Jane Austen and Bathing Machines

Today we are revisiting a post by Meg Levin, contributing writer, What Jane Austen Didn’t Tell Us!

When Jane Austen sends Lydia to Brighton she doesn’t tell us what the youngest Miss Bennet does aside from enjoying Wickham’s attentions. No doubt she and the young wife of Colonel Forster enjoy the shops and hope for glimpses of the Prince Regent. Sea resorts such as Brighton and Weymouth had become popular, much like Bath in the previous century. Young Georgiana Darcy visits the fashionable Ramsgate by the sea. The attractions of a popular resort included shops, a theater, assembly rooms for dancing and the sea. It was believed that exposure to sea air and salt water improved your health — as Mrs. Bennet says, “A little sea-bathing would set me up for ever.” So it is quite likely that the two young ladies in Brighton would have tried immersion in the sea by using the bathing machines.

The term “bathing machine” suggests a device with moving gears, tubes, perhaps including a steam engine. Actually, bathing cabins would a more accurate term — they were enclosed wagons with steps on both ends. The ones used by men were a good distance away from the women’s machines. A female customer, fully clothed on the beach, entered it at one end and changed into her modest bathing outfit inside. Horses or people would then pull the wagon into shallow water. Once in position the bathers inside would be assisted down the steps into the water by a “dipper,” a strong woman who held her and dunked her. The shock of the cool water would have been met with excited squeals from the young and frivolous Lydia. The illustration below shows two dippers carrying an older woman, while one bather undresses in the wagon and several others wade, float and enjoy themselves.

Jane Austen visited a number of seaside towns and must have used the bathing machines herself, as we see in the letter of September 14^th, 1804, sent from Lyme Regis: “The Bathing was so delightful this morning & Molly [a dipper?] so pressing with me to enjoy myself that I believe I staid in rather too long, as since the middle of the day I have felt unreasonably tired. I shall be more careful another time, & shall not bathe tomorrow, as I had before planned.”

Jane Austen and Bathing Machines

Written by Meg Levin, contributing writer, What Jane Austen Didn’t Tell Us!

When Jane Austen sends Lydia to Brighton she doesn’t tell us what the youngest Miss Bennet does aside from enjoying Wickham’s attentions. No doubt she and the young wife of Colonel Forster enjoy the shops and hope for glimpses of the Prince Regent. Sea resorts such as Brighton and Weymouth had become popular, much like Bath in the previous century. Young Georgiana Darcy visits the fashionable Ramsgate by the sea. The attractions of a popular resort included shops, a theater, assembly rooms for dancing and the sea. It was believed that exposure to sea air and salt water improved your health — as Mrs. Bennet says, “A little sea-bathing would set me up for ever.” So it is quite likely that the two young ladies in Brighton would have tried immersion in the sea by using the bathing machines.

The term “bathing machine” suggests a device with moving gears, tubes, perhaps including a steam engine. Actually, bathing cabins would a more accurate term — they were enclosed wagons with steps on both ends. The ones used by men were a good distance away from the women’s machines. A female customer, fully clothed on the beach, entered it at one end and changed into her modest bathing outfit inside. Horses or people would then pull the wagon into shallow water. Once in position the bathers inside would be assisted down the steps into the water by a “dipper,” a strong woman who held her and dunked her. The shock of the cool water would have been met with excited squeals from the young and frivolous Lydia. The illustration below shows two dippers carrying an older woman, while one bather undresses in the wagon and several others wade, float and enjoy themselves.

Jane Austen visited a number of seaside towns and must have used the bathing machines herself, as we see in the letter of September 14^th, 1804, sent from Lyme Regis: “The Bathing was so delightful this morning & Molly [a dipper?] so pressing with me to enjoy myself that I believe I staid in rather too long, as since the middle of the day I have felt unreasonably tired. I shall be more careful another time, & shall not bathe tomorrow, as I had before planned.”