Domestic Life in Victorian England of Working Class Mothers

Glasgow slum in 1871

      Domestic life for a working-class family in Victorian England was very uncomfortable. Legal standards for minimum housing conditions were a new concept during the Victorian era, and a working-class wife was responsible for keeping her family as clean, warm, and dry as possible in housing stock that was often literally rotting around them. In London, overcrowding was endemic in the slums inhabited by the working classes. Families living in single rooms were not unusual. The worst areas had examples such as 90 people crammed into a 10-room house, or 12 people living in a single room (7 feet 3 inches by 14 feet). Rents were exorbitant; 85 percent of working-class households in London spent at least one-fifth of their income on rent, with 50 percent paying one-quarter to one-half of their income on rent. The poorer the neighborhood, the higher the rents. Rents in the Old Nichol area near Hackney, per cubic foot, were four to ten times higher than rents in the fine streets and squares of West End London. The owners of the slum housing included peers, churchmen, and investment trusts for estates of long-deceased members of the upper classes.

      Domestic chores for women without servants meant a great deal of washing and cleaning during the Victorian era. Coal-dust from stoves (and factories) was the bane of the Victorian woman's housekeeping existence. It coated windows (carried by wind and fog), clothing, and furniture and rugs inside the home. Washing clothing and linens would usually be done one day a week, scrubbed by hand in a large zinc or copper tub. Some water would be heated and added to the wash tub, and perhaps a handful of soda to soften the water. Curtains were taken down and washed every fortnight; they were often so blackened by coal smoke that they had to be soaked in salted water before being washed. Scrubbing the front wooden doorstep of the home every morning was also an important chore to maintain respectability. Wikipedia

 Horrible Histories Historical Wife Swap (Victorian wives that is.)

The Morality of Economy, 1873

      Among the working classes in London, England, there has been established an association which calls itself the "Prudent Knowledge Society." A leading feature is the establishment of penny savings banks in the factories, and also in the elementary schools, to teach the little ones habits of providence and economy as the same time with other useful knowledge. At a recent meeting, the Archbishop of Westminster said the Provident Knowledge Society is one of the most effective auxiliaries in the endeavor to restore the domestic life of the English working classes, which is utterly wrecked in the large towns that contain half the population of the country. He was glad to see so many clergymen present, for every one of them was a lecturer for the Society, and their text-book was the book of Proverbs. The late Emperor of the French, in opening a subscription to the funds in which sums so small as a five-franc piece could be invested, had found the value of aggregating small savings; and Lord Shaftsbury, speaking last year, he thought at Norwich, said that he and his friends had induced the children of some 60 schools in London, to put their pence into a savings' bank, and at the end of the year, the sum amounted to £2,000. It had grown like the grass which grows by night when men sleep. Lord Shaftsbury also stated that he saw in Yorkshire twelve skilled laborers in a factory earning seven or eight guineas in a week, but it was on Friday, and the manufacturer said, "If you ask them, you will find that they have not a shilling in their pockets; they drink." But two men who had left in the year before had carried 500 and 700 guineas away with them respectively. We notice that Tom Hughes. M. P., is also an active worker in this new and extensive field for philanthropic endeavor.

• Hardships of Working-Class Mothers in Victorian England
• Working Class Victorian Woman and Employment
• The Working Classes and The Poor
• The Working Class Of The Victorian Era