What I know about Beau Brummell

Sunday I went to a lecture about Regency dandy Beau Brummell at Te Papa, given by Ian Kelly, an English actor and Brummell's biographer. The lecture was put on by the Friends of Te Papa and held in the Soundings Theatre, at the not inconsiderable sum of $25 at ticket for non-members. 

I do have vaguely directed interests in both Regency History and the history of costume, but it was the marketing genius of the lecture title that sold it to me: Undressing Mr Darcy: sex, suits and shifting cultures 1770 - 1820. Naked Mr Darcy!

Ian Kelly was a very entertaining speaker, and gave a lecture that was informative without being too specialised but wasn't patronising either. The tone was a little bit naughty. Titters abounded.

The only issue I had with the entire experience was with this horrible old bat who sat next to me in the five minutes before the lecture was due to start. As the speaker was introduced, this woman turned to me and said: "Are you going to write throughout the entire presentation?"

Me: "Ah - I thought I'd take a few notes...?"

HOB: "Well, I find it very distracting. If you're going to write, you should go and sit over there - " indicating single, lonely seat in the corner by a giant pole.

Me (fighting my "respect your elders upbringing" and horrified by the rudeness of aforementioned HOB): "Well, if you find it distracting, perhaps you could sit over there."

HOB ignores my comment. I ignore her and start making notes, but I'm boiling with anger and guilt. In the end I decide that I can't stand her giving me the evils from the edges of her pince nez , and I flouncily gather up my bits and begin to move away.

HOB (sniffily): "Thank you."

Me (hissing): "Spectacular rudeness." Which was neither particularly mature nor very respectful to my elders, but did allow me to have the last word. Ha.

I then preceded to sit on the lonely, sad person seat where I was unable to concentrate on the first ten minutes of the lecture because I was furious and kept coming up with a million better comebacks than spectacular rudeness.

Anyways, what I now know about Beau Brummell:

• He was born at Number 10 Downing Street (then Number 5 Downing Square). His parents weren't married and his mother was a courtesan.
• His parents had a country house with a flint hermitage. They advertised in a London paper for a hermit to live in their hermitage. Tom Stoppard makes a reference to this in one of his plays (Arcadia?).
• His entry into society, as it were, was as the child subject of a Joshua Reynolds painting called "The Brummell heirs".
• The Prime Minister Lord North (his father's boss) sent him and his brother to Eton where he began working on what would later be known as "the Brummell look" - i.e., mostly monochrome, with sexy skin-0tight pants.
• Some of the wearers of these skin-tight pants (Lord Byron was mentioned I think?) definitely did not wear undies, probably due to VPL. This can be deduced from their laundry bills.
• Brummell was the Prince of Wales' (later the Prince Regent) best man when he (George) disastrously married Caroline of Brunswick. Marriage fail!
• He resigned his commission from the Hussars when the regiment was posted to Manchester, claiming that he couldn't be seen anywhere so unfashionable.
• Brummell and his tailor at Meyer and Mortimer are attributed with the invention of the full length trouser.
• He bathed every day which was a scandalous innovation. The bathing took up one hour of the three it would take him to get dressed every morning. A second hour of the dressing process was spent tying his cravat perfectly.
• Peeps, including the Prince Regent, would come and observe this process. Because Beau Brummell was just that fashionable.
• Ignominious end: he fled the country because he insulted the Prince of Wales (short story - called him fat), and also because he had mountains of debt.
• Annnddd.... he died in Northern France in 1840 of tertiary syphilis sans hair and sans teeth, hallucinating about having Regency celebrities over for parties.

My favourite conclusions though were around what parts of the Regency lifestyle can be seen as contributing to Victorian standards of morality and the Victorian obsession with insanity and depression. And what it comes down to (at least, according to Ian Kelly) is that  the attendant venereal diseases (especially syphilis) of Regency promiscuity left a super-nasty taste in the mouth of the aristocracy and upper classes, no family of which had escaped unscathed. Lots of congenital madness and what not. 

CONCLUSION: Horrible Old Bats aside, lecture was good. Future idea for Friends of Te Papa lectures: find a seat far away from the main entrance.