Commonplace 72 George & Landladies.
At Owens College, we know George saw himself as something of a bohemian. Was this based entirely on the social milieu surrounding his sexual encounters, or his fondness for poesy, his flowing locks, the social set in which he moved? Or, was it that he had a home of his own for the first time, albeit a single room in a lodging house, where he was free to collect books, pin up his etchings and practise the art of smoking his pipe?
53 Grafton Street was a normal suburban house in a normal street, nothing out of the ordinary. The area subsequently became run down but it wasn't in George's day, so we are not talking about a doss house. Though George tended to make mileage of the lack of supervision in his Owens days - so we might assume he was free to come and go as he liked - he wasn't exactly a child when he got there - he was about 18. I suspect he was a tad immature for his years, and he was always a bit of a wuss, and we know he was generally pretty inept at the old self-help skills, so one of the key people in his life would have been his landlady.
In terms if what they provided, in George's time, landladies came in all shapes and sizes. Boom boom. Even when limited finances dictated the kind of lodgings that could be afforded, there still must have been a fairly wide choice, as the renting out of a room and offering a bit of food was a common way for poor people to eke out a living. Women, and widows in particular, especially if they had children to support, were limited in what they could do to earn money, and so turning a spare room into a source of income made sense.
The place of the lower middle class landlady in society was fraught with insecurity on many levels. There were the economics of a sometimes peripatetic clientele (in the case of travelling salesmen), and the uncertainties of not really knowing much about your lodger's background, to contend with (he might be an ex-con petty thief wife abandoner, for example haha). Guests might not pay their rent and then do a runner - you might recall one holiday landlady holding George and Edith's luggage against them paying their bill when they left one lodgings in high dudgeon (that's not a place haha) which prompted George to summon a policeman for arbitration. That scene would have not looked out of place in a Carry On flick. Or an Alfred Hitchcock click.
Then, there was the need to provide cheap food - or, food that cost a little for which you could charge a lot. Some landladies will have given ample portions, others would have skimped. Meals might be just breakfast, or, for a higher rent, include an evening meal. In the case of the seaside landlady, lodgers had to be out of the premises all day and fend for themselves, whatever the weather and whatever the state of health of the lodgers - which made the Ionian Sea a better holiday destination than Southport, as George found out.
Whatever the services provided, the landlady was an immensely powerful police force of her own, taking control of her lodgers' lives and making all manner of decisions for them. A young landlady taking in lodgers of the complementary gender was setting up a milieu fraught with social danger - what would the neighbours think? If you were elderly (whatever that age might be in the late nineteenth century - 50?), you might be seen as beyond temptation, and more of a mother to your younger male residents. But, in the case of a young landlady and male lodgers, things would need to be seen to be 'above board' in order to deflect any criticism... however, it is only in the minds of those who think anyone from the nineteenth century lower middle classes still aspired to live like Lizzie Bennett and Mr Darcy who believes people didn't mix socially in rather saucy ways.
Here is a section from click, an account of the culture of lodgings from Henry Mayhew's London Characters and the Humorous Side of London Life; this is from the chapter on Outsiders of Society and Their Homes in London.
Rather amused than annoyed, you submit to be shown the rooms. They are pretty rooms---light and cheerful, and ornamental to a fault---and the garden at the back is alone a relief from the pent-up place you have been occupying in town. So, after a few preliminary negotiations---conducted on the lady's side in the same playful manner---you agree to take the place, say for three months. The lady is evidently pleased at your decision, and avails herself of the opportunity for renewing her assurance that the house is not a lodging-house, and that you may expect all the comforts of a domestic life.
"There are no other lodgers," she added; then, as if suddenly recollecting, she corrects herself: "That is to say, there is a commercial gentleman who is a great deal away, sleeping here for a night or two---a friend of my husband's---and yes, let me see, a medical gentleman to whom we have allowed the partial use of a bedroom to oblige a neighbour just for the present, but I do not count either of them as lodgers."
A commercial gentleman sleeping for a night or two, while he is a great deal away, does not seem an ordinary lodger at any rate; and from the distinction drawn in the case of the medical gentleman who is only allowed the partial use of a bedroom, you are inclined to think that he is permitted to lie down but not go to sleep. However, you make no objection to these anomalies, and take possession of your new abode.
There never was such an imposter, as you find out only next day. The bagman and the medical student---as those gentlemen must be described, if the naked truth be respected---turn out to be regular lodgers, and as thorough nuisances as a couple of noisy men addicted to late hours and exaggerated conviviality can well be. And the woman never mentioned a discharged policeman---her father, I believe---to whom she affords a temporary asylum in the kitchen, in return for intermittent attentions in the way of blacking boots and cleaning knives---when he happens to be sober. For the rest, there is nobody in the house who can cook even such a simple matter as a mutton chop without spoiling it; and there seems to be everybody in the house who is determined that your private stores shall not be allowed to spoil for want of eating and drinking. Nothing is safe from the enemy, who combines forces against you, and they take care that you shall have no protection, for not a lock which can give shelter to any portable article will act after you have been two days in the house. As for your personal effects, they are in equal danger. The average amount of loss in wearing apparel is one shirt and two handkerchiefs a week; and miscellaneous articles are sure to go if they are in the least degree pretty or curious. And the coolest part of the proceeding is, that the mildest complaint on your part brings down a storm upon your devoted head, such as you could not have expected from the playful and fluttering person who had given you such pleasant assurances when you took the rooms. She claims to be Caesar's wife in point of immunity from suspicion, and asserts the same privilege for everybody in the house. "No gentleman was ever robbed there," she says; and she plainly hints that no gentleman would say he was, even though he said the fact.
George was always moving home and though some biographers blame either Marianne aka Nell or Edith and disputes with neighbours for this tendency to flight, it is unfair to think George was not the instigator of these changes of dwelling place. His constant dream of finding a home on the right soil with the right wind and weather and the right sort of rain, was as desperate as his paranoid need to not connect with his neighbours for fear of them finding out about his dubious past. However, connect he did - with one landlady in particular: Mrs Annie Coward.
JOIN ME IN COMMONPLACE 73 AND SEE WHAT ROOM SERVICES MRS COWARD PROVIDED!
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| Our (Land) Lady of Lourdes by Eric Gill 1929 |
53 Grafton Street was a normal suburban house in a normal street, nothing out of the ordinary. The area subsequently became run down but it wasn't in George's day, so we are not talking about a doss house. Though George tended to make mileage of the lack of supervision in his Owens days - so we might assume he was free to come and go as he liked - he wasn't exactly a child when he got there - he was about 18. I suspect he was a tad immature for his years, and he was always a bit of a wuss, and we know he was generally pretty inept at the old self-help skills, so one of the key people in his life would have been his landlady.
In terms if what they provided, in George's time, landladies came in all shapes and sizes. Boom boom. Even when limited finances dictated the kind of lodgings that could be afforded, there still must have been a fairly wide choice, as the renting out of a room and offering a bit of food was a common way for poor people to eke out a living. Women, and widows in particular, especially if they had children to support, were limited in what they could do to earn money, and so turning a spare room into a source of income made sense.
The place of the lower middle class landlady in society was fraught with insecurity on many levels. There were the economics of a sometimes peripatetic clientele (in the case of travelling salesmen), and the uncertainties of not really knowing much about your lodger's background, to contend with (he might be an ex-con petty thief wife abandoner, for example haha). Guests might not pay their rent and then do a runner - you might recall one holiday landlady holding George and Edith's luggage against them paying their bill when they left one lodgings in high dudgeon (that's not a place haha) which prompted George to summon a policeman for arbitration. That scene would have not looked out of place in a Carry On flick. Or an Alfred Hitchcock click.
Then, there was the need to provide cheap food - or, food that cost a little for which you could charge a lot. Some landladies will have given ample portions, others would have skimped. Meals might be just breakfast, or, for a higher rent, include an evening meal. In the case of the seaside landlady, lodgers had to be out of the premises all day and fend for themselves, whatever the weather and whatever the state of health of the lodgers - which made the Ionian Sea a better holiday destination than Southport, as George found out.
Whatever the services provided, the landlady was an immensely powerful police force of her own, taking control of her lodgers' lives and making all manner of decisions for them. A young landlady taking in lodgers of the complementary gender was setting up a milieu fraught with social danger - what would the neighbours think? If you were elderly (whatever that age might be in the late nineteenth century - 50?), you might be seen as beyond temptation, and more of a mother to your younger male residents. But, in the case of a young landlady and male lodgers, things would need to be seen to be 'above board' in order to deflect any criticism... however, it is only in the minds of those who think anyone from the nineteenth century lower middle classes still aspired to live like Lizzie Bennett and Mr Darcy who believes people didn't mix socially in rather saucy ways.
I said
something about boarding-houses just now. A great many of the homeless who have
not tried these establishments---or having tried them are unwilling to renew
the experiment---live in furnished lodgings. On the Continent they would
probably put up at hotels: but hotels in this country are not adapted for
modest requirements, and furnished lodgings take a place which they have not
yet learned to occupy. The mode of life is anomalous. It is neither public nor
private. You may be independent in an hotel; you may be independent in your own
house; in lodgings you can be independent by no possibility. If you spend
rather more money than you would either in an hotel or your own house, you
obtain comfort and attention; but the object of most persons who take lodgings
is to be rather economical than otherwise, so that the reservation is of very
little avail. Lodgings are of two classes---those that profess to be so, and
those that solemnly declare they are not. The former are decidedly preferable,
apart from the immorality of encouraging a sham. In the former case, if you
occupy---say as a bachelor---only a couple of rooms in town, and the rest of
the house is let to other people, you will obtain but precarious attendance
from the solitary servant, and the chances are that you will never be able to
get a decently-cooked meal. The food that they waste in such places by their
barbarous mode of dealing with it is sad to think upon. Your only resource is
to live out of doors as much as possible, and consider your rooms only as a
refuge---the logical consequence of which is that it is best to abandon them
altogether.
But you are better placed even
under these conditions than if you go to a house in one of the suburbs---a
pretty villa-looking place---knowing nothing about it beyond the information
offered by the bill in the window. A not very clean servant opens the door, and
does not impress you favourably at first glance. You are hesitating, under some
discouragement, when the mistress of the house---presenting in her decorated
exterior a considerable contrast to the servant---appears upon the scene and
reproves the domestic sternly for her neglected appearance, sends her away to
restore it, and meantime proceeds to transact business upon her own account.
You ask her if she lets apartments. She gives a reproving look, and says
"No," ignoring the announcement made by the bill. You mention that
you knocked in consequence of seeing that intimation in the window; upon which
the lady says---
"Oh, is it up? I was not aware. The fact is, I wish to receive a gentleman to occupy part of the house, as it is too large for us"---the old story---"and my husband being a great deal out, I find it rather lonely. But my husband is very proud and objects to having strange company."
You remark that you need not have applied in that case, and will go elsewhere. This brings the lady to the point.
"Oh, I did not mean to say that you could not have any apartments here. I intend to have my own way in that matter"---this is said in a playful, fluttery manner, with a running laugh. "If you will step in I will show you the accommodation we have. All I meant to say was, that we are not accustomed to let lodgings."
"Oh, is it up? I was not aware. The fact is, I wish to receive a gentleman to occupy part of the house, as it is too large for us"---the old story---"and my husband being a great deal out, I find it rather lonely. But my husband is very proud and objects to having strange company."
You remark that you need not have applied in that case, and will go elsewhere. This brings the lady to the point.
"Oh, I did not mean to say that you could not have any apartments here. I intend to have my own way in that matter"---this is said in a playful, fluttery manner, with a running laugh. "If you will step in I will show you the accommodation we have. All I meant to say was, that we are not accustomed to let lodgings."
Rather amused than annoyed, you submit to be shown the rooms. They are pretty rooms---light and cheerful, and ornamental to a fault---and the garden at the back is alone a relief from the pent-up place you have been occupying in town. So, after a few preliminary negotiations---conducted on the lady's side in the same playful manner---you agree to take the place, say for three months. The lady is evidently pleased at your decision, and avails herself of the opportunity for renewing her assurance that the house is not a lodging-house, and that you may expect all the comforts of a domestic life.
"There are no other lodgers," she added; then, as if suddenly recollecting, she corrects herself: "That is to say, there is a commercial gentleman who is a great deal away, sleeping here for a night or two---a friend of my husband's---and yes, let me see, a medical gentleman to whom we have allowed the partial use of a bedroom to oblige a neighbour just for the present, but I do not count either of them as lodgers."
A commercial gentleman sleeping for a night or two, while he is a great deal away, does not seem an ordinary lodger at any rate; and from the distinction drawn in the case of the medical gentleman who is only allowed the partial use of a bedroom, you are inclined to think that he is permitted to lie down but not go to sleep. However, you make no objection to these anomalies, and take possession of your new abode.
There never was such an imposter, as you find out only next day. The bagman and the medical student---as those gentlemen must be described, if the naked truth be respected---turn out to be regular lodgers, and as thorough nuisances as a couple of noisy men addicted to late hours and exaggerated conviviality can well be. And the woman never mentioned a discharged policeman---her father, I believe---to whom she affords a temporary asylum in the kitchen, in return for intermittent attentions in the way of blacking boots and cleaning knives---when he happens to be sober. For the rest, there is nobody in the house who can cook even such a simple matter as a mutton chop without spoiling it; and there seems to be everybody in the house who is determined that your private stores shall not be allowed to spoil for want of eating and drinking. Nothing is safe from the enemy, who combines forces against you, and they take care that you shall have no protection, for not a lock which can give shelter to any portable article will act after you have been two days in the house. As for your personal effects, they are in equal danger. The average amount of loss in wearing apparel is one shirt and two handkerchiefs a week; and miscellaneous articles are sure to go if they are in the least degree pretty or curious. And the coolest part of the proceeding is, that the mildest complaint on your part brings down a storm upon your devoted head, such as you could not have expected from the playful and fluttering person who had given you such pleasant assurances when you took the rooms. She claims to be Caesar's wife in point of immunity from suspicion, and asserts the same privilege for everybody in the house. "No gentleman was ever robbed there," she says; and she plainly hints that no gentleman would say he was, even though he said the fact.
This is no exaggerated picture of many suburban lodgings to which outsiders of
society are led to resort for want of better accommodation; and a large number
of persons who are not outsiders in the sense in which I have employed the
term, but who are simply not settled in the metropolis, are exposed to a
similar fate. For those who are prepared for an ordeal of another nature, the
"cheerful family, musically inclined," offers, one would think, a far
preferable alternative. But it is not everybody who is prepared to have society
thrust upon him, either in this quiet domestic way or in a large boarding-house,
and there ought to be better provision than there is for the floating mass of
casual residents in London. In Paris not only are there hotels suited to the
requirements of all classes of persons, but the maisons meubles are
places where they may live almost as independently as in their own houses. In
London, the only realization of the luxury short of an entire house is in what
we call "chambers;" and a man's chambers are most certainly his
castle, whatever his house may be. That the want is being appreciated, is
evident from the rapid extension of the "chambers" system, in the way
of the independent suites of rooms known as "flats." But the flats,
as now provided in Victoria Street, and elsewhere, cost as much as entire
houses, while the latest additions, the Belgrave and Grosvenor mansions, are
even more costly, and beyond the reach of the classes to whom I have been
referring. The latter would be deeply grateful for accommodation of the kind on
a more moderate scale, and the investment of capital in such an object could
not fail to be profitable. Besides the desolate people into whose sorrows I
have entered, there are in London, it must be remembered, many hundreds of
outsiders of society of a different kind, who are outsiders only from that
conventional society in which it takes so much money to "move," and
who ought to command greater comfort than they do while they are working their
way in professional pursuits. For those actually in want of companionship, I
suppose they will always incline to the hotel, or the boarding-house, or the
"cheerful family, musically inclined".
George was always moving home and though some biographers blame either Marianne aka Nell or Edith and disputes with neighbours for this tendency to flight, it is unfair to think George was not the instigator of these changes of dwelling place. His constant dream of finding a home on the right soil with the right wind and weather and the right sort of rain, was as desperate as his paranoid need to not connect with his neighbours for fear of them finding out about his dubious past. However, connect he did - with one landlady in particular: Mrs Annie Coward.
JOIN ME IN COMMONPLACE 73 AND SEE WHAT ROOM SERVICES MRS COWARD PROVIDED!
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