The decade of the English Regency is my favorite period in history, bar none. Period. It is a tiny slice of time between the rougher, cruder eighteenth century and the repressively straight-laced Victorian age. England was still mainly rural, most of the technology we take for granted today was still decades away and the pace of life was slower and certainly more graceful than our own time. Plus, the art, the architecture, the furnishings and the clothes of that time were certainly more elegant those of the present day.

Next year, 2011, is the bicentennial of the beginning of the Regency in England. It was on Wednesday, 6 February 1811, at Carlton House, that the Prince of Wales took the oath which made him Regent. As a lover of novels set in the Regency, I certainly hope that something will be done to mark this auspicious anniversary.

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In recent weeks I have written about both paper-hangings and the private display of art during the Regency. Those divergent topics intersected during the second half of the eighteenth century and through the decade of the Regency to produce a unique phenomenon which occurred in the decoration of rooms in many private houses. However, this phenomenon was restricted primarily to England, though there were some instances of it in Ireland and America at about the same time.

The phenomenon of the English Print Room ...

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Last week I wrote about the rapid rise of the craze for the velocipede in Regency England. Introduced first in London, early in 1819, by the enterprising coachmaker, Denis Johnson, the velocipede was all the rage by the early spring of that year. It quickly spread to other cities and towns across the country, and was particularly popular with young men of leisure.

Yet, by the end of that same year, 1819, the craze for the velocipede was over. How did this near mania for a human-powered two-wheeled vehicle fall nearly as quickly as it rose?

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      ... it was Jessamy who plunged him, not many days later, into the affair of the Pedestrian Curricle.

     Boy enough to wish to startle his family with his unsuspected prowess, Jessamy had said nothing to them about his new hobby. Once he had perfected his balance, and could feel himself to be master of the Pedestrian Curricle, he meant to ride up to the door, and call his sisters out to watch his skill. ...



Of course, anyone who has read Frederica knows that the Pedestrian Curricle which Jessamy was riding was smashed to bits in an accident involving a pair of dogs, a man mending a chair and landaulet drawn by a pair of high-stepping horses. Fortunately, the Marquis of Alverstoke was able to sort everything out, and "the affair of the Pedestrian Curricle" resulted in a "command" from the Marquis to Jessamy to ride his horses, much to the young man's delight.

"Pedestrian curricle" was just one name for vehicles like that from which Jessamy took his tumble. They were also known as "velocipedes," "draisiennes," "hobby-horses" and "dandy horses," among others. The grand fashion for these contraptions flourished briefly at the very end of the Regency. This week I will tell you about the meteoric rise of the Regency craze for the velocipede ...

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