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Maria Fitzherbert

1756–1837

Born
26 Jul 1756, Tong
Country of birth
Kingdom of Great Britain, today United Kingdom
Died
27 Mar 1837, Brighton
facts
7
sources
1
images and files
0

Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

  • Birth26 Jul 1756, TongProbable1 source
  • Death27 Mar 1837, BrightonProbable1 source
  • ParentWalter SmytheConfirmed1 source
  • ParentMary Ann ErringtonConfirmed1 source

A life in time

  1. Born · Tong

    Birth, Tong

  2. Died · Brighton

    Death, Brighton

What was it like?

The world around Tong, 1756: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

Maria was born around the same time as William Bligh, George Crabbe, and Mary Darby Robinson.

Born around the same time

  • William Bligh

    1754 · officer of the British Royal Navy and colonial administrator (1754-1817)

  • George Crabbe

    1754 · English poet, surgeon, and clergyman (1754-1832)

  • Mary Darby Robinson

    1758 · English poet, novelist, dramatist, actress (1758–1800)

  • Luigi Marchesi

    1754 · Italian opera singer

  • António Leal Moreira

    1758 · composer

  • James Monroe

    1758 · president of the United States from 1817 to 1825 (1758–1831)

Fashion

Dual-purpose Undergarments

Women often wore a shift (a basic undergarment) that served as both daytime underwear and sleepwear.

Popular Bedgowns as Street Wear

Bedgowns, which were lightweight front-wrapping jackets, evolved into a staple garment for British working-class street wear.

Music
Around 1725–1749

Cost of musical instruments for amateurs

While professional instruments like harpsichords were expensive, costing 35 to 50 guineas, amateur musicians could purchase violins for £2 to £3 or an oboe for less than £2.

Around 1725–1749

Masked performers singing for eggs and beer

Groups known as pace-eggers would travel from house to house wearing masks and fantastic costumes, singing and dancing in exchange for rewards like eggs and strong beer.

Getting around

Slow coach travel speeds in mid-18th century

Coaching became more common after 1760, but travel remained slow; in 1755, average coach speeds to London were less than five miles per hour.

Travel options depended on personal wealth

Wealthy travelers hired expensive postchaises for speed, while poorer people sometimes paid to sit on baggage in slow carts pulled by carriers.

Daily life

Adjusting Rushlights Was a Child's Chore

Rushlights, made from dried reed pith dipped in fat, were a cheap source of light, though they could burn for as little as ten minutes. It was often the youngest family member's chore to manually adjust the reed in its clamp to keep the light burning.

Communal Baking for a Small Fee

In smaller communities, people often used a shared bakehouse where they paid a small fee to have their dough baked in a communal oven. Residents would carry their bread loaves to these ovens on boards resting on their shoulders.

Food
Around 1751–1751

Cheap gin for the poor

In 1751, gin was so cheap and widely consumed by the London poor that one could get drunk for a penny and dead drunk for twopence.

Sixpenny dinner for craftsmen

For an average London craftsman, a typical dinner consisted of bread, beer, and cheese or fatty bacon, often costing sixpence.

Prices and wages

Cost of a simple dinner

In 18th-century London, a simple dinner of cold meat, bread, and a pint of porter cost 6 1/4d.

Prices for clothing items

A working woman's gown cost 6s. 6d., while a pair of stout silk-knit breeches for men cost £1 12s.

Work

Common jobs in the period

Common occupations included agricultural labourers, who worked by the seasons, and diverse urban roles like cordwainers (shoemakers), chandlers (candle makers), and night-soil men, who removed waste at night.

Notable work facts and extremes

Some people worked unusual hours, such as a publican who began mowing at 2:00 a.m. in 1756, and children were employed from a young age for tasks like bird-scaring and stone-picking.

News and letters

London to Edinburgh mail delivery times

In the mid-18th century, letters from London typically took several days to reach Bath and about a week to arrive in Edinburgh.

Around 1755–1755

Penalty for illegal letter delivery

Attempting to deliver letters privately to avoid the Post Office was illegal and punishable by a 5l penalty per letter.

During their lifetime

  1. 1761

    Bridgewater Canal opens in 1761

    The Bridgewater Canal opened in 1761, drastically reducing the cost of coal transport from 7d. to 4d. per ton.

  2. 1772

    Slavery effectively outlawed in 1772

    Lord Mansfield ruled in 1772 that slavery was not supported by the common law of England, effectively outlawing it.

  3. 1799

    Unions outlawed in 1799

    The Combination Act of 1799 prohibited workers from collectively bargaining or forming unions to improve their pay and conditions.

Family

Parents

Spouses

Ancestors and children

Open the full tree

Four generations back to the right, the children to the left. The number beside a child counts the generations of descendants known after them.