Hoyle's Games ofWhist... Chess, and Back-Gammon... to which is... added ... the new laws of... whist, as played at White's and Saunders's chocolate houses. London: Thomas Osborne, 1760.

Hoyle, Edmond, Jun., pseud. Calculations, cautions, and observations; relating to the various games played with cards. Addressed to the Ladies. London: 1761.

Hoyle, Edmond. The polite gamester: containing, short treatises on the games of whist... quadrille, back-gammon, piquet and chess. Together with an essay making the doctrine of chances easy, <&°c. Dublin: George and Alexander Ewing, 1761.

Hoyle, Edmond. An Essay towards making the Doctrine of Chances easy to those who understand Vulgar Arithmatick only. Dublin: G. & A. Ewing, 1761. 315

Appendix 12, continued

Hoyle, Edmond. A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist... To which is added, an Artificial Memoiy, <&c. 14th ed. Dublin: George & Alexander Ewing, 1762.

Hoyle, Edmond. An Essay towards making the Doctrine of Chances easy to those who understand Vulgar Arithmatick only. London: 1764.

Hoyle, Edmond. Mr. Hoyle's Games of Whist, Quadrille, Piquet, Chess and Backgammon, &c. London: Thomas Osborne, 1765.

Hoyle, Edmond. Traite abrege de jeu de Whist... avec divers calculspour en connoitre les chances... Traduit de I'Anglois. Vienna: 1765.

Hoyle, Edmond. Mr. Hoyle's Games. London: 1770.

Hoyle, Edmond. Mr. Hoyle's Games. London: J. Rivington &J. Wilkie, 1772.

Hoyle, Edmond. The polite gamester, containing short treatises on the games of whist... quadrille, back-gammon, piquet and chess. Together with an essay making the doctrine of chances easy. Dublin: T. Ewing, 1772.

Hoyle, Edmond. Mr. Hoyk's Games. London: Thomas Osborne, 1773.

Hoyle, Edmond. A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist. London: 1775.

Hoyle, Edmond. The polite gamester, containing short treatises on the games of whist... quadrille, back- gammon, piquet and chess. Together with an essay making the doctrine of chances easy. Dublin: James Hoey, 1776.

Hoyle, Edmond. Traite du jeu de Whist. Traduit de I'Anglois. Vienna, 1776.

Hoyle, Edmond. The polite gamester: containing;, short treatises on the games of whist... quadrille, back-gammon, piquet and chess. Together with an essay making the doctrine of chances easy, <&c. Dublin: Peter Hoey, 1787.

Hoyle, Edmond. An epitome of Hoyle, with Beaufort and Jones's Hoyle improved... by a member of the Jockey Club. Dublin: R. M. Buder, 1791.

Hoyle, Edmond. Hoyle's Games of Whist, Cribbage, Quadrille, <&c. London: Wynne and Scholey, 1802.

Hoyle, Edmond. The new pocket Hoyle, containing the games of whist, quadrille, piquet, &c. London: Wynne & Scholey; J. Wallis: 1802.

Hoyle, Edmond. Hoyle's game of whist, with all the improvements of modern writers. Dundee, 1806. 316

Appendix 12, continued

Hoyle, Edmond. Mr. Hoyk's Game of Chess, including his Chess lectures, with selectionsfrom other amateurs. London: R. Baldwin, 1808.

Hoyle, Edmond. The New Hoyle, containing easy rules for playing the games of Whist, Quadrille, Cribbage... With tables of Odds. London: 1817.

Hoyle, Edmond. Hoyk's games. Philadelphia: 1817,1857.

Hoyle, Edmond. Multum [sic] in Parvo: or Hoyle abridged: with rules and directions for the various games... Stockton: Christopher & Jennett, 1820.

Hoyle, Edmond. Hoyle's improved miniature edition of the rulesforplayingfashionable games. London: 1820, 1829.

Hoyle, Edmond. Hoyle's card games, complete; with an appendix, containing his guide to the turf. Bath: E. Barret, 1824; Glasgow: 1827.

Hoyle, Edmond. Hole's Scientific game of whist. Bailey's new edition. London: 1825.

Hoyle, Edmond. Hoyle's Games improved. New York: 1825.

Hoyle, Edmond. Hoyle's improved edition of the rulesfor playingfashionable games. Philadelphia: 1838,1841,1887.

Hoyle, Edmond. Hoyle's Games. A new and correct edition. London: W. Jeffrey, 1843.

Hoyle, Edmond. Hoyk's Games, or card player's assistant, &°c. New York: 1851.

Hoyle, Edmond. Hoyle's Games. New edition, improved. London: 1854.

Hoyle, Edmond. Hoyle's games: containing laws on chess, draughts, <&c. London: 1854.

Hoyle, Edmond. Hoyle's games. Containing laws and directions forplaying the various games now prevalent. Halifax: 1856.

Hoyle, Edmond. The Standard Hoyle. A complete guide... upon all games of chance... with diagrams and illustrations. New York: Excelsior Publishing House, 1887.

Hoyle, Edmond. Hoyle's Games, text of Hoyle, and the best modern authorities. Philadelphia: 1890; Chicago, 1903.

Hoyle, Edmond. Hoyle's games and bridge whist. New York: 1904.

Hoyle, Edmond. Hoyk's Games. Autograph edition. London, New York: McClure Co., 1907.

Hoyle, Edmond. Latest edition ofHoyk's games ofcards. Baltimore: 1909. Appendix 10, continued

Hoyle, Edmond. Hoyle's Standard games. Chicago: 1908,1914.

Hoyle, Edmond. The Official Rules of Card Games. Hoyle up-to-date, &c. Winnipeg: Russell- Lang's, 1910.

Hoyle, Edmond. Hoyle's Games. Autograph. New York: 1914. ackson, Charles. The New Pocket Hoyle. Containing the games of whist, quadrille,piquet... London: P. & W. Wynne, 1807,1808. ackson, C. Mr. Hoyle's Treatise on the Game of Billiards. A new edition, greatly improved and corrected, with the assistance of eminent markers. London: T. Davison, 1808. ackson, Charles. The New Pocket Hoyle. Containing the games of whist, quadrille, piquet... wherein are comprised calculations for betting. London: W. Lowndes, 1813. ackson, Charles. The New Pocket Hoyle. Containing the games of whist, quadrille, piquet ... London: W. Lowndes, 1814. ones, Charles. Hoyle's Games improved. London: J. Rivington and J. Wilkie, 1775, 1779. ones, Charles. Hoyle's Games improved. London: J. F. & C. Rivington, 1786. ones, Charles. Hoyle's Games improved. London: J. F. & C. Rivington, 1790. ones, Charles. Hoyle's Games improved. London: R. Baldwin, 1795,1796. ones, Charles. Hoyle's Games improved. London: 1800. ones, Charles. Hoyle's Games improved. London: R. Baldwin, 1803,1808. ones, Charles. Hoyle's Games improved. London: W. Lowndes, 1814,1820. ones, Charles. Hoyle's Games improved. London: G. B. Whittaker, 1826. ones, Charles. Hoyle's Games improved... With an essay on gamecocks. London: 1826. ones, Charles. Hoyle's Games improved. London: 1835. ones, Charles. Hoyle's Games improved. London: 1839. ones, Thomas. Hoyle's Games improved... revised and corrected by Thomas Jones. London: W. Wood, 1778. ones, Thomas. Hoyle's Games improved... revised and corrected by Thomas Jones. London: 1779. 318

Appendix 12, continued

Jones, Thomas. Hoy/e's Games improved... revised and corrected by Thomas Jones. London: W. Wood, 1782.

Lowe, P. E. (ed.) Hoyk's card games. Baltimore: 1909.

Morehead, Albert H. and Geoffrey Mott-Smith (eds.). Hoyle up-to-date. The official rules of card games. Philadelphia, Toronto: John C. Winston Co., 1946.

Morehead, Albert H. and Geoffrey Mott-Smith (eds.). Hoyle's Rules of Games. New York: New American Library of World Literature, 1955.

Morehead, Albert H. and Geoffrey Mott-Smith (eds.). Hoyk's Ruks of Games. New York & Toronto: New American Library; London: New English Library, 1963.

Morehead, Albert H. and Geoffrey Mott-Smith (eds.). Hoyle's ruks of games: descriptions of indoor games of skill and chance, with advice on skillfulplay. Based on the foundations laid down by Edmond Hoyk, 1672-1769. New York: New American Library, 1983.

Norton, Robert (ed.). Backgammon according to Hoyk: with additional ramblings by Palamedes. West Huntspill: Parsimony Press, 1981 (2000 [printing])

Pardon, George Frederick. A Handbook of Whist. On the text of Hoyk. London: 1861.

Pardon, George Frederick. Hoyk's Games modernised. London: 1863,1866,1870, 1873, 1874,1875.

Pigott, Charles. Pigott's New Hoyk; or, the General repository of games... London: James Ridgway, 1797.

Pigott, Charles. Pigott's New Hoyk; or, the General repository of games... to which is added, an epitome of the statute laws on gaming, <&c. London: James Ridgway, 1800.

Pigott, Charles. Regies du jeu de whist, ou, Le nouveau Hoyk, de Charles Pigott. Paris: 1810.

Short, Bob [Withy, Robert]. Hoyle abridged, Part lid or short rulesfor playing the Game of Quadrilk. London: 1793.

Short, Bob [Withy, Robert]. Hoyk Abridged; or short ruksfor short memories at the game of whist. London: R. Reynolds, 1819.

Short, Bob [Withy, Robert]. Hoyle abridged!! A treatise on the game of draughts; or, Short ruksfor short memories. London: printed for the booksellers, by John Stacy, Norwich, 1820.

Short, Bob [Withy, Robert]. Hoyk abridged. A treatise on the Game of Chess. London: T. & J. Allman, 1824. 319

Appendix 12, continued

Short, Bob [Withy, Robert]. Hoyle abridged. Short rules for short memories at the game of whist... With the last new rules as established at Bath and London. Derby: Thomas Richardson; London: Hurst, Chance, & Co., 1828.

Short, Bob [Withy, Robert]. Hoyle improved. London: T. North, 1829.

Trebor, E. [Hardie, Robert]. Hoyle made familiar; being a Companion to the Card-Table, Edinburgh: 1830.

Trebor, Eidrah [Hardie, Robert]. Hoyle's Games made Familiar. London: Ward & Lock, 1841,1855.

Trebor, Eidrah [Hardie, Robert]. Hoyle's Games made Familiar. London: Ward & Lock, 1860.

"Trumps" [William Brisbane Dick]. The Modern Pocket Hoyle; containing all the games of skill and chance as played in this country at the present time... New York: 1868. 320

Appendix 11: Schedule for coaches leaving Bath's inns

Coaches leaving Bath's Inns (Source; Universal British Directory for the Year 1791) Inn/Tavern of Departure Destination(s) Departure Day(s)/Time(s)

Bear, York House, and White London (post-coach) M-Sat/6 am Hart London (post-coach) daily/4 pm London M, W, F/8 am Exeter, Plymouth and Falmouth M-Sat/8 am Oxford (via Burford and Whitney) Birmingham (meets all North-country M-Sat/8 am coaches) M, W, F/5 am Shrewsbury (via Gloucester and Worcester - meets Chester and HolyheadM , W, F/5 am coaches) Salisbury, Southampton and Portsmouth M-Sat/6 am Salisbury (direct, post-coachj Bristol (post-coach) W, Sat/8 am daily/10 am, 4 pm, 6 pm White lion Oxford (via Chippenham, M, W, Sat/6 am Malmesbury, Cricklade, Highmrth, Farringdon) London daily/6 am, 4 pm, 5 pm Bristol daily/9 am, 4 pm Three Tuns London (mail-coach) daily/5:30 pm Exeter (mail-coach) daily/10 am Bristol/Hot-wells (post-coach) daily/9 am, 3 Christopher London ("Mercury"post-coach) daily/6 am London ("RoyalBlue"post-coach) daily/4 pm Bristol daily/9 am, 3 pm, 4 pm Casde London (post-coach) daily/4 pm London (post-coach) daily/5 am Bristol/Hot-wells daily/9 am, 3 Saracen's Head London (post-coach) Sun-F/4 pm Gloucester (post-coach) T, Th, Sat/7 am Bristol daily/3 pm Lamb London (mail-coach) daily/4:30 pm, 5:30 pm London ("Prince of Wales"post-coach)daily/ 6 am London (post-coach) Exeter (mail-coach via Wells, daily/4 pm Glastonbury, Bridgewater, Taunton, daily/10 am Wellington, Collumpton) Bristol (mail-coach) Birmingham (mail-coach) daily/4 pm Bristol daily/3 pm daily/9 am, 12 noon, 4 pm Angel Salisbury waggon T, Th, Sat Frome waggon T, Th, Sat Full-Moon Shaftesbury T/12 noon | Shepton Mallet W, Sat/2 pm 321

Appendix 12: Businesses in Bath serving the leisure/tourism industry (shaded businesses owned/run by women)

Name Occupation/Business Address Abbott lodging Milsom-street, 3 Abbott, Charles Haberdasher Claverton-street Abbott, Charles Haberdasher, laceman Milsom-street Abbott, Thomas Tea-dealer Claverton-street Abrahams, William Clothier Bathwick Adams, Mrs lodging Milsom-street, 32 Albin, Joseph Cabinet-maker Peter-street Albrecht, Frederic Stay-maker Miles's-court Allason, Vincent Victualler (Greyhound) Old Bridge Allwright, Francis Stay-maker Broad-street Amey lodging Brock-street, 2 Amey, Ann Mantua-maker Brock-street Amsinck and Walters Wine-merchant Chandos-buildings Andow lodging, boarding Orange-grove/court, 6 Andrews, Mrs lodging Bond-street, 15 Arnold, George Inn (White Lion) High-street Ashton lodging Bridge-street, 1 Atkinson, Benjamin Wine-merchant Stall-street Aust, Peter Victualler (Star) Walcot Axton, Thomas Victualler (Prince Frederic) Beaufort-square Bacon lodging Queen's Parade, 5 Bacon, Miss lodging Milsom-street, 31 Badrick, Samuel Haberdasher Margaret-buildings Bailey, Mrs lodging Gay-street, 25 Bailey, Mrs lodging Gay-street, 13 Baker lodging Milsom-street, 4 Baker, Benjamin Shoe-maker Milsom-street Baker, Mrs lodging, boarding Chandos-buildings, 1 Bale lodging Crescent, 3 Balkwill, Richard Victualler Cross Bath Ballanger, Henry Inn (Three Tuns) Stall-street Bally and Dolland Hair-dresser Quiet-street Bally, Stephen Tailor Westgate-street Barnard, John Tailor, habit-maker High-street Barnes, William Hair-dresser King's-Mead-street Barratt lodging Milsom-street, 11 Barrett, James Circulating library Milsom-street Bascum, Thomas Carrier (Bristol) On the Quay Baskett, Henry Tailor St James's-street Basnett, William Jeweller, goldsmith Bond-street Batchelor, Isaac Victualler New Market-row Batten, Mrs lodging Rivers-street, 24 Beacham, James Tea-dealer George-street Beale lodging Bennet-street, 21 322

Appendix 12, continued

Name Occupation/Business Address Beale, Mrs lodging Alfred-street, 10 Beard, Giles Pastry-cook Widcomb Beck, Richard Victualler (Full Moon) Old Bridge Bell lodging Great Pultney-street, 5 Bell, William Victualler (Saracen's Head) Broad-street Benazech, Peter Drawing-master King's-Mead-street Bennett, John Victualler (Bath Arms) Horse-street Benson, Mrs lodging Queen-square, 5 Benson, Mrs lodging St James's Parade, 17 Benton, John Tea-dealer Stall-street Benton, Samuel Shoe-maker Lilliput-alley Berwick, Elizabeth Perfumer North Parade Berwick, Mrs lodging North Parade Bevan, Catherine Pastry-cook Andrew's Terrace Bevan, Mrs lodging North Parade, 13 Bevan, Mrs lodging Portland-place, 9 Bevan, Mrs lodging Alfred-street, 8 Binney, Mrs lodging Edgar-buildings, 3 Binnev, Mrs lodging Edgar-buildings, 2 Birchall lodging Queen-square, 25 Blake lodging South Parade, 2 Blake, John Tailor, habit-maker Widcomb Blake, Mrs lodging Northumberland-buildings, 5 Blake, Mrs lodging South Parade, 11 Blake, Mrs lodging Belmont, 7 Blow lodging, Argyle Coffee-house Argyle-buildings Blow, George Victualler (Argyle house) Argyle-buildings Bond lodging Margaret's-buildings, 8 Boulter, James Tailor, habit-maker Stall-street Bowen, Messrs. Glass, china warehouse Bond-street Bowen, Messrs. Tea-dealer Abbey-green Bowen, Mrs lodging Church-street, Kingston-buildings, 6 Bradford, Graves & Hereford Milliner mantua-maker Orange-grove Braine, William Tea-dealer Walcot Brake lodging Westgate-buildings, 17 Branch, Chades Tailor Orchard-street Brannan, Michael Victualler (Pack-horse) Claverton-street Breedon lodging Chapel-row, 6 Bretton lodging Milsom-street, 46 Bretton, Messrs. Jeweller, goldsmith Milsom-street Brewer lodging Broad-street, 39 Brewer, John Victualler (Royal Oak) Borough-walls Brice lodging Westgate-buildings, 9 Brickman lodging Church-street, Kingston-buildings, 5 323

Appendix 12, continued

Name Occupation/Business Address Briscoe, Griffith Hatter, hosier Broad-street Britton, Mrs lodging, boarding Northumberland-buildings, 2 Britton, Mrs lodging, boarding Northumberland-buildings, 3 Britton, Mrs lodging, boarding Harrington-place Bromley, Mrs lodging Queen-square, 3 Bromley, Mrs lodging, boarding Queen-square, 2 Brooker lodging Miles's-court, 7 Brooker, Benjamin Hair-dresser Miles's-court Brooker, Sarah Mantua-maker Miles's-court Brookes lodging Belvidere/Ainslie's Court, 8 Brookes, John Shoe-maker Wade's-passage Brooks lodging North Parade, 12 Broom lodging Belvidere/Ainslie's Court, 9 Brown and Co. Milliner Belvidere Bryant, John B. Linen-draper Walcot-stieet Bryant, Robert Victualler (Darby and Joan) Guinea-lane Buck lodging Fountain-buildings, 1 Bulgin, William Victualler (Bell) Walcot Bull lodging Lower Walks, 5 BuU lodging Belvidere/Ainslie's Court Bull, Lewis Circulating library On the Walks Bullock, William Watch-maker Claverton-street Bunning, Mrs lodging Rivers-street, 30 Burrows lodging Miles's-court, 11 Butcher, Mary Milliner, haberdasher Gay-street Butcher, Mrs lodging Barton-street, 7 Buder lodging Russel-street, 5 Butler lodging, boarding Bennet-street, 1 Butt lodging Margaret's-buildings, 12 Buttress lodging South Parade, 13 Buttress lodging Lower Walks, 4 Buttress, John Silk-mercer On the Walks Cadman, Thomas Perfumer Abbey-yard Cameron lodging Milsom-street, 17 Cameron, John Perfumer Milsom-street Campbell and Gainsborough Circulating library Burton-street Campbell, Mary Milliner Westgate-street Cardinbrook, William Buckle-maker Stall-street Carpenter, Robert Milliner George-street Carsley,John Perfumer Wade's-passage Cecil, William Victualler (Three Crowns) Walcot Chambers lodging Buriington-stxeet, 1 Chapman, George Linen-draper Cheap-street Chilton lodging, boarding Westgate-buildings, 8 324

Appendix 12, continued

Name Occupation/Business Address Clarke lodging Vineyards, 3 Clarke lodging Russel-street, 2 Clarke, Mrs lodging Chades-street, 12 Clarke, Samuel Victualler (Plough) Horse-street Cockell, William Victualler (Mason's Arms) Claverton-street Cole lodging Barton-street, 3 Cole, John Shoe-maker Abbey-green Coleman, Thomas Tallow-chandler High-street Coles, John Confectioner Gay-street Coles, John Tea-dealer Northgate-street Collett & Faulkner Wine-merchant Horse-street Collins, Mrs lodging South Parade, 3 Collins, William Linen-draper High-street Cook, Thomas Inn (Casde) Westgate-street Comwell, James Haberdasher Bennett-street Corp, John Tea-dealer Walcot-street Cottell, Thomas Shoe-maker Wade's-passage Cottle, James Victualler (Bell) Monmouth-street Cottle, Mrs lodging Westgate-buildings, 16 Cottle, Mrs lodging Fountain-buildings, 8 Cottle, Thomas Tallow-chandler King's-Mead-square Cottle, William Victualler (French Horn) Borough-walls Cottle, William Tailor Harington-place Coward lodging Bond-street, 17 Coward, Thomas Linen-draper Bond-street Cox, Joseph Victualler (Bell) Ballance-street Coxe, Mrs lodging Brock-street, 22 Coxhead, Robert Tallow-chandler Guinea-lane Crease lodging Bridge-street, 9 Crook, Messrs. Woollen-draper Milsom-street Croome lodging New King-street, 40 Cross lodging Milsom-street, 18 Cross lodging Abbey-green/street, 1 Crowden, William Hair-dresser St Andrew's Terrace Crump, John Tea-dealer Burton-street Cuff and Hunt Perfumer Green-street Cuder, Cornelius Carrier (Bath and Bristol) Avon-street Dale, Miss lodging St James's Parade, 19 Dalmer lodging Argyle-buildings, 3 Daniel, Miss lodging Gay-street, 22 Daniel, William Tea-dealer, wine-merchant Northgate-street Dart, Miss lodging St James's Parade, 1 Davenport, Mary Milliner Westgate-street Davis lodging Queen-square, 18 325

Appendix 12, continued

Name Occupation/Business Address Davis, Edward Tailor, habit-maker Fountain-buildings Davis, Edward Victualler (Griffin) Monmouth-street Davis, John Victualler (St James's Hotel) St James's-square Davis, Miss lodging Princes-street, 1 Davis, Ralph Carrier (Bristol) Horse-street Davis, Thomas Victualler (Seven Stars) Borough-walls Davis, William Tea-dealer Green-street Davis, William Victualler (Hope and Anchor) Horse-street Dawson lodging, boarding Abbey-green/street, 7 Dawson, John Linen-draper, laceman Northgate-street Day and Row French trimming-maker Borough-walls Deane, Mrs lodging Bridge-street, 3 Deane, Robert Tailor Widcomb Deare lodging King's-Mead-street, 9 Demander, Chades Victualler Walcot-street Denie,John Tailor, man's mercer Northgate-street Derham & Stroud Wine-merchant Bennett-street Dion Glass Warehouse Grove-street Dobson, Mrs lodging Brock-street, 24 Dogget lodging Belvidere/Ainslie's Court, 11 Doson & Atkinson Watch-maker, goldsmith Cheap-street Dover, John Inn (Lamb) Stall-street Downing lodging Belvidere/Ainslie's Court, 10 Drayton, William Perfumer Bennett-street Driver, William Stay-maker Trim-street Dugdale, Mrs lodging Paragon-buildings, 6 Dugdale, Mrs lodging Paragon-buildings, 18 Dugdale, Mrs lodging Vineyards, 15 Dugdale, Mrs lodging Belmont, 6 Dunn lodging Bennet-street, 18 Dunn lodging Oxford-row, 3 Dunn lodging Portland-place, 4 Dunn lodging Portland-place, 7 Dunn lodging Saville-row, 1 Dunn lodging Saville-row, 2 Dunn lodging Oxford-row, 1 Dunn lodging Alfred-street, 18 Dunn, James Hair-dresser, perfumer Saville-row Elkington lodging Bridge-street, 5 Elkington lodging Pierpoint-street, 9 Elkins lodging Pierpoint-street, 10 Elliot, Mrs lodging Milsom-street, 44 English lodging Gay-street, 10 English, Edmund Cabinet-maker Broad-street Appendix 10, continued

Name Occupation/Business Address Evans lodging Milsom-street, 7 Evans lodging Milsom-street, 9 Evans lodging Prince's buildings, 4 Evans lodging, boarding Duke-street, Parade, 3 Evans, Mrs lodging Gay-street, 21 Evatt, Mrs lodging Westgate-street, 22 Evill and Son Tailor, woollen-draper High-street Evill, James Jeweller, goldsmith High-street Fabian lodging St James's Parade, 32 Farr, William Hair-dresser Orchard-street Farr, William Tailor, hosier, haberdasher Westgate-street Farrell, Garret Brandy-merchant King's-Mead-square Faulkner lodging Milsom-street, 14 Faulkner lodging Paragon-buildings, 7 Faulkner lodging Bond-street, 16 Faulkner, Samuel Wine-merchant Bond-street Ferris, Robert Tailor, man's mercer Westgate-street Ferrys, John Tailor King's-Mead-square Field, Thomas Watch-maker Bond-street Fisher lodging Orange-grove/court, 15 Fisher lodging Northumberland-buildings, 7 Fisher, William Victualler (Hand and Sheers) Walcot-street Flecher, Mrs lodging Circus, 18 Flecher, Mrs lodging Circus, 11 Fleming, Mesdames Dancing-master John-street Foden, Thomas Victualler (Bell) Holloway Ford, Benjamin Pastry-cook, confectioner Burton-street Ford, George Milliner George-street Ford, Mrs lodging, boarding Gallaway's-buildings, 5 Foster lodging Barton-street, 5 Fowles lodging Rivers-street, 42 Fox, John Victualler Quiet-street Frappel lodging, Grove Coffee-house Orange-grove/court, 3 Frapple, Geoige Coffee-house Orange-grove Flicker, James Shoe-maker Bond-street Gainsborough, Miss lodging Margaret's-buildings, 18 Gainsborough, Mrs lodging Vineyards, 18 Gainsborough, Mrs lodging Queen's Parade, 9 Gaites, Benjamin Hair-dresser Orange-grove Gale lodging Wade's-passage, 3 Gale, John Hatter, hosier, glover Wade's-passage Gardener lodging King's-Mead-street, 39 Gardiner, Messrs. Milliner Brock-street Gardiner, Thomas Victualler (Green Tree) Green-street 327

Appendix 12, continued

Name Occupation/Business Address Garrett, Mrs lodging, boarding Abbey-green/street, 2 Gauton, Randell Tea-dealer Quiet-street Gawen, Joseph Victualler (King's Arms) Orchard-street Gay lodging Saville-row, 4 Gay, John Tea-dealer Orchard-street Gent lodging Wood-street, 2 George, Bridget Milliner North Parade Gibbons lodging High-street, 19 Gibbons, John Tea-dealer High-street Gibbs lodging Broad-street, 40 Gibbs, Jonathan Collar-maker Lady-Mead Gibbs, William Pastry-cook Broad-street Giles, Robert Victualler (Bear) Holloway Gilling, James Trunk-maker Cock-lane Ginder lodging, boarding Pierpoint-street, 4 Gingel lodging Oxford-row, 5 Gleed, Mrs lodging Charles-street, 7 Godby,John Hatter, hosier, glover Church-street Godwin, Daniel Shoe-maker Cheap-street Godwin, Susanna Hosier, glover John-street Goldstone lodging Broad-street, 43 Goodall lodging St James's Parade, 11 Goodhinde lodging Brock-street, 25 Goodhinde lodging Brock-street, 26 Goodhinde lodging Brock-street, 4 Granger, Samuel Inn (Christopher) High-street Gray, Mrs lodging Queen-square, 6 Green lodging Circus, 17 Green lodging Circus, 28 Gregg lodging Circus, 29 Griffith, Mary Milliner York-buildings Grimes lodging Broad-street, 22 Grimes, Samuel Tea-dealer Broad-street Groom lodging Abbey-green/street, 6 Grundy lodging Margaret's-buildings, 9 Guest lodging Prince's buildings, 1 Guest lodging Laura-place Guest, Thomas Tailor Henrietta-street Gumbley lodging Belvidere/Ainslie's Court Gunter lodging St James's Parade, 35 Gunter, Rayner Haberdasher St. James's Parade Gye lodging Westgate-buildings, 4 Hale lodging Bennet-street, 2 Hale, Joseph Shoe-maker Stall-street 328

Appendix 12, continued

Name Occupation/Business Address Hall, Mis lodging Milsom-street, 33 Hall, Mrs lodging Abbey-green/street, 1 Ilallett, Edward Hatter, hosier, glover Cheap-street Hamlin, G lodging New King-street, 13 Hamlyn, John Painter (miniatures) Lilliput-alley Handcock, James Cabinet-maker Borough-walls Handey lodging Belmont, 12 Happerfield, Robert Victualler (Bird Cage) Westgate-street Harding lodging King's-Mead-street, 2 Harding lodging North Parade, 2 Harding lodging Pierpoint-street, 12 Harding lodging Gallaway's-buildings, 2 Harding, James Victualler New Market-row Harding, Richard Wine-merchant North Parade Harding, Thomas Hatter Borough-walls Harford lodging South Parade, 14 Harford, William Watch-maker South Parade Harman, Jonathan Collar-maker Horse-street Harrington and Hale Milliner Walks Harris lodging New King-street, 6 Harris lodging George-street, 11 Harris, Matthew Victualler (Pipes) Horse-street Harris, Thomas Shoe-maker George-street Harris, William Tallow-chandler Corn-street Hart lodging South Parade, 4 Hathaway lodging Rivers-street, 13 Hathaway, Thomas Shoe-maker Rivers-street Hay, Miss lodging North Parade, 9 Haynes, Thomas Shoe-maker Margaret-buildings Hazard, Samuel Printer, bookseller Cheap-street Heaven, Messrs. Old Assembly-rooms Walks Heffron lodging Oxford-row, 10 Hellyar lodging North Parade, 1 HeUyer, William Tailor, habit-maker North Parade Hemmings, Charles Pastry-cook, confectioner Wade's-passage Henrard, Mrs lodging New King-street, 2 Hibbart lodging Bridge-street, 7 Higgins, Ann Tea-dealer Walcot-street Hill, James Collar-maker Westgate-street Hillier, Mrs lodging St James's Parade, 16 Hillier, Mrs lodging Charles-street, 5 Hine, John Tailor, habit-maker Westgate-place Hoare, William Painter (portraits) Edgar-buildings Hoblyn, Mesdames Milliner John-street 329

Appendix 12, continued

Name Occupation/Business Address Holbrook, James Hair-dresser Green-street Horton lodging Gay-street, 18 Hoskins, Mrs lodging Milsom-street, 21 Houlshut, Edward Hair-dresser Bardett-street Howard lodging Margaret's-buildings, 10 Howell lodging Miles's-court, 10 Howell, John Victualler (The Post-boy) Princes-street Howell, Maria Mantua-maker Miles's-court Howell, Thomas Hair-dresser Miles's-court Howell, Thomas Silversmith Broad-street Howell, William Victualler (Full Moon) Borough-walls Howse, Henry Edw. Draper High-street Howse, Samuel Wine-merchant Westgate-street Hughes lodging Russel-street, 18 Hugo, Mrs lodging St James's Parade, 5 Hugo, Mrs lodging St James's Parade, 4 Hunt, Thomas Victualler (Turk's Head) Broad-street Hundy, William Hair-dresser, peruke-maker Chandos-buildings Hussey, Mrs lodging New King-street, 12 James, Anthony Tailor Stall-street James, George Painter (portraits) Brunswick-place James, John Sartain Carrier(London, Bath, Bristol) Walcot James, Miss lodging Great Pultney-street, 3 Jaques, Charles Victualler (Grapes) Peter-street Jarman lodging Milsom-street, 6 Jennings and Griffith Jeweller York-buildings Jennings, John Milliner Montpelier Johnson lodging Rivers-street, 12 Johnson, W. Tailor Rivers-street Jones lodging Edgar-buildings Jones lodging Duke-street, Parade, 1 Jones and Co. Milliner Bennett-street Jones, Ann Perfumer Bennett-street Jones, Ann Tea-dealer, coffee, chocolate Abbey-yard Jones, Arthur Woollen-draper Cheap-street Jones, Miss lodging Vineyards, 7 Jones, Miss lodging Bennet-street, 7 Jones, Samuel Tea-dealer Abbey-yard Jones, Sarah Victualler (Crown) Horse-street Joyce and Co. Tea-dealer Bridge-street Junior lodging, boarding Church-street, Kingston-buildings, 4 Keen, Thomas Victualler (Grove Tavern) Eastgate-lane Kelly lodging Oxford-row, 11 Kelson Victualler, brandy-merchant Belvidere 330

Appendix 12, continued

Name Occupation/Business Address Kennel lodging Alfred-street, 13 Kent, John Tailor St Andrew's Terrace King, James, Esq. Master of the Cer's, L Rms Lower-rooms King,Mrs lodging Bennet-street, 16 Kingscott lodging Oxford-row, 2 Kingston, Mrs lodging Vineyards, 10 Kirby, Thomas Spirits-dealer James-street Kircum lodging Lower Walks, 3 Kirkpatric, Miss lodging Milsom-street, 37 Kirkpatric, Miss lodging Milsom-street, 38 Kirkum lodging North Parade, 10 Kirkum lodging North Parade, 11 Kirkum lodging North Parade, 3 Kirkum, Mrs lodging Orange-grove/court, 13 Knight lodging Kingston-street, Kingston-buildings, 5 Lamb, Mary and Son Tea-dealer Stall-street Lambert, Mrs lodging Alfred-street, 12 Lancashire lodging Margaret's-buildings, 11 Langley and Hamlyn Embroideress Iilliput-alley Langley, John Victualler (White Hart) Widcomb Langley, Uriah Victualler (New Inn) Horse-street Large, James Hatter Broad-street Leare, Richard Hair-dresser Stall-street Lee, Mrs lodging South Parade, 1 Lewis, Sarah Milliner, haberdasher Wade's-passage Light, John Shoe-maker Broad-street Lillington, Messrs. Child's frock and robe-maker Milsom-street I.illington, Miss lodging Milsom-street, 45 Linley lodging Fountain-buildings, 10 Lintem lodging Church-yard, 3 T .intern, Messrs. Music-seller, inst-maker Abbey-yard Lloyd, Miss lodging Queen-square, 1 Lloyd, Miss lodging Pierpoint-street, 8 Lloyd, Mrs lodging Abbey-green/street, 10 Lock, James Watch-maker New Westgate-buildings Lodge, James Victualler (Angel) Westgate-street Longford, Thomas Victualler (New Inn) Widcomb Lonsdale, William Silk-mercer North Parade Lucas lodging Margaret's-buildings, 17 Lucas, John Tea-dealer King-street Lucas, Rob. St. John Inn (York-house) York-buildings Mackinnon, Elizabeth Perfumer Milsom-street Mackinnon, Mrs lodging Milsom-street, 23 Mackinnon, Mrs lodging Catherine-place, 1 331

Appendix 12, continued

Name Occupation/Business Address Mandell, Elizabeth Milliner Milsom-street Mangald, Mrs lodging Russel-street, 14 Maningford, Elizabeth Draper, man's mercer Stall-street Manners, Henry Victualler (Bunch of Grapes) Westgate-street Mantell, Ann Victualler (Hat and Feather) Walcot Marks, William Henry Tailor Bridge-street Marrett lodging Milsom-street, 43 Marrett, William Wine-merchant Milsom-street Marriott, William Perfumer North Parade Marsh, Christopher Woollen-draper Abbey-yard Marshall lodging Prince's buildings Marshall lodging Saville-row, 3 Marshall lodging Milsom-street, 24 Marshall, James Circulating library Milsom-street Martin, James Shoe-maker Stall-street Mathews, James Music warehouse High-street Mathews, Mrs lodging Gay-street, 7 Mathews,Mrs lodging George-street, 3 Mathews, Mrs lodging Bennet-street, 25 Matthew, William Tea-dealer Queen-street Mawley,John Breeches-maker Northgate-street Maxfield, Thomas Cap-maker Borough-walls Maxfield, William Tallow-chandler Saw Close Mayo lodging Bond-street, 14 Mayo and Co. Draper, lace-merchant High-street Mayo, John Linen-draper Bond-street Mayo, Miss lodging Wade's-passage, 8 Mayo, William Victualler New Westgate-buildings Mear, John Cabinet-maker Peter-street Menger lodging Rivers-street, 27 Menger lodging George-street, 1 Menger, Christian Tailor George-street Mercie, Charles Dancing-master Argyle-buildings Messrs Percival and Cunditt lodging Milsom-street, 12 Meyler lodging Orange-grove/court, 18 Meyler, William Circulating library Orange-grove Michell, Peter Dancing-master King's-Mead-square Middleton, Charles Hair-dresser Stall-street Miles, Jane Mary Music-master Miles's-court Millar, George Stay-maker Cock-lane Millard lodging Argyle-buildings Millington,John Pastry-cook Kingston-buildings Milsom and Rummin Hair-dresser, perfumer Bridge-street Milsom, Mrs lodging Rivers-street, 15 332

Appendix 12, continued

Name Occupation/Business Address Minisie,John Hair-dresser Cheap-street Moger, Martin Victualler (The Leek) Horse-street Molland, Nicholas Confectioner Milsom-street Moore lodging Orange-grove/court, 17 Moore and Hale Mantua-maker Orange-grove Morgan lodging Rivers-street, 43 Morgan, John Victualler (Fox and Hounds) Walcot-street Morgan, Mrs lodging Russel-street, 8 Modey,John Victualler (Three Cups) Northgate-street Morriss, Benjamin Drawing-master Northgate-street Moyes, Mrs lodging St James's Parade, 9 Mrs Adams lodging Pierpoint-street, 5 Mulleny lodging, Bath house Great Pultney-street, 2 Mulleny, James Wine-merchant Argyle-street Mullins lodging River-street, 7 Mullins lodging Pierpoint-street, 11 Murphy, James Victualler (Prince of Wales) Bridewell-lane Nash, Thomas Shoe-maker Wade's-passage Newcombe lodging Burlington-street, 5 Newman, John Lewin Jeweller On the Walks Newman, Thomas Hair-dresser Broad-street Nichols lodging Belvidere/Ainslie's Court, 6 Noah, James Tailor Green-street Nonnet lodging Circus, 2 Nonnett lodging Margaret's-buildings, 2 Norket lodging, boarding Church-street, Kingston-buildings, 1 Norkett, Robert Tea-dealer Church-street N orris, Mrs lodging New King-street, 3 Norton, Geoige Mercer Somerset-buildings Norton, Mrs lodging, boarding Abbey-green/street, 11 Nott,John Shoe-maker Walcot Ockford, Mrs lodging Milsom-street, 26 Oilier, Joseph Shoe warehouse Horse-street Orchard, Walter Hair-dresser, peruke-maker Abbey-green Orpin, Thomas Music-master Barton-court Osman, Ann Spirits-dealer, snuff, tobacco High-street Osman,Mrs lodging High-street, 16 Owens, Owen Victualler (King's Arms) Walcot-street Paddock, Robert Printer, bookseller Green-street Paisey, Richard Tailor Peter-street Palmer lodging Paragon-buildings, 1 Palmer lodging New JCing-street, 30 Parkhouse, Mrs lodging Gay-street, 19 Parsons lodging Northgate-street, 17 333

Appendix 12, continued

Name Occupation/Business Address Parsons, Thomas Breeches-maker, glover Northgate-street Partridge lodging Milsom-street, 5 Paul lodging Broad-street, 1 Paul, Mary Ann Music-master Broad-street Paul, Peter Tea-dealer Broad-street and High-street Payne, Thomas Victualler (New Inn) Rivers-street Peacock, John Shoe-maker, haberdasher Green-street Peacock, Mrs lodging, boarding Orange-grove/court, 11 Peacock, Mrs lodging Orange-grove/court, 10 Pedlar, Henry Man's mercer Westgate-street Perdval and Cunditt Linen-draper High-street Perks, William Stationer Broad-street Perriman lodging Barton-street, 6 Perry lodging King's-Mead-street, 37 Perry,John Wine-merchant Northgate-street Perryman, James Mantua-maker Gay-street Petrie lodging Westgate-street, 29 Pettingal lodging North Parade, 4 Philips lodging Duke-street, Parade, 10 Philips lodging Duke-street, Parade, 9 Phillips lodging Portland-place, 14 Phillott, Henry Inn (Bear) Cheap-street Pickwick, Eleazar Inn (White Hart) Stall-street Pierce, Mrs lodging Argyle-buildings, 7 Pile lodging Barton-street, 8 Pile, John Hairdresser, perfumer Gay-street Pitman lodging Saville-row, 6 Pleydell, John Victualler (Punch Bowl) Horse-street Plumpton, John Silk-mercer Bond-street Pocock lodging Broad-street, 32 Ponting, Robert Cap-maker Northgate-street Poulter, Miss lodging, boarding Abbey-green/street, 8 Powney lodging Brock-street, 23 Powney lodging Brock-street, 5 Powney, Daniel Tea-dealer Brock-street Prattenton, Mrs lodging Westgate-buildings, 1 Price lodging Abbey-green/street, 2 Price, Martha Victualler (Crown) Avon-street Price, Robert) Pastry-cook, confectioner Lilliput-alley Prior lodging Argyle-buildings, 5 Prior, Richard Mercer, haberdasher Argyle-buildings Pritchard lodging, Parade ch, boarding Lower Walks, 1 Pritchard, Meshach Wine-merchant, ch, Spr Gdns North Parade Pryer, James Victualler (Butchers' Arms) Boatstall-lane Appendix 10, continued

Name Occupation/ Business Address Pryrm, Richard Linen-draper High-street Pugh, Mrs lodging, boarding South Parade, 5 Purdie, Mrs lodging Orange-grove/ court Puroell, John Shoe-maker Bennett-street Racey, Samuel Victualler (Crown) High-street Rains, Mrs lodging Rivers-street, 48 Ralph, Francis Shoe-maker Lower Borough-walls Randell, Mrs lodging Russel-street, 1 Read, Mrs lodging Alfred-street, 16 Read, Thomas Wine-merchant Grove-street Reed, Mrs lodging Chapel-row, 7 Reed, Thomas Wine-merchant Great Pultney-street Reeves lodging Pierpoint-street, 14 Reeves lodging South Parade, 10 Reeves lodging South Parade, 9 Reeves lodging Milsom-street, 16 Reeves, William Tea-dealer Pierpoint-street Reynolds, James Perfumer Kingston-buildings Rickets lodging Argyle-buildings, 6 Ridings, William Victualler(Plume of Feathers) Horse-street Robins, Thomas Drawing-master Hetling-court Robinson, Thomas Watch-maker Queen-street Roblin,John Victualler (Bath Arms) Avon-street Rodborne, Thomas Printer Avon-street Rodway, Thomas Victualler (Heart&Compass) Monmouth-street Rogers lodging, boarding Orange-grove/court, 7 Rogers and Lewis Cap-maker Cheap-street Rogers, Miss lodging Pierpoint-street, 13 Rogers, Mrs lodging St James's Parade, 18 Rogers, Mrs lodging Burlington-street, 15 Rogers, William Tailor, man's mercer Westgate-street Rose, William Victualler Seven Dials Rosenberg, Charles Painter (portraits) North Parade Rosoman, John Perfumer Wade's-passage Rossi de, Lucy Dancing-master Lower Chades-street Roubel lodging Orange-grove/court, 4 Roubel, John Jeweller, goldsmith Wade's-passage Rowbotham, Philippa Mantua-maker New King-street Rugg, Luke Hair-dresser, peruke-maker Northgate-street Rugg, Mrs lodging Bennet-street, 17 Russ, William Victualler (Golden Lion) Horse-street Russel lodging Edgar-buildings, 1 Russell, Charlotte Milliner Horse-street Russell, Edward Circulating library Miles's-court 335

Appendix 12, continued

Name Occupation/Business Address Salmon lodging Oxford-row, 4 Salmon lodging Bladud's-buildings, 2 Salmon, Mrs lodging Bennet-street, 19 Sartain, Elizabeth Milliner Walcot Saunders lodging Saville-row, 5 Saunders, George Tea-dealer Saville-row Saville, Mrs lodging North Parade, 8 Sawtell lodging Brock-street, 27 Sayce, Samuel Brandy-merchant Northgate-street Scrace, John Shoe-maker Bennett-street Scudamore, Paul Victualler (Fox) Holloway Second, John Dancing-master Montpelier-house Serjeant, Joseph China-man Westgate-street Shadand, James Victualler (Bell) Stall-street Sharpe lodging Milsom-street, 28 Shaw lodging Church-yard, 15 Shaw, Benjamin Linen-draper Abbey-yard, Cheap-street Sheid lodging Brock-street, 33 Sheid, George Tea-dealer Brock-street Sheldon lodging King's-Mead-street, 12 Shellard lodging Chapel-row, 1 Sheppard, Mrs lodging Belvidere/Ainslie's Court, 13 Sheppard, Philip Tailor Walcot Short, Thomas Shoe-maker Corn-street Shum, Messrs. Confectioner Cheap-street Simpson, Mrs lodging Duke-street, Parade, 5 Simpson, Mrs lodging Duke-street, Parade, 2 Simpson, Peter Victualler (Pack Horse) Northgate-street Sims lodging Charles-street, 13 Sims and Biggs Shoe-maker Green-street Sims, Samuel Victualler (King's Head) Lilliput-alley Singers lodging St James's Parade, 26 Sloper lodging, Abbey Baths Kingston-street, Kingston-buildings, 7 Smith lodging Orange-grove/court, 5 Smith lodging Prince's buildings, 5 Smith lodging Prince's buildings, 6 Smith lodging Westgate-buildings, 6 Smith lodging Fountain-buildings, 4 Smith, Ann Milliner Gerrard-street Smith, John Wine-merchant Westgate-buildings Smith, Joseph Pipe-maker Bridewell-lane Smith, Messrs. Brandy-merchant Horse-street Smith, Mrs lodging Gallaway's-buildings, 6 Smith, Mrs lodging Pierpoint-street, 15 336

Appendix 12, continued

Name Occupation/Business Address Smith, William Clothes warehouse Horse-street Smith, William Lace wholesaler King's-Mead-street Smither, Joseph Hatter Bond-street Snailom lodging Westgate-street, 31 Snailom, Jacob Tea-dealer Broad-street Snailom, Samuel Hair-dresser, peruke-maker Westgate-street Somnor, Elizabeth Haberdasher Green-street Sone lodging High-street, 21 Sone, Thomas Tea-dealer Northgate-street Southard, Ann Hatter Stall-street Southeote, Mrs lodging Circus, 13 Spackman lodging King's-Mead-street 24 Spering, Mary Mantua-maker St James's Parade Spering, Thomas Collar-maker Stall-street Sperrin lodging Orange-grove/court, 20 Springford, William Victualler (King's Arms) Monmouth-street Stafford lodging Burlington-street, 18 Stafford lodging Chandos-buildings, 2 Stafford lodging York-buildings, 3 Stafford lodging Abbey-green/street, 3 Stamp, Massa Victualler (Sun) Orange-grove Stennett, Robert Watch-maker Saville-row Stephens, Mrs lodging Milsom-street, 42 Stephens, Mrs lodging Northumberland-buildings, 1 Stephens, Mrs lodging Milsom-street, 34 Stibbs lodging Westgate-buildings, 14 Stillman, Joseph Linen-draper Westgate-street Stockham lodging Great Pultney-street, 4 Stockwell, John Victualler (Raven) Abbey-green Stone, Mrs lodging Russel-street, 17 Stretch, Mrs lodging, boarding South Parade, 12 Stretch, Mrs lodging, boarding South Parade, 7 Summers, Sarah Tea-dealer Broad-street Svle, Mrs lodging Gay-street, 30 Tabor, Robert Hatter, hosier Northgate-street Tagg, Mary Tea-dealer Northgate-street Tagg, Mrs lodging Laura-place, Laura House Tagg, Mrs lodging, boarding Northgate-street, 18 Tagg, Mrs lodging Circus, 35 Talbot lodging Milsom-street, 36 Taylor lodging Church-street, Kingston-buildings, 2 Taylor lodging Queen-square, 22 Taylor lodging Barton-street, 9 Taylor, Chades Wine-merchant Queen-square 337

Appendix 12, continued

Name Occupation/Business Address Taylor, Patty . Victualler (Cross Keys) High-street Taylor, Sarah Victualler (Angel Inn) Old Bridge Taylor, Thomas Victualler (Red lion) King's-Mead-street Taylor, William Circulating library Church-street Teasdale lodging Edgar-buildings, 9 Terry, Mary and Son Hosier Abbey-green Terry, Mrs lodging Abbey-green/ street, 4 Thomas, John Tea-dealer Westgate-street Todd, Mrs lodging Pierpoint-street, 3 Townsend, Thomas Jeweller, silversmith High-street Townsend, William Haberdasher Broad-street Townsend, William Silversmith Walcot-street Trotman lodging High-street, 11 Tuberville, Mrs lodging Duke-street, Parade, 7 Tucker, William Brandy-merchant St James's-street Tully, Philip Hatter, hosier North Parade Tutde lodging Milsom-street, 29 Tutton, William Victualler (George) Walcot-street Twycross, Mrs lodging Wood-street, 3 Tylee, John Music-master Bennett-street Tyler, John Tailor Rivers-street Tyson, Richard, Esq. Master of the Cer's, U Rms Brunswick-place Vasey, George Hatter, hosier Abbey-yard Vaslet, William Painter (miniatures) Walcot-street Veal and Cromwell Men's mercer Westgate-street Viel, Messrs. Cabinet-maker Grove-street Viner lodging Margaret's-buildings, 7 Viner, Chades Perfumer Bond-street Vivier lodging Brock-street, 32 Vivier, Peter Confectioner Brock-street Waite, James Tallow-chandler Lower Borough-walls Walter, Joseph Cabinet-maker Westgate-street Ward lodging Rivers-street, 49 Ward lodging Russel-street, 10 Ward lodging Milsom-street, 22 Ward, William China (Wedgwood) Milsom-street Warren lodging, boarding Westgate-buildings, 12 Warren lodging, boarding Westgate-buildings, 11 Warren and Co. Perfumer Alfred-street Warren, John Painter Westgate-buildings Warren, Richard Victualler (Sadler's Arms) Stall-street Watts, Joseph Shoe-maker Horse-street Webb lodging Fountain-buildings, 11 Webb, James Tea-dealer Belmont 338

Appendix 12, continued

Name Occupation/Business Address Webley Hair-dresser (ladies') Burton-street Welch, Mrs lodging Laura-place Wheeler lodging South Parade, 6 Wheeler, Josiah Haberdasher High-street Whitaker, Sarah Victualler (Ring of Bells) Orange-grove Whitchurch lodging Bridge-street, 2 White lodging Bennet-street, 20 White lodging Pierpoint-street, 1 White lodging Belvidere/Ainslie's Court, 3 White and Thomas Milliner Wade's-passage White, John Hair-dresser, peruke-maker North Parade Whitesett lodging Kingston-street, Kingston-buildings, 6 Whitsett, James Linen-draper Kingston-buildings Whittock, James Tailor, habit-maker Quiet-street Widlake lodging George-street, 10 Widlake, William Perfumer George-street Wilcox, William Haberdasher Westgate-street Wildey,John Carrier (Bath, Cheltenham) Stall-street Wilkie, Taverner Victualler Butchers' Market Wilkins, Joseph Music-master Abbey-yard Willats and Scane Pastry-cook, confectioner Fountain-buildings Willement, James Peruke-maker Westgate-place Williams lodging Bladud's-buildings, 11 Williams, Mary Inn (Greyhound) High-street Williams, Mrs lodging Bond-street, 12 Williams, Roger Draper, hatter Abbey-yard Willis, John Victualler Lansdown-road Willis, Joseph Victualler (Black Swan) Broad-street Wilson lodging Argyle-buildings Wilson, Samuel Shoe-maker Kingston-buildings Wilton, Thomas Man's mercer St. Andrew's Terrace Wiltshire, Walter Canier(London, Bath, Bristol) Broad-street Wingrove, Charlotte Music-master Lady Mead Wood lodging Bridge-street, 4 Wood, George Watch-maker Bridge-street Wood, James Hosier Abbey-yard Woodard lodging Fountain-buildings, 3 Woodford lodging Church-yard, 17 Woodford, Thomas Linen-draper Abbey-yard Woodham, James Victualler (King's Head) Bardett-street Woodroff lodging Church-street, Kingston-buildings, 3 Woodroff, Robert Shoe-maker Church-street Woolley, Messrs. Milliner John-street Woolley, Thomas Tailor, habit-maker Cock-lane Appendix 12, continued

Name Occupation/Business Address York-House lodging York-buildings, 1 Young, Thomas Cabinet-maker Hetling-court Youngclass lodging Gay-street, 29 340

Appendix 13: distribution of personal-papers writers by region/county Vita

Candidate's full name: Janet Elizabeth Mullin

Universities attended (with dates and degrees obtained): University of New Brunswick

1980-1984 Bachelor of Science (Biology); University of New Brunswick 1994-2000 (part

time) Master of Arts (History)

Publications: Mullin, Janet E. " We played cards and were very merry*: Middling sociability

and card play in eighteenth-century England" Journal of British Studies (submitted).

Mullin, Janet E. "So Many Opinions: Attitudes Toward Women's Work in the Presbyterian

Church in Canada, 1875-1895" Journal of Presbyterian History 83:2 (Fall/Winter 2005), 158-

167.

Conference Presentations:

November 2007: Presenter, Western Conference on British Studies, Albuquerque, NM.

Paper tide: " 'Nor would I ever play': Forced play at cards in England's eighteenth century".

September 2007: Presenter, Midwest Conference on British Studies, Dayton, OH. Paper tide: "Playing it well: Edmond Hoyle, the middling sort, and the formalisation of card play in eighteenth-century England".

September 2005: Presenter, Northeast Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Fredericton,

N.B. Paper tide: "The Lady Stak'd: Women in Eighteenth-Century Gaming Satire".

October 2004: Presenter, University of Maine-University of New Brunswick Annual

International Graduate Student History Conference, Orono, ME. Paper tide: "Parlour

Games: Gaming, Leisure and the Middling Sort in Eighteenth-Century England".

October 2003: Presenter, University of Maine-University of New Brunswick Annual

International Graduate Student History Conference, Fredericton, N.B. Paper tide: "First,

Do No Harm: An Overview of Tudor Medicine".