0:00:06 > 0:00:10If there's one thing that unlocks the secrets of the British,
0:00:10 > 0:00:13it's our feelings about our homes.
0:00:13 > 0:00:17We are fixated on buying them, renovating them,
0:00:17 > 0:00:22making them beautiful, and defining ourselves through the way they look.
0:00:22 > 0:00:26You might think that this obsession with having your own house,
0:00:26 > 0:00:30and your own front door, is a very recent phenomenon,
0:00:30 > 0:00:33dating back perhaps to the 1980s.
0:00:33 > 0:00:35Even the 1950s.
0:00:35 > 0:00:40But I've traced this very British love affair back to the 18th century,
0:00:40 > 0:00:43because it was then that home became
0:00:43 > 0:00:46what it remains for most of us to this day.
0:00:52 > 0:00:54Oh!
0:00:57 > 0:01:02The Georgian house remains a hallmark to this day of design and desirability,
0:01:02 > 0:01:07but we're not just drawn to them for their architectural merit.
0:01:07 > 0:01:12We're intrigued by the life that went on inside them.
0:01:12 > 0:01:14To their original inhabitants,
0:01:14 > 0:01:21these houses represented more than just shelter, and expressed more than mere status.
0:01:21 > 0:01:26They reflected your taste, your character, your moral values
0:01:26 > 0:01:29and even the state of your marriage.
0:01:31 > 0:01:35In this series, I'm going to recreate the interior lives of men and women
0:01:35 > 0:01:39from all walks of 18th-century life.
0:01:39 > 0:01:43I'll take you into the palaces of the wealthy,
0:01:43 > 0:01:48the parlours of the middle classes and the attics of the servants and the poor.
0:01:48 > 0:01:53Because the ideas I'll be exploring affected everyone.
0:01:53 > 0:01:59Their stories reveal, in their own words, how many of the Georgians' hopes and fears,
0:01:59 > 0:02:04triumphs and tragedies, were rooted in their homes.
0:02:04 > 0:02:10What happened in these houses changed domestic life and family forever.
0:02:30 > 0:02:32This is Spitalfields in the East End of London,
0:02:32 > 0:02:35laid out in the early 18th century,
0:02:35 > 0:02:39when Britain was in the grip of a building boom.
0:02:39 > 0:02:44Think of these terraces as starter homes for a confident middle class,
0:02:44 > 0:02:48with healthy incomes and new pretensions.
0:02:55 > 0:02:59This is a typical urban terrace,
0:02:59 > 0:03:04the kind of thing that a middling family might reasonably aspire to live in.
0:03:04 > 0:03:08But they didn't have to own the house outright.
0:03:08 > 0:03:11In fact most houses were rented, not owned, in the 18th century.
0:03:11 > 0:03:14But as long as you had your own front door,
0:03:14 > 0:03:16and occupied the whole building,
0:03:16 > 0:03:19you could see yourself as a householder,
0:03:19 > 0:03:21and then you'd have the status of citizen.
0:03:23 > 0:03:27Today, we often assume that the home is simply a trap
0:03:27 > 0:03:33invented by women to tame their men and break their masculinity.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36A domesticated man is a housebroken man.
0:03:36 > 0:03:44Only outside the home can he recapture an exciting whiff of the testosterone he has lost.
0:03:44 > 0:03:50But let me tell you, this is not at all how the Georgians saw it.
0:03:51 > 0:03:56I'd always known how much women longed for the stability of marriage
0:03:56 > 0:03:57and a home of their own.
0:03:57 > 0:04:00At last, they were the mistress of a household.
0:04:00 > 0:04:05Marrying well was the female career in the 18th century,
0:04:05 > 0:04:10but it surprised me just how earnestly, longingly, desperately,
0:04:10 > 0:04:15men yearned for marital domesticity and a home of their own.
0:04:15 > 0:04:21It was men, not women, who were driving this whole process forward.
0:04:21 > 0:04:27Foreigners joked that all a man needed to feel at home in the 18th century was a fire and a wife.
0:04:29 > 0:04:35A man's house was the monument to his maturity and proof of his power.
0:04:35 > 0:04:40He was accepted as a citizen, qualified to vote in many towns.
0:04:40 > 0:04:45Until he could afford to set up a household, there was no way he could attract a wife,
0:04:45 > 0:04:51so he could kiss goodbye to guilt-free sex and legitimate heirs.
0:04:51 > 0:04:54Heading a household was glamorous.
0:04:54 > 0:04:59Men wanted, and needed, this validation of their virility.
0:04:59 > 0:05:00Papa!
0:05:02 > 0:05:06Listen to the first of my real-life Georgians,
0:05:06 > 0:05:09a no-nonsense West Country doctor called George Gibbs.
0:05:09 > 0:05:13In the 1770s, he wrote a letter to his daughter
0:05:13 > 0:05:15confessing what he felt about home.
0:05:18 > 0:05:23"Those who are well disposed will ever take the greatest delight in their own home."
0:05:23 > 0:05:27"And indeed, it is my own opinion that those who are incapable
0:05:27 > 0:05:32"of relishing domestic happiness can never be really happy at all."
0:05:41 > 0:05:46But here's the thing that interested me about Dr Gibbs.
0:05:46 > 0:05:49Domestic bliss didn't just drop into his lap.
0:05:49 > 0:05:53He worked hard to persuade a woman to set up home with him.
0:05:53 > 0:05:59Even at 260 years' distance, reading his ardent courtship letters,
0:05:59 > 0:06:05addressed to a certain Miss Vickery, was a stirring experience.
0:06:05 > 0:06:08One of the reasons why I started looking at love letters
0:06:08 > 0:06:11to think about what men and women believe about home is,
0:06:11 > 0:06:15I needed to get them talking about what they wanted in their homes and what they expected.
0:06:15 > 0:06:21And in most letters, people don't mention it because, you know, why would you? You take it for granted.
0:06:21 > 0:06:24You've no interest in talking about the stairs or the carpet.
0:06:24 > 0:06:25But in courtship,
0:06:25 > 0:06:28when you're deciding what your future life is to be
0:06:28 > 0:06:33that's the moment when the house hoves into view as the topic for discussion.
0:06:35 > 0:06:39"My dearest creature. I have been to look at a house and am buying furniture.
0:06:39 > 0:06:44"Don't be surprised, my dearest, for I shall not make an absolute bargain without your approbation.
0:06:44 > 0:06:48"Much less shall I pretend to fit up the kitchen or the bedchambers."
0:06:52 > 0:06:55George Gibbs spent days traipsing round Exeter,
0:06:55 > 0:07:03looking for a potential house to establish his married life and to satisfy his sweetheart, Ann Vickery.
0:07:03 > 0:07:07He sent endless letters on the subject. Part of which is practical -
0:07:07 > 0:07:14"no respectable marriage can go forward without a house" - but a lot of it is emotional.
0:07:14 > 0:07:18He's showing his solicitude as a future husband
0:07:18 > 0:07:22and he implicating his sweetheart in his choice and in their future life.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27If you think there's something intrinsically feminine
0:07:27 > 0:07:31about fussing over interiors, that not how the Georgians thought.
0:07:31 > 0:07:38No detail of the geography and the decoration of the houses he visits escapes Dr Gibbs.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43"A good parlour, not large, with sashed windows,
0:07:43 > 0:07:46"wainscoted and painted blue.
0:07:49 > 0:07:55"Above, two chambers, tolerably good, and one, if I remember right,
0:07:55 > 0:07:56"hung with paper."
0:07:58 > 0:07:59I imagine she thought,
0:07:59 > 0:08:03"I could sit upstairs in that chamber with the nice paper,
0:08:03 > 0:08:05"all clean and up-to-date."
0:08:05 > 0:08:08If it should not be agreeable to thee, my dearest,
0:08:08 > 0:08:11I would not give 20 shillings a year for it if you dislike it.
0:08:11 > 0:08:15I think when Miss Ann Vickery received this letter,
0:08:15 > 0:08:20she would have been able to judge the consideration of her husband-to-be.
0:08:20 > 0:08:24I would have imagined she'd decide he was a pretty good choice,
0:08:24 > 0:08:29because he's showing a lot of concern for what she would want from home.
0:08:29 > 0:08:34He's not autocratic, dictatorial, he's given quite a lot of thought
0:08:34 > 0:08:39to what her happiness will be in the house and therefore in the marriage.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45"I'm quite weary, my dearest girl, of writing to thee about houses."
0:08:47 > 0:08:52In my mind's eye, he's a little bit of a hero.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56He is worthy of an Austen novel, I think.
0:08:56 > 0:09:02But was my image of George Gibbs just too romantic to be true?
0:09:02 > 0:09:07This is Holwell Manor, the house of a descendent of George Gibbs,
0:09:07 > 0:09:13where I've just found out there are two paintings of my hero, George,
0:09:13 > 0:09:15and so I'm fascinated to discover
0:09:15 > 0:09:18whether or not he is quite the gorgeous hero
0:09:18 > 0:09:19I've built him up to be.
0:09:22 > 0:09:28In the first painting Lord Aldenham shows me, George was just a boy.
0:09:28 > 0:09:29What about him as an older man?
0:09:29 > 0:09:33- Well, he's down the other end if you'd like to have a look.- OK.
0:09:40 > 0:09:42Oh, how very, very disappointing!
0:09:43 > 0:09:45Oh, no!
0:09:45 > 0:09:47He's a bit jowly, isn't he?
0:09:47 > 0:09:53Oh, I think that's absolutely tragic!
0:09:53 > 0:09:59God, the fantasies your mind can weave on the basis of a few letters.
0:09:59 > 0:10:01It's not at all how I pictured him.
0:10:01 > 0:10:06I know we don't have him his prime, but nevertheless, it's a bit of a let-down.
0:10:09 > 0:10:13Clearly it was the home that George showed himself able to provide,
0:10:13 > 0:10:16and the consideration he paraded,
0:10:16 > 0:10:20rather than his looks, which clinched the deal for Miss Ann Vickery.
0:10:23 > 0:10:25This is the house outside Exeter
0:10:25 > 0:10:31where Dr and Mrs Gibbs experienced decades of happy married life,
0:10:31 > 0:10:34raised a family and founded a dynasty
0:10:34 > 0:10:39who went on to become fabulously-wealthy guano tycoons.
0:10:39 > 0:10:43Everything about him as a successful husband, I think,
0:10:43 > 0:10:48can be read at the outset in his letters about homes.
0:10:50 > 0:10:55You can see just how important house, home and smiling wife
0:10:55 > 0:10:58were to a man's status and self-esteem
0:10:58 > 0:11:02by listening to the voices of men who were lacking them.
0:11:02 > 0:11:07That's why I searched out bachelors' diaries.
0:11:07 > 0:11:09Step forward Dudley Ryder,
0:11:09 > 0:11:15Hackney linen draper's son, budding law student and compulsive diarist.
0:11:15 > 0:11:18Et un, deux, trois...
0:11:18 > 0:11:22This is always a great moment for the historian,
0:11:22 > 0:11:25unwrapping the documents.
0:11:25 > 0:11:26And here they are.
0:11:26 > 0:11:32To add to the intrigue, they're all in code.
0:11:32 > 0:11:34Look at this.
0:11:36 > 0:11:41What exciting things about his life could he possibly be concealing
0:11:41 > 0:11:44in this elaborate cipher?
0:11:44 > 0:11:45What dramas?
0:11:45 > 0:11:51Luckily for me a descendant of Dudley's cracked the code
0:11:51 > 0:11:53and when I read his outpourings,
0:11:53 > 0:11:59it was as if a voice from 300 years ago was confiding in me.
0:12:01 > 0:12:04"I dreamt I was married to a young lady,
0:12:04 > 0:12:09"bedded her, and the next morning found myself in the greatest hurry
0:12:09 > 0:12:13"and confusion of mind in the world, longing to be unmarried.
0:12:13 > 0:12:15"In which trouble, I awakened.
0:12:19 > 0:12:20"I fell asleep again,
0:12:20 > 0:12:23"and dreamt I was married to another young lady
0:12:23 > 0:12:26"and enjoyed her,
0:12:26 > 0:12:28"and then repented again,
0:12:28 > 0:12:33"and regretted exceedingly to find it was only a dream."
0:12:33 > 0:12:36He's really rather hopeless,
0:12:36 > 0:12:42but it's the sweetness, really, of his self-exposure, melts my heart.
0:12:42 > 0:12:48Dudley spent years of his life fantasising about a nice bride
0:12:48 > 0:12:54and cosy fireside, polishing up the kinds of accomplishments he thought might secure them.
0:12:54 > 0:12:59But in the presence of actual marriageable young ladies,
0:12:59 > 0:13:01his confidence deserted him.
0:13:03 > 0:13:09There was one thing troubled me greatly and lay heavy upon my heart.
0:13:09 > 0:13:11And that was the apprehension I was under
0:13:11 > 0:13:14that I am not capable of getting my wife with child...
0:13:14 > 0:13:15if I had one.
0:13:17 > 0:13:20I find I am not very powerful that way.
0:13:20 > 0:13:22It makes me very uneasy to think
0:13:22 > 0:13:26that my wife should have cause to complain,
0:13:26 > 0:13:29that I could almost resolve not to marry. But...
0:13:29 > 0:13:36I don't know how to conceive of being happy in this life without one.
0:13:36 > 0:13:41A wife enters into all my prospects and schemes of happiness.
0:13:43 > 0:13:51The tone of this is so painfully gauche, you might imagine that he young teenager.
0:13:51 > 0:13:54But in fact, he's 24.
0:13:55 > 0:14:00But it underscores a key point about the 18th century,
0:14:00 > 0:14:05that only upon matrimony does a man emerge from his chrysalis
0:14:05 > 0:14:10and become everything that society expects him to be.
0:14:10 > 0:14:14That's when his maturity is in full bloom.
0:14:14 > 0:14:17And Dudley's a law student.
0:14:17 > 0:14:23He's on an allowance from his father. He's not in a position to support a wife.
0:14:23 > 0:14:28So therefore, he's sentenced to years and years of longing.
0:14:31 > 0:14:34The average age a Georgian man married was 27,
0:14:34 > 0:14:38which presented 18th-century Britain with a pressing social problem.
0:14:39 > 0:14:43Until they could marry and settle down, what was to be done
0:14:43 > 0:14:48with the thousands of energetic young bachelors like Dudley on the loose?
0:14:49 > 0:14:55One ingenious solution is found just off Fleet Street in London.
0:14:55 > 0:14:58If you go through this door into the Middle Temple,
0:14:58 > 0:15:02you enter what would have been, in the 18th century, a bachelor ghetto.
0:15:06 > 0:15:10In 1714 and 1715, Dudley Ryder was a law student here,
0:15:10 > 0:15:15still learning to be a man and scribbling in his diary.
0:15:16 > 0:15:18It looks utterly respectable today,
0:15:18 > 0:15:21with the august business of the law going on,
0:15:21 > 0:15:23but in the 18th century,
0:15:23 > 0:15:26the very stones would have been drenched in testosterone.
0:15:26 > 0:15:31Because this was one of many institutions expressly designed
0:15:31 > 0:15:35to warehouse young men in the interval between puberty and marriage.
0:15:44 > 0:15:47Dudley's student life was hardly taxing,
0:15:47 > 0:15:50a bit of reading and a lot of loafing about town.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55But although his serviced lodgings were a roof over his head,
0:15:55 > 0:15:59Dudley was painfully aware that they weren't a home.
0:16:01 > 0:16:06The bachelor's makeshift lifestyle was a longstanding source of humour.
0:16:07 > 0:16:09This is one of my favourite prints.
0:16:09 > 0:16:12Dandies At Tea.
0:16:12 > 0:16:17What I love about it is the depiction of the bachelor lifestyle,
0:16:17 > 0:16:22in these really nasty, squalid, tawdry lodgings.
0:16:22 > 0:16:24They've got these very fancy manners,
0:16:24 > 0:16:27but as you can see by the surroundings,
0:16:27 > 0:16:31everything's kind of grimy and nasty,
0:16:31 > 0:16:36they've got horrid, unmentionable laundry hanging up here,
0:16:36 > 0:16:39and the nasty, ragged tablecloth.
0:16:39 > 0:16:46A lovely, clean tablecloth is a sign of virtue and a well-run household.
0:16:46 > 0:16:49They have no women to love them.
0:16:53 > 0:16:59Other satires on unmarried men depict them as dinner locusts,
0:16:59 > 0:17:03cadging food from their irritated married friends.
0:17:03 > 0:17:07Or gobbling down a solitary meal in a chophouse.
0:17:09 > 0:17:13This is one of the few remaining chophouses in London,
0:17:13 > 0:17:16but in Dudley's day, they would have been ubiquitous -
0:17:16 > 0:17:21the Georgian bachelor's equivalent of the burger bar.
0:17:21 > 0:17:25It was demoralising and lowering, I think,
0:17:25 > 0:17:29for Dudley Ryder to be always having his dinner in a chophouse,
0:17:29 > 0:17:35because it emphasises the contrast between the life that he is living and the life that he wants.
0:17:35 > 0:17:38Domesticity and happiness at home
0:17:38 > 0:17:44is often epitomised by a smiling wife, a well-laid dinner table,
0:17:44 > 0:17:51a lovely fish pie, showing all the happiness, sustenance and comfort you could have at home.
0:17:56 > 0:17:58"It is charming and moving.
0:17:58 > 0:18:02"It ravishes me to think of a pretty creature
0:18:02 > 0:18:08"concerned in being my most intimate friend, constant companion,
0:18:08 > 0:18:11"and always ready to soothe me,"
0:18:11 > 0:18:16take care of me and caress me.
0:18:21 > 0:18:24Ooh, it's "can anybody find me somebody to love"?
0:18:24 > 0:18:26# Can...
0:18:26 > 0:18:31# Anybody... #
0:18:31 > 0:18:36It would take Dudley Ryder 20 more years to find that somebody.
0:18:36 > 0:18:42# Somebody to love... #
0:18:42 > 0:18:45At length, at a ripe 43, he married the daughter
0:18:45 > 0:18:50of a rich West Indian merchant and went on to found the dynasty
0:18:50 > 0:18:55whose house this is - Sandon Hall in Staffordshire.
0:18:55 > 0:18:58Established at last, he could lift up his head,
0:18:58 > 0:19:02puff out his chest and hit his stride.
0:19:10 > 0:19:14Somewhere in here is my Dudley in later life.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20SHE LAUGHS
0:19:20 > 0:19:24Look, he's still pointing his finger,
0:19:24 > 0:19:27he's remembered his ballet lessons.
0:19:27 > 0:19:31Sir Dudley Ryder as Attorney General.
0:19:31 > 0:19:35Look how dignified he is!
0:19:35 > 0:19:39I think he's come into himself, that's what I want to believe,
0:19:39 > 0:19:42upon marriage.
0:19:42 > 0:19:48It is interesting though, because if you just had the paintings of Georgian men,
0:19:48 > 0:19:52you'd have one picture, a very kind of complacent and sober picture of
0:19:52 > 0:19:58power and running households - you just take all of that for granted.
0:19:58 > 0:20:03But once you read his young man's diary, you see that he didn't take any of that for granted.
0:20:03 > 0:20:06He was always worried that he wasn't going to get it.
0:20:19 > 0:20:24The intensity of bachelors' desires meant that eligible brides were at a premium
0:20:24 > 0:20:26as this extraordinary document,
0:20:26 > 0:20:32published anonymously in 1742, reveals.
0:20:32 > 0:20:36One of the most intriguing publications I found in my research is this.
0:20:36 > 0:20:43Basically, it's a Gazetteer to all the available women in the country.
0:20:43 > 0:20:46It's like a stalkers' charter.
0:20:46 > 0:20:50They helpfully listed street by street, area by area,
0:20:50 > 0:20:55rank by rank - and then with their reputed fortune -
0:20:55 > 0:20:58£40,000, £60,000, £50,000.
0:20:58 > 0:21:02Then all the extra money they have in the stocks.
0:21:02 > 0:21:04So it's very comprehensive.
0:21:04 > 0:21:10On and on, down through the ranks - so many women, so much money available to men.
0:21:11 > 0:21:15They're very straightforward and practical, the Georgians, about money.
0:21:15 > 0:21:19They have none of our false modesty about it.
0:21:19 > 0:21:24MUSIC: "Somebody To Love" by Queen
0:21:39 > 0:21:46But if the 18th century was an age of brazen financial calculation it was also an age of feeling.
0:21:46 > 0:21:53It wasn't enough just to have a nice house and expect an eligible bride to come a-knocking.
0:21:53 > 0:21:59Female expectations were rising too, as the diaries of a man who lived here in the genteel
0:21:59 > 0:22:05Georgian market town of Beverley in Yorkshire, inadvertently prove.
0:22:05 > 0:22:13John Courtney lived in a handsome house with his widowed mother, his harpsichord and his organ.
0:22:13 > 0:22:16John Courtney was a man on a mission.
0:22:16 > 0:22:20You have to imagine that this was his field of operations.
0:22:20 > 0:22:25He spent his 20s and his 30s searching for a wife.
0:22:25 > 0:22:28It was his absolute obsession.
0:22:28 > 0:22:30But he wasn't very successful.
0:22:30 > 0:22:33He was rejected on eight occasions.
0:22:33 > 0:22:40He fancied any woman, really, who glided across his path. If she was respectable, young and pretty.
0:22:40 > 0:22:44He loved to see their little white hands going across the piano keys.
0:22:44 > 0:22:47MUSIC: "The Sailor's Song" by Franz Joseph Haydn
0:22:51 > 0:22:57The Assembly Rooms at nearby York were the scene of John Courtney's first attempt at seduction.
0:22:57 > 0:23:02It was to prove a humiliating fiasco.
0:23:02 > 0:23:05Assemblies were famous meat markets,
0:23:05 > 0:23:10where you could see all the marriageable ladies laid out for your delectation.
0:23:10 > 0:23:14And he spotted a delicious Miss N.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18'Tuesday February 3, 1761.
0:23:18 > 0:23:23'This afternoon Miss N and her mother drank tea with us.
0:23:23 > 0:23:29'She is a very fine girl in all respects.
0:23:29 > 0:23:35'From this day I determined to try my fortune.'
0:23:35 > 0:23:39Later on, a couple of days later.
0:23:39 > 0:23:43"At the play I begin to show that I am attached.
0:23:43 > 0:23:48"I sat behind her at the play, and plied her with sweetmeats." Ugh!
0:23:48 > 0:23:53This morning I carried Miss N some music.
0:23:53 > 0:23:59My Song of Innocence and Love, just printed, as also my Cantata, Temple of Flattery, in manuscript.
0:23:59 > 0:24:05She sang, on entreaty, some of them, a little, while I played.
0:24:05 > 0:24:10I treated her with some sweetmeats.
0:24:10 > 0:24:17I daresay the young lady may begin to guess that I like her.
0:24:17 > 0:24:24So finally, he's confirmed in his decision and he gets together the resolution to propose.
0:24:24 > 0:24:29He declares himself to the family - perhaps a mistake -
0:24:29 > 0:24:34but the young girl's aunts ambush him and tell him to desist.
0:24:34 > 0:24:41This afternoon, the old ladies told me they desired I would not think any more about Miss,
0:24:41 > 0:24:44for they were sure it would not be to any purpose.
0:24:44 > 0:24:47I was thunderstruck.
0:24:51 > 0:24:55Courtney isn't the most self-aware of diarists, so it's hard to say why
0:24:55 > 0:25:02women like Miss N kept turning him down, even though this was the house he would be able to offer them.
0:25:02 > 0:25:05But reading between the lines,
0:25:05 > 0:25:11it's clear that it took more than bricks and mortar to secure a graceful young lady.
0:25:14 > 0:25:18I was very sorry they sent back the music in the morning.
0:25:18 > 0:25:22It hurt me much. Miss N said she had a more music than she ever played.
0:25:22 > 0:25:28Much more chagrined today than yesterday and heartily vexed.
0:25:31 > 0:25:35NB, in the morning before all this happened, I made an agreement
0:25:35 > 0:25:38with Haxby for a desk organ with five stops.
0:25:43 > 0:25:50I think the bottom line is that he was absolutely deaf to the subtleties of female communication.
0:25:50 > 0:25:55Every time a woman rejected him he seemed to have no idea that the rejection was coming.
0:25:55 > 0:26:00It all goes to show that there more to marriage than a house.
0:26:00 > 0:26:04You have to invite women in, seduce them into wanting to share it with you.
0:26:10 > 0:26:14'Whatever their personal circumstances, Georgian men were well aware'
0:26:14 > 0:26:21of how much they stood to gain, emotionally and socially, from setting up home.
0:26:21 > 0:26:25But there were other benefits which they were often less up front about.
0:26:25 > 0:26:32Becoming a householder meant new rights and mature responsibilities,
0:26:32 > 0:26:38but it also legitimised an orgy of consumer spending on yourself.
0:26:38 > 0:26:45How couples manage their money is even more mysterious today than husband and wives' sex lives.
0:26:45 > 0:26:51So I was delighted when I discovered some his and hers accounts, some matching accounts
0:26:51 > 0:26:57for a gentleman and gentlewoman called the Ardernes, who lived in Cheshire in the 18th century.
0:26:57 > 0:27:02So I was able to compare what the women spent their money on, and what the men spent their money on.
0:27:02 > 0:27:06And in this case...
0:27:06 > 0:27:11Well, it was an absolute eye-opener that John Arderne, the husband,
0:27:11 > 0:27:17seemed to spend an incredible amount of money on what we might loosely call "tackle".
0:27:17 > 0:27:22A double-girth with leather ends, whip-cord, one coupling-rein,
0:27:22 > 0:27:27mending a bearing-rein, stirrup leathers, it goes on and on.
0:27:27 > 0:27:34So when I totted all their accounts up, I discovered
0:27:34 > 0:27:40that poor Mrs Arderne spent only £12 in a whole year, 1745, on herself.
0:27:40 > 0:27:44That's just 2% of her entire outlay.
0:27:44 > 0:27:48Whereas her husband was spending more than that on leather.
0:27:52 > 0:27:56Mr Arderne's almost fetishistic obsession with horse furniture,
0:27:56 > 0:28:02as it was known, is all the more remarkable given that the family money was Mrs Arderne's.
0:28:02 > 0:28:09But he wasn't unique. One of the largest elements of expenditure in wealthy 18th century households
0:28:09 > 0:28:13was men's spending on transport.
0:28:18 > 0:28:23The horses are only just walking and already I feel sick!
0:28:23 > 0:28:31A carriage like this - well-sprung, well-upholstered, shiny, pulled by
0:28:31 > 0:28:35lovely horses - it says a lot to me
0:28:35 > 0:28:39about the status that a man acquires as a husband,
0:28:39 > 0:28:45heading up his household, taking his family off to church, full of virility, pumping with it.
0:28:52 > 0:28:57To understand the dent a coach and horses like this would have
0:28:57 > 0:29:03made in the family ledger, the modern equivalent isn't really a sports car - it's a helicopter.
0:29:03 > 0:29:08Of course they never get criticised for it, they're never seen as big spenders or consumers.
0:29:08 > 0:29:15They're seen as truly independent men who are interested in travel and the adventure of speed.
0:29:26 > 0:29:34Lot 488, north country tablespoon, bids, start me here at 280.
0:29:36 > 0:29:41I attended an auction of masculine knick-knacks - the kind of thing an
0:29:41 > 0:29:4618th century gentleman householder would have spent his money on.
0:29:46 > 0:29:51I think you can get a sense from these is the number of little gadgets there can be for the fellas.
0:29:51 > 0:29:55There's quite a few bizarre little boys' toys here.
0:29:55 > 0:30:00One thing that gents always tend to buy, they're called bottle tickets.
0:30:00 > 0:30:04I've often wondered what they were when I saw them in account books and here they are.
0:30:04 > 0:30:12Madeira and claret. This is a silver tongue-scraper - can you imagine?
0:30:12 > 0:30:14Last time at 140.
0:30:14 > 0:30:17And then here, rather fantastic,
0:30:17 > 0:30:22some sort of 18th century toothbrush set.
0:30:22 > 0:30:26Neat and ingenious, that's what gentlemen like in their toys.
0:30:29 > 0:30:33Think of the most expensive items in the modern middle class home.
0:30:33 > 0:30:39Chances are the flat screen TV, the laptops and iPod docks have been bought by a male householder, too.
0:30:39 > 0:30:46But of course, they're not consumer trinkets either. They're "equipment".
0:30:46 > 0:30:48At £2,000.
0:30:55 > 0:30:58But in case you're thinking that Georgian men were having it all their own way,
0:30:58 > 0:31:03allow Essex girl Miss Mary Martin to correct you.
0:31:03 > 0:31:08Mary grew up in this house near Colchester.
0:31:08 > 0:31:14What her story suggests to me is that men were well aware that, to enjoy the many benefits of home,
0:31:14 > 0:31:21they didn't just require a blushing bride - they needed an impressive wife.
0:31:21 > 0:31:27You might think from reading sermons and novels and plays that what men really wanted
0:31:27 > 0:31:32was a kind of porcelain doll - wilting, perfect and deferential.
0:31:32 > 0:31:38But in fact what they wanted was a woman like Mary - capable, commanding but womanly.
0:31:38 > 0:31:40A sexy battleaxe.
0:31:40 > 0:31:47The new glamour attached to domesticity raised the status of the home-maker and
0:31:47 > 0:31:52encouraged women to feel they could have a more equal stake in the home.
0:31:52 > 0:31:59It was an opportunity the bustling Miss Martin would grasp with both hands.
0:31:59 > 0:32:04I think we have to get rid of a false, soppy idea about what
0:32:04 > 0:32:12the true 18th century wife would be, and in her place see really quite a powerful figure. A manager.
0:32:12 > 0:32:17This comes across in some of the images of the period.
0:32:17 > 0:32:21This is one called The Good Housewife.
0:32:21 > 0:32:24It shows a woman doing her accounts.
0:32:24 > 0:32:26She's cross-checking.
0:32:26 > 0:32:31She's counting up how many bottles of things she has in store.
0:32:31 > 0:32:37Also implicit in this is her ability to multi-task.
0:32:37 > 0:32:4218th century men want a deputy really, someone they can leave
0:32:42 > 0:32:47behind on garrison duty and know that everything will be safe and secure at home.
0:32:47 > 0:32:53For seven long years in the 1760s and 70s, Mary Martin
0:32:53 > 0:33:00was engaged to her cousin, Colonel Isaac Rebow, who lived here, at Wivenhoe Park in Colchester.
0:33:02 > 0:33:06One of the things that seems to be extraordinary about Mary Martin is
0:33:06 > 0:33:10how much managerial energy she has pumping through her veins.
0:33:10 > 0:33:14And that doesn't really have any professional outlet,
0:33:14 > 0:33:17but she's dying to exercise it for the benefit of her fiance.
0:33:17 > 0:33:22While Isaac Rebow was living at Wivenhoe, Mary was superintending
0:33:22 > 0:33:25the building works at his London house in Duke Street.
0:33:25 > 0:33:30The bossy reports she wrote for him, now in an archive in America,
0:33:30 > 0:33:33reveal a woman positively seething with efficiency.
0:33:35 > 0:33:40Your room was in a fair way of being finished tonight, but fortunately I went up
0:33:40 > 0:33:46this morning to see how it looked, and behold they have painted it stone colour instead of dead white.
0:33:46 > 0:33:49So I wrote away to Mr Snow, and have frightened him out of his wits!
0:33:49 > 0:33:56It shall be painted white tomorrow, and shall be finished quite tomorrow without fail!
0:33:56 > 0:34:01She's very knowing about the fact that she is bossy, and it seems to
0:34:01 > 0:34:06be an in-joke between the two of them that she's so managerial.
0:34:06 > 0:34:13So, at the end of the letter, she says, "I will only add that my breeches hang extremely well.
0:34:13 > 0:34:16"I flatter myself that yours do the same."
0:34:16 > 0:34:19So that's a reference to the kind of power that she's exercising,
0:34:19 > 0:34:23and that they're kind of sharing. They're sharing the breeches.
0:34:23 > 0:34:26But also I think it suggests her kind of teasing friskiness, really.
0:34:26 > 0:34:32I think that she's showing him all the time that she's
0:34:32 > 0:34:35a powerful administrator, but she's every inch a woman.
0:34:35 > 0:34:42Wivenhoe is a hotel now, and under renovation, but you can still get a
0:34:42 > 0:34:47glimpse of why Mary might have fancied being its mistress.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50Wivenhoe Park was built in 1758 for the Rebows.
0:34:50 > 0:34:57From the outside you've lost all sense of what it would have been like in the 18th century,
0:34:57 > 0:35:02but coming into this room, I do get a feel for what some of the glamour entailed.
0:35:02 > 0:35:06I think it would have been quite something to be mistress of Wivenhoe Park.
0:35:06 > 0:35:14Mary's unstinting exertions on Isaac's behalf suggest she felt the same way.
0:35:14 > 0:35:16No.
0:35:16 > 0:35:19But hiring and firing Isaac's servants, taking his socks to be dyed,
0:35:19 > 0:35:22checking his locks, storing his wigs,
0:35:22 > 0:35:28planting his hyacinths, overseeing his provisioning and berating his terrified, cringing
0:35:28 > 0:35:32fishmonger about a smelly turbot, were the least of Mary's worries.
0:35:33 > 0:35:36Yes.
0:35:36 > 0:35:42But sitting within the house was the great obstacle to Mary Martin's ambitions -
0:35:42 > 0:35:44Isaac's mother, Mrs Rebow.
0:35:44 > 0:35:48Isaac had lost his father at the age of four, so his
0:35:48 > 0:35:53mother had been in charge here, the mistress of the house for 46 years.
0:35:53 > 0:35:56That's a lot of time, a long period of power.
0:35:56 > 0:36:03She doesn't want to give that up in a hurry, and she certainly doesn't want to give it up to her niece.
0:36:04 > 0:36:09Isaac's mother put up an endless series of objections to
0:36:09 > 0:36:13relinquishing Wivenhoe and retiring to a house nearby.
0:36:13 > 0:36:19'Madam tells me a long history about her having been after a house, but
0:36:19 > 0:36:23'the necessary alterations came to so much that she was forced to give up all thoughts of it.'
0:36:23 > 0:36:29Mary calmly dealt with the objections one by one, although the process took her seven years.
0:36:31 > 0:36:38She stood the course, and in the end she outwitted her aunt, and she got him.
0:36:50 > 0:36:56To me she seems like a cross between a young Margaret Thatcher and a very sexy Nigella Lawson.
0:36:56 > 0:37:02So she's this wonderful fusion of sex and power. Lucky Rebow!
0:37:09 > 0:37:12They married in 1778.
0:37:12 > 0:37:20When Isaac had to leave her on military business, Mary reminded him of just what he was missing.
0:37:20 > 0:37:24'I did not sleep a wink until 3 or 4am last night.'
0:37:24 > 0:37:30It is entirely owing to the want of my usual method of going to sleep.
0:37:30 > 0:37:32What do you think?
0:37:32 > 0:37:36In case you missed it, that's really a reference to sex.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39That's as close as any 18th century woman is ever going
0:37:39 > 0:37:43to come to admitting that she needs, and likes, to have sex every night.
0:37:43 > 0:37:50So Mary is really as frisky in the bedroom as she is busy on the estate.
0:37:50 > 0:37:52She's the perfect wife.
0:38:02 > 0:38:07Being mistress of a Georgian home was much more than the primarily
0:38:07 > 0:38:09decorative role you might have imagined.
0:38:09 > 0:38:12Housekeeping gave a woman status,
0:38:12 > 0:38:17security and an outlet for her managerial energies.
0:38:17 > 0:38:23There's a revealing demonstration of just how much women relished administrative power in
0:38:23 > 0:38:31the novels of that great chronicler of Georgian domestic life and drawing room politics, Jane Austen.
0:38:31 > 0:38:36In Pride And Prejudice, the heroine Elizabeth Bennett's
0:38:36 > 0:38:41best friend Charlotte Lucas marries the idiotic Mr Collins.
0:38:43 > 0:38:48I am truly honoured to be able to welcome you to my humble abode.
0:38:48 > 0:38:54The staircase, I flatter myself, is eminently suitable for a clergyman
0:38:54 > 0:38:58in my position, being neither too shallow, nor too steep.
0:38:58 > 0:39:01Nice house. Shame about the husband.
0:39:01 > 0:39:05It's a trade-off that depressed me when I first read the book,
0:39:05 > 0:39:07at the idealistic age of 15.
0:39:07 > 0:39:10But it surprises me no longer.
0:39:10 > 0:39:12Observe that closet, Cousin Elizabeth.
0:39:12 > 0:39:14What do you say to that?
0:39:14 > 0:39:19Lady Catherine de Bourgh herself was kind enough to suggest
0:39:19 > 0:39:22that these shelves be fitted exactly as you see them there.
0:39:24 > 0:39:29Pride And Prejudice is essentially a fairy story, in which the heroine
0:39:29 > 0:39:33wins a spectacular mate and a palace.
0:39:33 > 0:39:35But there's also a vein of grim practicality
0:39:35 > 0:39:39which runs through the novel, and that is all wrapped up
0:39:39 > 0:39:41in the experience of Charlotte Lucas.
0:39:41 > 0:39:44When Charlotte Lucas makes a trade with her eyes open.
0:39:44 > 0:39:48I encourage him to be in his garden as much as possible.
0:39:48 > 0:39:50And you prefer to sit in this parlour?
0:39:50 > 0:39:52She becomes "Mistress".
0:39:52 > 0:39:56She's gained a lot of status, she's gained respectability, and control.
0:39:56 > 0:39:59And I think that's something that Charlotte Lucas really relishes.
0:39:59 > 0:40:03I find that I can bear the solitude very cheerfully.
0:40:03 > 0:40:10I find myself quite content with my situation, Lizzy.
0:40:10 > 0:40:12So she puts up with a silly, conceited,
0:40:12 > 0:40:15pompous man, in order to have a house.
0:40:23 > 0:40:27It's even easier to understand the bargain Charlotte Lucas
0:40:27 > 0:40:30was prepared to strike when you contemplate the alternative.
0:40:31 > 0:40:36For a woman to shine at home, she had to be its mistress.
0:40:36 > 0:40:39The prima donna had her stage.
0:40:39 > 0:40:42But what happened if you came lower down the pecking-order
0:40:42 > 0:40:47was brought home to me by a woman who lived here.
0:40:47 > 0:40:50Rufford Abbey is a wedding venue now,
0:40:50 > 0:40:53which is ironic because in the 18th century,
0:40:53 > 0:40:57one of its inhabitants has left us a blistering account
0:40:57 > 0:41:03of how home could feel to a spinster who just didn't fit in.
0:41:08 > 0:41:11I fancy the very walls looked inhospitably upon me
0:41:11 > 0:41:15and that everything frowned upon me for being an intruder.
0:41:15 > 0:41:20FEMALE LAUGHTER
0:41:20 > 0:41:24I say that if was in my power to get my bread by the meanest
0:41:24 > 0:41:30and most laborious employment, I would without dispute choose it.
0:41:33 > 0:41:36Gertrude Savile was the sister of a baronet
0:41:36 > 0:41:39who lived at Rufford in the early 1700s.
0:41:39 > 0:41:42It's a ruin now, but in Gertrude's day
0:41:42 > 0:41:48it was an imposing mansion, befitting grand Nottinghamshire gentry.
0:41:48 > 0:41:52She was everything that sexy Mary Rebow was not.
0:41:52 > 0:41:54She was socially ill at ease,
0:41:54 > 0:41:57she was gauche, timid, shy,
0:41:57 > 0:42:00pockmarked, poor girl, with smallpox scars.
0:42:00 > 0:42:05She lived here on sufferance, living on her brother.
0:42:05 > 0:42:09She felt that he had everything, and as a spinster with no legacy,
0:42:09 > 0:42:11she was left with nothing.
0:42:14 > 0:42:18It is far better to work honestly for my bread than thus to have
0:42:18 > 0:42:23every mouthful reproach me, then thus to be obliged to a brother.
0:42:23 > 0:42:29He has a vast estate and I have nothing.
0:42:29 > 0:42:33To need to go to himself directly, or through somebody else for every gown,
0:42:33 > 0:42:36pair of gloves, every pin and needle.
0:42:36 > 0:42:38To be subject to affronts by his servants,
0:42:38 > 0:42:42to be treated like a hanger-on upon the family.
0:42:46 > 0:42:50Gertrude really struggled here at Rufford Abbey.
0:42:50 > 0:42:53I think it shows that you can have a beautiful home
0:42:53 > 0:42:56and still experience it as a prison.
0:43:01 > 0:43:06An old maid is the very butt for ridicule and insults.
0:43:06 > 0:43:08Miserable are women at the best,
0:43:08 > 0:43:12but without a protector, she's a boat upon a very stormy sea
0:43:12 > 0:43:14without a pilot.
0:43:14 > 0:43:16A very cat, who, if seen abroad,
0:43:16 > 0:43:20is hunted and worried by all the curs in the town.
0:43:24 > 0:43:27Gertrude Savile's plight was actually pretty typical.
0:43:27 > 0:43:30About one in three aristocratic girls
0:43:30 > 0:43:32would never marry in the 18th century.
0:43:32 > 0:43:35There just weren't enough estates to go round.
0:43:35 > 0:43:39Because if an aristocratic girl married down,
0:43:39 > 0:43:41she lost caste, she lost status.
0:43:41 > 0:43:44And, as Jane Austen archly remarked,
0:43:44 > 0:43:47"There are not so many men of fortune in the world
0:43:47 > 0:43:50"as there are pretty women to deserve them."
0:43:50 > 0:43:54I've got here a satirical depiction
0:43:54 > 0:43:59of spinsters going to a cat's funeral.
0:43:59 > 0:44:06So, it's that age-old idea that a girl's best friend is her cat.
0:44:06 > 0:44:08And it's as if these old ladies
0:44:08 > 0:44:11really are only married to their cats.
0:44:11 > 0:44:16Really, this is history from the point of view of the smug marrieds.
0:44:16 > 0:44:20This is grieving owner of the pussy cat.
0:44:20 > 0:44:23Like a pantomime dame.
0:44:23 > 0:44:28This one seems to be a bit beardy, really.
0:44:28 > 0:44:33Look, she's sort of boss-eyed, thick pebble glasses.
0:44:35 > 0:44:37It's supposed to be a joke,
0:44:37 > 0:44:39but I think it's phenomenally cruel,
0:44:39 > 0:44:41and it's a dire warning.
0:44:41 > 0:44:43Imagine looking at this at 18, you'd think,
0:44:43 > 0:44:46"That is not going to happen to me!"
0:44:54 > 0:44:59Saturday 21st. At home. Miserable.
0:44:59 > 0:45:05Sunday. Church. Unhappy. Miserable.
0:45:06 > 0:45:11Unhappy. Extreme miserable.
0:45:11 > 0:45:15"Miserable. Very miserable. Unhappy.
0:45:15 > 0:45:18"Unhappy. Miserable."
0:45:19 > 0:45:23She gives you extraordinary insight into what it is
0:45:23 > 0:45:28to be a clever, but dependent female.
0:45:28 > 0:45:33Fitting in, never allowed to have things your own way.
0:45:33 > 0:45:37Wishing you were married, struggling,
0:45:37 > 0:45:41really, with this level of psychological torture.
0:45:41 > 0:45:44I find it quite hard to look at,
0:45:44 > 0:45:49because really it speaks to me of a woman in extreme pain.
0:45:49 > 0:45:55It's full of agitated crossings-out, so things she must have written
0:45:55 > 0:46:00in what she would have called a passionate fit,
0:46:00 > 0:46:03and then erased after, when in a cooler temper.
0:46:03 > 0:46:08So this is all really a measure of her fury.
0:46:08 > 0:46:10And at some level, it is her rebellion.
0:46:14 > 0:46:18Home! What do I call home?
0:46:18 > 0:46:20I have no home.
0:46:20 > 0:46:23Entirely confine myself to my room.
0:46:25 > 0:46:27Worked chair very hard.
0:46:27 > 0:46:30That, and my cat, all my pleasure.
0:46:45 > 0:46:49But it wasn't just women who suffered the emotional
0:46:49 > 0:46:53and social consequences of domestic exclusion.
0:46:53 > 0:46:55The bleakest of all the diaries I found
0:46:55 > 0:46:58took me to the wilds of Westmoreland.
0:46:58 > 0:47:02Stumbling across this windswept landscape in the early 1700s
0:47:02 > 0:47:07was a man who was only too aware of just what he was missing out on.
0:47:11 > 0:47:15George Hilton was a dissolute Westmoreland squire.
0:47:15 > 0:47:21He spent his time carousing with his cronies in taverns on the Fells like this one.
0:47:21 > 0:47:23But his drinking pals knew better
0:47:23 > 0:47:26than to invite him home to meet their daughters.
0:47:26 > 0:47:31The only woman of his own rank he ever seems to meet is his mother.
0:47:31 > 0:47:35But women of lower rank, wenches who would never grace
0:47:35 > 0:47:39a mahogany dining table, were quite another matter.
0:47:39 > 0:47:43He boasts in his diary about bedding his house-keeper
0:47:43 > 0:47:45on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night.
0:47:45 > 0:47:48Did her to the utmost. And then when he goes to London,
0:47:48 > 0:47:51he picks up a couple of prostitutes,
0:47:51 > 0:47:54but after which he gets a nasty swelling in his groin.
0:47:54 > 0:47:57So he's got a severe dose of the clap.
0:47:57 > 0:48:02So all these encounters were ultimately unsatisfying for him,
0:48:02 > 0:48:05and crowned with a froth of guilt.
0:48:10 > 0:48:11Ugh.
0:48:11 > 0:48:16Hilton's diary, which he kept in the opening years
0:48:16 > 0:48:19of the 18th century, is a precious document.
0:48:19 > 0:48:22It's rare that a drunkard's diary should survive.
0:48:22 > 0:48:26It's near miraculous that a drunkard like him
0:48:26 > 0:48:29was able to keep a diary in the first place.
0:48:29 > 0:48:33It's an extraordinarily self-lacerating diary,
0:48:33 > 0:48:36full of his desperate resolutions.
0:48:38 > 0:48:41Being now 27 years and three months old,
0:48:41 > 0:48:48I am most passionately resolved to have so punctual a guard
0:48:48 > 0:48:51over my inclinations
0:48:51 > 0:48:55as never to lose my reason by immoderate drinking.
0:48:58 > 0:49:03In performance of which, I hereby oblige myself
0:49:03 > 0:49:06to shun all alehouses,
0:49:06 > 0:49:10except when called for business, or some particular friend.
0:49:12 > 0:49:18Never will I know a woman carnally, except in a lawful state.
0:49:22 > 0:49:27But George's inclinations, what he called "stubborn nature",
0:49:27 > 0:49:29soon got the better of him,
0:49:29 > 0:49:33and within a week he'd broken most of his resolutions.
0:49:33 > 0:49:36Laid with a woman, and out till 2 o'clock in the morning.
0:49:40 > 0:49:43Mortally fuddled.
0:49:45 > 0:49:48Sleeping with a woman out of wedlock
0:49:48 > 0:49:50might not seem like such a big deal to us,
0:49:50 > 0:49:54but you know, this is a Christian society.
0:49:54 > 0:49:58It was a form of fornication, and it's a sin.
0:49:58 > 0:50:03So, although he's committing all these roistering sins,
0:50:03 > 0:50:09he's suffering terribly for it, and he hates himself.
0:50:09 > 0:50:12By Hilton's own calculations,
0:50:12 > 0:50:17he was paralytically drunk 220 times in eight years.
0:50:17 > 0:50:21Often so "fuddled", as he puts it, that he got into fights,
0:50:21 > 0:50:24and was prey to robbers and pickpockets.
0:50:24 > 0:50:28If he weren't so desperate, really,
0:50:28 > 0:50:31I'd say he was like a male Bridget Jones.
0:50:31 > 0:50:34Without the happy ending.
0:50:36 > 0:50:40Hilton's house, Beetham Hall, is largely a ruin now.
0:50:41 > 0:50:44But at a nearby house in the Lakes, Townend, you can still
0:50:44 > 0:50:50get a sense of the kind of plain, dark interior he'd have inhabited.
0:50:50 > 0:50:56# Are you lonesome tonight?
0:50:56 > 0:50:59# Do you miss me tonight?
0:50:59 > 0:51:07# Are you sorry we drifted apart?
0:51:10 > 0:51:13# Does your memory stray?
0:51:13 > 0:51:19# To a bright and sunny day...#
0:51:19 > 0:51:22We know from George Hilton's inventory,
0:51:22 > 0:51:25the list of possessions he had when he died,
0:51:25 > 0:51:30that he had quite a modest array of traditional possessions.
0:51:30 > 0:51:33He had lots of this sort of thing - pewter.
0:51:33 > 0:51:38It's very solid, old-fashioned material.
0:51:38 > 0:51:43What he didn't have was any of the newer paraphernalia for hot drinks.
0:51:43 > 0:51:47Tea-pots, no porcelain, and what that tells you
0:51:47 > 0:51:49is that there are no women in his house.
0:51:49 > 0:51:52He doesn't expect to have dinner parties.
0:51:52 > 0:51:55He can't have any polite tea parties.
0:51:55 > 0:51:57So there's no grace and graciousness,
0:51:57 > 0:52:02polite domesticity or happy companionship in Beetham Hall.
0:52:12 > 0:52:15God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,
0:52:15 > 0:52:17unperfect family,
0:52:17 > 0:52:23bless me and enable me to conquer the stubborn nature,
0:52:23 > 0:52:29that I, on the last day,
0:52:29 > 0:52:32may be happy.
0:52:32 > 0:52:35Amen. Amen.
0:52:37 > 0:52:41I think George Hilton's story puts paid to the idea
0:52:41 > 0:52:45that the rakish, roistering bachelor is a happy figure.
0:52:45 > 0:52:50He knew well enough that, between sleeping with his servants,
0:52:50 > 0:52:54and getting absolutely blotto on the Fells,
0:52:54 > 0:52:59that really he'd made disgrace his bedfellow and misery his companion.
0:53:01 > 0:53:07George Hilton died alone in 1725, and is buried in an unmarked grave.
0:53:21 > 0:53:25Home, for the Georgians, was a joint, collaborative project
0:53:25 > 0:53:27where men and women came together
0:53:27 > 0:53:30to express what was best about themselves.
0:53:30 > 0:53:36Even those who couldn't live the dream were moved by the fantasy.
0:53:36 > 0:53:40It's a truth brought home to me by the experience
0:53:40 > 0:53:45of the four women who lived here - two spinster sisters,
0:53:45 > 0:53:48their widowed mother and another unmarried woman from the village.
0:53:53 > 0:53:55The two sisters shared a bedroom,
0:53:55 > 0:53:59and would never know what it was to have a room of their own.
0:54:02 > 0:54:05Their parlour was hard by the main road,
0:54:05 > 0:54:08with noisy carriages clattering by
0:54:08 > 0:54:10all day long on their way to the docks.
0:54:10 > 0:54:14This little pony cart was their only means of transport,
0:54:14 > 0:54:18so they were utterly dependent on the men they knew locally
0:54:18 > 0:54:22to get where they wanted to go.
0:54:22 > 0:54:25A grand house a few hundred yards away,
0:54:25 > 0:54:31was an inescapable reminder of their comparative poverty,
0:54:31 > 0:54:34and unimportance as lone women.
0:54:34 > 0:54:40This is where their married brother lived in well-polished splendour.
0:54:40 > 0:54:42Luckily for the spinster sisters,
0:54:42 > 0:54:47their older brother had the big house up the road.
0:54:47 > 0:54:50When he was in residence here, he invited them up for dinner.
0:54:50 > 0:54:52He had 18 servants running about.
0:54:52 > 0:54:56So they could have a sumptuous taste of how the other half lived.
0:55:09 > 0:55:13Of course one of the spinsters who lived here was Jane Austen.
0:55:13 > 0:55:17This is Chawton Cottage.
0:55:17 > 0:55:19So this was a grace and favour house,
0:55:19 > 0:55:22extended on the generosity of the richer brother.
0:55:22 > 0:55:29And this, rather marvellously, is Jane Austen's desk.
0:55:29 > 0:55:33We're in the presence of greatness.
0:55:33 > 0:55:35This is where Austen took up her pen,
0:55:35 > 0:55:40and had really the most productive period of her life.
0:55:40 > 0:55:45It shows you that spinsterhood need not be empty.
0:55:45 > 0:55:48She must have been very happy here, I think,
0:55:48 > 0:55:53to have been so productive as a writer.
0:55:53 > 0:55:57But houses are very central to Jane Austen's view of the world.
0:55:57 > 0:56:03It was at Chawton that Jane Austen revised Sense And Sensibility,
0:56:03 > 0:56:06one of the novels in which she explores the role of homes
0:56:06 > 0:56:08and property in Georgian life.
0:56:08 > 0:56:13It's a story of two disinherited sisters
0:56:13 > 0:56:16losing their beloved Norland,
0:56:16 > 0:56:20and being reduced to a humbler cottage not unlike Chawton itself.
0:56:29 > 0:56:33Each of the heroines ends up with very different sorts of houses.
0:56:33 > 0:56:37Marianne nets the grandest establishment.
0:56:38 > 0:56:43But Eleanor, who's been selfless and self-disciplined throughout,
0:56:43 > 0:56:46is rewarded with a parsonage.
0:56:46 > 0:56:49In social terms it is modest,
0:56:49 > 0:56:54but it will be the cradle of happiness for Mr and Mrs Virtuous.
0:56:54 > 0:56:56The Georgian dream.
0:56:58 > 0:57:02So although houses are statements of power,
0:57:02 > 0:57:05status and lineage,
0:57:05 > 0:57:09they're also expressions of character.
0:57:09 > 0:57:12Setting up home is the project of devoted couples,
0:57:12 > 0:57:16and the reward of virtue is a happy home.
0:57:20 > 0:57:24Jane Austen was well aware that the Georgian dream
0:57:24 > 0:57:27of a home of one's own could be an elusive,
0:57:27 > 0:57:31but the ideal she set out moves us still.
0:57:31 > 0:57:33Home remains the happy ending.
0:57:41 > 0:57:44Next week, I'll be exploring the impact on British homes
0:57:44 > 0:57:48of a revolutionary new concept - good taste.
0:57:50 > 0:57:53Revealing how women transformed their decor,
0:57:53 > 0:57:57and in doing so, they transformed their lives.
0:58:15 > 0:58:18Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:18 > 0:58:21E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk