When I grew up in the early 1900s, the parlour of any house on our working class housing estate was a very stiff and starchy affair. No-one ever went in there apart from Sundays and highdays and holidays. Our parlour was a cold room for most of the year because we only had coal fires for heating and the parlour fire had to be lit specially - which was extra work for my mother as well as additional expense. The kitchen, in contrast, was always warm and cosy.
The parlour was at the front of the house - see the room plans on a separate page. Our parlour was probably fairly typical of all the front parlours on the estate and there was quite a lot in it. There was a suite of two armchairs and a sofa upholstered with a brocade type of material in green and brown and four upright chairs. Unfortunately the moth or some other grub got into the sofa and in spite of using moth balls by the dozen, my mother just could not get rid of it until at last my father fumigated the room with I don’t know what. Windows and doors were sealed and we were not allowed to go in there for a few days. The smell was vile.
A typical working class 1900s parlour.
Adapted with from a sketch provided by Rosemary Hampton to emphasise the tiled fireplace with its drape above the mantelpiece, the small bamboo table with its aspidistra plant, and the upright chair and the sofa, as described in my mother's recollections.
(Hampton, R., A Jersey Family: from Vikings to Victorians, (2009), published by Channel Islands Family History Society and available from Amazon.)
A typical black Edwardian fireplace with decorative tiles on either side - photographed in the home of a member of the wider family. The fender is lost.
The fireplace was black with the coloured tiles at each side. The fender was also black and had to be black leaded when cleaned. Over the mantelpiece of was a drape, rather like a curtain net. It was velvet and a deep plum colour, with large gold daisies embroidered on it, beautifully worked by my Aunt Lene. A large black and gold framed mirror hung above that.
If you have an old photo which would illustrate this page, I would very much appreciate a copy. Pat Cryer
There were also three occasional tables. One was bamboo, another was a polished table with that three twisted legs. On the these tables were the much treasured aspidistra plants in large ornate plant pots. My mother really looked after her plants: she washed them regularly with chamois leather and fertilised them with tea leaves.
There were a number of pictures on the parlour walls but I only remember one. It depicted a mother mending a pair of trousers and her children looking on. The little boy to whom the trousers belonged was standing in his shirt. It really depicted the times as it was called “his only pair”. The picture itself was in grey and white and the frame was brown. I have often wondered where it came from. Of course in those days prints were given away by magazines. I think 'Bubbles' which was put up by Pears Soaps was one of them. That is why so many people had this picture. Another picture was 'Cherry Ripe' which was a pretty picture of a little girl.
The bay window, seen from outside the house. Note the sash windows, the wooden venetian blinds and the lace curtains.
There was a bay window, made up of three sash windows. The fashion was to have a lace curtain at the lower half of the window - note lace, not net. They had scalloped edges and were tied by just below the window with a band. I cannot recall any long curtains but we did have venetian blinds, not made of plastic or plasticised fabric, but of wood. When the room was spring cleaned, all the slats had to be taken out and washed and polished with wash-leather, and the tapes were washed and hung over the line – quite a business.
These childhood recollections from around the time of the 1911 census are of the parlour of a working class home in north London (then Middlesex).