I'm transcribing Victorian-American correspondence at a small museum in upstate NY. Currently I'm working on personal letters from a mother to her son in college. The letters are absolutely adorable.
One thing made me a bit curious. The mother mentions that she met a young man who is from London, and is acquaintances with her other son. The young man is "very smart and swell," and "he dresses better than they do" here. More importantly-- "he talks peculiar and nice."
I know it's probably hard to tell, but I wonder if this lady was unfamiliar with British accents and was surprised to hear his, which would explain why she'd essentially describe it as strange/unusual. I'm sure in that era, many people were probably aware of how those in Britain sound, but maybe not the average person?
Any ideas?
Without broadcast media, the only way people would have of knowing about foreign accents would be to meet someone who spoke with said accent. You probably know more about this particular woman's background than we do, but assuming she had not traveled to Britain and didn't otherwise know a lot of people who had, there's no reason to expect that she would be familiar with what a British accent sounded like.
Keep in mind, too, that British accents today -- and likely in the 19th century as well -- are far more varied than Americans gather from seeing British popular media. Even if the writer of these letters had met British people before, if all those Brits were from Yorkshire, the guy from London might still have sounded peculiar to her. Even a different class background could have changed his accent and how this one individual perceived it.