Victorian 221b

Popping up from oblivion with this treasure. Just don't want to lose it, having stumbled upon it. This pretty lady is Edward's Hardwicke's mum Helena Pickard. Edward here is five days old!



The original caption to the photo reads: 
12th August 1932: Actress and producer Helena Pickard, wife of Cedric Hardwicke, with their baby son Cedric Hardwicke Junior. (c)

Quite accidentally I noticed a pattern: 



Here's a prompt for the Victorian Holmes Prompt Box inspired by this:

A tailor makes matching suits for Holmes and Watson as a gratitude for a solved case. Would it be awkward for them to wear the suits at the same time? Or would they enjoy it?

From the DVD commentary (thanks tremendousdetectivetheorist on tumblr for sharing!):

David Stuart Davies (author of Bending the Willow): You managed to get him to wear a deerstalker, and he hated that, didn’t he?

John Madden (director of The Priory School episode): He did! He didn’t want to be uniquely associated with that. I think he felt it was somewhat ridiculous. Not the most elegant headgear.

David Stuart Davies: Jeremy was very fond of certain props—the walking stick and the long black scarf—which are both from the terms of the stories uncanonical, but he seems almost to be attached to that scarf most of the time. Did he say anything about that?

John Madden: I think Jeremy was a dandy. And one of the qualities that he exhumed on the character was that kind of dandiness which was really there but not necessarily something which would need to be emphasised. But Jeremy loved that, the sense of showmanship in the character. The grace and style of his mind was externalised in the way he dressed. He wanted to look good!

 

Continuing the topic of social dances, here are some excerpts from the few sources I could find:

- A ball is the ultimate occasion for a heady kind of courtship—a trying out of partners that is exciting, flirtatious and downright erotic. Couples perform together, feeling each other’s physical proximity (though both men and women wore gloves throughout) while being watched by others. Many of the dances were physically demanding: a ball might last for six hours or more, and end only as dawn approached. In a crowded room lit by candles the heat could be overwhelming.

- The patterns of steps and movements were often complicated and required a great deal of practice. Books were published to guide would-be dancers. Dancing well was a test.

( Read more... )

So it seems like people took dance lessons as well as read manuals to stay up-to-date with all intricacies. And maybe Holmes and Watson dancing together at the ball was not that impossible after all.



UPD There is a nice documentary on dancing by Dr. Lucy Worsley. Episode 2 is dedicated to the 19th century.

I'd like to back up here a very interesting discussion which took place on tumblr and was prompted by the stills below.





acdhw: Watson appears to be wearing a gold bracelet hidden under his cuff. It doesn’t look like an anachronistic wristwatch; I re-watched this moment several times. Any ideas/headcanons why he might be wearing it? Holmes’s present, obvs? 👀 @tremendousdetectivetheorist, @granada-brett-crumbs, anyone?