What Bridgerton Didn't Show You About Georgian Life | History Of Britain | Absolute History

we've all seen the pictures and read the stories in the history books about the kings and queens with their power and privilege and silks and furs [Music] but in this series i want to discover the other side of history i'm already quite nervous the side we don't often hear about how ordinary british people lived their lives from the tudors you'll see why it did attract my attention disgusting to the victorians throw a stone in victoria in london you will hit a drunken cat man is that many of them we are not amused from the georgians you take the saw oh my god it's horrible just seeing you do that to the people who really fought the second world war james could hear the ping of bullets and the platter of shrapnel one thing's for sure these people knew the meaning of the word tough i'll be finding the truth about their daily lives what they ate how long would that have lasted up to three years how they made a living it's even value in a rat when it's dead and those vital necessities of life what did you do if you wanted to pee go in the bucket the bucket this is british history from the bottom up you've got to admit i am terrifying this time i'm going back over 200 years to georgia and britain nowadays it's seen as a period of great sophistication and elegance darling where did you get that dress may i have the next chance but for ordinary people it was far from that for them the georgian period was particularly cruel and nasty in everything from laws to living standards there was a huge chasm between the poor and the wealthy but some of those who came from the wrong side of the track weren't prepared to accept their dreary lot jack ran who was born in 1750 was one of them yes jack right there like many ordinary families at the time jax was dirt poor they would most likely have lived all together in just one room with no running water and just a bucket for a loo we think his dad was a peddler a street seller earning maybe six or seven shillings a week just 35 quid in today's money which meant that most of the family's money was spent on bread certainly not unfun and yet just to rub it all in jack lived in a city that was oozing with luxury and pleasure bath the go-to tourist destination for britain's rich and privileged they came here to party sample the spa waters and generally ponce around oh the heartache but at least the toffs provided a business opportunity for a certain canny young someone yup no school for him instead he'd be following in the footsteps of his dad twelve-year-old jack regularly used to pitch his peddler's cart in the city center in the square selling georgian delicacies like pastries and oranges his customers were the high society men and women strutting around like peacocks with their hair piled high on their head [Music] like a glossy magazine center spread there right in front of him and the more he saw of it the more he wanted a piece of the action and quite frankly he wanted to look cool enough to get some of the girls jack saw his chance in the georgian lust for high speed [Music] travel for jack the growing numbers of wealthy travelers whizzing around the country in fancy carriages mend the chance of jack going places too when he was just 18 he got the plum job in this new world of high-speed travel he became a coachman and was soon running all the transport for a large household chris thompson is an expert on the sort of life jack would have had [Music] that coat that you're wearing that to me is a traditional coachman's clobber am i right yeah a great coat has many capes for keeping up the weather and it's very heavy and warm so in inclement weather it would be something of a savior in warm weather it wasn't too good and jack would award him like this yeah what hours would he have worked long hours long into the night if his employee requested to travel overnight then jack had to be at the ready on a daily basis he would probably work from donald dusk and jack wasn't exactly raking it in he'd get just 10 to 15 pounds a year a couple of grand today although he did get meals and accommodation thrown in [Music] regular public stage coaches were uncomfortable and packed tight with smelly passengers but jax was in a different class it's beautifully padded it's like your sofa at home and you're just sitting there watching the telly [Music] when jack reached one of the new coaching inns to overnight his passengers went inside to relax with a hot meal and a freshly made up bed but jack's long day wasn't over until he'd washed brushed and fed the horses often his own bed was right beside them along with any fleas and ticks that might happen to be crawling around one thing was for certain being a coachman was not giving jack the glamour that he craved what he wanted was the fat cat lifestyle of his wealthy passengers he'd seen them hand over wads of cash every time they stopped to pay for the fancy wine and the gorgeous meals while he had to bed down in the stable it was time for a career move jack was about to become a highwayman yeah stand and deliver even back then highwaymen were romantic figures more daring and glamorous than bog standard robbers the mid georgian period was the heyday of the highwayman there were loads and loads of travellers around was no organized police force to catch them and like most highwaymen and indeed highway women jack would ride up to the coach with the travelers in it he would shout your money or your life and he would wave his pistol yeah but it was extremely dangerous passengers could carry guns too so jack knew the risks but he was determined that even if his career was going to be really short at least it would be fun and exciting and just great so he dressed like a dandy he had these silk britches and each one was tied with eight silver strings at the knee so he got the nickname 16 string jack which is a pretty good nickname isn't it and there was one victim who remarked jack behaved exceeding civil and rather begged for the money than used any violent means as jack notched up success after success his pile of cash and his charisma rapidly grew but the authorities were onto him he was caught and tried not once but an incredible 17 times and on each occasion silver tongue's jack outwitted the judge and charmed the jury but finally in 1774 jack was accused of stealing from the king's daughter's chaplain what's wonderful is that you can hear jack's brass cheek and his accent in the court transcript he says oh he knows no more of it than a child does unborn they have said false things to you but jack had made a fateful error the court didn't take kindly to the princess's pastor being called a liar he was found guilty and this being the georgian era he was sentenced to death [Music] but in true jack style he enjoyed a saucy last supper with the governor of newgate prison and seven delightful young ladies the next day a showman to the end he danced a high jig on the scaffold [Applause] before the noose tightened around his neck [Music] in georgian times britain began to rule the waves and ordinary men went off to sea exploring trading and generally enjoying themselves far too much in ports across the globe that's my wages another drink anyone one such man was a 24 year old irish sailor called john mara he was minding his own business one day in 1770 just hanging out in a lively port on the asian island of java having a drink down by the harbour checking out the girls grab it come here when suddenly john was surrounded by british marines are you employed they were looking for crew men who are you working and had the right to force any seamen between 18 and 55 to join their ship whether he wanted to or not right get over there john had no choice he'd been press ganged about a quarter of the navy's sailors were recruited like this so who exactly was behind john's dastardly kidnap none other than the famous explorer captain james cook john was now a sailor in cook's crew on board hms endeavour john mara soon calmed down he admitted that one ship was pretty much as good as any other and that only a fool would want to stay in this disease-ridden port so he was welcomed on board [Music] across your back in georgian times there was no such thing as cabins for ordinary seamen so when john first got on board he would have been given a hammer he'd gone below and found somewhere to put it and that would have been his living quarters for the rest of the voyage but at least he travelled light so storage of all his worldly goods wouldn't be a problem these were called ditty bags this was where each sailor kept his spare change of clothes his mementos his knife his bible that was the love and john wouldn't even have had a uniform to worry about because he wasn't an officer so this is where the men lived and down here was the officers quarters and if any of the sailors just went beyond that line they could be shot by a marine if you just looked an officer in the eye then you could be punished for dumb incidents but look at the difference this was how the officers lived john became a gunners mate his job was to keep the cannons secure and the powder dry he also made sure all the ships ropes pulleys and sails were in good order he'd worked four hours on eight off with extra time off when they reached port most days john would be faced with just endless skies and endless seas but it wasn't exactly peaceful it's hard to imagine but this deck would have been covered in goats sheep and chicken even cows and some of the men had clubbed together and brought a pig on board and all those animals would have created a right old mess one that john and the other seaman would have to clean up everyone knows that sailors used to scrub the decks and i'd always assume that that meant with a scrubbing brush but it didn't this is what they use this is like a square of sandstone and you stuck a peg in it like that and you went back and forward and back and forward day after day essentially it was a discipline thing it just kept the lads from arguing and thumping each other but it had a secondary effect which they weren't at all aware of is that it kept the germs down so essentially ships were pretty healthy place to live though after a few months at sea there'd be less mess to clean up because all the animals would have been eaten sophie forgan an expert on georgian naval cuisine knows what kind of food john would have been left with that's a bit of really manky salt pork that is as solid as a rock how long would that have lasted well they did last up to three years but pretty awful by that time it must have been incredibly salty very very salty but one way you got rid of the salt was to put the joints in a small net and tow them behind the ship to wash some of the excess salt off is it right that occasionally john would be treated to something weird like albatross it is right everything they shot was eaten the only one they turned their backs on was walrus the sailors said no way but there was one fate even worse than walrus for breakfast scurvy on long voyages it was the biggest threat to john's life the disease was caused by a lack of vitamin c and on some ships it killed half the crew men like john were terrified of scurvy and you can't blame them it was absolutely horrible your skin started to go pale your eyes sunk in your gums went all swollen and bloody your teeth fell out you got covered in bruises then your arms and legs started to go black death when it came was a blessed relief luckily john never got scurvy and traveling at a modest speed of just under 10 miles an hour made it as far away as it's possible to be from britain the south pacific he must have thought he was in paradise in tahiti he got friendly with the local chief who apparently offered him his own house his own land and the prettiest girl in the village to be his wife chosen from among a dozen maidens john was over the moon what an offer let's get out of here and being a strong swimmer he knew when to make his move he waited until the sails were being lifted and the anchor was being weighed and sprinted to the side dived overboard began swimming through the crystal clear waters towards paradise unfortunately he was spotted he was dragged back and brought dripping into the ship to be punished by the captain this is what he would have got the cat and nine tails wham but he wouldn't have been standing up he would have to lie down like this and this was known as kissing the gunner's daughter and get whacked on the back and on the bottom dozen lashes that was the standard dose although quite honestly for a bloke like mara i don't think it would have made any difference [Music] after five years sailing around the world with cook john finally returned to britain he'd made a bit of money and he could have called it quits settle down in ireland in a cottage by the sea [Music] but he didn't grog got the better of him and he drank it all away [Music] and the last time we ever hear of him is in a port on the coast of australia looking for another berth another ship and another adventure [Music] one thing you definitely didn't want to be in georgian times was ill you might find yourself being bled for acne or get tobacco smoke blown up your bottom to cure a headache and as for surgery even if you could afford it run a mile if you're able to if you were poor naturally you'd be stuffed either way unless you happen to be in the right place at the right time which surprisingly could be somewhere around here it's just another day in london's most notorious district jacobs island near london bridge also known as the capital of cholera or the venice of slums houses rotted by dampness windows covered in paper and rags whole place overcrowded with people and dirty-faced kids swarming everywhere one of the residents 60-year-old elizabeth regan is woken up really early by the racket of people clattering past when she's emptied the contents of her chamber pot out of the window she pops out and joins the queue for the pump to get some water for her stew [Music] in georgian times 60 was considered pretty ancient so elizabeth was probably shacked up with her grown-up children helping out with the cooking and the shopping nearby borough market was the perfect place for her to bag a bargain [Music] this particular morning she was rushing down borough high street avoiding all the crowds of people and all the horse-drawn carts [Music] and as she's crossing the road she trips over a cart runs over her leg multiple compound fractures and remember in those days there were no ambulances no nhs but she's very lucky because the accident has happened just outside one of the most important hospitals in london that's been here since medieval times since thomas's there must have been a friendly bystander who helped to limp to the door then elizabeth would have been carried up these stairs 52 ancient cranky wooden steps you really do feel like you're walking back into history next bleeding in pain and on the edge of consciousness elizabeth wouldn't have been certain that the hospital would even admit her julie matthias knows all about the history of saint thomas's if i came here i've had a road accident my legs are all smashed up my mates carry me here dump me on the floor what will be your response well you would actually be quite fortunate in that case because the hospital provided one walled um to access cases of an emergency such as yours casualty so i've actually come to priority patients yeah yes indeed so things are sort of looking up despite being from the worst postcode in london elizabeth had a world-leading surgeon on her case i'm going to put myself in her place to get an idea of what elizabeth went through in europe's oldest operating theater karen howell is my surgeon scary karen presumably you're going to operate on me because you've got the pineapple on that's right i'm the operator for today the surgeon's for you so i'm hoping to amputate your leash [Music] elizabeth must have been a tough cookie but this experience would have terrified her i must admit i'm already quite nervous just below me here yeah look at this this sawdust presumably is for collecting my blood and bits and pieces you got that right that's actually for uh to stop the blood going through the floorboards the the churches below us there was a church under the i don't want to drip on the congregation that's right yeah but fear not elizabeth you're getting high-tech treatment the operating table was the latest design featuring a pop-out platform for elizabeth's good leg even a headrest and the table was a handy height for holding her down thoughtful touch [Music] tonic goes on to limit the damage we're managing your blood so that when we cut i don't lose much blood [Music] but that wasn't all elizabeth had to cope with she suffered this indignity in front of crowds of people who were making an incredible amount of noise yelling at the assistants to keep their heads out of the way there would be a few medical students naturally but in some hospitals they actually issued tickets there was no anesthetic just a piece of leather to chew on and maybe a prayer before the chop came in the 18th century children method is circular action on one knee are you ready yeah we have permission to amputate and you're bracing yourself there's an old technique they call the tour de metro uh masters round goes around like this and you can see what's going to happen so we're ready and sort of saying and pulled out wow so that's just splitting me right open all the way around and the idea was um then you take the saw oh my god we know really it's about six to eight cuts through that one bone very fast sores they are it's horrible just seeing you do that but then that is the bone through so my legs gone now yeah there's no leg there now elizabeth began to faint but got a hefty slap to keep her conscious with blood everywhere she must hang on in there the arteries are now severed and we need to act quickly to close up the wound basically we put a thread through there like this big thick thread and tie it like a drawstring bag [Music] the operation was a success well at least elizabeth didn't die on the operating table but then came the tricky bit recovery thanks to the unsanitary conditions in the hospital elizabeth's chance of survival was just one in three [Music] despite her ordeal in the operating theatre elizabeth didn't make it she never left the ward within a week she died of infection and yet within 50 years the medical profession had started to become aware of bacteria and began cleaning their surgical instruments and their operating theaters although sadly for one brave georgian that came too late one of the biggest problems for the poor in georgian times was that they were powerless to change their lot ordinary people couldn't vote so the laws were made by the rich and for the rich and to keep the working class under control the powerful voted in a long list of crimes you could be hanged for over 200 of them in fact you could be strung up for anything from all destroying a toll gate [Applause] to impersonating a chelsea pensioner how dare you but even more serious was pinching the tof's game local rumor down here in hampshire at the time suggested that charles smith was a practitioner of the dark art of poaching although no one had ever actually seen him do it this looks like charles in 1821 aged 28 with his son [Music] standing at six foot tall when the average was just five four five he was thought a rather romantic figure even married above his station charles lived with his wife who was the daughter of a wealthy farmer and his kids and his little terrier in a cottage very much like this one [Music] so you've got a roof over his head probably thatched like this one this is actually quite gorgeous isn't it but to feed his family charles needed money some of it came from his day job as a casual labourer he could get the occasional day digging ditches lugging clay around at the brick kilns scraping the skins at the tanners and back in the old days that might have been enough to buy things like butter cheese and the occasional bit of meat for dinner but getting food on the table was getting harder and harder a run of terrible harvests new food laws and fat land owners jacking up their prices changed everything now to avoid starvation families like charles's had to spend all their money just to buy the basics this is how the food would have been cooked although it would have been pretty rudimentary something like tatters and shake which was potatoes with salt on it or a flat bread like something that you get in the kebab shop the difference being that there was no meat in it in fact they had virtually no protein at all [Music] and in 1816 the government made it illegal for ordinary people to hunt and kill any sort of game even wild rabbits ah courgettes in butter so while the rich had more fine food than they could fill their faces with turbo turmeric charles and his family were starving charles's local land owner was an aristocrat called henry temple thy count lord palmerston which is a bit of a mouthful and he was the future prime minister he loved having fancy parties for his hunting friends and his estates were jam-packed full of deer and pheasant and partridge and all sorts of yummy treats [Music] so if a man's kids were hungry what else was he supposed to do charles turned to poaching [Music] seb littlewood is an expert on poaching in georgian times what kind of snares or traps did charles use there were small traps like these small animal traps so what is that it looks like a trap for fairies yeah it's about this about the right size so this is this is the how this operates so it's sprung by pushing this down you open the teeth um and then we clip that up like that okay so it's all set for the rabbit along comes mr rabbit yep isn't it it's not nice and presumably the thing about leaving a few of these around is that it means the game people know that there are poachers about it if the game keeper comes across them he knows people out and about poacher comes back to check his traps gotcha gotcha yeah yeah so a rabbit trap could become a trap for the poacher who set it so if charles wanted something much bigger and much more effective what might you do well there is this option i suppose something like this hey would you actually be able to bring down something like a rabbit with that you would although it's a musket it works much the same way as a modern shotgun i'll say you put pellets in it pellets in it this was a scatter shot meant that hopefully anything sort of 10 15 yards away you're going to hit it but isn't there a big drawback to using a gun the bang the bang the size absolutely generally the whole idea about poaching is is you're relying on stealth on a level of secrecy something like this you're going to hear it from half a mile away but charles was presented with an irresistible opportunity on the 22nd of november 1820 there was a big and noisy local festival none of the revelers charles figured would hear his musket in the distant woods [Music] when it was dark charles went over to his hiding place produced his musket and he would have had a big tunic on with a pocket in it down here somewhere and he would put the butt in it to support it and then he would sneak out hoping the before morning he would have been able to find something warm and furry with which he could feed his family the next day the weather was perfect just enough moon to light the way and just enough wind in the trees to mask the sound of footfall taking his terrier charles made his way to collect his brother-in-law john poynter then the two of them pressed on to the plantation of palmerston's estate with all its rich pickings cautiously they crept to the spot where they'd seen pheasants roosting earlier charles raised his gun but unfortunately deputy game keeper robert snellgrove was a party pooper who'd rather be lying in wait for poachers than reveling as soon as he heard smith's gun he was after them snellgrove caught up with them and as he did so there was a bang and an almighty cloud of smoke it cleared to reveal snell grove bleeding badly from his thigh the poachers were nowhere to be seen [Music] charles smith went on the run but snellgrove had seen his face clearly enough to identify him it took them over a year to catch up with charles but eventually he was tried in winchester and on march the 23rd 1822 he was hanged charles was one of the last men hung for poaching under the georgians he was unlucky just a year later the law was changed and poaching was no longer punishable by death in georgian times the countryside was beginning to get crowded so a lot of ordinary country folk started heading off to the cities and nowhere was a more seductive destination than the booming capital in the 1730s the whole of london was squashed into a fraction of its size today london started here round about tower bridge that's there and stretched about a mile in this direction over towards westminster and that was london and it was ram packed full about 700 000 people and dogs and horses and other animals and amongst this hurley burley was a woman called elizabeth bowman she's in there somewhere that's her elizabeth was one of the many young single women who saw an opportunity to make money from george and london's expanding population six days a week she'd get up at sunrise and leave her small rented room to come shopping here at covent garden market it was the best place in london to buy juniper perries herbs and spices because elizabeth was a maker and seller of the capital's most popular recreational product gin in georgian times in london they were knocking back an incredible seven million gallons of gin every year that's stupid two pints of gin every week for every adult oh thank you two pints is what we drink on average per year i mean all right i'm slightly more than the average but you know what i mean anyway elizabeth certainly had a lot of eager customers for her product but what was her life like anastasia miller is an expert on drinking in the 18th century why do you reckon a woman like elizabeth would have gotten involved in the gym making trade because if you were a good girl you would want to do something where it it's honorable enough that you could sell something you could make something you could make enough of a profit so you implying that she could avoid the sex trade she could avoid the sex trade an incredible 20 of george and london's young women were involved in the sex trade whereas selling and making gin was considered far more respectable for elizabeth it meant she could afford a new bonnet when she needed or visit one of the new theatres that was springing up around covent garden and she might even treat herself to a ball of scented soap for her daily ablutions making gin was a bit of a dodgy business first elizabeth probably blagged a jug or two of rough neat spirit from the local distillery no questions asked okay so elizabeth's got some of this dodgy stuff she takes it home yes what does she do well she's going to make it into gin easiest way is you take your spirit and she probably used just regular crockery jugs things like that now here's the important part she had to have juniper is that the thing that really marks you now that is what gin is but juniper berries were pricey and might sometimes have been beyond elizabeth's budget other way to do it to get that piney smell was to use this let me i know what that is is that paint stripper well it's oil of turps turps yeah they used to tick turps into the gin well they also used to take oil a vitriol to give it a little bit of peppery bite which is what sulfuric acid oh that's ridiculous oh i know and if she was feeling creative elizabeth may have added her own herbs and spices as well seal this up let it sit overnight and you're done you've made gin [Music] once elizabeth had made her gin the next challenge was to flog her dodgy home brew one of the most horrible things confronting elizabeth daley would have been the sheer filthiness of london that had been rubbish strewn all over the place pig snorting everywhere and in the days before main sewers had been put in human effluent was just chucked into the street or else whoosh went straight into the river thames elizabeth would have had to walk many miles a day through this without wellies or a face mask just to get to her customers where and when was gin sold they sold it everywhere they went up and down the streets too but the best place to sell gin was if you showed up to places where people gathered and you're looking at hangings at the tibetan tree if you're going to go see a proper set of hangings for the day you're going to need refreshment you're going to need gin spending the day at the gallows elizabeth might have found some more thirsty customers at the local fight night women used to do bare knuckle fighting because it's another way to make money and they'd be selling gin is a refreshment but they also gave it away as a prize really ladies love chin but unfortunately ladies loved it too much as did men and quite a few children by the 1730s jin was no longer just a recreational drug londoners had become hopelessly addicted to the tipple elizabeth was selling so the government banned hawking gin on the streets and that meant elizabeth's livelihood was seriously under threat desperate for an income she moved her gin operation underground and found a clever way to advertise her bootleg a puss and mew [Music] what you do you fancy your gin right and you start this is absolutely true you would stand outside it going puss push inside elizabeth would hear it and she would reply so the bloke knew that it was time to put his penny in or his tattens if he wanted a double and then she would pour the gin out and it would come down that spout and he would get out his pewter mug and drink it it was a bit like ordering a burger from a drive-in but in spring 1738 elizabeth's luck finally ran out she was snitched on for selling gin and sentenced to two months imprisonment at the totthill house of correction georgian houses of correction were pretty brutal places inmates like elizabeth were forced into hard labor they used to have to spend the whole day hammering away at tough hemp plants to extract the fibres for rope making they lived in squalid cramped conditions the food was meager the whippings were frequent all for committing the crime basically of being a poor person trying to get a living in a rich man's world after prison elizabeth disappears from the historical records maybe she stopped selling gin or maybe this canny operator became even better at hiding her trade [Music] for ordinary people in georgia and britain whether gin hawkers sailors or poachers life was a hell of a struggle but i'm just in awe of their spirit of survival

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 410,596

Rating: 4.913301 out of 5

Keywords: history documentaries, quirky history, world history, ridiculous history, absolute history, bridgerton, bridgerton real story, bridgerton life, georgian bridgerton, georgian britain, georgian life, gin making, gin, georgian gin, victorian gin, history of britain, tony robinson, victorian era

Id: 91GrrWaUSRc

Length: 42min 29sec (2549 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 19 2021