0:00:10 > 0:00:15There's more to a house than mere bricks and mortar.
0:00:15 > 0:00:20Home is supposed to be the ultimate place of peace, warmth and safety.
0:00:20 > 0:00:23Both nest and fortress.
0:00:26 > 0:00:29Today, we go to great lengths to guarantee our security
0:00:29 > 0:00:32and guard our private property,
0:00:32 > 0:00:35but when it comes to protecting personal privacy,
0:00:35 > 0:00:38the Georgians wrote the book.
0:00:38 > 0:00:42This is a typical Georgian terrace - you've probably seen
0:00:42 > 0:00:47hundreds of them, but have you ever thought about how much they seem
0:00:47 > 0:00:51to resemble a kind of domestic fortress?
0:00:51 > 0:00:55Look at the railings. They're a bit like the spikes of the castle.
0:00:55 > 0:00:59And down there that's the light well. That's like a domestic moat.
0:00:59 > 0:01:02And over here,
0:01:02 > 0:01:06the way in to the sturdy front door, this is a bit like your drawbridge
0:01:06 > 0:01:12up to the opening of your castle, because every Englishman's home is his castle.
0:01:13 > 0:01:17In this series, we've charted the great British passion
0:01:17 > 0:01:19for having your own front door,
0:01:19 > 0:01:23and the furnishing and socialising frenzy that began 300 years ago.
0:01:27 > 0:01:31Having invested so much money and emotion in their houses,
0:01:31 > 0:01:36it's no wonder the Georgians set about guarding them with ingenuity and ferocity.
0:01:36 > 0:01:41Don't let these smooth facades and strong walls fool you.
0:01:41 > 0:01:45The Georgian idyll was hedged by nightmares.
0:01:45 > 0:01:50But it wasn't just the outside world that posed a threat for the Georgian householder.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54The enemy could just as easily be skulking within.
0:01:54 > 0:01:59A typical Georgian house was crammed, powerful and powerless
0:01:59 > 0:02:03cheek by jowl, so that the risk of mutiny was perpetual.
0:02:03 > 0:02:08Using letters, diaries, even court cases, I'll be revealing the lengths
0:02:08 > 0:02:14to which the Georgians went to find privacy and security at home.
0:02:14 > 0:02:22We've seen how the Georgians yearned for their own front door and strove to craft a tasteful interior.
0:02:22 > 0:02:26But hanging on to house and home was the greatest challenge of all.
0:02:50 > 0:02:51Darkness is falling.
0:02:51 > 0:02:55Workers are scurrying home by train, car and bus.
0:02:55 > 0:03:01Tonight the end of the commute promises dinner, feet-up and some domestic relaxation,
0:03:01 > 0:03:06or an evening of excitement, out and about in the floodlit streets.
0:03:06 > 0:03:10But dusk held no promise for the Georgians. It was alarming.
0:03:10 > 0:03:16They shuddered at the onset of the black, unlit night.
0:03:16 > 0:03:19This was the moment, it was called shutting in,
0:03:19 > 0:03:24when the households started to fortify itself against the night.
0:03:24 > 0:03:29So you're trying to protect everything you have within the home, to keep it safe,
0:03:29 > 0:03:37but also lock out your fears of all that might be stalking and stirring in the darkness.
0:03:38 > 0:03:42Throughout the cities and towns of Britain, doors would be locked
0:03:42 > 0:03:45and bolted at the same time each night,
0:03:45 > 0:03:47like castles preparing for siege.
0:03:47 > 0:03:49This is the front door,
0:03:49 > 0:03:53so the most important threshold to secure.
0:03:53 > 0:03:58Look, this fabulous... It's like a fairytale lock.
0:04:01 > 0:04:06So you've got door locks, bolts, you could have extra padlocks,
0:04:06 > 0:04:10iron bars, bells hung up, nasty guard dogs,
0:04:10 > 0:04:16horrible to behold, even servants sleeping across the threshold
0:04:16 > 0:04:19to rouse the family if you were invaded in the night.
0:04:27 > 0:04:31Today only children are scared of the dark,
0:04:31 > 0:04:34but for the Georgians, night was black as pitch.
0:04:39 > 0:04:44With only minimal candle and firelight escaping from houses,
0:04:44 > 0:04:45and rudimentary street lighting,
0:04:45 > 0:04:49the blackout was all-encompassing and elemental.
0:04:49 > 0:04:53Darkness triggered animal fears in the Georgians,
0:04:53 > 0:04:59but only the rich, with their expensive wax candles, could hold back the night.
0:05:02 > 0:05:06Women carried the keys by day, making sure the household
0:05:06 > 0:05:08ran like a well-oiled machine,
0:05:08 > 0:05:13but it was for the man of the house to secure the perimeter at night,
0:05:13 > 0:05:18checking all the locks and pacing about his frontiers like a well-trained guard dog.
0:05:26 > 0:05:31Where there was no manly guardian, the women had to defend the battlements.
0:05:45 > 0:05:49I saw my room window open. I'd nailed it up about two hours before.
0:05:49 > 0:05:54I always nail it at night and take the nails out in the morning.
0:05:57 > 0:06:02In Georgian Britain, there was no police force, and no contents insurance to fall back on.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05Just the odd watchman on patrol.
0:06:05 > 0:06:13So the onus was all on the householder to barricade the boundaries and see off any invaders.
0:06:20 > 0:06:23There was no official curfew in Georgian England,
0:06:23 > 0:06:29but any respectable family would be safely tucked up in bed by 11 o'clock at night.
0:06:29 > 0:06:32That's when the watch came out on their patrols,
0:06:32 > 0:06:37and dubious pedestrians were likely to be arrested.
0:06:37 > 0:06:39You could find yourself locked out,
0:06:39 > 0:06:43have no admission whatsoever after 11 o'clock, and the watch houses
0:06:43 > 0:06:48were full of young men who'd found themselves shut out of their apartments.
0:06:51 > 0:06:57Masked and violent burglars prowled about the nightmares of the propertied.
0:06:57 > 0:07:01Journalists stoked anxiety with talk of a burglary plague.
0:07:01 > 0:07:05More to own meant more to lose.
0:07:06 > 0:07:10The Georgians were obsessed with the threat to their property,
0:07:10 > 0:07:14so the moneyed invested in a profusion of locks,
0:07:14 > 0:07:18but, more importantly, they rewrote the criminal law.
0:07:18 > 0:07:25The 18th century saw a great flood of legislation decreeing the death penalty for even quite petty crimes.
0:07:25 > 0:07:33Between 1688 and 1820, the number of hanging offences rose from 50 to over 200.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36It was christened the Bloody Code.
0:07:36 > 0:07:41Burglary was breaking and entering in the night-time.
0:07:41 > 0:07:46There had to be an actual smashing of the boundaries of the house.
0:07:46 > 0:07:50If a thief wondered along here in the 18th century,
0:07:50 > 0:07:54found a window open, saw some jewels on the dining room table
0:07:54 > 0:07:58and managed to fish them out with a stick or a fishing rod,
0:07:58 > 0:08:02it would be theft, but it wouldn't be burglary.
0:08:02 > 0:08:05So you would be much less likely to hang.
0:08:05 > 0:08:10But when the fortress of the house was violently invaded,
0:08:10 > 0:08:15the thresholds breached, the courts were merciless.
0:08:22 > 0:08:27The propertied hoped against hope that the grisly threat of the gibbet
0:08:27 > 0:08:30would deter the worse offenders.
0:08:30 > 0:08:36The domestic threshold was sacrosanct as the law books decreed.
0:08:36 > 0:08:38A man's house is his castle.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42For safety and repose to himself and his family.
0:08:42 > 0:08:47And so tender is the law in respect of the immunity of a man's house
0:08:47 > 0:08:51that it will never suffer it to be violated with impunity.
0:08:56 > 0:08:59But there's no fortress that can repel all invaders.
0:08:59 > 0:09:04I've come to Spitalfields in London, where 18th century terraces still abound,
0:09:04 > 0:09:08to find the weak points in every man's castle.
0:09:08 > 0:09:13The Georgians were conscious that a house could be penetrated in a whole variety of ways.
0:09:13 > 0:09:16Obviously, burglars didn't knock at the front door,
0:09:16 > 0:09:19but they could come up through back alleyways, back passages,
0:09:19 > 0:09:24smashing the back door, in through trap doors, smashing windows.
0:09:24 > 0:09:28And you were even vulnerable from above - from the roof.
0:09:33 > 0:09:38So, when Londoners thought about the city, they saw it in three dimensions.
0:09:38 > 0:09:43Connected by roads and alleyways, but also by another network
0:09:43 > 0:09:46over the roofscape, called the leads.
0:09:51 > 0:09:56Domestic fortification didn't end with padlocks and iron bars.
0:09:58 > 0:10:01I've come to the stores of the Museum of London
0:10:01 > 0:10:08to discover a more gruesome means of defending your pretty possessions and elegant establishment.
0:10:08 > 0:10:10So what are these nasty instruments?
0:10:10 > 0:10:14So here we have two late 18th century man traps,
0:10:14 > 0:10:17which would have been used in suburban homes in London.
0:10:17 > 0:10:22We believe this one was found in Kensington, so it would have been from a large house.
0:10:22 > 0:10:26Kensington in the late 18th century is a suburban area, isn't it?
0:10:26 > 0:10:29Villas but also market gardens.
0:10:29 > 0:10:35- Yes.- But these wouldn't have been across the doorway, would they, inside in a small urban terrace?
0:10:35 > 0:10:38No. These would have been used in the grounds of the house
0:10:38 > 0:10:42against poachers, and to prevent burglars getting into the grounds.
0:10:42 > 0:10:45- But how do they work?- Basically, they'd have been spring-loaded,
0:10:45 > 0:10:48so you'd have set the jaws and then held them in place
0:10:48 > 0:10:50with this mechanism here,
0:10:50 > 0:10:53and then the unfortunate burglar or poacher would then step on
0:10:53 > 0:10:56the foot plate and trigger the mechanism,
0:10:56 > 0:10:58which would then snap the jaws on your leg.
0:10:58 > 0:11:01It's got nasty teeth - it's got jaws.
0:11:01 > 0:11:03It would be absolutely vicious.
0:11:03 > 0:11:06I mean a child could lose a leg, couldn't they?
0:11:06 > 0:11:08It would almost certainly break your leg,
0:11:08 > 0:11:10and this one, with its serrated teeth,
0:11:10 > 0:11:15would probably cut through the bone. So you would be completely immobilised.
0:11:15 > 0:11:16What's that for?
0:11:16 > 0:11:19That would have been to anchor the man trap in place.
0:11:19 > 0:11:22Even if you tried to get away, tried to lift it up and carry it,
0:11:22 > 0:11:26you wouldn't be able to because you'd be chained up. So you'd get caught.
0:11:26 > 0:11:30- Trapped like a dog.- Yeah, exactly. - Together, though, these sorts of things
0:11:30 > 0:11:35really throw quite a shocking light on the idea that an Englishman's home is his castle,
0:11:35 > 0:11:38and the lengths to which a property owner will go to defend his boundaries.
0:11:38 > 0:11:42I think they're vicious. Vicious.
0:11:42 > 0:11:48Many of the neuroses the Georgians had about their homes were all too easy for us to understand.
0:11:48 > 0:11:53But they suffered stranger terrors too, beset by hostile forces
0:11:53 > 0:11:57that are harder for us to credit - evil spirits.
0:11:57 > 0:12:01For all the rationality of Georgian science,
0:12:01 > 0:12:06an older world of magic and superstition still lived on behind closed doors.
0:12:06 > 0:12:13Invading poltergeists, ghosts and witches were every bit as real as the common-or-garden garden burglar.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18I've come to Chert in Surrey to discover how one Georgian family
0:12:18 > 0:12:23tried to defend the home from the dark forces of the occult.
0:12:29 > 0:12:32So you had all these objects hidden.
0:12:32 > 0:12:36What, was this the stairway?
0:12:36 > 0:12:39Yeah, this was the staircase, and there was a plaster ceiling here.
0:12:39 > 0:12:44And there was a void underneath the stairs, and the objects were all put in there at some point.
0:12:44 > 0:12:50I know there's been things like dead chickens, and live chickens, walled up in houses
0:12:50 > 0:12:54to kind of propitiate evil spirits, but why would you put a child's shoe?
0:12:54 > 0:12:58Well, you would say because it is so much a part of the person,
0:12:58 > 0:13:00and it only really fits that person,
0:13:00 > 0:13:02it is in sympathy with that person in a way.
0:13:02 > 0:13:06It's almost like the object has a spirit of its own.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09Some people see it as a kind of lightning conductor.
0:13:09 > 0:13:11So as this evil force comes to attack the house,
0:13:11 > 0:13:15- it gets drawn down to attack these things instead of the people.- I see.
0:13:15 > 0:13:17- It's thrown off the scent!- Exactly.
0:13:17 > 0:13:22Oh, I see. So it wouldn't come after your children, it would come after the shoes. How sneaky!
0:13:22 > 0:13:26- Anywhere where the air can come in, something evil can come in too, can't it?- Yep.
0:13:26 > 0:13:32The fireplace is usually the place where you find most things, because it's always open to the sky.
0:13:32 > 0:13:34It's not a door you can lock or anything.
0:13:34 > 0:13:38Of course, so it's always an open aperture, so you're always at risk there.
0:13:38 > 0:13:43Some buildings, where you have a big void along the side of a chimney, there will be a little point
0:13:43 > 0:13:46in the roof where you can drop things down into the void.
0:13:46 > 0:13:49And sometimes you get this huge collection of artefacts,
0:13:49 > 0:13:51sometimes covering generations.
0:13:51 > 0:13:56I love the fact that there's a family of shoes, really, protecting this house.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00The guardians, really, of the safety of the house.
0:14:03 > 0:14:10Georgian householders used every weapon in their armoury to defend their ramparts from external threat.
0:14:10 > 0:14:15But, as any general knows, a castle can also fall from within,
0:14:15 > 0:14:17undermined from beneath.
0:14:17 > 0:14:19Households weren't as we know them.
0:14:19 > 0:14:22In today's houses, very small families,
0:14:22 > 0:14:25and huge numbers of singletons,
0:14:25 > 0:14:27rejoice in unprecedented personal space.
0:14:30 > 0:14:34In the 18th century, urban houses were packed tight.
0:14:34 > 0:14:38Half the house might be given over to lodgers.
0:14:38 > 0:14:42Even the idea of family meant something quite different.
0:14:42 > 0:14:45This is Salisbury Court, off Fleet Street,
0:14:45 > 0:14:49and in one of these houses in 1765, we know from the Old Bailey
0:14:49 > 0:14:53that there was a family of nine living in here.
0:14:53 > 0:14:57Not a husband and wife and seven children, as you might expect.
0:14:57 > 0:15:01The household was much more complicated than that.
0:15:10 > 0:15:12The head of the house was Mr Fenner, a tailor.
0:15:12 > 0:15:19He locked up outdoors, but it fell to Mrs Fenner to control the movement indoors.
0:15:23 > 0:15:25Every night, between 10 and 11 o'clock,
0:15:25 > 0:15:30the lady of the house would take the keys and lock all the inhabitants
0:15:30 > 0:15:34into their respective rooms to prevent any prowling about.
0:15:34 > 0:15:37More like a prison than a modern home.
0:15:39 > 0:15:43Nearly half of all households in London kept at least one lodger.
0:15:43 > 0:15:47The Fenners kept three - a widow, Mrs Bolt and her daughter,
0:15:47 > 0:15:53and a Mr Pickard, who was expected to be home before 11, or risk a lock-out.
0:15:53 > 0:15:54Mr Fenner. Mr Fenner!
0:15:59 > 0:16:03Then you had the underlings. Mr Fenner's apprentice,
0:16:03 > 0:16:08James Tonkin, would have slept in the workshop on a fold-down mattress.
0:16:12 > 0:16:14There were three other servants bedding down.
0:16:14 > 0:16:19Esther Harold and Mrs Mary Crabbe, and Robert Dutton.
0:16:22 > 0:16:23How do we know all this?
0:16:23 > 0:16:27One night, there was a fire in Salisbury Court.
0:16:27 > 0:16:32Foul play was called, and the case ended up in the Old Bailey as arson.
0:16:32 > 0:16:38The chief suspects? The apprentice and the Fenners' strange cat,
0:16:38 > 0:16:42rumoured to have supernatural powers.
0:16:44 > 0:16:48Your family referred to everyone who lived in your house under your supervision.
0:16:48 > 0:16:54So your family included all your servants and apprentices, as well as your live-in kin.
0:16:54 > 0:16:59All under one roof, but who could you trust?
0:17:01 > 0:17:04Two new laws were passed to help with these new domestic pressures.
0:17:04 > 0:17:11Two brand new crimes were invented - theft by servants and theft from lodgings.
0:17:16 > 0:17:21Keeping order in Georgian homes required unremitting effort.
0:17:21 > 0:17:23Order could not be taken for granted,
0:17:23 > 0:17:27because once you lost the upper hand, you might never get it back.
0:17:27 > 0:17:3218th century houses were places of hierarchy,
0:17:32 > 0:17:36because no-one expected to find equality at home.
0:17:36 > 0:17:38The very idea was absurd.
0:17:38 > 0:17:42At the top of the tree you have the man, the householder,
0:17:42 > 0:17:45and then one step down, his wife, the mistress.
0:17:45 > 0:17:48Then the children, lesser members of the household,
0:17:48 > 0:17:51younger brothers and sisters, apprentices, servants.
0:17:51 > 0:17:54All laid out in a ladder of power.
0:17:54 > 0:17:58You had to accept your place in the pecking order
0:17:58 > 0:18:01or brave the consequences, and in fact,
0:18:01 > 0:18:07the law enshrined the householder, the man, as a kind of domestic monarch.
0:18:07 > 0:18:12Lord paramount at home, governing over his little kingdom.
0:18:15 > 0:18:22The overcrowded Georgian lodging house was a microcosm of a hierarchical society.
0:18:22 > 0:18:27As you go up through the layers of an 18th century townhouse,
0:18:27 > 0:18:30you actually go down in the social structure,
0:18:30 > 0:18:34so it's always the poorest who end up at the top, up here.
0:18:37 > 0:18:43Certain rooms in the house become synonymous with small incomes and economic struggle.
0:18:43 > 0:18:49So that would be the cellars, the second floor, the back rooms,
0:18:49 > 0:18:51and up here, the garrets.
0:18:51 > 0:18:55The cellars were always damp, but the garrets were always cold and draughty.
0:18:59 > 0:19:07This is fitted out really rather like a tart's bedroom from a Hogarth print,
0:19:07 > 0:19:11but in fact there lots of poets and journalists end up starving in the garret,
0:19:11 > 0:19:13in what were known as their sky parlours.
0:19:13 > 0:19:16Sacred to the muses.
0:19:16 > 0:19:19But you can imagine a whole family stuffed in here.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22It really was kind of one room living.
0:19:22 > 0:19:29We know that you had to sleep, eat and work in the same room.
0:19:30 > 0:19:36This print has a description of the miseries of a garreteer poet,
0:19:36 > 0:19:41and it depicts the one room lodgings of a Mr Rymer and his wife
0:19:41 > 0:19:45and his two daughters, and it has a flock bed in the corner,
0:19:45 > 0:19:49and a green Jordan, or potty, underneath the bed.
0:19:49 > 0:19:56As it says here, "In which had collected the nocturnal urine of the whole family." Squalid!
0:19:56 > 0:20:02The table in the foreground has all the treasures of the family on it, some bread,
0:20:02 > 0:20:06pamphlets, a book and a pair of stays, those are corsets.
0:20:06 > 0:20:09The daughters of the house are in the corner
0:20:09 > 0:20:11darning the father's stockings
0:20:11 > 0:20:13and then here over the fireplace
0:20:13 > 0:20:20there's an unappetising cauldron of stew bubbling away with a rotten old leg of mutton in it.
0:20:20 > 0:20:25So I think it gives a very powerful impression of all the various activities
0:20:25 > 0:20:31that have to go on in a single room lodging which is bedroom,
0:20:31 > 0:20:36living room, workroom and parlour, all in one.
0:20:41 > 0:20:45The rich spread themselves over much more space, of course,
0:20:45 > 0:20:48but the privilege brought a whole new set of problems.
0:20:48 > 0:20:53Georgian architects set their minds to designing interiors
0:20:53 > 0:20:57that would preserve the privacies and finer feelings of the employer class,
0:20:57 > 0:21:00introducing novelties like corridors,
0:21:00 > 0:21:03back stairs and separate servant wings.
0:21:03 > 0:21:09Now the very walls would teach inferiors to know their place.
0:21:09 > 0:21:13Here at Erddig, a classical Georgian mansion in North Wales,
0:21:13 > 0:21:20a staff of about 25 servants catered to the needs and whims of the York family.
0:21:23 > 0:21:26Like a true Christian patriarch,
0:21:26 > 0:21:31Phillip York led his household in prayer here in the 1770s.
0:21:31 > 0:21:36He was at the front, at the lectern, reading the lesson,
0:21:36 > 0:21:41leading the prayers and then he could gesture to his servants.
0:21:41 > 0:21:45Here, the indoor servants, the women.
0:21:45 > 0:21:51Here in the belly of the chapel on benches, the male servants
0:21:51 > 0:21:55and up at the top, literally lording it over their household,
0:21:55 > 0:21:59the family, and they even had separate entrances.
0:21:59 > 0:22:03The family filed in from a little door to one side,
0:22:03 > 0:22:08whilst the servants had to all come through commonly through the big entrance there.
0:22:10 > 0:22:16This chapel is remarkable, because, really, it's a microcosm of society.
0:22:16 > 0:22:22Everything about the way it's laid out is designed to represent
0:22:22 > 0:22:24and reinforce hierarchy.
0:22:28 > 0:22:35And what's mapped out in miniature in the chapel is reinforced throughout the rest of the house.
0:22:35 > 0:22:39Here we are at the formal stairs at the front of the house.
0:22:39 > 0:22:44Family and visitors would process graciously in full view.
0:22:47 > 0:22:51Their feet comforted by carpets and polished wood.
0:22:51 > 0:22:56But the floors at the other end of the house tell a different story,
0:22:56 > 0:22:59with nothing but worn stone under foot.
0:23:00 > 0:23:03The dirty linen and the smelly chamber pots
0:23:03 > 0:23:09came down the back stairs, carried away down the back passages,
0:23:09 > 0:23:11out of sight and out of mind.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20Grand houses like this one, Erddig,
0:23:20 > 0:23:26have an architectural separation between the work areas of the house,
0:23:26 > 0:23:31like this and the family areas, the formal areas, where politeness reigns.
0:23:31 > 0:23:37This was actually a separate building, distinct from the main block.
0:23:37 > 0:23:41For safety, so less risk of fire, it would all be contained here.
0:23:41 > 0:23:48But also for employer privacy, to affect a kind of segregation, even an apartheid.
0:23:58 > 0:24:06An ordered hierarchy of deferential servants, who cheerfully did your bidding was a rich man's ideal,
0:24:06 > 0:24:13but there was always a risk of mutiny, or at the very least, subtle acts of subversion.
0:24:13 > 0:24:17After all, they changed your soiled bed linen, they knew whether you'd had sex the night before,
0:24:17 > 0:24:19whether you were menstruating.
0:24:19 > 0:24:21They probably knew if you were having an affair,
0:24:21 > 0:24:25because servants were the first people called on in divorce cases.
0:24:25 > 0:24:28Servants knew all the grubby secrets.
0:24:39 > 0:24:44Employers were obsessed with the possibility of eye service.
0:24:44 > 0:24:50It's like lip service, a cynical performance that masks a rebellious heart.
0:24:50 > 0:24:55After all, the same maids that bobbed and curtseyed in the day
0:24:55 > 0:24:57could be rifling your jewels at night.
0:24:58 > 0:25:02The government of servants required energy and vigilance.
0:25:02 > 0:25:04Control was vital.
0:25:04 > 0:25:10To make sure the servants didn't slack off or get up to any mischief,
0:25:10 > 0:25:12a list of do's and don'ts was key.
0:25:12 > 0:25:15Employers loved giving proclamations,
0:25:15 > 0:25:18rules for servants about how they should behave,
0:25:18 > 0:25:25what work they want done every day and this is something I found in an archive in York.
0:25:25 > 0:25:30This is Mrs Forth's rules for the under-servant's work.
0:25:30 > 0:25:33The maids have to rise early in order to milk and scour
0:25:33 > 0:25:37the vessels belonging to the dairy before the family gets up.
0:25:37 > 0:25:40Then they have to clean all the kitchens, the back kitchens,
0:25:40 > 0:25:42the pantry and the dairy.
0:25:42 > 0:25:47"Not to throw away the washings, but to feed the pigs with them."
0:25:47 > 0:25:50They even have to take care of stick ashes, which comes out of the oven,
0:25:50 > 0:25:54"and make lee of it to wash kitchen towels in."
0:25:54 > 0:26:00I think that's an absolutely revolting job, fetching out the ash
0:26:00 > 0:26:03out of the oven and turning it into what we would call lime,
0:26:03 > 0:26:05which is a sort of detergent.
0:26:05 > 0:26:10On and on, through the day, relentless activity but what I think
0:26:10 > 0:26:15is hardest of all to bear is that not only is their work monitored,
0:26:15 > 0:26:17but their behaviour's monitored, too.
0:26:17 > 0:26:20"Both girls to be careful of fire in their bedroom
0:26:20 > 0:26:25"and always to take a broad, flat candlestick when they go to bed
0:26:25 > 0:26:28"and to snuff this candle before they go upstairs
0:26:28 > 0:26:34"and never to work or sew in their bedrooms by candlelight or they will lose their places."
0:26:34 > 0:26:42So I think this list of rules gives you a strong sense that although the servants clean every
0:26:42 > 0:26:48aspect of this Yorkshire house, no part of it is truly their home.
0:26:53 > 0:26:57The master in the drawing room and the servant in the scullery.
0:26:57 > 0:27:01They lived a floor apart but in different worlds
0:27:01 > 0:27:05and that's the way the Georgians liked it.
0:27:05 > 0:27:07Hierarchy was ordained by God.
0:27:07 > 0:27:12Ideal employers were supposed to buttress hierarchy.
0:27:12 > 0:27:15They maintain their dignity at all times,
0:27:15 > 0:27:19did not let their servants take liberties
0:27:19 > 0:27:22and were not over familiar with their inferiors.
0:27:23 > 0:27:29But in practice, the relationship between master and servant was rarely that clear cut.
0:27:29 > 0:27:34In the Lincoln Cathedral archive, I came across the diaries of Benjamin Smith,
0:27:34 > 0:27:42a man whose sexual liaison with his maid threatened to destroy him and tear his household apart.
0:27:42 > 0:27:49These are the diaries of Benjamin Smith, who's a Lincolnshire solicitor
0:27:49 > 0:27:55and these were one of my most fantastic finds in my research.
0:27:55 > 0:28:00I love it when a man reveals so much of his secret life in a diary
0:28:00 > 0:28:05because many men's diaries are nothing more than glorified lists, but not this one.
0:28:06 > 0:28:11Benjamin Smith had been a widower for 13 years.
0:28:11 > 0:28:18He was quite an upstanding member of the community, he was a church warden but he was very lonely.
0:28:18 > 0:28:23Had a rather cold bed and for a long part of that period
0:28:23 > 0:28:28he'd been having an affair with his servant, Mary Newbatt.
0:28:32 > 0:28:37He always refers to her in the diary by her surname as Newbatt
0:28:37 > 0:28:44and he makes very glancing but scorching reference to their sexual encounters.
0:28:51 > 0:28:54"Newbatt came in the evening and sat with me."
0:28:56 > 0:28:59I think that's code for, you know, a bit of the other.
0:28:59 > 0:29:02"May I from this day earnestly resolve..."
0:29:02 > 0:29:08'..earnestly resolve to be different and better and correct in my conduct to her.'
0:29:08 > 0:29:15So he has this sexual encounter with her, but it's crowned with a froth of guilt.
0:29:15 > 0:29:17'Oh, God, that I was married.'
0:29:24 > 0:29:29Oh, God, of thy infinite goodness, pardon my sins.
0:29:29 > 0:29:33Grant me the testimony of a good conscience in all things
0:29:33 > 0:29:36and the hopes if they favour.
0:29:37 > 0:29:40And may I again be married.
0:29:40 > 0:29:44So you really get a sense that a wife is a remedy for sin,
0:29:44 > 0:29:49but he knows that he's brought the credit and the honour and the virtue
0:29:49 > 0:29:56of his household into jeopardy, by virtue of his liaison.
0:29:56 > 0:30:02So he's guilty when he has sex with her, but he's longing and morose when he doesn't.
0:30:09 > 0:30:17In eve, Newbatt went to bed without coming to me, though she knew I wanted her.
0:30:19 > 0:30:23Oh, God, that I might be well married.
0:30:24 > 0:30:31Oh, God, that I was but married to some good woman.
0:30:31 > 0:30:33In the end, he can bear it no longer.
0:30:33 > 0:30:36In December 1819...
0:30:36 > 0:30:40"I have for some years past wished to be married again,
0:30:40 > 0:30:46"but ill health and other considerations have prevented me seeking in earnest to be so.
0:30:46 > 0:30:53"But having made proposals to Miss Graves, I now consider myself engaged to her."
0:30:53 > 0:30:57Mary Newbatt left before the wedding.
0:31:16 > 0:31:20Benjamin Smith was tortured by his secret shame.
0:31:20 > 0:31:25Eavesdroppers and snooping busy-bodies were everywhere.
0:31:25 > 0:31:30Keeping up the facade of respectability and gentility was exhausting.
0:31:30 > 0:31:36The propertied had plenty of secrets they preferred not to expose to the judgement of the community.
0:31:36 > 0:31:40Even the very rich struggled to keep their business private
0:31:40 > 0:31:43because they were hardly ever alone indoors.
0:31:43 > 0:31:48French craftsmen came up with the chic solution that wealthier Brits,
0:31:48 > 0:31:51especially women, were quick to adopt.
0:31:51 > 0:31:53I can't help touching it, Carolyn, but what is it?
0:31:53 > 0:31:57It's a secretaire with a jewel case built into it,
0:31:57 > 0:32:00so it's a multi-purpose piece of furniture.
0:32:00 > 0:32:03A secretaire? A desk. A writing table.
0:32:03 > 0:32:07It's full of secret compartments for letters which was absolutely
0:32:07 > 0:32:11classically the case for a piece of high-end furniture like this at this period,
0:32:11 > 0:32:14which is the 1770s in France, where women would often have
0:32:14 > 0:32:17secret compartments built into their furniture.
0:32:17 > 0:32:19To hide what, their juiciest love letters?
0:32:19 > 0:32:25Very much so but you had quite sizeable spaces because your love affairs would often go on over time.
0:32:25 > 0:32:26These were not one-night-stands!
0:32:26 > 0:32:2830 years of love letters.
0:32:28 > 0:32:30Oh, yes, they're very serious affairs.
0:32:30 > 0:32:37We might pretend we're the husband of the woman who owned this piece by looking for something secretive.
0:32:37 > 0:32:40So the first thing that you see when you open it,
0:32:40 > 0:32:44which you would expect to see in any jewel coffer, is these jewel trays.
0:32:44 > 0:32:48These come out but if you very clever at reading furniture,
0:32:48 > 0:32:53what you might do if you were the husband of this woman, is you might look at the depth here
0:32:53 > 0:32:58and think this is not accounted for in the space that I'm reading here in this piece of furniture.
0:32:58 > 0:33:02What you might do is that you might do that
0:33:02 > 0:33:09and what we might see is that this entire little space opens up so you can see the letters there, can't you?
0:33:09 > 0:33:11Wrapped in a violet ribbon perhaps.
0:33:11 > 0:33:15And we'll do the second tier.
0:33:15 > 0:33:17It really is the dance of the seven veils now.
0:33:17 > 0:33:19Yes, it's a very seductive piece.
0:33:19 > 0:33:22There's a very small space again not accounted for here
0:33:22 > 0:33:27between the table top and the bottom that we're seeing here.
0:33:27 > 0:33:30- If we take these out...- Ooh, cheeky!
0:33:30 > 0:33:34This here is a small set of trays.
0:33:34 > 0:33:38So this is where you might store your dirty diaries then.
0:33:38 > 0:33:41Absolutely. They're not being protected from highwaymen.
0:33:41 > 0:33:44They're being protected from people within the household.
0:33:44 > 0:33:47The person who comes and does the dictation of letters.
0:33:47 > 0:33:50There are all kinds of people coming in and out of the house,
0:33:50 > 0:33:55settling bills, dealing with paperwork, so, many, many people coming in and out.
0:33:55 > 0:33:58These are like lockable rooms within rooms.
0:33:58 > 0:34:01So it's like an interior within an interior.
0:34:01 > 0:34:04I wanted to show you the way that the side compartments open.
0:34:04 > 0:34:07Put your fingers under there, you'll find a little button.
0:34:07 > 0:34:12I'll do the same on my side. So, yes, it flies open.
0:34:12 > 0:34:15What's interesting is that this is actually designed for the servants.
0:34:15 > 0:34:17So loading it up for the day.
0:34:17 > 0:34:24Exactly. The servants can replenish their writing equipment without invading the privacy of the owner.
0:34:24 > 0:34:29It's not just a secretaire desk, it's kind of a cultural microcosm.
0:34:29 > 0:34:34It tells you a lot about masculinity, femininity, manners, ideas.
0:34:39 > 0:34:44If women could keep their secrets, then so could men
0:34:44 > 0:34:48and the technologies designed to guard private matters from prying eyes
0:34:48 > 0:34:52were as elegant as they were ingenious.
0:34:52 > 0:34:56This wonderful object is a lock,
0:34:56 > 0:35:02so although it's an absolutely exquisite piece of luxury craftsmanship,
0:35:02 > 0:35:05it has a highly practical purpose.
0:35:05 > 0:35:09It's a detector lock, that's its title,
0:35:09 > 0:35:14but what's special about this lock is that it's not at all
0:35:14 > 0:35:17a passive piece of machinery.
0:35:17 > 0:35:25It's monitoring the comings and goings in the house and it has the gift of memory.
0:35:25 > 0:35:31Its purpose, I think, is reinforced by the inscription engraved on the front of the lock.
0:35:31 > 0:35:37"If I have the gift of tongue, I would declare and do no wrong.
0:35:37 > 0:35:44"Who are ye who come by stealth to impair my master's wealth?"
0:35:44 > 0:35:46So the lock itself is a warning.
0:35:46 > 0:35:49It's the guardian of the threshold.
0:35:49 > 0:35:50You have to cock...
0:35:50 > 0:35:52his hat...
0:35:52 > 0:35:56and then his toe, his leg, kicks away
0:35:56 > 0:36:04reveals the key hole and only then can you start turning the lock.
0:36:04 > 0:36:07Every time you turn it and open the door,
0:36:07 > 0:36:12this pointer here moves around and registers that someone's been in.
0:36:12 > 0:36:17It's clearly a rich man's lock so it might have gone on a study door
0:36:17 > 0:36:23or a strongroom door to protect his private papers and his money.
0:36:23 > 0:36:28So this detector lock is not a modern burglar alarm
0:36:28 > 0:36:33but it is an exquisite example of the technology of surveillance.
0:36:36 > 0:36:38But how could you protect your possessions
0:36:38 > 0:36:44if you were an ordinary working woman with no fancy desks or safe deposit boxes?
0:36:44 > 0:36:52The great personal place of privacy for all Georgian women is their pocket.
0:36:52 > 0:36:55They're not pockets as we would imagine,
0:36:55 > 0:36:59sort-of sewn into our clothes, they were tied on in pairs
0:36:59 > 0:37:04that you roped around your waist underneath your skirts.
0:37:04 > 0:37:08They were a version, really, of the modern handbag
0:37:08 > 0:37:15into which a women would stuff everything she had of value that she wanted on her at all times.
0:37:15 > 0:37:17You can see on this fashion doll where they would have gone.
0:37:17 > 0:37:21There are her lovely stockings held up with garters.
0:37:21 > 0:37:22That's the lowest layer.
0:37:22 > 0:37:26No knickers. They don't wear pants in the 18th century.
0:37:26 > 0:37:28They're a Victorian innovation.
0:37:28 > 0:37:31Then linen shift,
0:37:31 > 0:37:33another petticoat, quilted petticoat
0:37:33 > 0:37:39and then at the top, very close to her loins is her pocket,
0:37:39 > 0:37:42which matches her dress.
0:37:42 > 0:37:46And so they'd be a slit through the dress into the pocket
0:37:46 > 0:37:52so you could get your hands in to extract the things you needed.
0:37:52 > 0:37:56We know from pick-pocketing cases that it was not hard
0:37:56 > 0:38:01to get your hand in, really, and wrench away one of these pockets.
0:38:01 > 0:38:07Hence the old nursery rhyme, "Lucy Locket, lost her pocket, Kitty Fisher found it."
0:38:17 > 0:38:20The Georgians believed that some place of privacy
0:38:20 > 0:38:24was vital to your autonomy, to knowing who you were.
0:38:24 > 0:38:29But some women were unlucky enough to have all their privacy denied
0:38:29 > 0:38:31and to live in houses that never felt their own.
0:38:31 > 0:38:37The most upsetting letters I ever found were penned by a gentlewoman,
0:38:37 > 0:38:41Ann Dormer, who endured a domestic life stripped of power
0:38:41 > 0:38:43at the hands of her husband, Robert.
0:38:43 > 0:38:47I was really interested when I came across these letters
0:38:47 > 0:38:53by Ann Dormer who was married to quite a substantial gentleman,
0:38:53 > 0:38:56Robert Dormer of Rousham.
0:38:56 > 0:38:58She'd been married 20 years.
0:38:58 > 0:39:01Ann Dormer's a very privileged woman.
0:39:01 > 0:39:05She's in the top 1 or 2% of the population, she's a gentlewoman,
0:39:05 > 0:39:09she lives in a beautiful Jacobean manor, she even has 30 servants!
0:39:09 > 0:39:13But her husband is no longer her husband.
0:39:13 > 0:39:15He's become her jailer.
0:39:17 > 0:39:20It's a really disturbing marriage
0:39:20 > 0:39:25because Robert Dormer has always been a passionately jealous man.
0:39:25 > 0:39:32He was in a fever to get Ann Dormer in courtship and then, once married,
0:39:32 > 0:39:37he pursues her everywhere and one of the examples she gives
0:39:37 > 0:39:41of his behaviour, it's really creepy...
0:39:42 > 0:39:50"He has this way of kissing a dirty glove of mine and saying he loves me extremely
0:39:50 > 0:39:53"and then he will hang at my neck."
0:39:53 > 0:39:55'I must not exasperate him
0:39:55 > 0:39:59'for I and my poor children are in his power
0:39:59 > 0:40:03'but I told him that I had never found his kindness
0:40:03 > 0:40:06'other than as a cordial given to one upon the rack
0:40:06 > 0:40:11'to preserve them to endure the torments.'
0:40:11 > 0:40:15One of the striking things about Ann Dormer's experience of this
0:40:15 > 0:40:22matrimonial tyranny, is how her servitude is mapped out in space.
0:40:22 > 0:40:26It affects everything about how she lives at home,
0:40:26 > 0:40:31where she can feel safe and comfortable and at ease.
0:40:34 > 0:40:39So, room after room offers her no comfort.
0:40:45 > 0:40:49Ann Dormer tried to get some respite from her terrible marriage
0:40:49 > 0:40:54by walking in garden but she could still be observed from the house.
0:40:54 > 0:40:57Her marriage was a burden under which she groaned.
0:40:57 > 0:41:01She described it as a net and a cage.
0:41:01 > 0:41:04Rousham was never her house.
0:41:04 > 0:41:08His jealousy is a sort of madness, I think.
0:41:08 > 0:41:11For now I am grown so grey, so lean and so haggard
0:41:11 > 0:41:15that I might justly hope that I might now be trusted in the garden
0:41:15 > 0:41:19without fear of anybody running away with me, but no...
0:41:19 > 0:41:23My lord has as constant a watch over my steps as ever
0:41:23 > 0:41:27and can tell exactly how many will carry me from my chamber
0:41:27 > 0:41:31to the garden and if I happen to stop one minute,
0:41:31 > 0:41:35I am sure to be asked the reason.
0:41:37 > 0:41:41I am like one haunted with an evil spirit...
0:41:43 > 0:41:45..who has committed some crime.
0:41:49 > 0:41:53"I am the most miserable creature in the world.
0:41:53 > 0:41:59"For there is not a greater slave in Turkey than I am here."
0:41:59 > 0:42:04So if Rousham were a country, it would be a dictatorship.
0:42:07 > 0:42:14Ann Dormer was released only by Robert's death from what she saw as bondage.
0:42:20 > 0:42:26For Georgian women, carving out a place of your own was fraught with difficulties.
0:42:28 > 0:42:30This is my study.
0:42:30 > 0:42:35It's where I do all my work at home.
0:42:35 > 0:42:39It's also the kind of engine room of all my research, my writing,
0:42:39 > 0:42:45my teaching, all my gear, all my material, is around me, I can't do it without it.
0:42:45 > 0:42:51But I'm very aware of what a privilege it is actually to be a woman with a room of my own.
0:42:51 > 0:42:58In the 18th century, it's actually very unusual that a woman has a right to privacy at home.
0:42:58 > 0:43:02It's usually the men, the senior figures in the household,
0:43:02 > 0:43:06who have that right to withdraw and have time to themselves.
0:43:13 > 0:43:16However, there was one important exception.
0:43:16 > 0:43:21One special room where regular seclusion was not only allowed,
0:43:21 > 0:43:25but authorised by God - the closet.
0:43:25 > 0:43:29Closets started to appear in grander houses in the 17th century.
0:43:31 > 0:43:35This is Chastleton House, in Gloucestershire,
0:43:35 > 0:43:40and it has one of the earliest surviving closets in England.
0:43:40 > 0:43:44I've been given a few clues behind the arras, they said.
0:43:48 > 0:43:50Look at that. The whole thing comes away.
0:43:52 > 0:43:54Fantastic.
0:43:56 > 0:44:03It really does have quite a magical atmosphere of retreat and privacy.
0:44:03 > 0:44:09Closets were little rooms off the main apartment, off the main bedroom.
0:44:09 > 0:44:14Look at the extraordinary wallcovering. It's psychedelic.
0:44:14 > 0:44:17It's like something from the seventies.
0:44:17 > 0:44:21This is all wool, plain stitched in.
0:44:21 > 0:44:24Really you came into your closet to be alone with God,
0:44:24 > 0:44:27that's what the King James Bible told you to do.
0:44:27 > 0:44:29"Enter into thy closet."
0:44:29 > 0:44:33You're supposed to come in twice a day to pray
0:44:33 > 0:44:38and I suppose it's a chance to withdraw and be by yourself.
0:44:38 > 0:44:42Closets do get put to secular purposes as well.
0:44:42 > 0:44:48By the end of the 17th century people are having tea, coffee, chocolate,
0:44:48 > 0:44:53keeping their collections here, possibly pornographic.
0:44:53 > 0:44:57Adulterous liaisons often go on in the closet.
0:45:00 > 0:45:03But closets came into their own in Georgian houses
0:45:03 > 0:45:08as one answer to their crowded nature, racket and commotion.
0:45:08 > 0:45:13It was only the rich and the middling ranks who had their own closets
0:45:13 > 0:45:16where they could retire for a nice bit of peace and quiet.
0:45:16 > 0:45:19But what about the servants?
0:45:19 > 0:45:23No architect bothered with their privacy or their seclusion.
0:45:23 > 0:45:26All that they had was a box.
0:45:30 > 0:45:34If you were a young mobile worker or a servant,
0:45:34 > 0:45:39you'd be very lucky indeed to have a room of your own.
0:45:39 > 0:45:42You might not even have a bed of your own
0:45:42 > 0:45:48but almost all servants expected to have a box of their own, a locking box.
0:45:50 > 0:45:56In it you'd keep your best clothes, your money, your private treasures.
0:45:56 > 0:45:58I find these very poignant.
0:45:58 > 0:46:06I've come across references of poor servant girls wallpapering their boxes, decorating them,
0:46:06 > 0:46:13because, really, the locking box stands in for identity and individuality.
0:46:13 > 0:46:15For the working poor,
0:46:15 > 0:46:19this is the last reliable place of privacy.
0:46:21 > 0:46:26A locking box is the very sign and symbol of service.
0:46:26 > 0:46:28No young servant would go anywhere without one
0:46:28 > 0:46:35and that point is really well made in Hogarth's The Harlot's Progress.
0:46:35 > 0:46:39Here is our young heroine, Moll, come to town from the country.
0:46:39 > 0:46:43There she has about her the few things she has in the world.
0:46:43 > 0:46:46She has a box, a trunk with her initials on, MH,
0:46:46 > 0:46:50and a dead duck in a bag that she's brought from the country.
0:46:50 > 0:46:56She's launched on London with those, but then some months later,
0:46:56 > 0:46:59when terrible things have befallen her,
0:46:59 > 0:47:06she's dying before the fire with her laundry drying above her
0:47:06 > 0:47:10and her box is open, being rifled by a maid.
0:47:10 > 0:47:15She has no defence whatsoever against intrusion.
0:47:17 > 0:47:21The sheer vulnerability of life, especially for the poor,
0:47:21 > 0:47:24was a striking feature of the Georgian era.
0:47:24 > 0:47:30To lose your home was to lose your status and independence and, ultimately, to lose yourself.
0:47:30 > 0:47:35Destitution and beggary were common in an era before pensions and welfare.
0:47:35 > 0:47:41Even middling households could be holed below the water line by bankruptcy and illness.
0:47:41 > 0:47:46Some charities tried to hold destitute but worthy families
0:47:46 > 0:47:52together in almshouses, like these in the Geffrye Museum in London.
0:47:52 > 0:47:54Almshouses enabled frail couples
0:47:54 > 0:47:59who could no longer keep a home of their own to have a roof over their heads.
0:47:59 > 0:48:03They were the sheltered housing of their day.
0:48:12 > 0:48:15This is one of the individual rooms.
0:48:15 > 0:48:18It's a sort of 18th century bedsit.
0:48:18 > 0:48:23You have to live and work in here with a little room off.
0:48:23 > 0:48:28Although it's rather simple, I actually think there's something
0:48:28 > 0:48:33quite pleasant about the atmosphere cos it's very clean and neat.
0:48:33 > 0:48:38You could bring in some of your own things to warm it up a bit,
0:48:38 > 0:48:45so a colourful woollen bedspread, the odd piece of pewter from home,
0:48:45 > 0:48:50some of your ceramics, to remember who you are.
0:48:50 > 0:48:54Many commentators felt in the 18th century
0:48:54 > 0:49:02that the deserving poor ought to have the comforts of what they call a private fireside.
0:49:02 > 0:49:04You do get a real sense of that in this room.
0:49:04 > 0:49:11Frugality yes, but also, I think, decency and a certain amount of dignity.
0:49:15 > 0:49:21This is a communal institution and so the inmates had to abide by,
0:49:21 > 0:49:24a set of rules. This is a copy of them.
0:49:24 > 0:49:29The original rules of the almshouses and there are 29 of them,
0:49:29 > 0:49:34so your behaviour is monitored at the risk of expulsion.
0:49:34 > 0:49:41So you're not to be drunk at any time, not to give any railing, bitter or uncharitable speeches.
0:49:41 > 0:49:48They're about avoiding fights and you're not supposed to sell things from your room.
0:49:49 > 0:49:57We shouldn't forget all the things you give up when you give up a home of your own in the 18th century.
0:49:57 > 0:50:01Here the inmates don't have their own front door and that's critical
0:50:01 > 0:50:05because having your own front door can qualify you for the vote in many boroughs.
0:50:05 > 0:50:10But having your own household, it signifies life at high tide,
0:50:10 > 0:50:16that you are a powerful person, a citizen, you get credit in shops.
0:50:16 > 0:50:21But the moment you abandon that, it means that your life is declining.
0:50:21 > 0:50:25You're giving up your power and your status.
0:50:27 > 0:50:30The British were notorious for their stubborn attachment
0:50:30 > 0:50:34to an independent home, however gaunt and squalid.
0:50:34 > 0:50:36But a new solution was looming,
0:50:36 > 0:50:41an institution that epitomised the very opposite of home - the workhouse.
0:50:46 > 0:50:49I'm in Southwell in Nottinghamshire
0:50:49 > 0:50:53approaching what looks like another neo-classical mansion,
0:50:53 > 0:50:58but, in fact, this is a prototype of a new model workhouse.
0:50:59 > 0:51:06Behind this symmetrical facade is a pitiless and soulless institution.
0:51:21 > 0:51:26You have to imagine a great flow of humanity through here.
0:51:26 > 0:51:33People must have been absolutely destitute to throw themselves on the tender mercies of the workhouse.
0:51:33 > 0:51:37It was in these buildings that everyone would be processed,
0:51:37 > 0:51:39then they would be categorised.
0:51:39 > 0:51:43Are they able-bodied working poor or are they old and infirm?
0:51:43 > 0:51:49They'd be stripped of their clothes, de-loused, de-personed, really,
0:51:49 > 0:51:52and given a regulation uniform.
0:51:52 > 0:51:59And then what I think is the final act of mercilessness,
0:51:59 > 0:52:05is they were separated, men and women and then the women from the children.
0:52:05 > 0:52:11So women in here, but through the adjoining yard, its counterpart,
0:52:11 > 0:52:14the men's yard.
0:52:14 > 0:52:22I might be a sentimentalist but I can't help but imagine the matrimonial agony, really,
0:52:22 > 0:52:27husbands and wives separated from each other.
0:52:27 > 0:52:31These are all systems, really, of deterrents.
0:52:31 > 0:52:37It's about selection, classification,
0:52:37 > 0:52:40segregation and supervision,
0:52:40 > 0:52:45which all make your life an institutional one.
0:52:45 > 0:52:48I think you'd have to be absolutely destitute
0:52:48 > 0:52:53to submit to the discipline of the new model workhouse
0:52:53 > 0:52:56but that, after all, was the point.
0:53:10 > 0:53:14So this is the workhouse schoolroom.
0:53:15 > 0:53:19Quite an austere little chamber,
0:53:19 > 0:53:25but crucial because the vast majority of the poor were always young.
0:53:25 > 0:53:29Here, some moral education...
0:53:29 > 0:53:35"Happy the child whose tender years receive instruction well.
0:53:35 > 0:53:38"Who hates the sinner's path and fears
0:53:38 > 0:53:40"The road that leads to hell."
0:53:40 > 0:53:47And then built into the structure of the room you have another feature of segregation.
0:53:47 > 0:53:51Here, there's frosted glass to make sure any children
0:53:51 > 0:53:55aren't distracted by the sight of their parents.
0:53:55 > 0:54:00The architecture of the place shows what the institution is trying to do.
0:54:00 > 0:54:07It's smashing those central emotional bonds of family, destroying them.
0:54:07 > 0:54:09It's an extreme deterrent.
0:54:11 > 0:54:18So there's no trace of the core comfort of home in an institution like this.
0:54:22 > 0:54:28Once you're in the workhouse, you were an inmate, that's what you were labelled.
0:54:28 > 0:54:31This is the ladies' dormitory.
0:54:31 > 0:54:37Communal living was objectionable to the Georgians.
0:54:37 > 0:54:40The workhouse really was a place of last resort.
0:54:40 > 0:54:47Stripped of any of the prettiness and individuality of home.
0:54:50 > 0:54:53What you had lost was rubbed in your face.
0:54:53 > 0:54:58Your own front door, your dignity, your nest for family life.
0:55:02 > 0:55:06But it wasn't just the poor who were tortured by a lack of home,
0:55:06 > 0:55:08the privileged could feel homeless, too.
0:55:08 > 0:55:14For a home where you have no autonomy whatsoever is a prison.
0:55:14 > 0:55:18In an earlier programme we have seen the spinster, Gertrude Saville,
0:55:18 > 0:55:21relieved her frustrations in her diary,
0:55:21 > 0:55:24a document of suffering I still find difficult to read.
0:55:24 > 0:55:28Sunday. Church. Unhappy.
0:55:30 > 0:55:35Extreme. Miserable. Unhappy.
0:55:35 > 0:55:38"Very miserable. Unhappy.
0:55:38 > 0:55:39"Unhappy.
0:55:39 > 0:55:41"Miserable."
0:55:41 > 0:55:46You might think what has a noblemen's daughter got to complain about?
0:55:46 > 0:55:49But she lived her life on sufferance
0:55:49 > 0:55:52without any rights in her brother's house.
0:55:52 > 0:55:57Constantly humiliated, even laughed at by the servants,
0:55:57 > 0:56:02she was housed, clothed and fed but she was never at home.
0:56:02 > 0:56:04Home.
0:56:04 > 0:56:07What do I call home?
0:56:07 > 0:56:08I have no home.
0:56:08 > 0:56:12Entirely confine myself to my room.
0:56:12 > 0:56:16Workchair very hard, that and my cat.
0:56:16 > 0:56:19All my pleasure.
0:56:22 > 0:56:23Miserable.
0:56:28 > 0:56:32In a twist worthy of a fairytale, Gertrude Saville was left
0:56:32 > 0:56:37a sizeable property near Newcastle by a cousin in 1730.
0:56:37 > 0:56:45At a stroke, she was delivered from both domestic subordination and financial dependency.
0:56:45 > 0:56:50At last, at 40, she became mistress of her own household.
0:56:50 > 0:56:55Saville had achieved the Georgian ambition, a home of her own.
0:57:02 > 0:57:08Georgian elegance is seductive but remember, it is just a front.
0:57:08 > 0:57:15People toil to create the impression of gracious living and a well-ordered hierarchy.
0:57:15 > 0:57:19Burglars and witches lurked in dark corners.
0:57:19 > 0:57:23There were losers as well as winners behind closed doors
0:57:23 > 0:57:28and yet the hankering for a home of one's own was universal.
0:57:34 > 0:57:38We still believe that a stable home is the foundation
0:57:38 > 0:57:42for health, wealth and happiness and that behind our own front door,
0:57:42 > 0:57:49we can be most truly ourselves and show off and exhibit our personalities to the world.
0:57:49 > 0:57:51We have the Georgians to thank for that.
0:57:51 > 0:57:55They shone a spotlight on the home
0:57:55 > 0:58:00and put it at the centre of British life, where it remains to this day.
0:58:10 > 0:58:13Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd