George Bryan " Beau" Brummell (7 June 1778 – 30 March 1840)
Brummell was remembered afterwards as the preeminent example of the dandy, and a whole literature was founded upon his manner and witty sayings, which have persisted until today. His name is still associated with style and good looks and has been given to a variety of modern products to suggest their high quality.
Life
Brummell was born in
Downing Street, London,
the younger son of William Brummell ( 1795), Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, Lord North, and Mary (née Richardson, daughter of the Keeper of the Lottery Office).
[John Timbs, English Eccentrics and Eccentricities (London: Chatto and Windus, 1875), 22.] North rated William Brummell highly, procuring for him appointments including those he held at the time of his death, namely Receiver of the Duties on Uninhabited Houses in London and Middlesex, Comptroller of the Hawkers' and Pedlars' Office, and Agent and Paymaster to the out-pensioners of Chelsea Hospital; these gave William about £2,500 per annum.
[The Life of George Brummell, commonly called Beau Brummell, vol. 1, William Jesse, Grolier Society, 1981, p. 22] On his retirement from politics, William had bought
Donnington Grove in
Berkshire and served as High Sheriff of Berkshire in 1788.
[A Visitation of the Seats and Arms of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland, second series, Sir Bernard Burke, Hurst & Blackett, 1855, p. 25] William was the son of another William Brummell ( 1770), who had been
valet to a
Lincolnshire politician, Charles Monson, and, reckoned "an excellent servant", met with some success despite his modest origins through patronage and good fortune;
he went into business as a confectioner in
Bury Street, "in an area notorious for... high-class brothels", letting some rooms in the family's house for boarding. The statesman Charles Jenkinson, 1st Earl of Liverpool, stayed there for a time and got the younger William a clerical position at
HM Treasury, which led to his successful career.
[Beau Brummell: The Ultimate Man of Style, Chapter 1: Blessed are the Placemakers- 1778–1786, Ian Kelly, Simon & Schuster, 2006, p. 1][The Life of George Brummell, commonly called Beau Brummell, vol. 1, William Jesse, Grolier Society, 1981, pp. 17–18][The Incredible Beau Brummell, Samuel Tenenbaum, A. S. Barnes, 1967, p. 16]
The family had achieved middle class status, but William Brummell was ambitious for his son George to become a gentleman, and he was raised with that understanding. It was suggested (possibly by the Brummells) that William Brummell was an illegitimate descendant of Frederick, Prince of Wales.[The Gentleman's Magazine, Nov. 1866, collected vol. 221, p. 693]
Brummell was educated at Eton College and made his precocious mark on fashion when he not only modernised the white stock, or cravat, that was the mark of the "Eton boy", but added a gold buckle to it.
He progressed to Oxford University, where, by his own example, he made cotton stockings and dingy cravats fall out of favour. While an undergraduate at Oriel College in 1793, he competed for the Chancellor's Prize for Latin Verse, coming second to Edward Copleston, who later became provost of his college.[The list of winners appears in successive editions of the Oxford University Calendar] He left the university after only a year at age 16.
Military career
In June 1794, Brummell joined the 10th Light Dragoons, later the Tenth Royal Hussars as a cornet, the lowest rank of commissioned officer,
and soon after had his nose broken by a kick from a horse.
His father died in 1795, by which time Brummell had been promoted to lieutenant.
His father had left him an inheritance of some £30,000.
Ordinarily a considerable sum, it was inadequate for the expenses of an aspiring officer in the personal regiment of the Prince of Wales. The officers, many of whom were heirs to noble titles and lands, "wore their estates upon their backs – some of them before they had inherited the paternal acres."
[Doran, p. 380] Officers in any military regiment were required to provide their own mounts and uniforms and to pay mess bills, but the 10th in particular had elaborate and nearly endless variations of uniform. Their mess expenses were unusually high because the regiment frequently enjoyed banquets and entertainment.
For such a junior officer, Brummell took the regiment by storm, fascinating the Prince:
In 1797,[ " 10th Regiment of Light Dragoons, Lieutenant John Chambers to be Captain, by Purchase, vice Brummell, who retires."] when his regiment was sent from London to Manchester, he immediately resigned his commission, citing the city's poor reputation, undistinguished ambience and want of culture and civility.[Jesse]
In London society
Although he was now a civilian, Brummell's friendship with (and influence over) the Prince continued. He became a noted figure in fashion and adopted a habit of dress that rejected overly ornate clothes in favour of understated but perfectly fitted and tailored
bespoke garments; this was the moment of the so-called Great Male Renunciation seen across Europe. His daily dress was similar to that of other gentlemen in his time, based upon dark coats and full-length trousers (rather than knee breeches and stockings). It is believed that around this time Brummell and his tailor (whom he shared with the Prince Regent) Jonathan Meyer (later Meyer & Mortimer) of Conduit Street, collaborated to produce what was to become the contemporary trouser – a garment, it is alleged, that Brummell subsequently introduced to London society and that has remained standard gentleman’s attire ever since.
Above all, Brummell favoured immaculate shirt linen and an elaborately knotted cravat.
[ "A Poet of Cloth", a Spring 2006 article on Brummell's cravats from Cabinet Magazine magazine] This mode of cravat-wearing has been described as Brummell's chief innovation.
[William Jesse, Beau Brummell (London: Saunders and Otley, 1844), Vol. I, 61.]
Brummell took a house on Chesterfield Street in Mayfair[The laws of etiquette: or, Short rules and reflections for conduct in society by A Gentleman, Carey, Lea, & Blanchard, 1836 p. 136] at a time when the average annual wage for a craftsman was £52. Additionally, he claimed that he took five hours a day to dress and recommended that boots be polished with champagne.
Brummell put into practice the principles of harmony of shape and contrast of colours with such a pleasing result that men of superior rank sought his opinion on their own dress:
His personal habits, such as a fastidious attention to cleaning his teeth, shaving, and daily bathing exerted an influence on the ton—the upper echelons of polite society—who began to do likewise. Enthralled, the Prince would spend hours in Brummell's dressing room, witnessing the progress of his friend's lengthy morning toilette.
In June 1811 he was one of the guests at the Carlton House Fête held to celebrate the beginning of the Regency era.[David, Saul. Prince of Pleasure: The Prince of Wales and the Making of the Regency. Sharpe Books, 2018. p.297]
Cricket
While studying at Eton, Brummell played for the school's
first eleven,
[Kelly 2005] although he is said to have once terrified a master there by asserting that he thought cricket was "foolish".
[Max Beerbohm, Dandies and Dandies (1896)] He did, however, play a single first-class match for Hampshire at Lord's Old Ground in 1807 against an early all-England cricket team. Brummell made scores of 23 and 3 on that occasion, leaving him with a career batting average of 13.00.
[George Brummell at CricInfo]
Downfall
Brummell's wealthier friends influenced him; he began spending and gambling as though his fortune was as ample as theirs. He found it increasingly difficult to maintain his lifestyle as his spending continued over time, but his prominent position in society allowed him to float a line of credit. This situation changed in July 1813 at a masquerade ball jointly hosted at Watier's private club by Brummell, Lord Alvanley, Henry Mildmay and Henry Pierrepont. The four were considered the prime movers of Watier's, dubbed "the Dandy Club" by
Lord Byron. The Prince Regent greeted Alvanley and Pierrepont at the event, and then "
snub" Brummell and Mildmay by staring at their faces without speaking.
[Grace and Philip Wharton, The Wits and Beaux of Society, London 1861, Volume 2] This provoked Brummell's remark, "Alvanley, who's your fat friend?".
This incident marked the final breach in a rift between Brummell and the Regent that had opened in 1811, when the Prince became Regent and began abandoning all his old Whig friends.
Brummell became an anomalous favourite, flourishing without a patron, influencing fashion and courted by a large segment of society.
[Kelly, Campbell, Jerrold]
Later life, illness and death
In 1816, Brummell, owing thousands of pounds, fled to France to escape debtor's prison. Some sources liberally estimate he owed up to £600,000 at the time.
[ This is equivalent to about £50.7mn in 2025.] Usually, Brummell's gambling obligations, being "debts of honour", were paid immediately. The one exception to that was his final wager, dated March 1815 in White's betting book, which was marked "not paid, 20th January, 1816".
[ Regency Underworld, Donald A Low] Seemingly unable to quell his urge to spend and gamble, it became apparent his lifestyle could no longer be sustained. Brummell was ostracized from his social circle and soon found refuge in France.
He lived the remainder of his life in French exile, spending ten years in Calais without an official British passport, before acquiring an appointment to the consulate at Caen in 1830 through the influence of Lord Alvanley and the Duke of Beaufort. This provided him with a small annuity to fuel his new life in France; however, this lasted only two years because the Foreign Office acted on Brummell's recommendation to abolish the consulate. He had made it in the hope of being appointed to a more remunerative position elsewhere to regain some influence, but no new position was forthcoming, much to his detriment.
Rapidly running out of money and growing increasingly slovenly in his dress, he was forced by his long-unpaid Calais creditors into debtors' prison in 1835. Only through the charitable intervention of his friends in England was he able to secure his release later that year. In 1840, Brummell died aged 61, penniless and demented from syphilis, at Le Bon Sauveur Asylum on the outskirts of Caen. He was buried at Cimetière Protestant, Caen, France.[Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Locations 6018–6019). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.]
In the arts
Artistic memorials
A very early portrait of Brummell, along with his elder brother William, occurs in the
Joshua Reynolds painting of the curly-headed Brummell children, dating from 1781 and now in the
Kenwood House collection.
The caricaturist
Richard Dighton painted a
watercolour of Brummell at the elegant height of his dandyism and used it as the basis for a popular print in 1805. Two centuries later, it served as model for a 2002 statue of Brummell by Irena Sedlecká, erected in
Jermyn Street.
A plaque on the front of this statue is inscribed with his own words: "to be truly elegant, one should not be noticed."
On the other side of
Piccadilly, a blue plaque has marked Brummell's former home in Chesterfield Street since 1984, while in 2013, another plaque commemorated his name as a member of the hunting and dining club in
Melton Mowbray.
Brummelliana
In literature, Brummell has been more extensively portrayed. Scarcely had he left England than he was satirised as the witty Bellair in the
picaresque novel Six Weeks at Long's, by a Late Resident (1817), now ascribed to Eaton Stannard Barrett.
[Romantic Circles, "Fictions of Byron"] Among his humorous remarks there, he is credited with denouncing the eating of vegetables and, when challenged whether he had ever tried it, replying, "Oh, yes, I remember I once ate a pea."
[Hathi Trust, vol.3, p. 33] A collection of the witticisms ascribed to him and of anecdotes about him under the title
Brummelliana was republished many times in the following decades.
[ The Flowers of Literature vol.2, London 1821, pp. 131–4] This began with the story of him enquiring the identity of his companion's "fat friend", and also included his "I once ate a pea" remark.
William Hazlitt borrowed the same title, "Brummelliana", for an unsympathetic essay published in 1828, referring to some of these stories and repeating others uncollected there.
Dandyism also came under attack in George Robert Wythen Baxter's satirical essay "Kiddyism", published in humorous journals from 1832 onwards, which culminates in a set of satirical aphorisms purporting to be yet more Brummelliana.
[ Humour and Pathos, London 1838, pp. 98–102] Further fictitious aphorisms were published in France by Honoré de Balzac in the course of a series of articles published under the title Traité de la vie élégante (1830). These sayings were supposed to have arisen during an interview with Brummell in Boulogne, rather than Calais, and epitomise his view of "the elegant life".
[ Rising Star: Dandyism, Gender, and Performance in the Fin de Siecle, Princeton University 1999, p. 16]
Literary portrayals
Brummell appears at length in
The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson, Written by Herself, (1825) as a former suitor of
Harriette Wilson's friend Julia. "In short," she wrote, "his maxims on dress were excellent. Besides this, he was neither uneducated nor deficient. He possessed also a sort of quaint, dry humour, not amounting to anything like wit; indeed, he said nothing which would bear repetition; but his affected manners and little absurdities amused for the moment. Then it became the fashion to court Brummell's society, which was enough to make many seek it who cared not for it; and many more wished to be well with him through fear, for all knew him to be cold, heartless, and satirical."
Two more books were later dedicated to confirming Brummell as a cult figure. In England, there was Captain Jesse's two volume Life of George Brummell (1844), the first biography devoted to him.[ Du dandysme et de George Brummell, chapter 7] He was referring to two examples of the fashionable or silver fork novel, of which more than a thousand were to be written over the next two decades.
Brummell's character also served as foundation for depiction of fictional dandies. One such is the character Trebeck in Thomas Henry Lister's Granby (1826), who abandons dandyism when he discovers a waistcoat of his devising worn by "a natty apprentice".[Available on the Internet Archive] In Bulwer Lytton's 1828 novel Pelham, the hero of the title passes through Calais and meets the inspiration of his dandiacal way of life in the character of Mr. Russelton. The latter is modeled on Brummell, and to him are attributed such stories from the Brummell apocrypha as his once needing three tailors to make his gloves and the sartorial insult, "Do you call this a coat?"[Richard Cronin, "Bulwer, Carlyle and the fashionable novel" in The Subverting Vision of Bulwer Lytton, University of Delaware 2004, pp. 38–41; the chapters in the novel are 32–33]
Brummell appeared under his own name as a character in Arthur Conan Doyle's 1896 historical novel Rodney Stone. In this, the title character's uncle, Charles Tregellis, is the center of the London fashion world, until Brummell ultimately supplants him. Tregellis's subsequent death from mortification serves as a deus ex machina, in that it resolves Rodney Stone's family poverty.[Available at rodney stone Gutenberg]
Georgette Heyer, author of a number of Regency romance novels, included Brummell as a character in her 1935 novel Regency Buck.[Jennifer Kloester, "The first Regency novel – Regency Buck"] He is also referred to, or figures as a minor character, in the work of later writers of this genre. More recently, Brummell was made the detective-hero of a series of period mysteries by Californian novelist Rosemary Stevens, starting with Death on a Silver Tray in 2000.[A synopsis at Publishers Weekly] These are written as if related by their hero. Yet another American reinterpretation of his character appears in Cecilia Ryan's homoerotic novella The Sartorialist (2012).
Stage and cinema
In the United States, Brummell's life was dramatised in an 1890 stage play in four acts by
Clyde Fitch with Richard Mansfield as Brummell. This in turn was adapted for the 1924 film
Beau Brummel, with
John Barrymore and
Mary Astor.
[Synopsis at IMDB; watch the film on YouTube] Another play about him, authored by Bertram P Matthews, is only remembered because it had incidental music written for it by
Edward Elgar. When it was staged at the Theatre Royal, Birmingham in November 1928, Elgar himself conducted the orchestra on its first night. With the exception of the minuet, Elgar's orchestral score subsequently disappeared and the manuscript has never been located.
Brummell's later years were the setting for Ron Hutchinson's 2001 two-character play
The Beau (originally
Beau Brummell), which, following a UK national tour, played for one month at Theatre Royal Haymarket, starring
Peter Bowles as Brummell.
Earlier movies included a 10-minute film by the Vitagraph Company of America (1913), based on a Booth Tarkington story, and Beau Brummell and his Bride, a short comedy made by the Edison Company in the same year. In 1937, there was a radio drama on Lux Radio Theater with Robert Montgomery as Brummell.[There is a recording on YouTube] A further film, Beau Brummell, was made in 1954 with Stewart Granger playing the title role, Peter Ustinov as the Prince of Wales, and Elizabeth Taylor as Lady Patricia Belham. There were also two television dramas: the sixty-minute German So war Herr Brummell (Süddeutscher Rundfunk, 1967) and the UK's (2006).
In 1931, there was a French three-act operetta, Brummell, composed by Reynaldo Hahn to a libretto by Rip and Robert Dieudonné. This featured Brummell as the main character in a fabricated story of a rural courtship which saw occasional performance in later years.[ "Brummell", Encyclopédie multimedia de la comédie musicale en France website , accessed 25 June 2018] This was later broadcast by Radio-Lille (1963).
A guarantee of style
Brummell's name became associated with style and good looks, and was therefore borrowed for a variety of products or alluded to in songs and poetry. One example was the paint colour Beau Brummel Brown, used exclusively on the 1931
Oldsmobile.
In 1934, a
rhododendron hybridised by Lionel de Rothschild was named after the dandy.
[It is illustrated here] In 1928, there were several Beau Brummel styles from the Illinois Watch Company
and in 1948,
Jaeger-LeCoultre marketed a Beau Brummel watch with a minimalist design and no numbers.
T. S. Eliot's poem about "Bustopher Jones: The Cat About Town" refers to him as the "Brummell of Cats",[In Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, London 1939; text available online] an allusion taken up in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats, the 1981 musical based on Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939). Other allusions to Brummell appear in the lyrics of such songs as "All I Need Is The Girl" from the 1959 musical Gypsy,
Various bands also adopted Brummell's name, beginning with Zack Whyte and His Chocolate Beau Brummels, a jazz-style dance band that toured between 1924 and 1935.
Further reading
-
Barbey d'Aurevilly, Jules. On Dandyism and George Brummell, 1845
-
Campbell, Kathleen. Beau Brummell. London: Hammond, 1948
-
Jesse, Captain William. The Life of Beau Brummell. Published in two volumes. Available at Google Books, vol. 1 and vol. 2
-
Kelly, Ian. Beau Brummell: The Ultimate Dandy. Hodder & Stoughton, 2005
-
Lewis, Melville. Beau Brummell: His Life and Letters. New York: Doran, 1925
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Moers, Ellen. The Dandy: Brummell to Beerbohm. London: Secker and Warburg, 1960
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Nicolay, Claire. Origins and Reception of Regency Dandyism: Brummell to Baudelaire. Ph.D. diss., Loyola U of Chicago, 1998
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Wharton, Grace and Philip. Wits and Beaux of Society. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1861
External links
