Demons of Domesticity

Women and the English Gas Industry, 1889–1939

Anne Clendinning

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351945226
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Demons of Domesticity offers a social history of the English gas industry from the 1880s to the late 1930s, with an emphasis on the corporations that served London and the Home Counties. It documents the hitherto unexamined role that women played in the development of the industry by considering two major interlocking themes: the expansion of sales occupations for women in the English gas industry, and the parallel growth and diversification of the industry's marketing strategies. During the late-nineteenth century, the home became the focal point for a number of debates concerning female employment and gender roles. As an increasing number of labour saving domestic devices came onto the market women found themselves targeted by manufacturing companies and utility suppliers, both as consumers and advocates. Foremost among these companies were representatives of the gas industry who actively addressed domestic issues. As the promoters, purveyors and consumers of domestic technology, Demons of Domesticity suggests that English female employees and consumers were not the hapless dupes of corporate marketing, but instead had clear ideas about how domestic technology could and should be used to reconfigure the public and private spaces of work and home.

CHAPTER 1

The Victorian Kitchen Revolutionised

What can a woman be worth

Who knows simply nothing of cooking,

Who handling the beauties of earth!

All helpless is looking?

For food to be pleasant and good,

Depends on the way that you treat it;

If carelessly roasted or stewed,

’Tisn’t prudent to eat it.

It may be as soft as new bread.

It may be as tough as old leather;

May lie just heavy as lead,

Or light as a feather.

So life may be burdened with pain,

Or quite a succession of pleasure,

If men a good cook can obtain.

They call her a treasure.¹

On 9 May, 1873, the reclusive Queen Victoria made a rare public appearance. She attended a cooking lecture. Accompanied by her daughters, the princesses Christian and Beatrice, Her Majesty was received ceremoniously by the commissioners of this International Exhibition, then being held at the exhibition grounds near the Albert Hall. The queen and princesses were ushered into the exhibition’s School of Cookery to observe the preparation of a savoury omelette by a qualified male chef and four kitchen maids. The school’s official lecturer, J.C. Buckmaster, provided the commentary for this culinary spectacle, speaking in the best tradition of the Victorian orator.

Buckmaster’s four-minute presentation was an abbreviated version of the lengthy two-hour public lectures he was accustomed to delivering at the International Exhibition. In those few minutes, however, Buckmaster outlined the purpose of the cookery school: to show ‘the best and most economical methods of domestic cooking’ and the ‘variations to which kitchen utensils may be fairly applied without injury’. He commented on the merits of egg dishes as nutritious, easy to prepare and affordable, even ‘for the poorest of Her Majesty’s subjects’. In particular, Buckmaster underlined the importance of cleanliness and the perceived relationship between domestic order, family harmony and good character, since ‘dirt and virtue can never dwell comfortably together’.² Throughout this dialogue, the professional chef in attendance used a gas cooker to whip up a parsley omelette. The golden delicacy was offered to the queen and princesses; they each tasted it, pronounced it ‘very good’ and departed the School of Cookery to tour the remainder of the exhibition. Queen Victoria, with a cooking staff of 45, attending a cooking class? Absurd, perhaps; however, Buckmaster’s lectures, which elevated cookery to a matter of national importance, were the sensation of the exhibition.³ Crowds filled the auditorium twice-daily, with visitors even paying an additional sixpence over the general one shilling admission fee to secure a front-row seat and a taste of the finished products (see Fig. 1.1).

The 1873 International Exhibition, especially its School of Cookery, embodied two fundamental preoccupations of mid-Victorian society: the idealisation of home and the exaltation of industrial progress.⁴ Though apparently contradictory, these two sentiments were compatible. The home was the natural refuge from industrial society and could potentially mediate the dehumanising effects of urban expansion and industrial change.⁵ The home was never an isolated sanctuary, however, and the Victorians welcomed technological advancements that made new standards in domestic comfort and efficiency possible. The use of coal gas for domestic lighting and cooking was one such innovation of the late Victorian period.

1.1 J.C. Buckmaster and the Cookery Exhibition

Appliance manufacturers and gas companies would eventually adopt the format of Buckmaster’s cookery classes to market their products. Although male chefs and gas managers initially did the demonstrating, the companies quickly realised that lady demons were more effective promoters, particularly when trying to reach a broad range of consumers. Several contributing factors by the late 1880s influenced the corporations’ decision to hire women as sales specialists. These included the expansion of the domestic science movement, technological change within the gas industry, and the legitimisation of advertising as a respectable business practice. This chapter considers these three factors in an attempt to discover how Englishwomen gradually found an important place in the Victorian gas industry.

Good ‘plain cooking’: the foundation of national health

Queen Victoria’s cooking lesson provides an evocative image of her public and private roles. As monarch and mother of the nation, Victoria appeared concerned with the well-being of all of her subjects and, by extension, with the general health and strength of the nation. Indeed, the continued economic prosperity and political stability of the British Empire depended largely on the health of the working population. Buckmaster made this point in his opening remarks of the lesson by thanking the queen for her interest in the diets of even the lowest of her subjects. Such concern was not a particularly new phenomenon and aristocratic philanthropists, including the Earl of Shaftesbury and Baroness Angela Burdett-Coutts, had long made the connection between working-class poverty, eating habits and national health, a theme also taken up by the Lancet.⁶ In 1861, the queen’s own chef, Charles Francatelli, published a cookery book specifically for the labouring classes.⁷ In addition to the topic of workingclass cooking, the subject of dangerous food additives remained a contentious issue throughout the 1860s. Despite the passing of a food act in 1860, several members of the medical community, including Dr Henry Letheby (the public analyst for the City of London) and editors of the Lancet, exerted continual pressure for more effective parliamentary legislation. The medical practitioners wanted regulations that would have effectively criminalised the use of harmful additives and colouring agents that were then still commonly found in flour, beer, milk, tea, coffee and patent medicines. Their sustained efforts finally resulted in the 1872 Adulteration of Food, Drink and Drugs Act, which included some mechanisms for enforcement via food testing and inspections by borough officials.⁸ As a means of educating the public about the new food standards, the 1873 International Exhibition included displays of pure and adulterated food products so that consumers could recognise the differences in colour, weight and quality.⁹ By demonstrating an interest in the food of her people, Queen Victoria overtly combined maternal sentiment with political design. In this respect, the royal outing to the International Exhibition, though brief, was not insignificant.

Without exaggeration, the queen was a recluse, making her appearance at the 1873 International Exhibition all the more reason for comment. Since the death of the prince consort in 1861 and Victoria’s subsequent withdrawal from public life, the political press increasingly questioned the importance of a monarch that neglected public duties.¹⁰ In some respects, the queen’s participation in this trade exhibition was a tribute to her dear Albert’s memory. The International Exhibition, designed to foster trade and good relations between Britain and her European neighbours, followed the tradition established by the prince consort with the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in 1851. Like the Great Exhibition, the International was a ‘commodity spectacle’ of new inventions and consumer goods, a tribute to industry and entrepreneurship and a means of advertising merchandise to the Victorian public.¹¹ Based on contemporary accounts, the focal point of the royal visit was the omelette lesson in keeping with the 1873 International Exhibition’s thematic emphasis on food. Queen Victoria and the princesses were simultaneously royal patrons inspecting a national event, and an aging widow accompanied by her daughters obtaining some practical instruction in domestic economy. Both clearly signified the public and private images of Victoria’s bourgeois monarchy.¹²

Certainly, in London throughout the spring of 1873, the subject of cookery fired the public imagination and Buckmaster’s talks drew steady crowds throughout the International Exhibition’s six-week engagement. No doubt, Buckmaster’s oratory skill contributed to the popularity of his lectures. A familiar speaker on technical subjects, J.C. Buckmaster began his oratorical career in the 1840s with John Bright at the Anti-Corn Law League.¹³ He followed Bright’s advice and became a teacher, working at the Mechanics’ Institute and giving occasional talks for the South Kensington Museum’s department of science and art, under the direction of Sir Henry Cole. Although Buckmaster knew nothing of cooking, Cole persuaded the science teacher to be the commentator for a series of public lectures organised to complement the exhibition’s food displays. Buckmaster’s affable presentation, combined with the novelty of seeing a professional chef at work and the promise of a ‘taste’ for a sixpenny front-row seat, ensured the success of the lectures. Beyond their entertainment value, however, Buckmaster’s lectures delivered practical instruction in economical cookery using simple but often unfamiliar ingredients, such as Italian macaroni, with the intention of introducing the British public to foods of other nations and of exploring foreign substitutes for ‘those provisions whose price increased daily’.¹⁴

Based on his experiences at the International Exhibition, Buckmaster became an outspoken advocate for the good food cause which, he maintained, constituted the natural foundation of British social, domestic and moral well-being.¹⁵ This position echoed existing views on the importance of home and family to national vitality. Yet, Buckmaster’s cookery crusade went a step further. Since good plain cooking was the key to health and happiness, ignorance of the culinary arts signalled potential social disintegration. Changing patterns of work and consumption, sustained by 20 years of unparalleled economic prosperity, resulted in a degree of social mobility among the newly affluent middle classes. According to Buckmaster and Henry Cole, the women among these aspiring ranks no longer knew how to cook or manage their home...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• General Editor’s Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 The Victorian Kitchen Revolutionised
• 2 Exhibitions and the Spectacle of Selling
• 3 Lady Demons and ‘Well-Dressed Men’: Gender and Sales in the Edwardian Gas Industry
• 4 ‘Keep the Gas Fires Burning!’ War and Reconstruction
• 5 Marketing Modernity: Gas versus Electricity between the Wars
• 6 ‘A Women’s Industry’: Demonstrations of Difference and Equality
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index