18 Indecent Behaviors of the Regency Era

17. Parmesan Ice Cream Was All the Rage

Ice cream and cheese are two of the most popular dairy items in the west. However, it should be noted they’re popular separately. Unfortunately, to modern senses of taste, Regency English diners enjoyed these two favorites combined. Ice cream was a trendy treat for wealthy Regency people, with large quantities of ice being either being saved in winter and stored in cold houses or imported to create the frozen delicacies. Many of the favorite flavors of the Regency era would not be out of place in a modern ice cream shop, such as cardamom and pistachio. However, rye bread and Parmesan cheese ice creams likely wouldn’t be too popular with modern palates.

A famous ice cream cookbook published in 1789, The Complete Confectioner, by Frederick Nutt contained 32 recipes for various flavors of ice creams. This manual included the famed Parmesan ice cream, which instructed ice cream makers to, “Take six eggs, half a pint of syrup and a pint of cream put them into a stewpan and boil them until it begins to thicken; then rasp three ounces of Parmesan cheese, mix and pass them through a sieve, and freeze it.” Another incredibly unique recipe in the book is for burnt ice cream, in which the cream is scalded until it turns brown and imparts a burnt flavor.

16. Women Didn’t Wear Underwear

Fashion began to change drastically during the Regency era. After the bloodshed of the French Revolution, no one wanted to risk looking like a French aristocrat of old. Empire-waisted gowns with clean lines and simpler fabrics replaced the frilly over-complicated dresses of the previous era. These changes allowed women to be more comfortable and made fashionable attire more attainable for lower-class women. The fabrics used in the Regency era were overall cheaper to obtain and more accessible to launder than those of the previous period. The simpler dresses also meant that maids or attendants were no longer required to help women dress.

Interestingly, the simple gowns of the era had a saucy side effect: Regency women went “commando.” Slips, a basic form of chemise, were worn to ensure that the light, diaphanous dresses of the era were opaque and modest. Drawers, which still would have left most of a woman’s nether regions exposed, were still quite controversial due to their similarity to men’s trousers. Even had a Regency woman worn drawers, she would have been primarily exposed under her gown, as drawers only covered the legs like chaps. Given the modesty of the era, it’s rather amusing to think that the fashionable, wealthy women at galas were all dancing around without knickers.

15. Middle-Class Children Were Sent Away From the Family

Eighteenth and early 19th-Century European parents had quite uncharitable views of children. Some philosophers and religious leaders preached that children too young to speak rationally were virtually worthless and merely lumps of flesh. Others taught an even harsher belief that young children were vessels of original sin who needed to be cleansed. Adherents to either of these views tended to outsource the parenting of their young children, as it was below the status and efforts of middle and upper-class parents to care for such lowly beings directly.

Wealthier families tended to use wet nurses or family acquaintances of lower social status to raise their children through their youngest period. Jane Austen’s family famously used an acquaintance in a nearby town to raise all of their children to the “logical” age when they were permitted to return. More impoverished families sometimes simply locked very young children in an attic or spare room and treated them with only the most basic care, waiting for them to come of an older age to invest more time and energy into them. Once children were older, around eight to ten, boys of middle and upper-class families would often be sent away again, this time to formal boarding schools. Girls were typically educated at home, either by a governess or her parents.

14. Murder Scenes Were Tourist Attractions

It’s perhaps unsurprising in an era before the internet, television, or even radio that entertainment was hard to find and often a bit strange. Even reading would have been difficult past daylight hours in Regency England, as quality candles were still extremely expensive. Death was a powerful cultural force in the Regency period, with many rituals popping up around death including mourning brooches. This fascination, combined with the relative lack of entertainment in the period, led to a particularly grim pastime: murder tourism.

When news of the murder broke in a city, murder tourists would rush to the location hoping to see gritty evidence. Sometimes, a public auction would take place with tourists attempting to buy items from the murder scene. There was no forensic science in the Regency era, so murder tourists would be allowed to trample all over the murder scene, obscuring or destroying any evidence present. Murder scenes became so popular, especially if the victim were someone well known, that enterprising business people began selling tourist attractions at famous scenes. The souvenirs were often items like bits of sack from the bag used to transport the body of the victim or some other similarly morbid piece from the crime scene.

13. High-Class Men Were Absurdly Vain

Quite a bit of time and energy is spent analyzing the female beauty standards of past eras. The makeup, fashion, and hairstyles are all, and it’s easy to find information on how the styles have changed throughout the years. Less attention is paid to men’s styles, perhaps due to the perception that men care less about hair and fashion, and how men’s wardrobes have evolved through the ages. The opinion of men not caring about image could not be more incorrect for the men of Regency England. The men of the era not only valued their appearance, but some were vain to the point of being rather ludicrous.

Beau Brummel was the male socialite of the Regency Era. He set the trends of the era and was always immaculately dressed. It is said that it took him five hours to get dressed each day. He invented the starched cravat, which featured a high, stiff collar with numerous complicated knots. He reportedly washed his leather boots with champagne and refused to walk anywhere for fear of getting them muddy or dirty. He epitomized the Regency image of a dandy and ran in the social circle of fellow fashionable Regency dandies including Lord Byron.

12. Upper-Class Men Kept Mistresses

Women of nearly every era were expected to remain chaste until marriage and then monogamously virtuous to their husbands, while men have very rarely been expected to follow the same rules. The Regency Era was no exception, with countless upper-class men keeping at least one mistress after marriage and pursuing numerous trysts before marriage. The familiar image of the Regency dandy or rake included widespread success with women and late-night carousing, while the women of the era were expected to stay indoors doing needlepoint or playing the piano. It rarely harmed the reputation of a man to be known to have a mistress, even if his relationship with her was quite open to the public eye.

Military officers were especially notorious for their mistresses, often bringing them to war and allowing them to share their tents. Aristocratic men, including the military officers, were expected to provide financially for their mistresses, especially if they bore them children. A long-term mistress would often be cared for even into her old age. It was considered a testament to the character (and wealth) of a man if he provided good financial care for his mistress. When several wealthy men failed to care for one shared mistress, she wrote a tell-all book naming and shaming them for their thrift.

11. Candles and Other Household Items Were Deadly

Aside from the ever-present threat of disease in an era before the advent of germ theory and antibiotics, countless household items from the Regency Era could also kill. Paper, cloth, and candles all contained arsenic in varying concentrations, which is a deadly chemical often found in rat poison. Fowler’s Solution, invented in 1809, was heralded as a miracle cure for a variety of ailments. It was marketed, in small doses, to women to create radiant and blemish-free skin. For men, it was sold in increasingly large doses to provide stamina, treat baldness, and increase virility. The solution contained potassium arsenite, a form of arsenic. The use of arsenic in everyday products was so widespread that some refer to the Regency era as the “arsenic era.”

Arsenic interferes with the metabolic processes of mammals, leading to death from multi-organ failure. It is also a Group-A carcinogen, meaning that it is likely to cause cancer even in doses that don’t cause arsenic poisoning. All arsenic compounds, including the potassium arsenite found in Fowler’s solution, are associated with the development of cirrhosis of the liver, high blood pressure in the liver, skin cancer, and bladder cancer. Definitely not worth it for blemish-free skin or a few extra hairs on your head!

10. The Prince Regent Was Obese and Possibly Syphilitic

The Prince Regent had a deep and abiding love for food. In his older years, his typical breakfast was reportedly champagne, port, brandy, a pie containing two or three pigeons, five steaks, and an egg. His breakfast alone was thousands of calories. The Prince Regent was reportedly almost 300 pounds later in life with a 50-inch waist and was ridiculed in the press as the Prince of Whales. Prince George was so fond of food he hired the first celebrity chef, Marie-Antoine Carême, who worked for both Napoleon and the Prince Regent during his career.

In addition to food, the Prince Regent was also quite fond of women. He was a noted womanizer and had many affairs during his marriage to Caroline of Brunswick. They lived separately for most of their marriage, and the Prince Regent had a lifelong relationship with the widowed Maria Fitzherbert in addition to other noble women including several Marchionesses. Much like his father, George IV’s later life was marked by declining mental health that was possibly due to syphilis infection. It is said that the Prince Regent frequented prostitutes, which could easily have led to infection with syphilis. Towards the end of his life, the obese and possibly syphilitic George took vast quantities of laudanum, an opiate, to deal with the pain of his gout and various other ailments.

9. One High-Class Mistress Wrote an NSFW Tell-All

Harriette Wilson was a mistress to numerous famous and wealthy men in Regency England. After several of her paramours failed to provide her with decent financial support, as was expected at the time, she wrote a tell-all book called The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson: Written by Herself, which caused a massive scandal by naming and shaming numerous high-ranking men. The two-volume autobiography details affairs with no less than the Duke of Wellington, the foreign secretary, various other nobles including new dukes, and even the Prince Regent himself. While she didn’t sleep with the Prince Regent herself, she details an affair for which the Prince was supposed to have provided £20,000 that he never paid.

Harriette Wilson was, by the standards of the era, a courtesan. Many women who became the long-term mistresses of aristocratic men were courtesans who negotiated levels of financial support in exchange for maintaining the relationship. Despite the transfer of funds, the associations were not looked at as prostitution in the era, but instead financially caring for a dependent long-term lover. However, to the courtesans, their affairs were the basis of a career, and any lapse in payment could leave them destitute. It was such lapses in payment that led Wilson to write her book.

8. Tons of People Took Opium Frequently

Opium, which is a refined form of the sap from the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, was imported in significant quantities to England from its colony, Bengal. Opiates were common in household medicines in various forms, especially laudanum, and were easy to obtain. The Prince Regent himself was reportedly taking up to 250 drops of laudanum a day towards the end of his life. Laudanum, as used at the time, was a tincture of 10% powdered opium by weight, and the equivalent of a tincture of 1% morphine today. It’s hard to imagine now, but children and even infants were often dosed with laudanum for toothaches or cholic during the era. Doctors and apothecaries, who served as rudimentary pharmacists, had no formalized training and freely advised patients of all ages to take opiates.

Opiates were no less addictive in Regency England than they are today, with countless contemporary reports of lives destroyed and sufferers dying from addiction and overdose. The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was famously addicted to opium. While he initially began taking laudanum for childhood fever, it turned into an addiction that led to his using two quarts of laudanum a week by the end of his life. His obsession led to his wife leaving him and his friendship with fellow poet William Wordsworth dissolving.

7. Dead Soldier’s Teeth Were Popular Dentures

Wealthy residents of Regency England had rich diets full of fat and, most importantly for their teeth, sugar. Unfortunately for them, dental hygiene and practice was still incredibly rudimentary science. Consequently, the wealthiest people in the Regency Era had the worst teeth. Since rotted teeth were so widespread among the upper crust, dentistry was a booming industry. Jewelers, blacksmiths, wig makers, and other professions all jumped into the dentistry craze. False teeth were often crafted out of ivory, bone or porcelain at an incredibly high cost. The most expensive treatment was replacing a pulled rotten tooth with a live tooth, often from a live “donor” or fresh corpse, which spread disease.

In a morbid, yet fortunate, turn of events for those in need of teeth, over 47,000 soldiers died at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. After the battle was decided in favor of the English, people scoured the battlefield harvesting healthy teeth from the mouths of the fallen soldiers to make dentures for the wealthy back home. “Waterloo teeth” became incredibly prized for dentures since they came from mouths of healthy young men and were relatively unaffected by decay. The teeth would either be fitted into a single empty socket or crafted into dentures with an ivory base. While this treatment is horrifying, at least it didn’t spread disease.

6. “Hotels” Meant Sharing Beds With Strangers

When the wealthy traveled in Regency England, they would often stay at the homes of other nobles as a guest. Regular working folks had no such luxury and were forced to remain at coaching inns. Such inns were a common sight along Regency roadways and offered a cheap frill-less overnight stop for poor travelers. Due to the high demand for such services, the inns were constantly packed. The owners of such inns were of low social status and didn’t have much wealth themselves, so expanding their inns and buying more beds was out of the question. So, what does an enterprising coaching inn owner due to meet demand? Make the guests share beds with each other, of course!

As horrifying as this sounds, communal bed sharing among travelers was standard practice throughout the west in the 17th and early 18th centuries. The method was so conventional that there were rules of etiquette surrounding the sharing of a communal bed. One was to lie still, be quiet, keep one’s hands to oneself, and not hog the blankets. Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin and John Adams famously (and hilariously) broke these rules by spending a night at an inn fighting over whether or not to sleep with a window open.

5. Unmarried Couples Were Sewn Into Bed Together

Bundling, or tarrying, is an old tradition in which an unmarried couple that was courting would spend a night in bed together with some sort of barrier between them to prevent premarital relations. This practice was believed to encourage intimacy in a courting young couple without allowing for any sinning to happen. There were many forms of bundling including placing a board down the length of the mattress to create separation or using a rolled-up wad of bedding along the bed for the same purpose. Another way is having the man lay atop the covers and the woman under, wearing unique sack-like clothing that was difficult to get out of, or both people laying in a sack with a seam sewn down the middle.

While some religious leaders preached against bundling, it remained a widespread practice well into the 19th century, especially in the United States. The practice was especially popular among Pennsylvania Dutch settlers and Amish settlers. It is believed that bundling may still be used during courtship by the Nebraska Amish community today. While it is a charming system, in theory, it’s hard to imagine that amorous youngsters who intended to be married wouldn’t have been able to figure out how to outsmart a board or a sack.

4. Folk Songs Were Extremely Obscene

Many older folks today complain about the lewd nature of today’s music. However, many of today’s rappers and pop stars had nothing on the troubadours of the Regency Era who sang songs that could positively make you blush. A favorite folk song of the era was “A Lusty Young Smith.” It is a rather frank depiction of a tryst between a married woman and a young blacksmith, with one surprisingly explicit verse describing the frequency of the encounter saying,

Six times did his iron by vigorous heating,
Frow soft in her forge in a minute or so,
And as often was hardened, still beating and beating,
But each time it softened, it hardened more slow.
With a jingle bang, jingle bang, jingle bang, jingle,
With a jingle bang, jingle bang, jingle, hi ho!

Another rather raunchy folk song of the period was “The Trooper Water His Nagg” which was a humorous story of a man stopping to water his horse and eventually whetting his appetite with the innkeeper’s daughter. The ribald end of the song is the man in woman discussing what to do together in bed, with the lines:

“But what is this hangs under his chin?”
“‘Tis the bag he puts his Provender in.”

Quoth he, “What is this?” Quoth she,” ‘Tis a well
Where Ball, your Nag can drink his fill.”

“But what if my Nag should chance to slip in?”
“Then catch hold of the grass that grows on the brim.”

“But what if the grass should chance to fail?”
“Shove him in by the head, pull him out by the tail.”

3. Pig’s Tongues Were a Delicacy

Pork was an everyday staple for middle and upper-class diners of the Regency period. Little of the animal went to waste, with the pancreas, called sweetmeats, and head being common delicacies of the age. At dances, finger foods were highly prized as they allowed revelers to mingle and continue dancing while eating. This was much preferable over a massive, multi-course seated dinner that would surely get boring quickly to the young attendees with courtship on their mind. One tasty finger food was chicken stuffed with pigs’ tongues. Pig’s tongues were, in general, considered a delicacy to be savored when served a whole pig’s head.

Beef was another favorite food during the era, taking on a primarily political air during the war against the French. Dining clubs sprung up that focused heavily on eating beef, as it was unpopular in France at the time and considered by the British to be an unpretentious patriotic food that set them apart from continental Europeans. Eating specific foods or renaming them for political purposes is an old tradition that persists into our time, with hamburgers being renamed “liberty steaks” during World War I and french fries being called “Freedom Fries” in the early 2000s when France refused to support the United States’ war with Iraq.

2. Women Peed in Gravy Boat Shaped Dishes

Anyone who has ever had to sport shapewear or an elaborate dress knows that it isn’t always convenient, or even possible, to remove your garments in a way that facilitates using the bathroom. Regency Era women certainly knew this, given the layers of slips, dresses, and outerwear that would have comprised their daily attire. It should be a little surprise, then, that the clever women of the era had ways of using the bathroom while hardly having to adjust their clothing at all. Starting in the 18th century, women used fanciful gravy-boat like vessels called bourdaloues to do their business.

The bourdaloues were typically made of porcelain or metal and genuinely do look like small gravy boats minus a spout. They had a handle on one end and were curved inwards in the middle to rest comfortably against the user. For wealthy women, a maid would be waiting nearby to enter the pot after use. A painting by Francois Boucher shows a woman in full dress preparing to use a bourdaloue. Reportedly, women would use them in public, merely standing in a dark hallway or behind a curtain to relieve themselves. The advent of water closets in the 19th century put an end to the practice of using bourdaloues.

1. Cartoons Were Extremely NSFW

If you thought the folk songs of the Regency Era were tawdry, just wait until you hear about the cartoons. In an era before formal pornography, people needed some material to excite the imagination. This was accomplished with widely available cartoons that depicted countless carnal acts in full color. Surprisingly, in an era of purportedly chaste Christian morals, nothing was taboo in erotic artwork including gay people, interracial acts featuring Africans, oral, orgies, and acts depicting transvestites. Oddly enough, one erotic graving of the era describes putting a trumpet in a woman’s backside. Whether this was a peculiarity of the artist or an actual practice at the time is (thankfully) unknown.

The artist Thomas Rowlandson, who was active during the Regency period, created dozens of erotic engraving and illustrations that still survive today. They depict interracial acts, voyeurism, bestiality and more. Rowlandson is also famed for his satirical and political cartoons, implying that he must not have had his reputation damaged by the publication of erotic artwork. It is unclear what publications published Rowlandson’s erotic artwork during the era, but shortly after the Regency Era, the Victorian Era had several widely distributed erotic magazines called The Pearl and The Oyster that featured erotic stories and images.

Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:

“18 NSFW Regency Facts Your History Teachers Didn’t Want You To Know About” Hilary Mitchell, Buzzfeed. December 2017.

“10 fascinating Regency facts” Alison Goodman, The Guardian. February 2016.

“Georgian Ices and Victorian Bombes” Historic Food. n.d.

“Ladies Underdrawers in Regency Times” Vic, Jane Austen’s World. November 2010.

“Childcare in the Regency” Sharon Lathan. November 2017.

“The Supersizers Go Regency” BBC Two. June 2008.

“Samuel Taylor Coleridge” Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. November 2018.

“Laudanum” Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. November 2018.

“The Once-Common Practice of Communal Sleeping” Adee Braun, Atlas Obscura. June 2017.

“Bundling” Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. October 2018.

“The Trooper Watering His Nagg” Traditional Music UK. n.d.

“Thomas Rowlandson” Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. October 2018.

JASNA – The Marriage Law of Jane Austen’s World

Dangerous Woman Project – The Shocking Life of Harriette Wilson

BBC News – How Britain’s Opium Trade Impoverished Indians

Atlas Obscura – The Awkward 17th-Century Dating Practice That Saw Teens Get Bundled Into Bags

History Collection – The 10 Dos and Don’ts of Etiquette to Become a Lady in Regency England