Poldark : Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

many root vegetables have a good deal of Vitamin C- potatoes, carrots etc...
all of which can be grown in the U.K. but where would they get oranges from?
the Mediteranean?

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

Probably from Spain, Portugal etc. I recall that in the original tv series, the man who delivered them to Dwight said they'd been unshipped in Falmouth that day (although it would have taken about 5 hours to drive them from Falmouth to the general area where Poldark is set but, if they'd set off early, it is possible they could have arrived the same day).

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

China, initially, then Spain and Portugal.

Oranges were available in England centuries before Poldark is set. They're mentioned in Shakespeare's plays (e.g. Much Ado About Nothing "civil as an orange").

Nell Gwynn, one of Charles II's mistresses was an orange girl/seller in a theatre on Drury Lane.
http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Nell-Gwyn-Gwynne/

Oranges were sold by street vendors in cities, such as London
http://tinyurl.com/jy9oe9f

and Bristol (Flickr account for Bristol Libraries)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bristol-libraries/3327644857/

In the 18th century, many great houses did not have to buy imported oranges, as they grew their own in an orangery. Here's a link to the 18th century Orangery at historic Frampton Court in Gloucestershire.
http://www.framptoncourtestate.co.uk/orangery.htm

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

Well Captain Blamey brings Verity oranges back from his Packet run to Lisbon, Portugal and back.

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

I don't even know why they bothered with expensive and exotic oranges, given the purpose. 3p each, in late 1700s? Jesus, that's a lot of money for a piece of fruit.
They have obviously made the connection between citrus as a powerful remedy for scurvy..
If they know an orange will do it-surely they know equally that a lemon or lime will do it.

If not oranges, then England is covered in lime/ lemon trees, isn't it? Limes certainly figured in old English books in my childhood.I'd never seen or heard of a lime vs a lemon, until encountering them in those old books stories. So they must be part of the landscape.
Why not just go and gather up limes /lemons, and give everyone suffering half of one of those to suck every day.

Captain James Cook in 1770 famously shipped aboard Endeavour (and probably his later 2 voyages) 20 pounds of onions for each crew member, and forced each man to have some onion each day to ward off scurvy. Onion is not as good a source as citrus or even as good as certain other greens, but, still must be good enough, Cook had no Scurvy on his voyage-a lot of men did not like being forced to eat onion, but if any man refused, he was flogged, so it was a rule that was not up for negotiation , and it worked.
And onion or most of the other effective sources are an easier buy than oranges.

Why blow her fifty pounds on oranges?
There seemed to be some kind of desire for flash and show maybe built into the bags of oranges.
It was wasteful. He should not have steered her sudden desire to help, towards oranges.

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

In the book (Jeremy Poldark), Dwight tells Caroline that scorbutus can be cured by "the ordinary staples of life. Green vegetables, fruit, fresh meat. Any one of those three in sufficient quantity." Caroline fixes on oranges. She can more than afford them, and I know what I'd rather eat.

The benefits of other citrus fruits were known (British sailors became known as limeys). But it doesn't seem to me that you have visited Britain. If you had, you'd know that lemons and limes do not grow well in our climate. Perhaps under glass in hothouses! We do have a tree called a Lime, but it has nothing to do with the citrus fruit.




If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

well, I thought a lime was a lemon with darker skin and green flesh instead of yellow flesh?

That's what I've come across, here, quite late in life that I even encountered one in the flesh...I was excited by it, until I discovered that it is actually harder to stomach neat than a lemon is.
What is that, if a lime is something else? Is it just a green-fleshed strain on lemon?
I always had the feeling that lemons did not require as balmy a climate as oranges. Here, backyard bountiful lemon trees abound...the winter and half of spring is very cool , if not quite freezing cold literally.
Whereas, there are very few successful backyard orange trees.

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

pfarnell yes that is a lime fruit. However there is also a tree called Tilia which sometimes is called "Lime tree".
Then there is the non-organic calcium rich material also known as lime.

https://global.britannica.com/plant/lime
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_(fruit)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_(material)

siridr kiardi bur dosi mudiR alriks tutiR urms fur salu hulmkirs fadur sukrudar buata sis

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

The following is from a UK website on growing citrus there:

Overwintering
All members of the citrus family need warmth and will not tolerate the harsh British winter. Plants should be brought inside, into a frost-free greenhouse or conservatory in early autumn and well before the first frost of the winter. Most citrus need a winter minimum temperature of 5-7°C, which means it may be necessary to add a little extra heat in your greenhouse to keep plants safe. They tolerate brief dips below this temperature but not for long, so don’t assume your plants will be alright. The one exception is the lime, which needs a minimum temperature 10°C, making it a trickier choice for gardeners living in colder areas.
Citrus may be kept indoors for the winter but you will need to take precautions against dry air. Centrally-heated homes often mean very dry conditions – something citrus plants cannot stand. To counteract this, place plants in a cool but bright room, away from any radiators or similar heat sources. Stand pots on trays of pebbles filled with water, with the bottom of the container clear of the liquid. As the water evaporates it will create a humid atmosphere around the plant, helping it to thrive.


Looks all too difficult for the general home gardener even these days, so God only knows what people would have done in the late 1700s when Poldark is set.

I'm in Australia, where we have no trouble growing citus - I have a cumquat, a mandarine (both over 7 - 8 feet tall), a Eureka lemon and a Washington navel orange (only planted this year, but the lemon has already produced fruit) growing in my rear garden, along with a passionfruit vine that I only planted about April this year and which is now absolutely huge, covered with flowers and the first fruit of the season that I've renamed it "The Passionfruit Vine that Ate Sydney". Winters here, unlike the UK, are relatively mild (about 5C - 18 - 20C during the day, but it does go below 0c overnight) and I don't believe growing citrus trees in the UK (unless in an orangery or greenhouse) would be an easy task.

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

Your garden sounds lovely, MT. And your winter temps sound like an average summer's day here in the UK.




If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

Thanks SG - although it's only very ordinary - there's only the citrus trees, the passionfruit vine, a jasmine vine (not so big yet as it was only planted a few months ago), a photinia and a viburnum. No flower beds although I do plan to rectify that when I retire. The most prolific thing I seem to acquire is bloody huge holes, courtesy of our German Shepherd, Max! My husband was blaming our Great Dane, Bella, but my daughter caught Maxy in the act. Bella naturally has huge feet but,after checking their feet,it has been max with dirt in his nails .

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

so I take it it is this Tilia thing which is the main subject of references to limes in quaint old Pommy books I used to read as a child, Deans/collins boy's Annuals, that kind of thing?

and that that Tilia thing, is a non-Citrus?

and ergo, little use or useless as an Ascorbic Acid source?

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

Lemons and limes are quite distinct fruits. You need at least a Mediterranean climate to grow them well. Where do you live, pfarnell?

I was thinking of the price. Dwight says the oranges cost threepence each at most. That's three old pennies before decimalisation (which occurred in 1971). At that price, you could get 80 oranges for every £ (£1 = 240 old pennies). Caroline sent about 1200 oranges which would have cost no more than £15. She may have got them cheaper wholesale. I know £15 was a lot of money back then, but Caroline was a very rich heiress.






If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

Australia...but b4 you start laughing, the southernmost cooler (except in peak summer) latitudes of that..(that's how I knew about Cook and his Endeavour onions)

successful lemon trees, well, even properties fence-bordering mine, there are two that I can see...the one over back fence can hardly hold it's branches up for the weight of the fruit.

That mfkn tree would wipe out the great Cornish Scorbutus pandemic by itself..

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?


That's three old pennies before decimalisation (which occurred in 1971). At that price, you could get 80 oranges for every £ (£1 = 240 old pennies). Caroline sent about 1200 oranges which would have cost no more than £15. She may have got them cheaper wholesale. I know £15 was a lot of money back then, but Caroline was a very rich heiress.


Yes, I was allowing for pre-decimal currency, Australia only decimalised itself 1966, and I know UK about a decade later..it was the same half-P coin, 1p coin 3p coin, 6p coin, shilling=12p, 20 shillings to a pound system.
there had been a 1/4p Farthing coin, but I think that had been deleted years before decimalisation, I've seen them but I don't think they were minted in my lifetime.

What I meant was, 3p was a lot of money for single piece of fruit..3p was a lot of money in the street, period. Her money would have gone a lot further, on a less high-end non-imported piece of produce than an orange.

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

I wonder whether the slight confusion over price has arisen because of the use of 3p rather than the pre decimal 3d.




I'm the clever one; you're the potato one.

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?


I wonder whether the slight confusion over price has arisen because of the use of 3p rather than the pre decimal 3d.

Quite possibly, shellieeyre.

3d in old money equals a little over one new penny (1.25 to be exact). I was 15 when decimalisation occurred and, boy, was I glad of it! 12 pennies to the shilling and 20 shillings to the pound made adding up "old money" very difficult for an arithmetic dunce like me! Lol. The only thing I miss is the quirky names for the old coins - farthing, ha'penny, tanner, bob, half-a-crown, etc. Decimal coins are so sterile.

Are you British, shellieeyre? Do you remember the old money?






If there aren't any skeletons in a man's closet, there's probably a Bertha in his attic.

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?


3d in old money equals a little over one new penny (1.25 to be exact).


yes...when they decimalised here, a penny was exchanged for a cent, a sixpence was paid as 5c, a shilling now paid as 10c, 2 shillings 20c, ten shillings one dollar, one pound 2 dollars etc.

so obviously when getting paid for a 6d as 5c,and 12 for 10,10 shillings for 100 cents, etc, it looked like you were getting shorted.By somebody. Probably you were.(plus even physically, the old penny was huge, maybe 35-40mm across, compared to the new cent piece, which was about 15mm-18mm across, about same size maybe very slightly larger, than a US penny).

I guess part of the compensation was that, as with metrification another decade later, you were no longer working in a wacky eccentric Olde English medieval or Elizabethan or wtf system that labored with error-prone arithmetic chores even for people who were good at arithmetic.

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

I was in 6th class when we got decimal currency and I certainly thought, for a while, that we were being gyped ... if there's 12 pence in a shilling, why were we only getting 10 cents etc 😟 Of course, we understand why now 😃 Remember when they did away with 1c & 2c coins and everything was either rounded up or down ... at the time we thought we were being short changed again, but it all works out in the end and the bonus is no more bloody copper coins in one's purse! Whenever I'm on holiday in the UK, I put every single copper coin in the charity bins at the supermarket checkout etc. I really do like that our smallest coin is 5c 😊

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

Yes, I'm British (b.1958) and remember the old money well. My mother had a ceramic biscuit barrel in which she used to save what she called ship halfpennies - never the ones without the ship on them, and my first pocket money was a thrupenny bit, always my favourite coin. We used to get very excited when a Victorian penny showed up in our change and I even once got one of the early ones with the profile of the young queen on it.

The coins had real weight to them, unlike the decimal ones; I personally never had any problem working in Lsd - probably because of all the mental arithmetic we did from day one of infant school!



I'm the clever one; you're the potato one.

Re: Where Would They Get The Oranges From?

no, not in my case.....although I erred using the wrong abbreviation p instead of d, I know exactly how the old predecimal pound and pennies worked.
I've lived through the system, even if I was a child, I quickly cottoned on to how money worked, trust me.
Even in a confusing system with coins in 3's and 6's and 12's, instead of X10s.

3 pennies was a lot of money in a street market for a piece of fruit.
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