Switching from the Master to the Mistress: A Womans’ Guide to Powering Up the Home

• In Event: Studies in Energy Transitions: Considering Women as Energy Agents 

Abstract

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, home decorator guidebooks suggested to the English upper and middle classes that household décor was a public reflection of personal taste. The fear of ‘getting it wrong’ opened up a space for the experts. In 1877, Agnes and Rhoda Garrett published Suggestions for House Furniture, where they firmly defined themselves as ‘professional decorators.’ As they proclaimed, ‘decorators may be compared to doctors. It is useless to put yourself under their direction unless you mean to carry out their regime.’ Thoroughly professional, the Garretts nevertheless set out to challenge and subvert the household patriarchy evidenced in such influential books as The Gentleman’s House (1864), where Robert Kerr had suggested to the country house owner that there should be clearly delineated gender divisions both in terms of the planning of the home, and in domestic decision making. The Garretts instead spoke directly to the ‘ladies of the family.’
This paper will consider the Garretts’ advice as to the lighting of the home. Energy supply, like home design, had traditionally been considered a decision for the ‘master’ of the house, and the historiography of energy histories have tended to follow this path. In considering the case study of Standen, a country house in Sussex, UK, we will explore the influence of the Garretts on the mistress of the house, Mrs Beale, and her decisions in one of the first country houses in the world purpose-built for electric lighting.

Author

• Abigail Harrison Moore, University of Leeds, UK