Think: Women and the census

The census, taken on a spring night every decade since 1801, is a record of both everyday sexism and the emancipation of women

When the idea of a national census was first championed in Britain, it was argued that, “the intimate knowledge of any country must form the rational basis of legislation and diplomacy”. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t always so “rational”, especially when it came to the female proportion of the population. Each decade’s census gives us a – sometimes unintentional – glimpse into society’s attitudes towards women.

In 1811, the second time the census was taken, households were asked to give only their chief source of income. In most cases, this this overlooked the contribution of women who, while likely not the primary earner, frequently did odd jobs, such as selling handicrafts, that kept the family from the breadline. Twenty years later, it changed so only adult male employment was registered, with the exception of the 670,491 female servants in England, Scotland and Wales, once again completely ignoring the long hours put in by women.

Turn to page 76 of March's The Simple Things for more.

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Grey sky thinking

There's no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing
Alfred Wainwright

Wainwright's right. And once the clothing is sorted, there's no reason not to make the best use of a soggy spell, whether you decide to delight in the drizzle or stay warm and dry.

If you're a pluviophile - a person who finds joy in rainy days - you might enjoy our Grey Sky Thinking feature on page 38 of November's The Simple Things: have a read for ideas to create a dream rainy day on the sofa (complete with snacks, entertainment and warm socks); ways to bring nature inside; how to fix and finish those niggly jobs; and easy crafternoon ideas.

Meanwhile, this wet weather trivia should make you smile whatever the weather.  

Umbrella: The brolly is a pretty ancient device, and in primitive times would have been an improvised transportable shelter of leafy branches. According to Chinese legend, however, the earliest umbrella can be dated back to 2000BC, when it would have been a mark of rank.

Sou'wester: This collapsible waterproof hat designed to repel wind and rain and beloved by seamen was originally worn by New England fishermen in the 19th century who donned oiled clothing to stay dry. Its name is an appreciation of 'southwester', describing quite literally a strong wind blowing from the south west.

Wellington boots: These British icons were first loved by Georgian patriots, rakes and dandies in the early 19th century after the Duke of Wellington instructed his boot maker to cut his boots below the knee to make them more comfortable with the newly fashionable trouser. But they were first officially called 'Wellingtons' when a Scottish manufacturer began producing them in rubber rather than the original calfskin.

Cagoule: This foldaway lightweight waterproof coat was first invented by the aptly named Peter Storm and launched in the UK in the 1960s. The word has French origin and comes from 'cowl', meaning a long hooded garment.

Name your rain

There's no surprise we Brits have so many different words for rain. Here are four regional favourites:

Plothering: When it's 'plottering' in the Midlands you're going to have to make a dash for it, because there's no escaping these big fat vertical rain drops that are hammering down.

Siling: If it's doing this in the North East, prepare to get soaked.

Letty: The kind of weather that South West famers hate, since it's 'just too blooming letty' to work outside.

Mochy: If a Scot or an Irishman says the weather is mochy it's going to be exactly how it sounds - wet, damp and misty. Brr...

Read more:

From the November issue

Ingredients for a cold-weather reading session

More Think posts

Fancy sea salt hot chocolate, cinder toffee and firepit cakes, a celebration of toast plus ways to tell a good story around the fire, subversive cross stitch and how to keep your herbs going over winter? Oh and bibliotherapy, crafternoons and a poem about beautiful librarians. 

All this in our November COMFORT issue. You'll find us in even more Waitrose and Sainsbury's stores this month plus WH Smiths, Tesco and good independents. We're on sale now somewhere near you.

November's The Simple Things is out now - buy, download or subscribe.

Ideas: Smile in portraiture

Why do we so seldom see people smiling in painted portraits? It’s a lot about how we want to be viewed, says Nicholas Jeeves.

Today when someone points a camera at us, we smile. Such are our expectations of a portrait. But, as a walk around any art gallery reveals, the open smile has been largely, as it were, frowned upon.

It’s commonly thought that for centuries people didn’t smile in pictures because their teeth were awful. This is not true – bad teeth were so common that this was not seen as necessarily detracting from a person’s attractiveness. Lord Palmerston, Queen Victoria’s Whig prime minister, was described as being devastatingly good-looking, despite having a number of prominent teeth missing due to hunting accidents. Nonetheless, both painters and sitters did have a number of good reasons for being disinclined to encourage the smile. The primary reason? It’s hard to do. In the few examples we have of smiles in formal portraiture, the effect is often not very pleasing, and we can still see this today. When a camera is produced, we perform gamely. But should the process take too long, our smiles become grimaces. A smile is like a blush – a response, not an expression, and it can neither be easily maintained nor recorded. 

Turn to page 96 of June's The Simple Things for more, 

A longer version of this article was originally published as ‘The Serious and The Smirk: The Smile in Portraiture’ in The Public Domain Review under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 

If you wish to reuse it please see: http://publicdomainreview.org/legal/