My Regency Page

The Regency

The Regency era was a very short, but colorful time in British history, from 1811 to 1825. King George III, was declared mad, and his son, the Prince of Wales, was designated Regent.   It was a time of glittering ball rooms in London, the seaside resort of Brighton, and magnificint country houses.   The era showed the wide gap between rich and poor. It was also the beginning of the rise of the merchant class. It was a fascinating time in British history.

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Phaetons were  very light, practaical carraiges that  could be hitched by one person, and pulled by a single horse over a long distance. It was considered  fast and dangerous.

For more about the Regency, visit these authors: Judith B. Glad Susanne Knight Lynne Connolly Maureen Mackey Lesley-Anne McLeod

Bedlam

In Whisper My Name, Lucia has a very real fear of Bedlam. And with reason. Bedlam -- or St. Mary's Hospital of Bethehem -- was more than a hospital caring for the physically and mentally ill. It was a place where people often 'disappeared.'   Until the mid-19th century, Bedlam was one of the few hospitals for the mentally ill. While the newer building, finished in the mid-1800s was better than the previous,

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where there were two galleries, each made up of a corridor lined with cells on either side and an iron gate in the middle dividing the men from the women, the treatment of the patients was pretty much the same. Otten, patients were manacled to the floor. It was more a prison -- a place to hide the insane -- than it was a place for treatment. Most medical treatment at this time was largely ineffectual.    For years, Bedlam was a problem no one knew  how to fix. Restraints and physical punishment remained the norm for centuries. One patient remained chained for 14 years. By the early 1800's other places for the mentailly ill had been established; private asylums were much in demand to avoid the public provision of Bedlam. What better place to hide a mentally ill -- or not -- family member than Bedlam, where shoddy records, at best, were kept?    By 1860 the hospital had undergone a dramatic change in appearance, inside and out. Patients were  segregated into seperate sections of the building. The women's ward even had flowers and birdcages -- a far cry from the early days.