‘Golden age’ revisited

8:33am Thursday 25th June 2009 in

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Life for a Bradford mill-owner’s wife a century ago was far from leisurely.

When she wasn’t running her home with military precision, dealing with a handful of domestic staff, she was entertaining afternoon guests, throwing a dinner party, or organising her own business affairs.

To avoid being ostracised from society, she lived by a strict code of etiquette covering all aspects of life, from serving breakfast to buying underwear. Unless her husband allowed her to wear the new style of tailored outfit, layers of petticoats, corsets, blouses and skirts could take her an hour to dress.

If she ended up feeling melancholy, there were always Bile Beans… This was the period of Edward VII’s reign from 1901 to 1910 associated with long summers and country house parties. JB Priestley called it “the lost golden age…all the more radiant because it is on the other side of the huge black pit of war.”

Victorian stuffiness had given way to a more progressive era influenced by Edward, a socialite and keen traveller. It was a time of social, political and economic change, with suffragettes gaining momentum.

The wealth of social-climbing Edwardians was reflected in home furnishings and entertaining. Etiquette was crucial; inappropriate behaviour or dress meant social inferiority, a fate worse than death.

An Edwardian Housewife’s Companion, described as “a guide for the perfect home”, is a fascinating insight into early 20th century life, seen through the eyes of Rowena Davison, a wife, mother and businesswoman who combines running a home with her dressmaking and miliner’s business, Davison’s, on Manningham Lane.

Rowena dispenses gems of advice on entertaining, food, household management, healthcare, fashion and childcare, alongside recipes, period photographs and newspaper adverts. It’s no coincidence that Rowena shares the same surname as Reuben Davison, who has researched and written this charming book.

“Rowena is an alter ego,” says Reuben. “The idea was to create a character who could shed light on daily Edwardian life. It was a time of change, particularly for women. Ideas for the book came from guides of the time, helping women cope with an incredibly competitive, class-ridden society.

“Rowena’s typical of her class. She reads newspapers and is interested in current affairs, she supports child welfare reforms – Thackley’s open-air school is mentioned – and, like many businesswomen, she resents paying tax to a government which doesn’t allow women the vote.”

Reuben set the book in Bradford “because it’s where I’m from, and I know it.” With its booming textile industry came a rise in middle-classes. Rowena, her husband Charles, a mill-owner, and their twins live in a ‘new-build’ house in Heaton.

“Edwardian houses in Heaton and Manningham reflect the wealth of the period,” says Reuben. “There was a move away from the city, to what became the suburbs.”

Older readers may recognise the photograph of Rowena’s shop as Sykes’s, a family dressmakers that remained in Bradford until the mid-1960s. “We used a little trickery with the name Davison’s,” says Reuben.

While the book is written in a delightfully tongue-in-cheek style, Reuben says women like Rowena had a lot to cope with. “Running a business and a home, raising a family, entertaining guests and keeping up with the Joneses was a logistical nightmare,” he says. “There were strict rules of class etiquette – if you put a foot wrong you and your family were ostracised.

“It was tough for women. They ran homes and businesses but weren’t considered bright enough to vote.”

Rowena has three domestic staff. Her guidelines on dealing with servants include renaming them, making it easier to remember who they are! “Common names for footmen are James and John, while Emma is popular for housemaids,” she writes.

Rowena has persuaded her husband to purchase new labour-saving inventions, such as a vacuum cleaner, kettle and ‘crumb-scraper machine’.

While she runs a business, Rowena adheres to Edwardian wifely duties, attending to her husband’s needs, “particularly after he has had a long and arduous day’s work.”

Food and entertaining were prominent in Edwardian life. Rowena offers advice on receiving visitors – “arrivals and departures are by written invitation, indicating times guests are expected to arrive and depart” – and mealtime etiquette, influenced by the Royal table. While the middle-classes entertained on a fairly grand scale, for the poor mealtimes meant making a little go far. Class contrasts come sharply into focus with a photograph of a miserable-looking poor family at a filthy table, alongside Rowena’s advice on formal dining at the Midland and Victoria hotels in Bradford.

“For lunch…you can do no better than Collinson’s Café on Tyrrel Street where a variety of teas and coffees are served, accompanied by a small orchestra.”

This was a time for lotions, potions and cure-alls. “Some adverts are for quack therapies that wouldn’t be allowed today,” says Reuben. Rowena recommends Bile Beans for everything from constipation to ‘women’s dark days.’ She draws the line at using Belladonna – a poison – to enlarge the iris. It seems some things haven’t changed; women were as obsessed with weight, and beauty and anti-ageing products, as they are today. Rowena recommends a bottle of Antipon tonic for weight loss and, for a smooth complexion, freckle-bleaching lotion, applied with a camelhair brush!

Advertising targeted women, much as it does today. ‘Ailing Mothers!’ cries an advert for pills said to relieve ‘depression, nervous weakness and digestive troubles.’ Children were ‘seen and not heard’ and Rowena advocates discipline. For boys she recommends the “newly-formed Scouting movement”.

Running a dressmaking business, she keeps up with fashions and copies couture for her Bradford clients. Lighter fabrics such as silk and muslin were replacing the heavy flannels and dark colours of Victoria’s mourning.

She offers advice on everything from haircare – “the ideal hair colour is considered brown or possibly chestnut. Blonde is not a good colour and it is an unfortunate woman who has this colouring” – to new styles of underclothes, or ‘lingerie’ as it was starting to be called.

Rowena creates a vivid picture of life in Edwardian Bradford. She and Charles are theatre-goers – “music hall is not for the likes of us” – and frequent the Theatre Royal in Manningham, where, in October 1903, they witnessed Sir Henry Irving collapse on stage.

Despite being “discouraged by menfolk from troubling ourselves with thoughts of high intellect and matters which do not concern us”, Rowena admires the Suffragettes, although finds the methods of Emmeline Pankhurst and her followers “disturbing.”

“But what else are they to do? We are allowed to enter business but we are not allowed to vote.

“Tea parties weren’t going to do the trick but perhaps publicity and martydom just might.”

An Edwardian Housewife’s Companion is published by Haynes, priced £14.99.