In the last ten years of the century, poke bonnets and Dunstable hats were much in evidence, and with flowing curls, and flowing ribbons tied in a large bow under the chin, were sometimes not unbecoming to a pretty face.
But in Jane’s lifetime the strangest fashion, that ever caused discomfort to a whole nation, gradually died down, that is to say the use of wigs. Yet that they were worn so late as 1814 is shown by Jane’s remark in one of the letters. “My brother and Edward (his son) arrived last night. Their business is about teeth and wigs.”
Nothing quickened the departure of the wig so much as the tax put on hair powder by Pitt in 1785; people argued that they did not mind the money, but they thought it so iniquitous to tax powder that they left off wearing powdered wigs to spite the Government, and probably, once having discovered the comfort of doing without these hideous evils, they would never return to them. Yet that the wig, even in its heyday, was not universally worn is shown by the fact that King George III. himself refused to wear one. The king’s “hair, which is very thick, and of the finest light colour, tied behind with a ribband, and dressed by the hand of the queen, is one of his most striking ornaments. Notwithstanding this, the peruke makers have presented an address to the king, requesting His Majesty that, for the good of their body and the nation, he would be pleased to wear a wig.” (Grosley.)
No one has given a better account of the wig than Sir Walter Besant, he says: “The wig was a great leveller ... with the wig it mattered nothing whether one was bald or not. Again the wig was a great protection for the head; it saved the wearer from the effects of cold draughts; it was part of the comfort of the age like the sash window and the wainscoted wall. And the wig, too, like the coat and the waistcoat, was a means of showing the wealth of its owner, because a wig of the best kind, new, properly curled and combed, cost a large sum of money. Practically it was indestructible, and with certain alterations descended. First it was left by will to son or heir; next it was given to the coachman; then, with alterations, to the gardener; then it went to the second-hand people in Monmouth Street, whence it continued a downward course until it finally entered upon its last career of usefulness in the shoeblack’s box. There was lastly an excellent reason why in the eighteenth century it was found more convenient to wear a wig than the natural hair. Those of the lower classes who were not in domestic service wore their own hair. Their heads were filled with vermin—these vermin were very easily caught—now the man who shaved his head and wore a wig was free of this danger.” (London in the Eighteenth Century.)
We know that Dr. Johnson’s wigs were a constant source of trouble, for they were not only dirty and unkempt, but generally burnt away in the front, for being very nearsighted, he often put his head into the candle when poring over his books. Whenever he was staying with the Thrales therefore the butler used to waylay him as he passed in to dinner, and pull off the wig on his head, replacing it with a new one.
Ladies rarely appeared without head-dresses of some kind, be it only a bow or an ornamental comb, they seemed to think that a woman should be seen with her head covered in every place as well as in church. Near the end of Cecilia the flighty Lady Honoria cries, “‘Why you know sir as to caps and wigs, they are very serious things, for we should look mighty droll figures to go about bareheaded,’” which shows how entirely custom dictates what appears “mighty droll” or quite ordinary.
Wigs were sometimes the cause of ludicrous incidents, as when in the House of Commons Lord North suddenly rising from his seat and going out bore off on the hilt of his sword the wig of Welbore Ellis who happened to be stooping forward.
Many people, when wigs began to go out of fashion, powdered their own hair, and of this Besant gives us also an unpleasant but speaking picture: “Among the minor miseries of life is to be mentioned the slipping and sliding of lumps of the powder and pomatum from the head down to the plate at dinner.”
Even boys at school wore queues. Of a master at Eton it is said that his management of the boys, excellent in other respects, was in some things amiss, for “he burnt all their ruffles, and cut off their queues.”
The Times of April 14, 1795, mentions that: “A numerous club has been formed in Lambeth called the Crop Club, every member of which, on his entrance, is obliged to have his head docked as close as the Duke of Bridgewater’s old bay coach horses. This assemblage is instituted for the purpose of opposing, or rather evading, the tax on powdered heads.”