One of the most interesting things about the Regency Era, to me, if how universally loathed the Prince Regent was, and how much he set the fashion for the Glittering Throng nonetheless.
One of the things the future George IV brought into style was going to Brighton for a bit of time by (and in) the sea.
Brighton was already growing in popularity by the the 1770s, thanks to the belief that fresh seaside air, sea-bathing, and even drinking sea water provided health benefits or even cured illness. One of the things that drew people thither was the renown prowess of Martha Gunn as a dipper. A dipper was a woman maintained the bathing machines that took female bathers down into the edge of the surf, and then assisted the ladies to float in the healing waves. Dippers were by necessity built like Valkyries, and Martha Gunn was a particularly stalwart example of these brawny babes. Public opinion had it that to be dipped by Martha Gunn was to be dipped by the very best.
By 1780, Georgian terraces had started springing up in town, and after Prince George visited in 1783 the place really took off. Brighton was not only reasonably close to London, it was now where the heir to the throne spent most of leisure time. He loved the little costal town so much he started construction on a Royal Pavilion in 1787, which served to draw additional crowds of vacationing Brits and members of the Ton.
Prince George was convinced that Brighton was an ideal place to maintain his health, which was always iffy thanks to gluttony, heavy drinking, and a lack of exercise. He found a “shampooer” (which indicated a full medical scrubbing rather than the mere washing of one’s hair), Sake Dean Mahomed, at Brighton, and was so enthused about the Muslim’s bathing techniques that he declared him the official royal shampooer, much to Mahomed’s delight and financial benefit. (Sake Dean Mahomed is also the guy who opened the first ever “Indian” restaurant in London.) Regardless of how much excellent shampooing the Prince received, his continual indulgence in food and alcohol prevented him from obtaining any noticeable benefits from Mahomed’s work except hygienically.
To further swell Brighton’s population, a “permanent military presence was established in the city with the completion of Preston Barracks in 1793”. This meant that Brighton was not only filled with genteel tourists, it was filled with soldiers and all the dens of iniquity needed to service men in the service. Droves of people came to Brighton in pursuit of pleasure, but not all those pleasures were pure. Prostitution was rife at the resort, from street walkers to the establishments of elite courtesans like Harriet Wilson, and Brighton became a Regency hot spot in more ways than one. Nevertheless, the activities of sea-bathing and sight-seeing gave Brighton a lovely veneer of respectability that made it quite acceptable to vacation there.
The town had grown so popular – and yet so associated with indulgence in vice — that it showed up more than once in the works of Jane Austen, as a shorthand for potential moral danger. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr Bennet revealed himself to be a careless idiot when he let his flirtatious youngest daughter, Lydia, go to Brighton with a friend. The heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, tried to warn her father but he would not head her. Sure enough, it was from Brighton that Lydia eloped with the dastardly George Wickham.
Brighton also shows up in Mansfield Park. Shortly after Maria Bertram became Maria Rushworth, she and her husband headed to Brighton to honeymoon. Maria’s quest for ‘novelty and entertainment’ in Brighton was a foreshadowing of her fall from grace. Her transgression was much greater than Lydia’s, in that Maria left a husband to run away with another man. Lydia was eventually redeemed in Austen’s novel, but Maria was condemned to the eternal torment of living with Mrs Norris for her sins.
Brighton is also where the Prince installed his illicit wife, Mrs Maria Fitzherbert.
Their marriage wasn’t legal, inasmuch as it was a forbidden match and a Catholic ceremony to boot, but everyone knew she was the regent’s wife in all but Realpolitik. Certainly Maria considered herself wed, and believe a Papal blessing trumped the disapproval of the Protestant royal family. She lived comfortably at Steine House, a large residence in the centre of Brighton, from 1804 until her death in 1837.
Brighton had other scandals as well. In 1811 a local paper reported that an unknown gentleman had been perceived to be bathing naked on a public beach. Although children would go into the water as nude as eggs, for an adult of either sex to do so in a public area caused significant consternation and comment. Men and women had separate bathing areas of the beach where they could swim in a natural state, however. Not, as many critics pointed out, that there was anything about these so-called private areas that would prevent onlookers from getting an eyeful if they wanted to!
