It has been quite some time since I have written a blog post, as writing ‘the book’ is taking priority at the moment. However, a BBC article today on the popularity of baby boxes has given me a perfect excuse to share an aspect of my book that I am currently working on: babies’ beds…
‘Why Charlotte?’ Unanswered Questions in the Inquests
Coroners’ inquests – both the surviving records and ensuing newspaper reports – are an invaluable source in opening up the homes of the Victorian working-classes. Through coroners’ meticulous investigations and the press fascination of all things death related, I have been able to uncover intimate details of domestic life and pry into the private space…
The Lodger’s Threshold
As I work on my latest conference paper, one of the questions I am considering is to what extent lodgers could define their own boundaries in someone else’s home. Lodgers were commonplace in the homes of the 19th-century working class and for the household taking in lodgers, Davidoff states, it ‘was a sign that the…
The Unwelcome House Guest
Much of my research has revealed where additional inhabitants – lodgers, visitors, and extended family – slept at night in the homes of the late 19th century urban working class and rural labourers. Yet, one area I had been struggling to uncover is how householders felt about accommodating an extra body at night in what…
Sleeping in “his chair” – Spaces of Nocturnal Sleep
As I begin scrutinising some recently gathered 19th century coroners’ inquest reports for a study of sleeping arrangements in the homes of the working classes, one of the areas I am particularly interested in is the use of dayrooms and non-bedroom furniture for the purpose of night time sleeping. In my recent work on lodgers,…
Accommodating Grandpa – A 19th Century Example
Co-residence with kin in old age past and present has been widely discussed by historians of old age, the family, and community, but one area that has hitherto remained somewhat of a mystery in co-residence situations is how, in the already cramped dwellings of the urban working-class and rural labourer, these elderly relatives were accommodated….
“Accidental death from suffocation through eating a piece of carrot” – the lodger in the adjoining bedroom
My recent article and JVC post explored the presence of the lodger in the bedroom in the dwellings of the Victorian urban working-class. In these I reveal how the lodger could be found sleeping all around the home, including the family’s bedroom and even, on occasion, the marital bed. However, the design of many a…
“He Lived Alone for Six Long and Weary Years”
Employed as a research assistant for the summer, much of my time was spent in the Salvation Army Heritage Centre in Denmark Hill searching through late Victorian and Edwardian copies of The War Cry. For those of you who follow me on twitter, you will have seen the range of items reported upon in this…
Is it time to stand up?
Following a conference on Home-Work at the Geffrye Museum, I began thinking again about my own home workspace. Returning to my desk after a period of illness/injury, I found that sitting – despite my fancy office chair – was highly uncomfortable and, for a while, I simply put up with it. Then I discovered a folding…
The Elderly Lodger – Abandoned or Without Kin?
The image of the elderly lodger is often one of having been abandoned by or lacking kin. However, one finding that surprised me in the Ipswich coroners’ inquests reports was that some of these elderly lodgers had kin residing in the same neighbourhood or were, in the case of 72 year old Curtis George Senior,…
“Darby and Joan” – Bereavement, Lodgings, and Press Subscriptions.
Over the past few years I have been using coroners’ inquests, both the original records and the newspaper reports, to explore domestic life and domestic accidents in Victorian England. One thing that really stood out to me in the course of my research was the extent to which these inquests opened up the lives of…
