Review

 

An etching of Fore Street in the mid 1800s (HALS ref: DE/X1025/2/39/235)

Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies

‘Meryton Revealed: The Derbyshire Militia at Hertford & Ware’ by Clive Caplan The Jane Austen Society Report 2004

‘The Hartfordshire Militia returned from Camp at Warley Common in Essex and marched into Hertford with Lord Salisbury … at their Head on Munday about 1 clock the 21st October 1793 to winter quarters at Hertford Ware & Hoddesdon.’ . This is from a jotting by John Carrington. Clive Caplan has discovered from the Public Record Office that in 1794 it was the turn of the Derbyshire Militia to spend the winter in the area of Hertford and Ware. There were 500 men in the Regiment and to avoid congestion on the roads they were required to march in two divisions and on different days. They had also been in camp at Warley. They were billeted at local inns. Full board was paid for at the rate of four pence per head per day. Inns that did not provide full board were still required to supply fire, candles, salt, vinegar, utensils and up to five pints of small beer or cider a day, free of charge. Not surprisingly, publicans throughout the country were unhappy with the billeting system, and some even gave up their licences, After 1795 the militias were accommodated in hastily built barracks.

Jane Austen wrote the first draft of Pride and Prejudice between 1796 and 1797. Derbyshire figures prominently in the novel. Wickham comes from that County, and it would have been the Derbyshire Regiment that he joined. As a considerable landowner in the County, Darcy would have had links to the Regiment. When Lydia and Wickham elope it is Darcy who pursues them. In his interview with Elizabeth, he refers to his concern for her happiness as being his motivation, but also mentions ‘other inducements’. This may be a reference to the honour of the Regiment.

Could Jane Austen have known that the Derbyshire Militia were in Hertford? It seems that she could as two of her brother Henry’s friends were in the Regiment. He was then a student at Oxford and a member of the Oxfordshire Militia. He is known to have been very close to Jane.

Clive Caplan’s article provides further support to the notion that Meryton was based on Hertford. Jane tells us that it was in Hertfordshire. The geography fits, London is referred to as being 24 miles away, and the Great North Road, along which Wickham and Lydia eloped as being 10. But why did Hertford capture Jane’s imagination? The most likely explanation is that she met someone who enthused about the town having seen it in that winter of 1795/6 when the Militia were here. Clive Caplan’s essay is of considerable local interest, and he provides information on billeting arrangements. In order to accommodate 500 men, inns as far afield as Hoddesdon, Broxbourne, Wormley, Stanstead Abbotts, and Wadesmill were pressed into service. Sadly Carrington left us no record of their presence. They are also absent from the Sessions Records which indicates that they were of good behaviour, that is apart from the fictitious Wickham.