Hyde Park, Its History and RomanceAlec-Tweedie, Mrs. (Ethel)
History
Hyde Park, Its History and Romance
Alec-Tweedie, Mrs. (Ethel)
Hyde Park (London, England); London (England) -- Social life and customs
Moreover, that cosmopolitan touch, in which all Britons rejoice so long
as it does not encroach, began to show itself, and in 1803, the exiled
Bourbon Princes were often to be seem among the throngs in the Park,
and they were present at a review held by the King, to which the Queen
and Princesses also came, as well as six of the Princes. It was a most
brilliant affair, and attracted crowds.
[Illustration:
Winter Amusements.
_From a Print in Crace Collection, British Museum._]
Those early nineteenth-century days were full of amusing
eccentricities. The springs in Hyde Park were much sought after by
people for bathing, others for drinking, and on Sundays a strange
scientist and doctor, who resided in Mount Street, Martin van Butchell
by name, used to attend, to distribute water from one of them. He was a
well-known character, who rode daily among the throng on a white pony
with a long, flowing tail, and this poor beast used at times to be
painted whatever colour his master fancied. The advertisements of this
self-advertising quack in the contemporary newspapers are most amusing.
Malcolm, in his _Review of Society in 1807_, says:
“Other amusements of the great consist in riding through Hyde Park: the
ladies in their coaches, and the gentlemen on horseback in an adjoining
road. He that would judge of the population of London should attend in
the Park on any Sunday at three o’clock, from February till May; he
must be astonished at the sight. The coaches, the horses, the populace
of every rank who toil against the bleak East winds, are wonderfully
numerous. Nor should he omit a visit to Kensington Gardens in May, to
view the beautiful pedestrians that form our fashionable world: or a
winter excursion to the Serpentine River and the Canal in St. James’s
Park, where numbers skait, or attempt to skait.”
In 1808 it was suggested in Parliament that houses should be built in
Hyde Park itself, but the proposal was quickly vetoed, for year by year
it became more and more popular as a public rendezvous. The Prince of
Wales came dashing down the Row in his tilbury, with his groom by his
side, displaying a lack of dignity that shocked many people. The aged
and infirm enjoyed a pleasant drive in the Park. Dr. Burney describes
his daily outing after he was paralysed, as “an old lady’s drive about
Hyde Park,” while it was the scene of a pathetic incident in the life
of Princess Caroline and her daughter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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