Anglotopia Podcast | Discussing UK British Travel, History, Culture, London, British Slang, and More!
Anglotopia Podcast | Discussing UK British Travel, History, Culture, London, British Slang, and More!
Strictly Jane Austen Episode 2: What Jane Austen Actually Saw - The Real Georgian Bath with Dr. Moira Rudolf
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Featuring Moira Rudolf

This is Episode 2 of a special six-part Jane Austen series, sponsored throughout by Strictly Jane Austen.

Today’s episode has duels fought over a runaway marriage. It has a scandal so severe it drove one of England’s richest men into exile. It has the truth about what those elegant public baths were actually like to get into — considerably less charming than the paintings suggest. It has quack doctors selling electricity as medicine, and a notorious celestial bed that promised to cure infertility for fifty pounds a night. It has vanished pleasure gardens, a vulgar villa, a ferry ride that went badly wrong, and two of the great women of English letters falling out spectacularly over their choice of husbands. Jonathan Thomas is joined by Dr. Moira Rudolf, historian of Georgian and Regency Bath, for a tour of the city’s darker corners — and Jane Austen, as Moira points out, pops up in nearly all of them. Along the way: Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s two duels over the honor of Elizabeth Linley, the celebrated “Maid of Bath”; William Beckford, his scandal, his exile, his 276-foot tower with no foundations, and the Bath retreat Moira describes as the most haunted building she has ever stayed in; what Jane’s brother Edward actually endured in the name of taking the waters; Tobias Smollett’s stomach-turning account of the King’s Bath; where Mary Shelley really wrote Frankenstein; and Fanny Burney’s gloriously catty account of an evening at Bathwick Villa, complete with a mechanical eagle.

🎀 OUR SPONSOR: STRICTLY JANE AUSTEN

This entire six-part series is brought to you by Strictly Jane Austen — Bath’s most Austentatious travel company.

If this episode has put you in the mood to experience the Regency for yourself, there is no better way than stepping directly into Jane Austen’s Bath with an expert guide. Strictly Jane Austen’s award-winning tours bring Regency England to life through expertly guided walks, immersive storytelling, and carefully curated itineraries in Bath and beyond. Their guides are avid Janeites steeped in Regency knowledge — and, as Austen herself would have it, genuinely “clever, well-informed people.”

What they offer:

Book or learn more at strictlyjaneausten.com · Call +44 1225 333747 (Mon–Fri, 09:00–17:00 GMT)
Follow them: Instagram · Facebook

Winner, Bristol Bath & Somerset International Tourism Award 2025 (Bronze). Part of ECT Travel, a Bath-based tour operator running successful travel programmes since 1993.

Links

Places in Bath Mentioned

Anglotopia

Takeaways

  1. Richard Brinsley Sheridan was eighteen, unknown and penniless when he met Elizabeth Linley, the celebrated soprano known as the “Maid of Bath.” Her father Thomas Linley was Bath’s most influential musical impresario — and, Moira notes, a father in the mould of Leopold Mozart or Joe Jackson, who bullied all his children into becoming prodigies.
  2. Elizabeth’s reputation was destroyed not by anything she did but by a married man, Captain Matthews, who pursued her and spread the rumor she was his mistress. Performers — singers and actresses especially — were routinely assumed to be high-class courtesans, however respectable they actually were. A play at the Haymarket based on the scandal, and a Bath Chronicle review declaring it “based on fact,” finished the job.
  3. Sheridan and Elizabeth eloped from 11 Royal Crescent to France in March 1772. Only after they had arrived did Sheridan reveal his true intention: she could not return to England as anything but his wife. They married in France, but both being minors the marriage was invalid.
  4. Sheridan fought two duels over Elizabeth’s honor. The first, in London, was short and bloodless. The second, at Kingsdown outside Bath in July 1772, was ferocious — both men broke their swords and kept fighting. Sheridan was carried from the field with part of Matthews’s weapon through his ear and his face beaten to a pulp with the sword hilt. He lay seriously ill at the White Hart Inn for eight days, nursed by Elizabeth.
  5. William Beckford inherited an immense fortune at the age of ten, built from his father’s Jamaican sugar plantations. In 1784 his letters to the young William “Kitty” Courtenay were intercepted and published, creating a scandal so severe it drove him into an eleven-year self-imposed exile, destroyed his political prospects, and saw him permanently shunned by polite society.
  6. Fonthill Abbey, Beckford’s Gothic extravaganza in Wiltshire, had a 276-foot tower. Its contractor confessed on his deathbed that it had been built with no foundations at all. Beckford — by then living in Bath and able to see the tower from his own — owned up to the new owner, and not long afterward the whole thing collapsed.
  7. Beckford’s Tower on Lansdown is now let by the Landmark Trust. Moira has stayed there, and describes it as the most forbidding, sinister and haunted building she has ever been in. “I have never been so frightened in my life.”
  8. Jane Austen’s brother Edward came to Bath in 1799 convinced he had gout and took the cure — bathing in and drinking the mineral water, and trying electricity on a Tuesday. Jane’s letters to Cassandra make her skepticism obvious; Moira suspects she thought him a hypochondriac. He was strong as an ox, sired eleven children, and lived to 85.
  9. Tobias Smollett — who trained as a doctor — describes the King’s Bath in Humphry Clinker in terms that will permanently alter how you picture Georgian bathing: a child covered in scrofulous ulcers carried in among the bathers, no shelter from the weather, and the strong suspicion that water regurgitated from the bath back into the Pump Room cistern. Moira believes him wholeheartedly.
  10. Mary Shelley did not write Frankenstein overnight at the Villa Diodati — Moira calls that idea “twaddle.” She wrote it in Bath, in lodgings at number 5 Abbey Churchyard, in 1816. Around the corner, Dr. Wilkinson was lecturing on his theory that electrical charges could bring inanimate matter to life. Number 5 has been demolished, but its cellars survive — and now house an electrical substation.

Soundbites

  1. “Like many impresarios — and I’m thinking particularly about Mozart’s father Leopold and, in more recent history, Michael Jackson’s father Joe — Elizabeth’s father Thomas Linley bullied all his children into becoming child prodigies.” — Moira on the making of the Maid of Bath.
  2. “Singers and people who performed were often regarded as possibly high-class courtesans, when in many cases they weren’t at all. They were perfectly respectable and well-organised people.” — Moira on how Elizabeth Linley’s reputation was destroyed.
  3. “She must be aware that after the step she had taken, she could not appear in England but as his wife. So in fact Sheridan had rather cleverly manoeuvred her into a certain position.” — Moira on the elopement to France.
  4. “Both men broke their swords and carried on fighting in a desperate struggle for life and honor. He was moved from the field with part of Matthews’s weapon sticking through his ear, his bloodied body covered in wounds, and his face beaten to a pulp with the hilt of his assailant’s sword.” — Moira on the second duel at Kingsdown.
  5. “Beckford’s Tower is one of the most forbidding, sinister, and I’m sure the most haunted building I’ve ever stayed in. I can tell you I have never been so frightened in my life.” — Moira on the Landmark Trust flat at the top of Lansdown.
  6. “The contractor confessed on his deathbed that the tower had been built with no foundations. Beckford did the decent thing and owned up. And not long afterwards there was a God Almighty crack, and the whole of the tower fell down.” — Moira on the end of Fonthill Abbey.
  7. “He drinks at the Hetling pump, is to bathe tomorrow and try electricity on Tuesday. I fancy we are all unanimous in expecting no advantage from it.” — Jane Austen, writing to Cassandra about her brother Edward, as read by Moira.
  8. “What a delicate beverage is every day quaffed by the drinkers, medicated by the sweat and dirt and dandruff and the abominable discharges of various kinds from twenty different bodies parboiling in the kettle below.” — Tobias Smollett on the Pump Room water, quoted by Moira.
  9. “Now if you were to ask me if I believe Smollett, I have to say yes I do, wholeheartedly.” — Moira, immediately afterward.
  10. “After parading through four or five little vulgarly showy closets — not rooms — we were conducted into a very gaudy little apartment where the master of the house sat reclining on his arm, to show that the house and its inhabitants were carefully arranged for our reception.” — Fanny Burney on Bathwick Villa, as read by Moira.

Chapters

  • 00:25 Introduction & Sponsor — Strictly Jane Austen, and what’s in store today
  • 01:07 Today’s Episode — Duels, exile, quack medicine, vanished gardens and James Boswell
  • 01:47 Meet Dr. Moira Rudolf — Historian of Georgian and Regency Bath
  • 02:06 SHERIDAN & ELIZABETH LINLEY
  • 02:10 Richard Brinsley Sheridan at Eighteen — Unknown and penniless
  • 02:46 Thomas Linley — Bath’s musical impresario, and a father in the Leopold Mozart mould
  • 03:35 Linley House — Pineapples by the door, and Bath’s first Theatre Royal
  • 04:23 The Sheridans Arrive in Bath — 1770, and the now-lost Kingsmead Street
  • 04:58 “A Daughter That Sings Like an Angel” — Sheridan’s first letter about Elizabeth
  • 05:24 Mr. Long and Captain Matthews — An engagement broken, and a villain appears
  • 06:17 The Maid of Bath — Samuel Foote’s play, and a review that ruined a reputation
  • 08:37 The Elopement — 18 March 1772, from 11 Royal Crescent to France
  • 09:04 A Ghostly Carriage — Still occasionally heard, and occasionally seen
  • 09:27 Gainsborough’s Reaction — “Miss Linley is walked off, sure enough”
  • 10:11 Sheridan’s True Intentions — Revealed only once they reached France
  • 11:05 An Invalid Marriage — Both were minors; Linley tracks them down
  • 11:35 THE DUELS — Sheridan challenges Matthews
  • 11:58 The First Duel, London — Hyde Park, the Hercules Tavern, and the Castle Tavern
  • 12:48 Matthews Refuses to Accept Defeat — And the risk of becoming a social pariah
  • 13:05 The Second Duel, Kingsdown, July 1772 — Broken swords and a desperate struggle
  • 14:00 The White Hart Inn — Eight days seriously ill, nursed by Elizabeth
  • 14:38 A Folly in North Parade — Where Elizabeth and Sheridan left love messages
  • 15:35 Married at Last — 1773, in London, with her father’s consent
  • 15:51 Elizabeth Retires from Singing — And why Sheridan effectively forbade it
  • 16:23 The Rivals — A disastrous first night, a rapid rewrite, and a triumph
  • 16:51 The Real Duelling Ground in The Rivals — Kingsmead Fields, not the Gravel Walk
  • 17:19 The School for Scandal and a Political Career — Drury Lane, and the crowds who came to hear him speak
  • 18:07 A Marriage That Wasn’t a Success — Serial infidelity on both sides, and lifelong friendship
  • 18:44 Mary — The daughter Sheridan raised as his own
  • 19:07 Elizabeth’s Death and Sheridan’s Decline — Poverty, and Poets’ Corner
  • 20:28 WILLIAM BECKFORD
  • 20:50 A Wronged and Romantic Figure — The collector who actually read his books
  • 21:25 Not That Tower — What you can and can’t see from central Bath
  • 22:29 Beckford the Man — Gothic, sublime, and immensely rich at the age of ten
  • 23:02 The Fortune — Jamaican sugar plantations and the Fonthill estate
  • 23:24 The Summer House on Fonthill Ridge — Where it all began
  • 24:12 Marriage and Scandal — Lady Margaret Gordon, and the intercepted letters
  • 24:56 “Kitty” Courtenay — And the discovery that ruined everything
  • 25:53 Eleven Years of Exile — Self-imposed, and spent wandering Europe
  • 26:22 Vathek — Written in French, allegedly overnight
  • 27:11 The Entourage — So large he was mistaken for the Emperor of Austria
  • 27:55 Return to England, 1796 — Never forgiven, and back to Fonthill
  • 28:09 James Wyatt and Fonthill Abbey — Secret works behind a twelve-foot wall
  • 29:05 A 276-Foot Tower — And an opening night with Nelson and Emma Hamilton
  • 30:01 Forced to Sell — Beckford retreats to Bath, still immensely rich
  • 30:42 Lansdown Crescent — Buying houses, and building a bridge to hold his library
  • 32:29 BECKFORD’S TOWER — Commissioned 1825, at the very top of Lansdown
  • 32:46 “The Most Haunted Building I’ve Ever Stayed In”
  • 33:15 The Progress to the Tower — Immaculate dress, stewards, grooms and six yapping hounds
  • 34:21 The Landscape — An embattled gateway, a grotto and a chinoiserie building
  • 34:41 The Tower With No Foundations — A deathbed confession and a God Almighty crack
  • 36:14 Beckford in Later Life — A well-mannered, odd recluse who caused offense to no one
  • 36:55 His Last Wish — To be buried at the top of his own tower
  • 37:36 Jonathan on Fonthill Today — The landscape survives, the tower does not
  • 38:04 BATHING IN BATH — Image versus reality
  • 38:14 The Glamorous Version First
  • 38:37 Edward Austen Comes to Bath, 1799 — Convinced he had gout
  • 39:39 13 Queen Square — And the fashionable, private Cross Bath
  • 40:09 Musicians’ Galleries and Nosegays — Serenaded bathers, and men throwing tokens of regard
  • 41:34 The Cross Bath’s History — Roman origins, the Melfort Cross, Baldwin and Palmer
  • 42:28 Jane Writes to Cassandra — “Truth or falsehood? I will try the former”
  • 42:49 Electricity on Tuesday — And a family unanimous in expecting no advantage
  • 43:38 The Hot Bath — John Wood the Younger, and the original floor plan
  • 44:07 Was Edward a Hypochondriac? — Eleven children and eighty-five years say maybe
  • 45:15 THE KING’S BATH — The far less select option
  • 45:36 Naked Urchins, No Shelter, and Onlookers — What Jane would have known about
  • 46:35 TOBIAS SMOLLETT — A doctor, a surgeon, and a pessimist about the human race
  • 47:36 On the External Use of Water, 1752 — Filth left sticking to the sides
  • 48:26 Humphry Clinker — The scrofulous child and the flight to the Duke of Kingston’s bath
  • 49:51 The Pump Room Cistern — And the suspicion of regurgitation
  • 50:25 “What a Delicate Beverage” — The passage that ruins Georgian Bath forever
  • 50:43 Does Moira Believe Him? — Wholeheartedly
  • 50:51 QUACK MEDICINE
  • 51:00 The Perkins Tractor — What Edward’s electrical treatment probably was
  • 51:54 MARY SHELLEY AND FRANKENSTEIN
  • 52:03 The Villa Diodati Myth — Why Moira calls it twaddle
  • 53:05 Number 5 Abbey Churchyard — Where Frankenstein was actually written
  • 53:43 Dr. Wilkinson’s Lectures — Electricity, inanimate matter, and a tantalizing possibility
  • 54:23 The Cellars Survive — And now house an electrical substation
  • 54:48 THE CELESTIAL BED
  • 54:55 Dr. James Graham — Effluvia, vapors, and earth bathing
  • 55:44 Fifty to a Hundred Pounds a Night — Mirrors, magnets, turtle doves and wind music
  • 56:36 Emma Lyon — The scantily clad attendant who became Emma Hamilton
  • 56:59 FANNY BURNEY AND A VANISHED PLEASURE GARDEN
  • 57:10 Evelina Published Anonymously — And a father who couldn’t keep a secret
  • 57:38 The Thrales — Wealthy brewers, and a circle that included Samuel Johnson
  • 58:37 To Bath for a Cure, 1780 — York House, and 14 South Parade
  • 59:38 Spring Gardens — The lost pleasure garden across the ferry
  • 01:00:57 Bathwick Villa — Alderman Ferry’s quirky Gothic mini-mansion
  • 01:01:55 Fanny’s Account — Vulgarly showy closets and a bishop stifling his laughter
  • 01:03:41 The Mechanical Table and the Eagle — Georgian dinner theatre at its most absurd
  • 01:04:52 The Walk Home — And a hostess hopelessly late for her own dinner party
  • 01:05:41 The Falling Out — Two great women of English letters and their choice of husbands
  • 01:06:15 Wrap-Up & Sponsor — Strictly Jane Austen, gift vouchers, and Friends of Anglotopia

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