Journeying West Before 1840

The absence of almost all allusion to the Umbrella by the wits of the seventeenth century, while the muff, fan, &c., receive so large a share of attention, is a further proof that it was far from being recognised as an article of convenient luxury at that day. The clumsy shape, probably, prevented its being generally used. In one of Dryden's plays we find the line:--

"I can carry your umbrella and fan, your Ladyship."

Gay, addressing a gentleman, in his "Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London" (1712), says:--

"Be thou for every season justly dress'd,
Nor brave the piercing frost with open breast:
And when the bursting clouds a deluge pour.
Let thy surtout defend the gaping shower."

And again:--

"That garment best the winter's rage defends
Whose shapeless form in ample plaits depends;
By various names in various countries known,
Yet held in all the true surtout alone.
Be thine of kersey tine, though small the cost,
Then brave, unwet, the rain, unchilled, the frost."

These passages lead us to the belief that the Umbrella was not used by gentlemen for a long time after its merits had been recognised by the fair sex.

The following lines from the same author have often been quoted:--

"Good housewives all the winter's rage despise
Defended by the riding-hood's disguise:
Or underneath the umbrella's oily shed
Safe through the wet on clinking pattens tread.
Let Persian dames th' umbrellas rich display,
To guard their beauties from the sunny ray,
Or sweating slaves support the shady load,
When Eastern monarchs show their state abroad,
Britain in winter only knows its aid
To guard from chilly showers the walking maid."
-- Trivia , B. 1.


Dean Swift, also, in the Tatler, No. 228, in describing a City shower, thus alludes to the common use of the Umbrella by women:--

"Now in contiguous drops the floods come down,
Threatening with deluge the devoted town:
To shops in crowds the draggled females fly,
Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy:
The Templar spruce, while every spout's abroach,
Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach:
The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides,
While streams run down her oiled umbrella's sides."

About this time the custom obtained of keeping an Umbrella in the halls of great houses, to be used in passing from the door to the carriage. At coffee-houses, too, the same was done.

That the use of the Umbrella was considered far too effeminate for man, is seen from the following advertisement from the Female Tatler for December 12th, 1709:--"The young gentleman borrowing the Umbrella belonging to Wills' Coffee-house, in Cornhill, of the mistress, is hereby advertised, that to be dry from head to foot on the like occasion, he shall be welcome to the maid's pattens."

Defoe's description of Robinson Crusoe's Umbrella is, of course, familiar to all our readers. He makes his hero say that he had seen Umbrellas used in Brazil, where they were found very useful in the great heats that were there, and that he constructed his own instrument in imitation of them, "I covered it with skins," he adds, "the hair outwards, so that it cast off the rain like a pent-house, and kept off the sun so effectually, that I could walk out in the hottest of the weather with greater advantage than I could before in the coolest." We may also add, that from this description the original heavy Umbrellas obtained the name of "Robinson," which they retained for many years, both here and in France.

In the "Memoir of Ambrose Barnes," published for the Surtees Society, under date 1718, appears an entry, "Umbrella for the Church's use, 25s." A similar entry is also found in the churchwarden's accounts for the parochial chapelry of Burnley, Surrey, for A.D. 1760, "Paid for Umbrella 2 l . 10 s . 6 d ." Both these Umbrellas were in all likelihood intended for the use of clergymen at funerals in the churchyard, as was that alluded to in Hone's Year-Book (1826) which was kept for the same purpose in a country church. This last had "an awning of green oiled canvas, such as common Umbrellas were made of, forty years ago."

Bailey's _Encyclopædia_ (1736) has "Umbrello, a sort of wooden frame, covered with cloth, put over a window to keep out the sun; also a screen carried over the head to defend from sun or rain." Also "Parasol, a little umbrella to keep off sun."

There is at Woburn Abbey a picture, painted about 1730, of the Duchess of Bedford, with a black servant behind her, who holds an Umbrella over her, and a sketch of the same period attached to a song called "The Generous Repulse," shows a lady seated on a flowery bank holding a Parasol with a long handle over her head, while she gently checks the ardour of her swain, and consoles him by the following touching strain:--

"Thy vain pursuit, fond youth, give o'er,
What more, alas! can Flavia do?
Thy worth I own, thy fate deplore,
All are not happy that are true."

* * * * *

"But if revenge can ease thy pain,
I'll soothe the ills I cannot cure,
Tell thee I drag a hopeless chain,
And all that I inflict endure!"

Rather cold consolation, but an unexceptionable and moral sentiment.

The idea, therefore, that the Duchess of Rutland devised Parasols in 1826 for the first time is obviously incorrect, whatever her grace may have done towards rendering them fashionable. Captain Cook, in one of his voyages, saw some of the natives of the South Pacific Islands, with Umbrellas made of palm-leaves.

We have thus seen that the use both of the Umbrella and Parasol was not unknown in England during the earlier half of the eighteenth century. That it was not very common, is evident from the fact that General (then Lieut.-Colonel) Wolfe, writing from Paris in 1752, speaks of the people there using Umbrellas for the sun and rain, and wonders that a similar practice does not obtain in England.

Just about the same time they do seem to have come into general use, and that pretty rapidly, as people found their value, and got over the shyness natural to a first introduction. Jonas Hanway, the founder of the Magdalen Hospital, has the credit of being the first man who had the courage to carry one habitually in London, since it
is recorded in the life of that venerable philanthropist, the friend of chimney-sweeps and sworn foe to tea, that he was the first man who ventured to dare public reproach and ridicule by carrying an Umbrella. He probably felt the benefit of one during his travels in Persia, where they were in constant use as a protection against the sun, and it is also said that he was in ill health when he first made use of it. It was more than likely, however, that Jonas Hanway's neatness in dress and delicate complexion led him, on his return from abroad, to appreciate a luxury hitherto only confined to the ladies. Mr. Pugh, who wrote his life, gives the following description of his personal appearance, which may be regarded as a gem in its way:--

"In his dress, as far as was consistent with his ideas of health and ease, he accommodated himself to the prevailing fashion. As it was frequently necessary for him to appear in polite circles on unexpected occasions, he usually wore dress clothes with a large French bag. His hat, ornamented with a gold button, was of a size and fashion to be worn as well under the arm as on the head. When it rained, a small _parapluie_ defended his face and wig."

As Hanway died in 1786, and he is said to have carried an Umbrella for thirty years, the date of its first use by him may be set down at about 1750. For some time Umbrellas were objects of derision, especially from the hackney coachmen, who saw in their use an invasion on the vested rights of the fraternity; just as hackney coaches had once been looked upon by the watermen, who thought people should travel by river, not by road. John Macdonald, perhaps the only footman (always excepting the great Mr. James Yellowplush) who ever wrote a memoir of himself, relates that in 1770, he used to be greeted with the shout, "Frenchman, Frenchman! why don't you call a coach?" whenever he went out with his "fine silk umbrella, newly brought from Spain." Records of the Umbrella's first appearance in other English works have also been preserved. In Glasgow (according to the narrative in Cleland's "Statistical Account of Glasgow ") "the late Mr. John Jamieson, surgeon, returning from Paris, brought an Umbrella with him, which was the first seen in this city. The doctor,
who was a man of great humour, took pleasure in relating to me how he was stared at with his Umbrella." In Edinburgh Dr. Spens is said to have been the first to carry one. In Bristol a red Leghorn Umbrella appeared about 1780, according to a writer in _Notes and Queries_, and created there no small sensation. The trade between Bristol and Leghorn may account for this. Some five-and-thirty years ago it is said that an old lady was living in Taunton who recollected when there were only two Umbrellas in the town, one of which belonged to the clergyman. When he went to church, he used to hang the Umbrella up in the porch, to the edification and delight of his parishioners.

Horace Walpole tells how Dr. Shebbeare (who was prosecuted for seditious writings in 1758) "stood in the pillory, having a footman holding an umbrella to keep off the rain." For permitting this indulgence to a malefactor, Beardman, the under-sheriff, was punished.

It is difficult to conceive how the Umbrella could come into general use, owing to the state in which the streets of London were up to a comparatively recent period. The same amusing author to whom we owe the description of Jonas Hanway, gives the following account of them at the time his work was published:--

"It is not easy to convey to a person who has not seen the streets of London before they were uniformly paved, a tolerable idea of their inconvenience and uncleanliness; the signs extending on both sides of the way into the streets, at unequal distances from the houses, that they might not intercept each other, greatly obstructed the view; and, what is of more consequence in a crowded city, prevented the free circulation of the air. The footpaths were universally incommoded--even when they were so narrow as only to admit one person passing at a time--by a row of posts set on edge next the carriage-way. He whose urgent business would not permit of his keeping pace with the gentleman of leisure before him, turned out between the two posts before the door of some large house into the carriage-way. When he perceived danger moving toward him, he wished to return within the protection of the row of posts; but there was commonly a rail continued from the top of one post to that of another, sometimes for several houses together, in which case he was obliged to run back to the first inlet, or climb over, or creep under the railing, in attempting which, he might be fortunate if he escaped with no other injury than what proceeded from dirt; if, intimidated by the danger he escaped, he afterwards kept within the boundary of the posts and railing, he was obliged to put aside the travellers before him, whose haste was less urgent than his, and, these resisting, made his journey truly a warfare.

"The French are reproached, even to a proverb, for the neglect of the convenience of foot-passengers in their metropolis, by not providing a separate path for them; but, great as is the exposure to dirt in Paris, for want of a footpath, which their many _porte-cochères_ seem likely for ever to prevent, in the more important article of danger, the City of London was, at this period, at least on a par. How comfortless must be the sensations of an unfortunate female, stopped in the street on a windy day under a large old sign loaded with lead and iron in full swing over, her head? and perhaps a torrent of rain and dirty water falling near from a projecting spout, ornamented with the mouth and teeth of a dragon. These dangers and distresses are now at an end; and we may think of them as a sailor does of a storm, which has subsided, but the advantages derived from the present uniformity and cleanliness can be known only in their full extent by comparing them with the former inconveniences."

When to this description is added the fact that the hoop petticoat and another article of dress monopolised the whalebone, it will be seen how much had to be got over before an Umbrella could be carried out by the citizens of London, as a walking-staff, with satisfactory assurance of protection in case of a shower. The earliest English
Umbrellas, we must also remember, were made of oiled silk, very clumsy and difficult to open when wet; the stick and furniture were heavy and inconvenient, and the article very expensive.

At the end of the century allusions to the Umbrella are not infrequent. Cowper, in his "Task" (1780), twice mentions it, but seems to mean a Parasol:--

"We bear our shades about us; self-deprived
Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread,
And range an Indian waste without a tree."
--B. i.

And again:--

"Expect her soon, with footboy at her heels,
No longer blushing for her awkward load,
Her train and her umbrella all her care."
--B. iv,

The Rev. G. C. Renouard, writing in 1850 to Notes and Queries, says:-- "In the hall of my father's house, at Stamford, in Lincolnshire, there was, when I was a child, the wreck of a large green silk umbrella, apparently of Chinese manufacture, brought by my father from Scotland, somewhere between 1770 and 1780, and, as I have often heard, the first umbrella seen at Stamford. I well remember, also, an amusing description given by the late Mr. Warry, so many years consul at Smyrna, of the astonishment and envy of his mother's neighbours, at Sawbridgeworth, in Hants, where his father had a country house, when he ran home and came back with an umbrella, which he had just brought from Leghorn, to shelter them from a pelting shower which detained them in the church porch, after the service, on one summer Sunday. From Mr. Warry's age at the time he mentioned this, and other circumstances in his history, I conjecture that it occurred not later than 1775 or 1776. As Sawbridgeworth is so near London, it is evident that even then umbrellas were at that time almost unknown."

Since this date, however, the Umbrella has come into general use, and in consequence numerous improvements have been effected in it. The transition to the present portable form is due, partly to the substitution of silk and gingham for the heavy and troublesome oiled silk, which admitted of the ribs and frames being made much lighter, and also to the many ingenious mechanical improvements in the framework, chiefly by French and English manufacturers, many of which were patented, and to which we purpose presently to allude.