Emily Gee will tell the story of a heretofore little-known Victorian and Edwardian building type that changed the world of opportunity for women living and working in London and other cities. The talk will focus on the campaigns to house a new generation of women, the specialised design of the buildings and the women whose lives were changed by this architectural movement.
After 1900, the rapid rise of women working as clerks, secretaries or typists, in London and other cities, created an urgent need for affordable and respectable accommodation. Building on models of elegant Victorian ladies’ residential chambers and the vast working men’s lodging houses, a new type of single working women’s hostel emerged.
These handsome buildings, with their Queen Anne and Edwardian Baroque facades, blended into their vibrant streetscapes. However, architectural plans, literary descriptions and historic photographs reveal highly distinctive interiors. The hostels featured efficiently planned tiny private spaces alongside generous communal dining and sitting rooms, as well as libraries, music rooms and bicycle stores, and occasionally a swimming pool and ballroom.
Emphatically not charitable or municipal affairs – and London tried but was not ultimately successful in building any municipal hostels for women, like it did for men – these were business-minded enterprises, established and advocated by other Victorian and Edwardian women. In turn, these often anonymous buildings, most of which survive and have been converted (and a handful have been listed) deserve to be understood and celebrated for the extraordinary role they played in supporting a dramatic social for a new generation of intrepid working women.
Image: 22 Brabazon House bedroom Sydney March 1905-6