Today we need to make little distinction between day and night, so the ideas carry little freight for us; indeed, true darkness is a scarce commodity that ought to be more precious than it is. In 1800, by contrast, one’s ability to make use of the night hours was a luxury enjoyed only by the well-to-do.
The principal exception to this blackout came in the form of homemade rush lights—peeled rushes dipped in mutton fat or bacon fat—which burned for about an hour. Bacon was limited to those who could afford to raise a pig every year and mutton fat was also used for cooking and made into soap, so turning these commodities into lights was not the first priority.
Those who could not keep animals, if they had sufficient income, could buy the grease and the rushes. According to Gilbert White (History of Selborne, letter XXVI, p. 167), ‘A pound of common grease may be procured for four pence; and about six pounds of grease will dip a pound of rushes; and one pound of rushes may be bought for one shilling; so that a pound of rushes, medicated and ready for use, will cost three shillings.’ In other words, a pound of rush lights would cost a labourer more than a week’s pay. I leave you to imagine whether that was a priority.
A more desirable type of candle was the wax candle (beeswax or spermaceti). Roy and Lesley Adkins explain in Jane Austen’s England (p. 99) that ‘the best-quality ones were of beeswax—some were made from thin sheets of beeswax wrapped round a flax or cotton wick and others were laboriously manufactured as solid candles.’ (A machine for making candles was not invented until 1834.) These were made and sold by chandlers and there was a chandler’s shop on High Street in Darking, between the Wheatsheaf Inn of giant hog fame and the path that led between the buildings to the church.
Chandlers might also sell candles made from spermaceti oil (a substance taken from the heads of sperm whales). Spermaceti oil could be poured into moulds to make candles. Both beeswax and spermaceti candles were prized because they didn’t have an offensive odour and burned both cleanly and brightly, for which reason they were often known as sewing candles. Lighting a house with wax candles was a very expensive affair, available only to the rich. Added to the already high price was a tax of three and a half pence per pound—extortionate when you consider that a pound of candles provided only about eleven hours of illumination.
Hunting sperm whale (1835), colour print from a sketch by Cornelius Hulsart. Smithsonian Museum DL*65.0876.
Candles could be lit either by holding a spill (a flammable object such as paper, tree bark, or a scrap of cloth) to the flames of a fire, or by striking a spark. Sue Wilkes explains the process in A Visitor’s Guide to Jane Austen’s England (p. 37): ‘You strike the flint and [fire-]steel together until they make a spark; let it fall onto the tinder [the ashes of some burnt linen or a bit of rag] to ignite it. Blow on the tinder until it smoulders, then push a match (a small piece of wood previously dipped in brimstone [i.e., sulphur]) into the tinder to light it.’ The flint, fire-steel, and tinder were all stored in a tinderbox.
Oil lamps existed by 1800 but were mostly found in houses in the cities or along the coasts, where fish oil to fuel them was cheap. The form of oil lamp we are familiar with today, with a glass chimney, was invented in the early 1780s. Gas was yet to be put to use, and there were no street-lamps in Darking.
1 September 2021
Sources
Roy Adkins and Lesley Adkins, Jane Austen’s England (New York, 2013).
W. Bovill, English Country Life 1780–1830 (London, 1962).
Daniel Pool, What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew (New York, 1993).
Gilbert White, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789; the edition used here is The Illustrated Natural History of Selborne [London, 2108]).
Sue Wilkes, A Visitor’s Guide to Jane Austen’s England (Barnsley, Yorkshire, 2014).