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A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick Permanent WRAP URL: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/91748 Copyright and reuse: This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. For more information, please contact the WRAP Team at: [email protected] warwick.ac.uk/lib-publications NEW AND NOVEL HOMES WOMEN WRITING LONDON'S HOUSING, 1880-1918 Lisa Catherine Robertson Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English and Comparative Literary Studies University of Warwick Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies August 2016 CONTENTS Contents.............................................................................................................................................. 2 List of Illustrations.............................................................................................................................4 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................5 Abstract...............................................................................................................................................6 1. Domestic Architecture and Domestic Fiction.............................................................................. 8 1.1 Writing Home(s) ....................................................................................................................16 1.2 London's Housing Fissure: 1880-1918...................................................................................21 1.3 London's Housing Crisis ....................................................................................................... 23 2. Structures of Authority: the Model Dwellings Movement.......................................................25 2.1 'And they call themselves Philanthropists!': the Model Dwellings Movement and Margaret Harkness's A City Girl (1887).................................................................................................27 2.2 'Who will Purify the Soil?': Slum Clearance and the Middle Classes in Julia Frankau's A Babe in Bohemia (1889) ........................................................................................................41 2.3 'The Pyramid is Rotten at the Top': the Foundations of Commitment in George Eastmont, Wanderer (1905) ....................................................................................................................57 2.4 'Between Antique Perfection and Modern Character': Housing and Social Liberalism in Mary Ward's Marcella (1894)............................................................................................... 75 3. Chambers, Dwellings and Flats: Urban Housing for Working Women................................110 2 3.1 'The Ideal Method of Living': Purpose-Built Housing for Single Working Women in Evelyn Sharp's The Making of a Prig (1897) ...................................................................................112 3.2 The Kailyard Comes to London: Ladies' Chambers and the Romance Narrative in Annie S. Swan's A Victory Won (1895) .............................................................................................. 132 3.3 Flat Ambition: Satire and Social Climbing in Julia Frankau's The Heart of a Child (1908)................................................................................................. 149 4. 'Thinking men' and Thinking Women: Sexuality, Christianity and Settlement Housing................................................................................................................... 175 4.1 'Philanthropy is the Fashion': the Politics of Economics in Dear Faustina (1897).............179 4.2 'For Goodness' Sake, Don't become Philanthropic': Material Morality in L.T. Meade's A Princess of the Gutter (1895)............................................................................................207 5. Epilogue: Housing for a New Era: the Hampstead Garden Suburb and Mary Gabrielle Collins's Garden Suburb Verses (1913)..................................................................................... 235 5.1 Conclusion............................................................................................................................244 Bibliography................................................................................................................................... 249 3 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. The Katharine Buildings, Cartwright Street (built 1884; photograph c. 1960). 31 2. The Katharine Buildings, Rear Courtyard (built 1884; photograph c. 1960). 31 3. George Cruikshank, 'The British Bee Hive', Etching (designed 1840 ; published 1867). 68 4. Hampden House, Entrance, Buckinghamshire (1910). 83 5. C.C. Brewer and A. Dunbar-Smith, Passmore Edwards Settlement, Plan and Front Elevation (1895). 91 6. Peabody Buildings, Herbrand Street (built 1885; photograph date unknown). 93 7. The Mary Ward Centre, Tavistock Place (built 1898; photograph 1990). 103 8. Chenies Street Chambers, Bloomsbury (built 1888; photograph 2013). 120 9. Dining Hall, Brabazon House, Pimlico (photograph c. 1902). 123 10. Front Facade, Soho Club & Home for Working Girls (built 1884; photograph 2014). 154 11. 'Soho Club & Home for Working Girls', The Story of Old Soho (1893). 154 12. Entrance Arch, Artillery Mansions, Westminster, Postcard (1907). 158 13. M.H. Baillie Scott, Waterlow Court, Hampstead Garden Suburb (built 1909; photograph 1951). 233 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In Essays in Criticism, Matthew ArnolD attests to the efficacy of the university atmosphere as an educating force: the combination of its traditions, cultures and friendships offers more opportunities for intellectual cultivation than can be found in books. It is therefore my Debt to acknowledge the influence of that atmosphere, although to successfully enumerate or distinguish its individual components is no doubt an impossible task. I am grateful to the University of Warwick for the award of a Chancellor’s International Scholarship, which enableD the research and writing of this thesis. I woulD also like to thank the Humanities Research Fund at Warwick for its support of my research at home and abroad. My thanks also to the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain for the award of a postgraduate bursary which permitteD the research of certain aspects of this project. I also owe thanks to Lawrence Phillips and Janet Wilson at the University of Northampton for supporting the earliest stages of this thesis. I am grateful to have haD a number of mentors, both official and unofficial, at the University of Warwick and their encouragement has been invaluable: Gill Frith, Tara Puri, Ross Forman, and Michael Meeuwis. I owe much to the lively Discussion provideD by the University's undergraduates who were enrolleD in the courses 'Romantic and Victorian Poetry' and 'English Literature and Feminisms, 1799-1900' from 2013 to 2016. I also owe a great Deal to a number of people whose generosity and support has been a constant source of inspiration: Emily Gee, at English Heritage, who kindly shareD with me her groundbreaking work on women's housing, without which certain aspects of this project woulD have been impossible; to Reuben Frankau, who offereD some wonderful insights into the work of his great-grandmother, Julia Frankau; to all of the members of the Literary London Society as well as the regular attendees of the Literary London Reading Group including Richard Dennis, Matthew Ingleby, Luke Seaber, Nadia Valman, Flore Janssen, Adele Lee, Martin Dines, Lara Atkin, Helen Goodman – and particularly to my co-organisers Peter Jones and Eliza Cubitt; to Flore Janssen, Terry Elkiss and Deborah Mutch, whose collaborations on a number of projects relateD to Margaret Harkness have been invigorating and productive. Thanks to Hanne Graversen, Sarah Knor, Lisa Mullen and Terri Mullholland, who have all provideD engaging comments on the subject of this thesis at various points during the course of writing. I owe particular thanks to Sara Lyons and Noah Moxham for many years of intellectual support and engagement, as well as plenty of good wine and general amity. Eliza Cubitt, Stephanie Bannister, and (once again) Flore Janssen Deserve much appreciation for volunteering their eDiting and proof-reading skills at the height of an improbably warm summer. My especial thanks to Ruth Livesey and Mary Elizabeth Leighton, without whose generous support at various stages over the years I woulD doubtless be floundering somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. Finally, my sincere gratitude is oweD to Emma Francis, whose encouragement and enthusiasm for this project have been inestimably valuable. 5 ABSTRACT This thesis investigates the relationship between women's writing and domestic architecture in London during the four decades around the turn of the twentieth century. It foregrounds novels written by women in order to investigate the ways in which this literature grapples with new forms of urban housing that emergeD in orDer to accommodate economic, political and cultural changes in the city. This period of study is roughly frameD by the MarrieD Women's Property Act of 1882, legislation that alloweD women to exist legally outside the family structure, and the