Historical Enquiry 2
What sort of homes would Eric, Emily and Patrick have lived in?
Twenty four million people lived in England at the beginning of the twentieth
century. A tiny percentage of them belonged to the upper classes, about 20%
were middle class and the rest were lower or working class. If like Patrick, you
were a member of the lower classes, it didn’t matter whether you lived in the
towns, cities or countryside, life wasn’t easy. Jobs were often hard to find and
even harder to keep. Families often shared houses or cottages with other
families or with their relatives. For the very poorest families, there were only
one or two rooms for them all.
Eric and other middle class children like him were much luckier. Often their
parents could rent or even afford to buy roomy houses in the suburbs of towns
and cities, or perhaps pretty homes in the countryside.
Children from upper class families like Emily’s, lived in huge houses with
dozens of rooms. These houses would probably have been in their families for
hundreds of years.
Patrick’s family was very large, and his father had never been able to find
regular work as a dock labourer. They all lived in rented rooms that were
cramped and dirty. The only place to wash or to get clean water was from the
pump in the middle of the courtyard.
Your Task
These sources have been deliberately muddled up!
 Choose either Emily, or Eric or Patrick to write about
 Make sure that you select the correct three sources for that person
 Use the sources to help you to write a description of their home. You
could do some additional research yourself if you like, and find more
sources to help with your description.
SOURCES OF EVIDENCE FOR YOUR TASK
Source 1
Mr M is a typical dock labourer. He never worked two full weeks running.
Mrs M is deep in debt to the landlord and money – lenders. Nearly all the
clothes are pawned, there is hardly any furniture, even the pans are pawned;
there is nothing comfortable about the house.
1908 Report on Dock Labourers in Liverpool
Source 2
1913 Painting of a middle class house by Douglas Fox Pitt ‘Interior with maid’
Source 3
Kitchen at Wallington House in Northumberland
Source 4
My Mother kept a beautiful larder with all the jams and pickles. She saw that
all was cleaned. She did an enormous amount of very beautiful embroidery,
and she had her visiting days.
1914 memories of Alice Remington a middle class clergyman’s daughter
Source 5
1911 – photograph of court houses
Source 6
Early 20th century painting by Patrick William Adam ‘An interior from an
English stately home’
Source 7
1914 middle class family photograph
Source 8
At that particular time we had a very fine French chef. He had five girls
working with him. We had a stillroom where all the bread and cakes were
made. There was a housekeeper, 6 housemaids, 6 laundry maids, also an Odd
Jobs Man who used to look after the boilers, carry coal, answer the telephone
– a most useful man in every way
Edwin Lee – Butler to the upper class Astor Family 1914
Source 9
Early 1900s Photograph of the inside of a court dwelling