When my great grandfather Benjamin Hall died in 1936 (a wealthy man with a huge wine cellar) his two dreary sisters came to the funeral from their home in Mid-Wales. The fact that they were coke-heads (i.e.cocaine addicts) did not stop them from being teetotal (in other words they had “taken the pledge” to abstain from alcohol. Never a drop of the demon drink did pass their lips, but then, from all reports they were generally stoned out of their minds anyway…).
The story goes that after the funeral they traipsed back to the family home and set to with a fervent zeal, destroying every single bottle of wine to be found in the cellars. The whole lot was opened and poured down the drain.
I tell the story to indicate that the family may be weird, but we are not all the same! But what I like about the 18th Century is that it was a century of excess, not of moderation. The Temperance Movement really didn’t get going until 1833 when the word ‘teetotal’ was coined, and then had a renewed lease of life in the 1880’s. But none of their killjoy activities impinged upon the century which saw Hogarth rail against Gin, (as in Gin Lane) but condone and promote the consumption of beer (as in Beer Street). The earliest cartoon I can find giving a temperance view of the world is this one from 1828. It is entitled “The two fishermen : a dedication to the temperance society” and is by A Ducôte. It appears on the Lewis Walpole Library site.
On the left, under the banner of Habitual Drunkenness, the fisherman is in a spot of bother: his kids are fighting, his front door is falling off its hinges, his wife is embracing another man, and he has caught a fish marked ‘Sickness’. He cries out “The Devil”. Other fish in the sea are identified as Starvation, Hatred, Murder, Malice, Discontent ,Seduction, Rebellion, Atheism, Beggary and Enormous Taxation.
Contrast this unhappy scene with the prosperous happy family on the right blessed with Constant Sobriety, catching fish for their dinner. The waters abound with such delights as Civil and Religious Liberty, Peace & Quietness, Chastity, Happiness, Health, Wealth, Moderate Taxation, Cheap Bread and Contentment.
Just in case we haven’t got the message, the man on the left fishes in Gin, and on the right the supercilious young man with two ghastly children fishes in Water. The moral to me is quite clear: if you want ghastly kids and cheap bread, try being abstemious; if you want a bit of fun before you die, take another slug from the bottle.
For my distant ancestor Richard Hall, being a devout Baptist never seemed to prevent him from enjoying a prodigious quantity of wine (his tipple of choice). But he also brewed beer, and cider, as well as bringing a quarter Pipe of Port down from London whenever supplies ran short.
Late 18thCentury wine bottles – courtesy of Christies.com
But where I find his stamina truly remarkable is where he lists his household expenses for 1797 (when he was 68 years old). His account books show that he was spending roughly three times the amount on wine as he did on taxation. Way to go, Richard!
Earlier this year I was fortunate enough to stay at the lovely Arizona Inn at Tucson. The dining area, somewhat dark and cavernous, was transformed into a warm, glowing, welcoming room by one thing: the tables were all set with water glasses made of cobalt blue. Here in Britain it is generally known as ‘Bristol Blue’. It gave some idea of the effect that introducing blue glassware must have had when it came into vogue in the last couple of decades of the Eighteenth Century. From decanters to wine glasses, from display dishes to glass coolers and finger rinsing bowls, they must have glittered and amazed in the flickering candle-light.
So I have written a book. Not a very long one, but packed with full-colour photographs to give an idea of the beautiful rich translucent blue.
Anyway, a harmless hobby, and I brought the book out on Amazon where you can find it 
Known by the coarseness of the paper. The Watermark clumsily executed with the figures 35 in the corner which appears to be done with something that cuts a part of the 3 in two.”
The big trading powers in the water at the time were the East India Companies: the English and the Dutch (known as the VOC, or Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie). The two countries had already fought each other over the right to control the spice trade in the 17th century, and England had lost. The Netherlands controlled the main part of the spice trade from their base in Batavia (Jakarta). They were also the only Europeans allowed to trade directly with Japan after the Sakoku (closed country) Edict of 1635. They were restricted to the man-made island of Deshima, in Nagasaki harbour, and all other European traders had to go through them. (That’s why if you see any genuine Japanese lacquer-ware from before 1868 – as opposed to the inferior Chinese sort – in an English stately home, you can be sure it was very, very expensive!) England, however, had its company factories in India (where it exerted ever-increasing power), China, and a changing array of places in between.
To get there, the journey began in London. East India Dock didn’t open until 1806, so the ships loaded and unloaded in the City of London (between Tower Bridge and London Bridge). East India Company ships were big: between 500 and 1,400 tonnes, with a crew of 90, and with 30-48 guns. They looked like warships and were run like warships, with uniforms and strict discipline; and they travelled in fleets to protect each other. This was because there was a huge threat of piracy. Ships carried gold and silver bullion, along with all manner of expensive goods and a well-stocked medicine chest – a tempting target to any pirate. Still, they did take passengers, including brides being sent to ex-patriots in India, who must have been in for a pretty terrible journey. One army wife slept in a hammock above a cannon and bilge water, and humbler women could be berthed with the horses! The more well-to-do passenger could bring a variety of things with which to make themselves more comfortable: tables, chairs, writing desks, sofas, coffee-making equipment, soap, sweets, perfume, soda water and musical instruments. However, this wouldn’t help them much in the worst of conditions, and the most common causes of death among passengers were illness, suicide and falling overboard.
A typical “Madras landing” was a far from pleasant experience, involving pitching through turbulent waves in small boats. Once ashore, the white walls of the city awaited, along with Fort St George, St Mary’s church (est. 1680), and presumably the new (and Englishwoman-starved) husbands of any bride who had made it through the journey so far.
And if the ship made it through that, it would eventually reach China. The main company factory in China was originally Canton (est. 1699), followed later by Shanghai. (The nature of Canton as a trading port helps to explain why Cantonese is spoken so widely by Chinese people outside China, and why Shanghaiese and Cantonese are the biggest dialects after Mandarin in China itself). Canton in the 18th century had factories (trading stations) from Holland, England, Sweden, France, Denmark and the Holy Roman Empire. These stood in a row on the waterfront, each flying its own flag. (The English one apparently had gardens too, which were the envy of the others). Along the back of the factories ran “Hog Lane”: a haunt of thieves, prostitutes, and a drink made from alcohol, tobacco juice, sugar and arsenic! Factories housed around 12 officers, along with 8 clerks, 2 tea inspectors, 2 surgeons and a chaplain. They only opened during the season that the winds allowed the ships to visit: the rest of the year, the men went to live in Macao.
Finally, with the hold full of tea and other goodies, all the captain and crew had to think about was reversing the entire journey and getting back to London. How truly Gulliver said to the Houynhmns, “that this whole Globe of Earth must be at least three Times gone round, before one of our better Female Yahoos could get her Breakfast, or a Cup to put it in.”
Adapting skates for summer use was common in Holland in the early 1700′s. Early “skeelers” as they were called, consisted of wooden spools nailed on to the underside of a piece of wood, onto which the normal shoes were strapped. In 1743 an (anonymous) actor apparently glided onto the London stage wearing a pair of skeelers to great admiration and effect. A later development is attributed to the Belgian inventor John Joseph Merlin who developed a skate with iron wheels (but unfortunately for him, without a brake mechanism. See 
In 1708 an Italian living in Cologne sat at his kitchen table mixing up a few drops of citrus oil – from lemons, tangerines, grapefruit and oranges. He added bergamot and a few chopped orange tree leaves, then some lavender and rosemary, added a tincture of jasmine and a dash of diluted ethanol, and hey presto, he had arrived at a miracle water! The only trouble was, he didn’t know what to do with it – take it as a medicine, or splash it all over, as the saying goes. So he wrote to his brother extolling the wonders of the concoction saying : “I have found a fragrance that reminds me of an Italian spring morning, of mountain daffodils and orange blossoms after the rain”. He named his fragrance Eau de Cologne, (or ‘Kolnisch Wasser’ in German) in honour of the town where he was living.
The original watchglass bottle
The 4711 building in Glockengasse
She wrote a letter to one of her brothers, in fluent French, urging him to reply in the same language, and in it she speaks of her sadness at hearing that her mother was unwell.