Anne here. There I was, blithely writing a scene of my hero standing in his newly refurbished bedroom, and briefly describing what it looked like to set the scene. I'd already fallen down a general wallpaper rabbit hole — there are so many gorgeous wallpapers from that period. (Here's a National Trust site that has some beauties.)
But my hero is rather a plain man, and the gorgeous Chinese wallpapers I fancied were not the kind of thing he'd want in his bedchamber — perhaps in more public rooms in the house, but not where he slept.
So I gave him a nicely masculine room, with a green bamboo patterned wallpaper, and I had him pulling back his curtains — plain dark green with a kind of watermark pattern (which is male-speak for damask) — and looking down into the garden below. . . but as I continued writing, getting to the actual meat of the scene, a little voice started nagging at my brain.
Something about the color green and arsenic. So naturally I hit google . . . and fell down another research rabbit hole.
You see in the 18th and 19th century all kinds of experiments with chemicals and dyes were going on, and in 1771 a Swedish chemist called Carl Sheele used copper arsenite (which contains arsenic) to create a bright green dye. In 1814, Wilhelm Sattler, a German industrialist, improved on it by using arsenic and verdigris for a better green. The pigment could also be mixed to create bright yellows and rich blues.
Now, people back then knew that arsenic was poisonous, but it was freely available — and it popped up everywhere. It was mainly used for killing rats and mice (not to mention unwanted spouses), but it was also used in cosmetics — small doses of arsenic apparently improved the complexion, making it paler and more luminous (apparently the consumptive look was all the rage for ladies).
Sometimes meat was actually dipped in an arsenic wash to repel flies. (!!) And manufacturers used these wonderful glowing "new" bright colors in dyes of various kinds, dying dress fabrics and hats and feathers and basically anything that could be dyed bright emerald green (and other colors made from these arsenic-based dyes) was.
Children were even given toys painted with these brightly colorful toxic paints, because of course no child ever chewed on a toy. And babies were wheeled around in baby carriages painted with it. And wallpapers were gaily manufactured with these brilliant new arsenic-containing paints and whole houses papered with them. They were hugely fashionable and boomed in popularity.
People apparently didn't question it. In Europe questions had been raised about the dangers of arsenic in paints and dyes, and the toxic substances banned, but while British manufacturers kept producing them, people kept on trustfully buying their products.
“A great deal of slow poisoning is going on in Great Britain,” wrote Birmingham doctor William Hinds in 1857. He was among a growing movement of people concerned about a toxic killer in their daily lives: namely, their wallpaper. (Pic. below right included not because it's green and poisonous but because it's beautiful and why won't my stubborn hero have it?)
Many people believed that the wallpaper was only dangerous if licked —(why would anyone lick wallpaper???), but that wasn't true. Arsenic could leak into the air, especially in damp weather, which the UK had in abundance. And it wasn't only the wallpaper that was poisoning people — women were poisoned by their beautiful emerald green dresses and other green garments. (I wonder now about the Heyer heroine whose favorite color was "pomona green.")
Here's an example of the effects of such wallpaper. In 1862 a Dr. Thomas Orton was called to a home in London. The Turner family had had three children die over the course of six weeks, thought to be from diphtheria although no other people in the building has fallen ill. The Turner's last child was extremely ill.
Orton examined the family’s home for cleanliness and other possible sources of disease. He couldn’t find anything wrong, but the family had recently installed new wallpaper. When the last child died, an autopsy confirmed arsenic poisoning. The case went to court but was dismissed, and child’s death was ruled natural. Dr Orton, convinced it was the wallpaper, was ignored.
Even William Morris, whose wallpaper designs were (and still are) famous, claimed to be skeptical that products containing arsenic could be poisonous, saying that doctors who saw a connection between the products and patients’ ill health were victims of public hysteria.
“My belief about it all is that doctors find their patients ailing, don’t know what’s the matter with them, and in despair put it down to the wall papers when they probably ought to put it down to the water closet, which I believe to be the source of all illness,” he wrote to a friend. Though having inherited his fortune from an arsenic mine, he was perhaps a wee bit biased.
Fascinating isn't it, the disconnect between fashion and profit and public health? And how people can cling to what they want to believe, regardless of the evidence.
And now you ask, what did I do about my hero's bedroom? I haven't decided. I'll probably make it blue. Or red. Brown feels a bit too plain. Yes, I know, I could have saved myself a lot of time by changing that one word "green" in the first place, but one of the things about being a writer of historicals is, we can't resist these little research rabbit holes.
What about you? What colors would you decorate my masculine Regency-era hero's bedroom in? And can you name the Heyer heroine whose favorite color was "pomona green"?
(PS, while I have you, my book, MARRY IN HASTE, the first in the "marriage of convenience" series is on special for a short time at $1.99. Mainly in the USA but a reduction also in other places so check your local e-book seller.)