Charles Dickens in Thirties Sheffield

By Mary Grover

In October 2020, I gave a talk to the University Women’s Group about Sheffield readers and the novels of Charles Dickens. It gave me the opportunity to reflect on my own relationship with Dickens. You can find the full talk, with slides, under our Research tab here

Unlikely as it may seem, in the 1930s intellectuals and academics such as the influential Q D and F R Leavis often dismissed Charles Dickens as an author for the uneducated masses. That assessment was strengthened when popular newspapers, fighting a circulation war, offered their readers relatively inexpensive sets of Dickens in presentation bookcases, making his novels available to a vast number of people. My father, who lectured on English Literature, grew up in the 1930s, in a modest home with one of those – in his case, treasured – sets of Dickens. 

My father, David Yorweth Morgan, in Rangoon in 1954

In 1934 the Daily Herald got the ball rolling with the first subscription offer: eighteen volumes for eleven shillings, a saving of 69 shillings on the market price. Frank Burgin, who grew up in Mosborough in the Thirties, described the process.

A man came round to the house getting you to buy the Daily Herald.  My father said, ‘We’ll never use that newspaper because we don’t agree with those politics’, but eventually, the man must have been good, because he signed up so I got the whole of Dickens’ works with that newspaper.

For all that he remembered acquiring the novels, Frank was no great fan. But many other Reading Sheffield interviewees loved Dickens. Dorothy, for example, who saw poverty as she grew up in working class Sheffield, responded powerfully to the story of Oliver Twist, ‘the way he was treated’. Betty Newman, who in general dismissed novels, thought Dickens ‘was the nearest I got to fiction’ and concluded, ‘I don’t think he really is fiction’. For Dorothy, Betty and others, Dickens dealt in harsh economic realities which they recognised. They learned history from him. ‘It gave you an insight into just how unfortunate some people were and how they lived,’ said Peter Mason.

For others, it was Dickens’ vivid characters, like Mr Micawber and Magwitch, that captured the imagination. The frequent dramatisations and readings on BBC radio programmes of the period reinforced this. In 1930, for example, Bransby Williams, ‘the Famous Portrayer of Dickens Characters’, led a musical extravaganza, ‘A Pickwick Party’, subtitled ‘A Dickens Dream Fantasy’ with a ‘Chorus of Dickens Dogs and Dainty Ducks’. 

In time academics like the Leavises changed their minds about Dickens. He was deemed a worthy subject for study, much to my pleasure, as I was brought up surrounded by my father’s Daily Herald copies of the novels. For eighteen years Dickens was a constant physical companion and, in my teens, an imaginative one.

My father’s set of Dickens, still in their presentation bookcase

For my father and thousands like him Dickens made reading and rereading, affordable and pleasurable. And it was the pleasures he delivered that enabled many unschooled children to get the reading habit.

The Book of Hints and Wrinkles (1939)

In Domestic Goddess, 1930s Style, I wrote about housewives of the 1920s and ‘30s, based on a snippet in Sheffield Libraries’ magazine about books on domestic management. This week, I bought one such book from a charity shop in Broomhill, Sheffield for 99p, so it seems a good time to revisit the topic.

The Book of Hints and Wrinkles is the sort of book that a mother or aunt might have given, in the Thirties or Forties, to a young woman getting married and setting up a home. You can imagine turning to it rather gratefully, as its 300+ closely-printed pages and many clear illustrations cover everything from budgeting and taxes, through laundry, to unblocking drains. How to arrange your kitchen? Pages 165 to 168, with handy floorplans. The right way to iron? Page 126. Mange in pets? (Both types.) Page 283. And of course a long section on having babies and bringing up children. The title is self-deprecating, given how much information is included.

Here is the recommended daily routine for looking after a three-room flat and a year-old baby (and there are more pages reproduced below):

6.45 am Lift and give orange-juice to baby; get tea for self and husband.
7.30 am Light your boiler; set breakfast table.
8.00 am Wash, and dress baby.
8.15 am Baby’s breakfast.
8.30 am Baby put in pram on veranda; prepare breakfast and serve.
9.00 am Wash dishes; sweep and dust dining-room, passage, bathroom, kitchen and lavatory; strip and make beds; sweep bedroom; prepare baby’s broth, etc.
10.30 am Special work(fortnightly turnings-out).
Midday Baby’s lunch; prepare own lunch and as much as possible of evening meal.
1.00 pm Own lunch; wash up; rest and change.
3.00 pm Take baby out in pram, do shopping for next day.
4.30 pm Own tea.
5.00 pm Baby’s tea; wash up; set supper table; play with baby.
6.00 pm Put baby to bed; ironing; cleaning silver; finishing touches to supper.
7.00 pm Supper.
7.30 pm Wash up.

Notice that the husband hardly features, his role being breadwinner. Elsewhere in Hints and Wrinkles, the woman is urged not to exclude her husband from the baby’s care, and in a section that comes after the care of pets is given advice on a man’s wardrobe as ‘few men take much notice of their clothes’.

Hints and Wrinkles is clearly meant for women, and married women at that, although there are references to young men and women living alone, which was much less common then than it is today. Thumbing through the book shows how much work a house entailed in the days before most of the machines and technology we rely on. Running a home was generally a full-time job, done almost always by women (although of course some women did go out to work, and some had hired help).

Our readers’ experiences generally reflect this.

Florence Cowood (b. 1923): … but I got married in 1946 … I did go on reading, but it doesn’t… I was occupied other ways then, you know, with cooking and all the rest of it you do when you’re married. … And then I left [work], of course, when I got married. … They wanted me to stay on, but my husband was an old-fashioned type.  He believed in his wife not working.

Doreen Gill (b. 1934): … as long as I was doing homework me [sic] mum was all right. But if I picked a book up to read she’d say, “Put that down and come and help me do so-and-so. You’re wasting your time and my time”. You know. So she’d always find me a job to do.

Mary Robertson (b. 1923): Mum didn’t work. They did a bit of genteel voluntary work but in my mother’s day ladies didn’t go out to work. … What a boring life. You raised your children and that was it.

Barbara Green (b. 1944): I automatically stopped work because I earned less than Jim. We were in rented accommodation. I had two children in quick succession, nought to twenty months. I was expected to keep the house clean, I was expected to have a meal ready for my husband. I was expected to look after the children. Men didn’t push prams or …

Hints and Wrinkles was published by Odhams Press. Now part of TI Media, Odhams had form in the domestic market, owning both the popular Woman and upmarket Ideal Home titles. There is no date in my copy, but a search in the British Newspaper Archive suggests that it was published as a marketing ploy. (This was not unusual. Many people remember, or have inherited, sets of Dickens, encyclopedias etc given away through newspapers.) A rousing advert in the People of 7 May 1939 invites readers to place an order for at least three months for the Daily Herald, then one of the world’s best-selling newspapers. As a reward they would get, for free, an ‘entirely new 6-volume home library’, with ‘nearly 2,000 pages, 735,000 words, just on 1,000 illustrations’.

… The value of SIX SUCH SUPERB VOLUMES is amazing. Yet, they come to you PRACTICALLY AS A GlFT … this Library is SOMETHING ENTIRELY NEW – ABSOLUTELY DIFFERENT from anything ever offered to readers of The People! … a lifetime library of invaluable information and really practical everyday usefulness. … The Volumes are priceless for the information they contain – no home can afford to be without them! … Every word is AUTHORITATIVE – specially written by experts and set out in simple, everyday language that everyone can understand.

The six volumes are:

  • Practical Information for All
  • Secrets of Successful Gardening
  • The Practical Way to Keep Fit
  • How to Write, Think and Speak Correctly
  • The Home Entertainer, and
  • The Book of Hints and Wrinkles.

Both the People and the Daily Herald were owned by Odhams. (The People is still in print as the Sunday People. The Daily Herald ceased publication in 1964, and was reconstituted as the Sun.)

The ‘home library’ is clearly aspirational. The People and Daily Herald were largely read by the working class, but Hints and Wrinkles includes advice on topics beyond the reach of many: buying a house; labour-saving gadgets like fridges, mechanical washing tubs, hot plates and toasters; the care of fur coats and ‘pieces’; and even the possibility of individual bed-sitting rooms for older children (at a time when many children shared beds). That said, there are also plenty of ideas for making money go further, and repairing clothes and household linens and equipment is taken for granted.

Another indicator of aspiration is the style of the book. The six ‘presentation volumes’, the People advert says, are bound in ‘rich, dark blue Morocco-grained cloth’ and on the spines are ‘nine library bands with the title ornamentally embossed in real 22-carat gold’. As the illustration shows, my copy is in good condition, with the gold still impressively bright, over 75 years later.

Aspirational or not, there is a very long tradition of advice for the homemaker (I use the gender-neutral word advisedly, although the target is almost exclusively female). Books, magazines and domestic science / home economics courses prepared women for their responsibilities. The approach may have developed, but the advice continues today. Alongside books etc, there are blogs on every aspect of the home, and television programmes abound. Businesses run helplines and online forums. And Mumsnet is always there for questions.

I am now on the look-out for the other five volumes, to make up the home library set.

 

Further Extracts

A. Specimen Budget for an Income of £3 per week

Two adults, and three children

% £    s   d
Shelter. Rent, rates and taxes.   20      12   0
Food.   40 1     4   0
Household expenses. Light, heat, replacements.   10        6   0
Clothing and personal allowances. Fares, postage etc.   12        7   2
Savings, including insurances, clubs etc.   15        9   0
Development. Entertainment, holidays etc.     3        1   9
100 3     0   0

B. Make your Kitchen Attractive

It must be borne in mind that the housewife who does most of her own work spends at least three to four hours of her day in the kitchen. Therefore, in addition to its practical efficiency, an attractive appearance is an advantage, and plenty of light and air a necessity. Do not under-estimate the importance of any one of the above points; boredom in the kitchen results in slackly cooked meals and imperfect hygiene, and a host of other troubles which may even culminate in the breaking up of a home. The old drudgery of the kitchen can, thanks to modern ingenuity, be considerably lightened and naturally this applies equally whether the housewife is doing the work herself or whether she can afford to employ a servant or servants.

C. Hints on the Wardrobe: Is Violet a Good Colour?

It is not a good idea to mix derivatives of the colour with the foundation shade. In other words, avoid brown and café au lait, black and grey, and such combinations unless you have a special reason for the choice.

Recently there has been a great vogue for violet. Such a choice is very limiting for other colours, and if it has to be carried on for two or three seasons, becomes monotonous. Dyeing will transform it, of course, to a deeper shade, or to black, but all the etceteras have to follow suit, and the change over will thus, in all probability, become too expensive for the average housewife.

D. Suggested Timetable for Washing Day

Let us assume breakfast is over by 8.30. Immediately set the boiler going, and let the clothes boil while you do the most urgent household tasks (clearing away breakfast things, tidying room, opening beds, getting clothes lines ready).

9-9.15 am. Start washing boiled clothes, rinse, blue and get them on the line as quickly as possible; sheets and bath towels first, smaller articles after. By 11 o’clock at the latest, if you are reasonably experienced, all whites should be on the line.

11-12 am. Wash, rinse, mangle and hand woollens, then coloured articles.

12.12.30. Wash silks.

From time to time check up on how the drying is progressing and remove from the lines those clothes ready for mangling or ironing.

12.30-2 pm. Lunch interval. Make beds and tidy bedrooms.

2 pm. Starching.

2.30 pm. Start ironing or mangling articles which are dry.

Thus by the early evening, everything connected with the home laundry should be out of the way.

E. Home-made Cleaning Materials, including:

Scrubbing Mixture: Soft soap, 1lb. Silver sand, 1lb. Coarse whitening, 1lb. Water, 1 quart. Put all the ingredients in an old pan large enough to allow them to rise when boiling and stir over the fire until the mixture boils. The, stirring it occasionally, allow it to simmer until it is a creamy consistency; finally, pour it into old jam jars and cool.

Furniture Cream: Yellow wax, 4 oz. Household ammonia, 1 ½ tsp. Turpentine, ½ pt. Water, 2 gills. Put the yellow wax into a pan with the water and heat over the fire until the wax has melted. Remove the pan from the fire, add the turpentine and ammonia, and stir until the mixture is cool. If too thick, add water until the right consistency is obtained.