Regency Era Furniture: Beds and Mattresses

As promised, I am going to venture into the world of beds and mattresses from the Georgian and Regency era.

Beds

Like many things in life, the quality of one’s bed was dependent upon income. The poorest of the poor were lucky to have a dry floor to rest on, while at the other end of the spectrum, a four-poster bed with cloth hangings was a status symbol. Somewhere in between, most people had a bed that incorporated a simple wooden frame.

By the end of the eighteenth century, most beds used a woven mesh of ropes or leather to support a mattress. Unlike the previous solid wood base, ropes provided more yielding support and had to be tightened regularly to avoid sagging.

If you were lucky enough to be able to afford a mahogany four-poster bed, you were more than well off. It was also important to ensure you had multiple layers of blankets and a counterpane to establish your status. The more work your servants had to do when making your bed the better.

Bed hangings for the high-status bed were made from chintz and were stitched directly to the bed frame. Calico Glazers were employed to unstitch the fabric when it needed to be cleaned. They would wash and starch the fabric, then re-glaze the material using heated rollers. The hangings would then be re-attached to the bed frame.

Mattresses

Mattresses were another luxury item and again reflected income. They were known at the time as mattress ticks, and they were made from panels of a blend of linen and cotton. This improved strength and density and they were sometimes striped in blue and white.

Mattress ticks were stuffed with an array of fillings, from wood shavings to feathers, depending on how much you could spare to spend on your sleeping comfort. One period publication outlined some of the drawbacks of mattress ticks:

“Dried hay and straw, either alone or mixed with common feathers, horse hair, wool, which have been generally used, often become musty, particularly after lying in a damp place for a few days, and a very great objection to them in London is, their harbouring of bugs.”
The Monthly Gazette of Health or Medicine, Dietic Antiempirical, 1830

Again, the less fortunate would be lucky to have one straw-filled mattress, while the wealthy would enjoy multiple layers of straw at the bottom, then a couple stuffed with flock (wool fibres), and topped with a couple of feather mattresses, or even down, which were the softest feathers and considered the most comfortable.

One source argued that feather mattresses were not used until later in the century, but I can confirm that they were introduced to England by John Harris Heal around 1810. Heal set up his feather dressing business, Heal & Sons Ltd., that year and then went on to produce furniture from 1818. They still have a shop in London today, although it is no longer run by that family. Feather mattresses were considered so luxurious, that they were even handed down through generations.

Bed Bugs

Due to the bug infestation problem, mattress ticks needed to be fluffed up and refilled regularly. This was usually done at harvest time when straw was fresh and readily available. Until steel coils were developed in 1865, bed bugs were something that had to be endured by all, regardless of wealth and status.

Now I have you all itching, you’ll be pleased to know that I’ll be moving on to other bedroom items such as clothing storage and mirrors. If you enjoyed this post, or you would like me to write about something else that interests you from the Regency era feel, free to leave a comment below.

Images, unless listed otherwise, are in the public domain and taken from Ackermann’s Repository published between 1809 and 1829.