‘IN THE NEWEST MANNER’: SOCIAL LIFE IN LATE GEORGIAN DEVIZES 3 
Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Reynolds and Hogarth. 
Maps, books, coins, tortoiseshell cabinets, gold and 
diamond watches and Etruscan vases filled the sale 
rooms alongside the complete dress of a Highland 
chief and ‘the cloak of a Chief of Owhyee’.”” Devizes 
antiquary Dr James Davis’s collection of one 
hundred books sold at Covent Garden in 1771 
included Caxton’s Chronicle, A History of Fossils and 
works on Druids, coins and medals. ”'Fifteen years 
later, the extensive library of Peleg Morrison was 
sold over three days, ranging from Virgil and 
Chaucer to Fournals of the House of Commons and 
Miller’s Garden Dictionary. The _ library’s 
composition is tabulated below: 
Table 2. The composition of Peleg Morrison’s 
library 1786 
Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French 152 
Divinity 192 
History 74 
Law 36 
Novels, romances 90 
Physic 19 
Prose, verse 159 
Total 722 
Source: (W)iltshire (A)rchaeological and (N)atural 
(H)istory (S)ociety (L)ibrary: Sale Contents catalogue 1.1 
Devizes M.P Joshua Smith’s library showed 
similar eclecticism. As magistrates, Church patrons 
and landowners, gentry would need books on law, 
the Church and local history, but Smith’s collection 
embraced all aspects of the arts, with works in 
French, perhaps stimulated by foreign travel. 
Table 3. Joshua Smith’s Library 1820 
Subject Volumes 
Books in French 146 
Classics,Drama, English Literature, Poetry 305 
Dictionaries, Grammars, Reviews, Rhetoric 63 
Divinity and Ecclesiastical History 164 
English History, Politics and Topography 345 
Biography and Heraldry 175 
History and Travel 295 
Law 17 
Natural History and Botany 53 
Prints and Architecture 85 
Total 1,648 
Source: W.A.N.H.S.L., S.C. 30. 42, A Catalogue of the 
Valuable and Extensive Library of Books, late the Property of 
Foshua Smith Esq. (1820). 
One book in Smith’s library subscribed to by 
three Devizes residents was A Treatise on the Ananas 
or Pineapple by the gardener at New Park, Adam 
Taylor. This was published in Devizes by Thomas 
Burrough in 1769, ten years before the standard 
work on the subject by William Speechly, head 
gardener to the Duke of Portland.’’Taylor gave 
practical instructions on the culture of pineapples 
and melons and claimed to be ‘the first who has 
brought it to an improved size and excellence 
without the assistance of Fire’. The gift of the exotic 
pineapple became a kind of status symbol. Baker 
George Sloper was delighted to receive one from 
Mrs Sutton in 1808,” and the fruit featured on the 
menu at Stephen Neate’s Mayoral feast in 1816.” 
Baker Sloper took his _ horticultural 
involvement further, belonging to the Devizes 
Gardening Club established in 1754. The medium 
loam soil round Devizes was ideal for cultivating a 
wide variety of plants, and Edward Dore’s map of 
1759 shows extensive gardens behind Devizes 
houses. The town garden, an early eighteenth- 
century London innovation, spread to the 
provinces and gardening became an important 
leisure activity. A correspondent to The Gentleman’s 
Magazine recommended gardening as a hobby to 
achieve health and pleasure. * Devizes bookseller 
Thomas Burrough could provide the latest 
gardening manuals such as Everyman his own 
Gardener, Miller’s Garden Dictionary or A Complete 
Body of Gardening , printed in weekly numbers, * 
and doubtless could obtain Curtis’s Botanical 
Magazine listing plants, trees and shrubs for 
different situations and the work to be done every 
month in the kitchen, fruit and pleasure gardens. 
Local naturalist John Legge of Market Lavington 
wrote A Treatise on the Art of Grafting and Inoculation 
(1780) and contributed natural history articles to 
The Ladies’ Magazine.’ In the eighteenth century 
many new plants were introduced from the East, 
such as the camellia, rhododendron, begonia, phlox 
and aster, and the cultivation of tulips, auriculas, 
carnations and pinks became an absorbing interest. 
Resulting perhaps from their introduction by 
immigrants from the Low Countries and northern 
France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
florists’ feasts had been held in towns and cities 
such as Bath, Gloucester, Newcastle and Norwich 
since the early eighteenth century. In Devizes, the 
Cucumber Feast at The White Bear and the 
Carnation Feast at The Elm Tree, with silver and 
monetary prizes, were highlights in the social 
calendar, accessible to all classes and thus providing 
