Edwardian Promenade

The Edwardian era saw the growth of golf into a worldwide sport. Despite a brief entry into English consciousness in the 15th and 16th centuries, the game became wildly popular outside of Scotland when Englishmen founded the Royal North Devon Club at Westward Ho! in 1864. There were golf clubs in Britain before this, and indeed the first golf course was St Andrews in Fife (est circa 1506), but they were founded by Scotsmen for Scotsmen, retaining the sport’s insular popularity. After the foundation of the Royal North Devon Club, the sport of golf spread throughout England and beyond, into the United States.

Golf’s overwhelming popularity was sparked by the obsession of the Anglo-Scots politician, Arthur Balfour. Though he came to the game late in life and was actually never a very good player, he nonetheless destroyed the image of golf as being an old man’s game and replaced it with the image of a sport suitable for relaxation for a busy man. The other influence for the avid playing of golf was the sheer skill shown by Scottish players in the 1880s and 1890s, whose methods were then adopted by American and English golf players. Fittingly in Scotland all classes of people continued to play golf, whereas in England and especially America, it became aligned with the idle rich. By the turn of the century, there were hundreds of golf links dotting the British and American landscapes, and in the latter country, the rise of golf coincided with the development of the country club.

Between the years 1894 and 1914, the “Triumvirate”–Englishman J.H. Taylor, Scotsman James Braid, and Channel Islander Harry Vardon–dominated the open championships, raising the bar for sportsmanship to inhuman levels. This also translated to the skill level of women. Ladies played golf in Scotland but it spread more rapidly in England and especially in London where, in 1893, the Ladies Golf Union was formed. The best women golfers at the beginning of the century were in Northern Ireland, chief among them May Hazlet and Rhona Adair, who won five English and nine Irish championships between 1900 and 1908. Dorothy Campbell (Mrs. Hurd) was equally a dynamo, winning the Scottish women’s championship three times and the British twice. She then moved to America where she won the American National twice and the Canadian Open three times. The most important women golfers of the Edwardian era: Lottie Dod and Cecil Leitch. Dod came to golf from a background in tennis, where she had won the women’s singles lawn tennis championship at Wimbledon five times. She was also an international hockey player and the best women archer in Britain, making her a pioneer figure in British women’s sport. Leitch played golf from childhood and set a new standard of iron play for women.

The development of the sartorial side of golf arose after the sport spread beyond Scotland. When American players first came to play on British courses they caused a great degree of interest by appearing on the links without their coats and vests and played in nothing but shirtsleeves and suspenders. The old guard looked upon this attire with disapproval, believing the correct garb in which to play golf was a heavy tweed suit. A middle ground was reached, though Americans continued to play coatless, with a pair of tweed knickerbockers, golf coat with pleats to allow movement, and a tweed cap. Ladies were warned in their golf books from donning “mannish” attire as ties, bloomers and caps, but the majority conformed to notions of femininity and went out to play in heavy tweed skirts, straw boaters and thick, sprigged boots. Despite this, many saw golf as an emancipator for “none of the pre-golf pasttimes led their devotees so far afield or brought them together in such numbers as golf has done.”

Further Reading:
Edwardian England, 1901-1914; ed by Simon Nowell-Smith
Ladies’ Golf by May Hezlet
The Book of Golf and Golfers by Horace Gordon Hutchinson

Last year The Duke of Shadows, your debut and winner of Gather.com’s Romance novel competition, was released. This year, you have two back-to-back releases. In what ways has your life changed since becoming published?

In my experience, being published wreaks its own transformation on the writing process. Suddenly I had deadlines, and professionals waiting (and wanting! what a headtrip!) to see my work, and – most amazing of all – readers inquiring about it. What had felt, for so long, like a very intimate endeavor had now acquired a public dimension.

There are obviously potential downsides to this.  But once I’d acknowledged and set aside the pressure attendant on producing on a schedule, what replaced the anxiety was a sense of gratitude bordering on awe.  For most of us, writing for publication is a dream we’ve nursed for a very, very long time.  To have it sanctioned by a whole bunch of people who have never met you but think you were right to pursue it – that feels nothing short of miraculous.

As a doctoral student in anthropology (the best major btw), how has your academic life influenced your work? Do your peers and professors know you write romance novels, and have you ever felt pressured to write “real literature”?

You know, if there’s a relationship between them, then I think the balance of influence flows from my writing toward my academic work, rather than vice-versa.

To elaborate, I’ve always been fascinated by what our society calls popular culture.  I’ve been reading and writing genre fiction since I was thirteen, and as part and parcel of my love of historical romance, I also developed an early fascination with the everyday lives and fashions of times gone by. The reason that anthropology appealed to me in the first place, then, was because the discipline recognizes the significance of popular culture — fashion, fiction, film, etc. — to our understanding of how people imagine and live their lives. (I actually entered the doctoral program with the intention of studying Indian popular cinema, and if there is any cinematic form closer to romance novels, I don’t know of it!)

In terms of its written form, anthropology is also very sympathetic to fiction.  As ethnographers, our goal is to create a text that allows readers to enter a world that may appear, at first glance, utterly foreign and strange—but which, on further examination, is not so strange or opaque after all.  At an elemental level, that project – of immersing the reader in an ostensibly “foreign” world and making this world seem intelligible and engaging – sounds a lot like the goal of historical romance novels.

My friends in the program know about my writing, and cheer me on.  I haven’t discussed it with my professors, but I can’t imagine them pushing me to write a different type of literature.  They’re the last people whom I’d need to convince of the importance of popular fiction – they are, after all, anthropologists!

The Duke of Shadows is set in 1850s India, and Written on Your Skin is set in 1880s Hong Kong. How do you maintain the balance between writing with a post-colonial view of Imperial British society yet remaining as accurate as possible to the times?

Now, here is where I think my academic work does influence my writing, albeit indirectly.

Let it be said plainly: I have no desire to write historical fiction.  I write romance, and I strongly believe that the history of the period should accentuate, rather than detract, from the development of a hot, steamy love affair that ultimately results in a lasting happy-ever-after.

But what drew me into historical romance, versus contemporary romance or romantic suspense or what have you, was the chance historicals offered to immerse myself in the “feel” of a different time period.

Now, during the 1990s, when I first discovered the genre, there were several authors who set their stories against the backdrop of the British empire.  Mary Jo Putney, for instance, had a fantastic series of books (the Silk trilogy) that dealt with the Great Game in Central Asia.  These books made a huge impression on me; recall that I was thirteen or fourteen when I was discovering them, and at that time, knew very little about British history.

As I grew older and my academic interests came to center on India, I was exposed to a far wider range of writing on colonialism, and I realized that Britain’s colonial project didn’t just impact Britons abroad; it was also crucial to the way British people understood themselves and their nation’s place in the world. Especially in the latter half of the century, these people were living in the most powerful empire on earth. And this shaped their lives, every day, in countless ways, even if they never set foot out of England.  From the front pages of daily newspapers, to casual discussions or political debates at country weekends, to gossip about acquaintances’ private fortunes or business plans or travel itineraries—right down to the fancy items in shop windows that made little girls squeal when strolling past with their mamas, the fact of the colonies, of Britain’s dominion over distant parts of the world, was inescapable.

So.  I do think we’re missing something about the “feel” of nineteenth century England when we ignore the influence of the colonies on everyday life back then.  And if I want to see this in romances, it’s because I want to be immersed in the “feel” of the time I’m reading about.

Unlike The Duke of Shadows, Bound by Your Touch and Written on Your Skin both take place in England (Written on Your Skin does begin in Hong Kong, but moves to London about a quarter of the way in), and neither directly addresses colonialism.

However, I did deliberately choose to make the framing device for the external drama in each book touch upon imperial politics.  In Bound by Your Touch, events are set in motion by the international trade in Egyptian artifacts, and ultimately a swindle motivated by British intervention into Egyptian politics.  In Written on Your Skin, the drama originates in the motives of Irish-American expatriates who have chosen a violent approach to securing Irish independence from Great Britain. By making these issues the ever-present background for the events that drive forward the romance, what I tried to do was show how subtly and pervasively Britain’s colonial affairs infiltrated everyday life in England.

I think, on its own, this move implies a post-colonial view of empire, because part of the imperial project *in* the nineteenth century depended on the belief that Britain had achieved a perfect state of civilization, and was therefore helping out its colonies by coaxing them up the ladder toward civilizational maturity.  And this belief, in turn, obviously depended on a complete denial of the notion that the colonies themselves might have an impact on everyday life in Britain.  Post-colonial theorists have worked hard to show this wasn’t true — that the colonies did influence what they call the metropole, or Britain.

In my writing, however, when I show how colonial politics and life laid a shadow across life in Britain, I don’t intend it to be a political statement so much as an attempt to be true to the feel of the period — while, of course, focusing on the story of how two people fall in love despite themselves.

Based on reading The Duke of Shadows, but also the blurbs and excerpts for your upcoming releases, your heroes tend to be outsiders to society. What draws you to the outsider status in a historical romance?

Hmm. I’ve never thought about this, but you’re right, they are all outsiders, although not by virtue of their official roles. For example, James (Bound by Your Touch) could be considered the proverbial insider: he’s the golden child of high society, incredibly popular, wealthy, in line for a title. But he’s an outsider inasmuch as he loathes his “insider” status and makes a game out of seeing how far he can push it.

I suppose I’m drawn to writing outsiders because they look on their world with fresh and wondering eyes.  They see things that “insiders” might never notice.  And of course, I find something incredibly romantic about the idea of someone who feels so alone (whether or not he’s surrounded by an adoring crowd) but who ultimately finds that elusive sense of belonging in another person.  To me, that sense of belonging is one of the great miracles that love provides us.

What elements within the late nineteenth century attract you? What has surprised you during the course of your research? Any interesting, little-known facts?

Awesome questions.  I’m drawn to the late nineteenth century for a number of reasons.  First, the widening options for women make it possible to write, in a realistic way, about heroines who stretch boundaries.

Second, people living in the 1870s and 1880s felt their world was shrinking much in the same way we do. Here’s something that surprised me: this is the period that birthed Cook travel guides. I hadn’t realized that the English middle class was regularly venturing to Egypt for vacations!  That seems so…contemporary to me.

For that matter, I’m always surprised by how much racier upper-class Victorians were than we imagine them to have been.  In reading primary sources about the period, I’ve come across descriptions of parlor games played during country weekends that, let’s just say, you wouldn’t want your teenage daughter playing with her friends.

But maybe that’s the key to my fascination with this period.  Risque debates about sex, Bohemian artist enclaves, nightlife (clubs, bar culture, casinos, etc.), international travel — these all seem very modern.  But they were on the rise in the 1880s, part of what convinced people living at the end of the nineteenth century that this period was special and exciting and also frightening and perhaps apocalyptic in terms of the best civilizational ideals.  That these trends and practices coexisted with things that seem so quaint and archaic now — carriages, calling cards, balls, gas lights, aristocratic entitlement, rigid ideas of morality, a sense of the world as a map  full of blank spaces, unknown wonders and dangers — that confluence is fascinating to me.  This time period is right on the cusp of everything we consider familiar, but it’s still, definitively, foreign and strange.  I think it’s a really exciting period to be writing about.

What books and/or authors have inspired you to be the writer you are today?

As always, I hold up Judith Ivory and Laura Kinsale as my personal heroines.  Their attention to characterization and their crafting of language never fails to inspire me.  Above all, I admire them for creating books that wholly immerse me in another time and place, but which each have an individual “feel” about them.  I could never confuse Bliss with Dance, or The Shadow and the Star with Flowers from the Storm.  Each of them offers a different and utterly absorbing experience.

While researching both Bound By Your Touch and Written on Your Skin, did you find any resources you couldn’t have lived without?

Well, first off, I’m a big fan of your site, Edwardian Promenade [Ed. TY].  I think I first stumbled across it when looking for detailed maps and descriptions of Hyde Park.  You had posted a walking tour of Mayfair, and as quick as that, you went into my blogroll.    When I was writing Bound by Your Touch, I had decided that James’s closest female friend would be a so-called “professional beauty,” and once again, your blog provided invaluable information (and images!) about this phenomenon.

I’ve also found some gems among your bibliographic information.  It seems we share a love of primary source material! I really do prefer primary sources to books written retrospectively about the period.  This isn’t based on some conviction that primary sources are more accurate; I simply think they’re more fun to read than something full of footnotes, and they also give me a feel for the language of the period.

Now that I’m living away from campus, I can’t depend on my university’s fabulous library, but I have discovered the mother lode of primary source material in Google books.  Suddenly, with a click of the mouse, I’ve got etiquette manuals from the period, guidebooks to London published in 1884, travelogues that describe Hong Kong in 1880, a female journalist’s account from 1892 of going undercover as a housemaid in various London homes, geographical dictionaries of Great Britain, issues of The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland…  It is, to use a fitting cliché, an embarrassment of riches.

Random Q from the Proust Questionnaire: The natural talent you’d like to be gifted with?

Hard to pick just one! I have a difficult time visualizing things; I believe the only reason I can describe anything is because I remember the words that certain sights and objects evoke rather than the actual images I glimpsed. So, I’d love to have a more visual memory, if only so I could better remember faces.  (If we’ve met before, and I walk past you without a word, it’s not because I’ve forgotten your name or our conversation – I simply haven’t matched them to your face!)

Any predictions for your future as a writer?

More historical romances, for one.  I’m currently working on a book that’s coming out in May 2010, tentatively titled Wicked Becomes You. Although the emotional arc is, as always, intense, it’s also the lightest, most amusing novel I’ve ever written.  I actually blame the heroine of Written on Your Skin for this turn; her story is certainly dramatic and occasionally dark, but her attitude is so playful and her sense of humor so keen that I had to scrap the proposal I’d had planned for the next book—I wasn’t in the mood to return to a heroine who took things so very seriously.  (That one will have her day eventually, though!)

What’s next for you?

I’m off to India in August for a year of anthropological fieldwork.  I’m curious to see how living in India might influence my writing.  After three books predominantly set in England, perhaps it’s time to return to the Raj!

Although, frankly, while I managed to avoid cricket in The Duke of Shadows, I’m not sure I could pull that off a second time — which may be incentive enough to stay away from British India for a bit longer. 

MEREDITH DURAN grew up enamored of British history. At thirteen years old, she made a list of life goals that included writing romance novels, trying sushi, and going to London to see Holbein’s portrait of Anne Boleyn. Now a doctoral student in anthropology, she is happy to report that all three goals have become her favorite things to do. When not studying, doing fieldwork in India, or working on her next novel, Meredith can be found in the library, browsing through travelogues written by intrepid Englishwomen of the nineteenth century. Bound By Your Touch [US ]/[UK ] is a July 2009 release, with Written In Your Skin [US ]/[UK ] following in August. Visit Meredith at http://meredithduran.com

The House of Lords measured 100 feet by 50 feet, and was decorated in solemn hues of gold and crimson, with lofty stained-glass windows depicting the past kings and queens of England. At the end of the Chamber was a canopied throne of gold where the reigning monarch sat when opening Parliament. On the steps to the throne the eldest sons of peers and privy councilors were privileged to stand during the sittings of the House of Lords. Immediately before this was the Woolsack, a red ottoman upon which the Lord High Chancellor presided over the House. Unlike the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Lord High Chancellor could take part in debate. At his right sat the Lords Spiritual–the Archbishops and Bishops. To their right were the peers supporting the current Government with the Ministers seated in front of them. Opposite them sat the Opposition peers. In front of the Lord Chancellor was a table, upon which lay volumes of Parliamentary procedure and writing materials, where three clerks in wigs and gowns sat. Facing this was a desk for the reporters of Parliamentary debates, who relieved one another every fifteen minutes.

Near the strangers’ gallery were three or four benches in the center of the floor, facing the Lord Chancellor, known as “the cross benches,” upon which sat those Princes of the Blood Royal who had been created peers of the realm and who, though they were allowed to vote, belonged to no political party. A few peers also chose to be seated thus. Behind these benches was the place known as “the Bar,” where the Speaker and the members of the House of Commons stood when summoned by the Black Rod to the House of Lords to hear the Royal assent signified to the Bills agreed upon by both Houses. The divisions in the House of Lords mirrored that of the Commons, except the peers declared themselves in the Old Norman French “Content” or “Non Content” rather than “Aye” or “No,” and the tellers counted these votes with a white wand.

Also present in the House of Lords were the peeresses, whose galleries lined both sides of the Upper Chamber, foreign Ambassadors, invited guests (”Strangers”), and reporters, who each also possessed galleries of their own. But unlike the House of Commons, where the sexes were separated into their own galleries, ladies and gentlemen could sit together.

Contrary to popular belief, most peers sat regularly in the House of Lords, and throughout the nineteenth century, attendance reached its peak in the 1830s, 1850s, 1870s and late 1880s–no doubt spurred on by such issues like the Irish Question or the Deceased Wife’s Sister Act. However, sittings were usually brief, a quarter of an hour not infrequently the length of a sitting. Sometimes a sitting might have extended to an hour, on still rarer occasions it prolonged until seven pm, and at times on two nights of a Session of seven or eight months’ duration, the sitting could last until midnight. But it was more likely that newspaper reports would announce the adjournment of the House fifteen minutes after it first sat. Far from being lazy, the reasons behind these short sessions was because the House of Lords was practically barred from initiating legislature of an important nature.

Sittings in the House of Lords began at four, though as a rule, no business was done until half-past four, and during this interlude, the Lord Chancellor would essentially twirl his thumbs. The number of peers of the realm fluctuated over the years, but generally hovered around five hundred and seventy. Where the House of Commons required forty members to “make a House,” three peers formed a quorum, but if it appeared on a division that thirty lords were not in attendance, the question was declared not decided.

When the Government changed, the parties crossed to floor, with the “ins” sitting on the benches to the right of the Lord Chancellor, and the “outs” occupying those on his left. The Lords Spiritual always occupied the same benches on the Government side of the House, near to the Throne, no matter which party was in office. Twenty-six in number–the Archbishops Canterbury and York, and twenty-four bishops–were distinguished from the Lords temporal by their full, flowing black gowns and their lawn sleeves. The peers in the House were much more soberly dressed except at the opening of Parliament by the Sovereign, whereupon they appeared in scarlet robes, slashed across the breast with stripes of ermine, few or numerous according to the low or high degree of the wearer in the peerage. Though the Lords temporal–royal peers, dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts and barons–were allotted certain benches according to their rank, they only sat thus during the opening of Parliament.

Opinion of the day claimed that speeches made in the House of Lords were of an eloquent and more able quality than those made in the Commons, for members of the lower house spoke as often as possible to get their names in the papers. The demeanor was quite different in the Lords as well–none of the fury and raucous which characterized the doings in the Commons. But if order cannot be maintained, the procedure of the House provides for the quelling of the disturbance by the reading by the Clerk of two old Standing Orders in relation to asperity in speech and quarrels in the Chamber.

Though of lesser political power, the House of Lords was the Supreme Court of Appeal from the Courts of Justice of the United Kingdom. If a claimant felt an injustice was done him by the decision of any of the law courts, they could come to the House of Lords, whose judgment on the matter would be final and irrevocable. This court sat on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays throughout the legal year from 10:30 am to 4 pm, and gravity, dignity and decorum reigned supreme. No witnesses were examined, nor was there a jury, and sparring between opposing lawyers was unheard of. The lawyers would address the House at the Bar and lay down, in placid, conversational style, the facts of the case and the points of law on which he relied for judgment. After both sides presented their case, the House would adjourn and the parties involved would be informed of the day on which the House would deliver its decision.

As with such great power, there came resentment, and the growing dissent against the House of Lords affected the House of Commons, where the Conservative Party was defeated in 1906, and then invoked a Parliamentary crisis in 1910. Meanwhile, books and pamphlets filled bookstalls with such titles as Peers and bureaucrats: two problems of English Government and The Old Order Changeth, the Passing of Power from the House of Lords, one of which went so far as the proclaim that “our victory at Waterloo was a great misfortune to England….the feudal system, broken down and disorganized all over the Continent by Napoleon, preserved its old tradition in these islands…[and Britain] is now a hundred years behind the rest of Western Europe.”

The trouble began when in 1909 David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, introduced into the House of Commons the “People’s Budget”, which proposed a land tax targeting wealthy landowners, among other benefits for the common people of England. This bill was immediately defeated by the House of Lords, and in response, the Liberal Party made the curtailing of the House of Lords’ powers their primary campaign issue for the General Election of January 1910.

The chaos produced by this was enormous, and King Edward let it be known his willingness to raise men to the peerage to force the bill to pass through the House of Lords. He died in May however, before he could implement this, and when the Conservative Party, with their Liberal Unionist allies, gained more seats than the Liberals, the fight intensified. After another general election in December, the Asquith Government secured the passage of a bill to curtail the powers of the House of Lords. In the end, The Parliament Act 1911 effectively abolished the power of the House of Lords to reject legislation, or to amend in a way unacceptable to the House of Commons; most bills could be delayed for no more than three parliamentary sessions or two calendar years.

Further Reading:
Edwardian England: 1901-1914, ed. Simon Nowell-Smith
The Book of Parliament by Michael MacDonagh
How We are Governed: Guide for the Stranger to the Houses of Parliament‎ by Howard Vincent
The House of Lords Question by Andrew Reid, Philip Stanhope, and Robert Collier Monkswell
The Rise of the Democracy by Joseph Clayton
House of Lords on Wapedia

When stationed abroad–or sent away for some nefarious reason or other–the English imported the manners and mores of Home to their new locale. As the British Empire grew, spreading across Asia, Africa and Down Under, it was imperative to maintain ‘civilization’ and ‘culture’ in the midst of ‘brutish’ nations. Though the leading official of Britain’s colonies, and later, commonwealths, were referred to as “Viceroys,” their accurate title was that of either Governor-General or Lord Lieutenant. Of the Viceroyalty, India, that jewel in the crown of the Empire, was the most coveted position.

In these territories, society revolved around the Government House. Though an invitation to Government House was considered no more exclusive than attending a Court ball in London, it was coveted as a symbol of at least hovering on the fringes of society. In Melbourne, Australia, the scattered position of the suburbs created a number of elite circles, but there remained but one creme de la creme–and in Sydney, the same thing occurred. However in Adelaide, there was but one society, and they were considered the most English and exclusive. However exclusive these circles may be, class was a fluid concept because of the skewed ration of men versus women. Australian writers describing their country bemoaned the frequency of mesalliances, and detailed stories of being invited to dine at the home of a cultured man and discovering the man’s wife dropped her h’s and ate her peas with a knife. Richard Twopeny, in his book “Town Life in Australia” noted that the rule of Australian society was to avoid asking questions about or making reference to the early days of a colonist–it was likely that a society leader and her husband were formerly a scullery maid and shop-keeper, respectively.

This melding of various classes and socio-economic backgrounds led to a startling informality. The man-about-town would dress down rather than up for his Sunday stroll (a top hat, gloves and waistcoat would bring jeers), and the dearth of servants–for people emigrated to start anew!–induced many Australian ladies to pitch in and clean their homes and cook themselves. New Zealand society was just as informal, if not more so. They had their Government House in Wellington, and to receive an invitation to a ball, one had only to sign their name to the Visitor’s Book and await the square of pasteboard to arrive. New Zealand ladies thought nothing of setting out to pay formal calls on foot–though with a pistol handy in case of emergency. Because of the great distances between settlers and cities, social gatherings went on for days: one dance last for a day, a night, and another night. Of other amusements and entertainments, the opera was very popular, and there was a mania for gambling. Not surprisingly, long after the fad for rinking (roller skating) was introduced to England and America, it became a craze in Australia–and it was noted that there was no set hour for the fashionable to use the rinking rings; a maid could sail past her employer and even link arms with the daughter of the house. Sports were a given past-time, with pony races and dingo hunts indulged in by the men.

The delightful informality of society in New Zealand and Australia ended there. Society in places like India, Hong Kong and Shanghai centered around Government House, but the presence of the military in other British colonies and dominions reinforced English social patterns–though the elite of Hong Kong and Shanghai society were more likely to derive from the merchant classes.

The seasons–cold, hot or wet–dictated the pattern of British society in India, and the club did the rest. Every center except the smallest had a club, whether it be called a club or were actually a polo or gymkhana club, and joining it was the most important step in becoming accepted in that area’s society. The cold season, lasting from November to April, was marked by the arrival of the “fishing fleet”–the collective name given to girls with family connections in India who came out to snare a husband. Christmas, with pea fowl rather than turkey, and presents ordered from Home in October, was the climax of this portion of the season, and after that, the Viceroy’s Ball at Delhi carried he message that the hot weather, with its temperatures of 130 degrees in the shade, would shortly begin. Society decamped to hill stations like Simla (Shimla), Musoori (Mussoorie) and Darjeeling to escape the heat, and left the men behind to their employment and masculine pursuits. The hills were very much the woman’s world, and was organized along the lines of the London season. This “hot” season ended in October, when the memsahibs and their families once more returned to the Plains for the “cold” season.

Society in Hong Kong and Shanghai was unlike any other. Here, merchants ruled supreme, though to outsiders, the hierarchy was extremely puzzling: why should Mrs. X whose spouse exports tea be “haut ton,” while Mrs. Y whose husband imports cigars is not to be called on? A further source of surprise was that officers in the Indian Army were not considered eligible dancing partners for the daughters of the Hong Kong elite. The firm of Jardine Matheson was the “Princely Hong” since the founder, William Jardine, a ship’s surgeon, could claim to have “discovered” the island of Hong Kong. A Crown Colony ruled by a Governor-General and a Council, society was less formal than India, though not as informal as Down Under. Because of its position as a major port, the British mingled with a bevy of nationalities and occasionally the very wealthy Chinese. However, the stench of opium trading hung over both Hong Kong and Shanghai, lending the two trading ports a sinister air.

Like India, Hong Kong society was dictated by its season: for six months out of the year the island was extremely hot, and that was alleviated only by a southwest monsoon. To escape the summer heat, society built houses on the Peak–though this was little better for it was extremely wet and foggy. Fog would sometimes envelop the Peak for days and drown everything in moisture–books became moldy and dropped from their covers, shoes turned green with a single night’s experience, and clothes were so saturated with the clammy touch of the mist that they could not be worn. To combat this, every house had a drying room, where fires burned all day long, and where bed-clothes and garments were dried. Shanghai was divided into three settlements–English, French, and American–and the Chinese city of Shanghai proper was two miles distant and walled, for the Chinese were forbidden to move freely without permission. The best weather occurred between September and May, and after that, it was frequently described as “hell.” It was a bit more sophisticated and cosmopolitan than Hong Kong, influenced by the lavishness of the American element, and many considered it a rival to the best cities in Europe.

Regardless of how far away they were from England, most colonist considered that to be “Home.” After the turn of the century, colonists in places like Canada, Australia and South Africa were the settlers began to see themselves as anything other than British, and began to develop unique identities as “Canadian” or “Australian.” However, despite the strict adherence to British social customs in colonized countries, the influence went both ways, with the countries adopting certain aspects of British culture, and British culture absorbing the customs of the other country.

Further Reading:
Australia from a Woman’s Point of View by Jessie Ackermann
The scenery, life and manners of Australians in town and country by Percy Clarke
Australia and the Islands of the Sea by Eva Mary Crosby Kellogg & Larkin Dunton
Town Life in Australia by Richard Twopeny
The Real Australia by Alfred Buchanan
Diary of a lady’s maid: Government House in colonial Australia by Emma Southgate, Helen Vellacott
Pictures of Southern China‎ by John Macgowan
China, the Long-lived Empire: The Long-lived Empire by Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore
Personal Reminiscences of Thirty Years’ Residence in Shanghai by Charles M. Dyce
Out in the Noonday Sun by Valerie Pakenham
Women In Great Social Positions:

• The Wife Of The Governor-general Of Australia
• The Vicereine Of India
• The Vicereine Of Ireland
• Wife Of The Governor-General Of South Africa
• The Wife Of The Governor-General Of Canada

Mlle. Aline Vallandri, the famous Cantatrice, who has the Most Wonderful Hair in Europe, tells her Secrets to an Interviewer for Every Woman’s Encyclopaedia:

It is not difficult (she says) to set down the rules I follow for taking care of my hair. Greatly as I prize and value my gift, I am no slave to it, for I devote only about three-quarters of an hour every day to its care. If women generally did the same, I have no doubt that in a short time they would soon notice an improvement in the condition of their hair.

The first essential, in my opinion, is to keep both the scalp and hair perfectly clean. It may seem superfluous to say that to women who realise the necessity of keeping the whole body clean. Especially is this the case with regard to Englishwomen, who have a bath every day. I am perfectly certain that much washing of the hair with water is bad. As a matter of fact, I wash my own hair as seldom as possible. I cannot give any exact interval of days or weeks when the hair is to be washed, for that depends on circumstances.

In the dark, foggy days, when there is much dirt and soot in the air, the hair naturally gets more dirty, and may therefore require more frequent washing than in the light, bright days of summer. Still, even under these conditions, it is possible by much brushing to avoid any excessive use of water.

When the hair is washed, it should be allowed to hang down until it dries naturally in the air, as I do not believe in rubbing it with a towel or using hot irons for the purpose of driving off the moisture. Those things are bad – very bad. Hot irons ruin the hair. The woman who uses curling-tongs courts disaster. The heat dries up the natural oil which is supplied by the little oil glands at the roots of the hair and keeps it soft and moist. The result of tongs or of heat is to make the hair brittle, so that it breaks off short. It stands to reason that if you are constantly breaking the hair it will never get long.

Only once in my life did I ever have my hair curled with curling-tongs. That once taught me my lesson. The hairdresser used irons which were too hot, and he burnt a lot of the hair in the middle of my head. Since that day no hot irons have ever been put near my hair.

How Often To Clean Brushes
Although I so strongly disapprove of washing the head with water, it is possible, as I have said, to keep the scalp and the hair quite clean by brushing it. To do this, perfectly clean brushes are absolutely necessary. My own brushes are washed every day. When once a brush has been used it is never allowed to touch my hair again until it has been thoroughly washed and dried. Doing this regularly becomes a matter of routine, and it takes scarcely any time at all, although I know only too well that when these things are done only occasionally they seem to take a great deal of time. Another reason for brushes taking so much time when they are only washed occasionally is that they are really dirty, and to clean dirty brushes must necessarily take longer than to wash those which have only been used once. If you think of it, it is no more nice to brush your hair with dirty brushes which have not been washed for two or three weeks than it is to dry your face with a towel which has not been washed for the same time.

Every morning when I get up my maid brushes my hair. As it is so long I have had to have a specially high stool made to sit on. The maid brushes both my scalp thoroughly and my hair from the roots to the end for half an hour. The other quarter of an hour I devote to dressing it for the day.

In addition to keeping the hair perfectly clean, this brushing prevents the possibility of any scurf or dandruff – and scurf is death to the hair. It may come because the hair is too dry, or it may be due to the hair being too greasy. To whichever cause it is due it should be cured at the very earliest moment it is seen, so that it may not cause the hair to drop out, as it most assuredly will if it is neglected. I should strongly recommend the doctor being called in when there is scurf, but sometimes a home remedy like “golden ointment,” which is a compound of mercury, will cure the condition rapidly. In that case, what I have said about washing must be ignored for the time. The ointment must be well rubbed into the roots of the hair at night, and washed out the next morning. In the course of a week of this treatment the scurf ought to be quite cured.

If the hair is very dry, it is a clear indication that the little oil glands are not supplying enough nourishment. This must, therefore, be supplemented by the use of a little good brillantine. It is not a good thing to put it on all over the hair. What should be done is to dip the tips of the ringers into the brillantine and rub it well into the scalp until you feel a distinct tingling. The result of this massage causes the blood to circulate very freely in the scalp, and so takes to the oil glands the material they need to make the oil they secrete. At the same time the glands are stimulated to take up the oil which has been rubbed into the scalp, so that the massage acts in a two-fold manner.

Dry hair is invariably dull hair. Now, there is an undoubted beauty in seeing hair shine and reflect the light. This effect is produced by the natural oil, supplemented by the use of the brush. When, therefore, the natural oil is absent, it is well to put the smallest quantity of brillantine on the palm of the hand, and then rub the bristles of the brush over the palm. In this way they get an infinitesimal quantity of oil on them. This little is, however, quite sufficient to make the hair shine without being enough to damage the hair in any way, provided that the brush is used enough.

The Value Of Massage

I need scarcely say that as the oil glands improve in health by the massage, the need for even the exceedingly small quantity of artificial oil will be done away with, and the daily brushing will be quite sufficient to give the hair that wonderful sheen and lustre which are so desirable.

One of the Queens of France, who was famous for the beauty of her hair, used to make her maid brush each of the four strands, into which she divided her hair when it was dressed, a hundred times. And her hair always grew luxuriantly and kept its beautiful youthful appearance all her life.

Another advantage of brushing the hair so much is to give a sensation of great lightness to the spirits. Indeed, a headache can often be cured by massaging the aching part and then well brushing the hair.

People often ask me whether I believe that cutting the hair and singeing the ends with a lighted taper is beneficial for the growth. I am quite sure they do great good. I have the ends of my hair cut and singed very often.

With many people the ends of the hair have a great tendency to split. In the first place, if these ends are kept cut, the splitting will be prevented, and, in the second, if the ends have split, the cutting will prevent the split from proceeding farther and ruining the hair.

Just as the gardener cuts the branches of the young trees to make them grow stronger, so, it would appear, it is necessary for us to clip the ends of our hair if we would have it attain the most luxuriant growth of which it is capable. Indeed, the habit of the gardener in taking care of the beautiful flowers which are entrusted to his keeping might well, and should undoubtedly, be followed by every woman with regard to her hair and that of her daughters.

It was no doubt this care bestowed on my hair when I was a girl which helped to make it grow so long. As a matter of fact, when I was a child I was not noted for the length of my hair. It was no longer than that of any of my companions. By the time I was thirteen or fourteen it had reached my waist, and many girls have hair as long as that. It was when I was sent to a convent to finish my education that my hair began to grow luxuriantly. One of the nuns had a special lotion which she used for her hair. She gave me the recipe for it, and I have used it ever since. Unfortunately, I cannot make the recipe public, as I promised to keep it a secret. Every doctor, however, can give a prescription which, if persevered in, will make the hair grow.

One thing which I find disconcerts some women, and is even a matter of grave concern, is that, at times, their hair falls out. Mine does, too. Sometimes, indeed, it comes out almost in handfuls. So much has come out that I have a great big box full of these “combings.” I never worry about it. I know from experience that just as the hair falls out, so it grows again. It is the law of nature.

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Hair-washing and Care in the 19th Century by Lydia Joyce