A Modern Quest for Knowledge into a Past World of Literature;
or ... Why did Jane Austen write her Famous Strawberry Party Scene?
Ch4/45: The Morning Post
For my searches in the Morning Post I used the 17th and 18th Century Burney Newspapers Collection. It only has the drawback that it does not contain papers published after 1804. However, not all of the newspapers are available in my search period, which is 1790-1804. Compared to the British Newspaper Archive (BNA), pdf files downloaded from the Burney Newspaper Collection are searchable using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, which is a major help.
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As it is very time consuming to add examples of the various advertisements, this work will not be carried out as such for other newspapers than the Bath newspapers and the Hampshire Chronicle, unless the example shows something remarkable.
The Results
There are eighty-one hits. Of these eighty-one hits, two results are concerned with the sale of utensils for cooking and baking and the sale of preserves e.g. made using strawberries.
Three hits are advertisements for nurseries.
Eleven hits concern horses.
Twenty-five are related to entertainment such as pantomimes and recitals.
Thirty-one hits have references to addresses at Strawberry Hill.
A single hit deals with a Mr Harries who had been sent to jail for giving back counterfeit dollars while selling strawberries.
Another hit gives advice on how to remove stains from, for example, strawberries.
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The remaining six hits concern the consumption of strawberries and are therefore the most interesting.
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One is an advertisement for an improved Bayswater Coffee-House & Tea-Garden which offers a larger plantation of strawberries besides wines, tea etc.
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One announces the discovery of a strawberry of the Bath kind, the circumference of which amounted to seven inches.
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The last four contain descriptions of balls where strawberries were served often in abundance.
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I conclude that Jane Austen was probably not inspired by any of the results found in during my searches of the Morning Post.
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Morning Post and Gazetteer, Monday, September 9, 1799, Issue 9571