For many, tidying up the bedroom may simply involve making the bed, vacuuming the floor, dusting the nightstand, and maybe wiping down the windowsill.
However, for housewives in Victorian Britain, it was a detailed 11-step process to ensure the bedroom was spotless, as revealed by a recently discovered notebook from the late 19th century.
This guide, which would likely raise eyebrows among modern feminists, also offered advice on selecting the best linoleum flooring for different rooms. A ‘light coloured’ linoleum was recommended for bedrooms due to its clean appearance, cheerful look, and its ability to hide dust.
During a time when domestic duties were considered a woman’s primary responsibility, the ‘housewifery notes’ compiled by Margaret Pimlott of Bowden, Cheshire, contained various instructions and diagrams. These included guidance on cleaning toilet drains, baking cakes, and feeding infants.
The 130-year-old notebook was unearthed from a trunk in a Cheshire attic by a descendant sorting through family documents.
In her notes, Mrs. Pimlott highlighted a grim statistic: one in three babies did not survive past their first year. She attributed this to the ‘ignorance and carelessness’ of mothers regarding childcare.
Her book includes illustrations of four different kinds of brushes, including a ‘domestic brush’ most commonly used for ‘sweeping up the floor’.
The auctioneers selling it said it is a ‘fine piece of social history’ which captures the social customs and gender roles of the less progressive Victorian age.
‘Choice, Care and Cleaning of Linoleum’ – the book suggests ‘patterns in light colours are the best for Halls and Kitchens’
Margaret Pimlott’s notebook was found with family papers in a trunk in an attic of a Cheshire home
Simon Grover, valuer at Trevanion Auctioneers, of Whitchurch, Shropshire, said: ‘The notebook was found with family papers in a trunk in an attic of a Cheshire home.
‘It is really unusual and beautifully written, so you can tell that a lot of care has gone into it.
‘It is a fine piece of social history and very much of its time with the woman’s roles and responsibilities.
‘There was a job for everything and I’m struck by how there were so many different types of brush, when we would just use one today, and the women made their own boot cream and furniture cream.
‘Very high standards were expected to fulfil the housewife’s role.’
The book includes examples of different brushes and the meticulous guide to cleaning a bedroom
The 11-step guide to cleaning a bedroom reads:
1: Roll up all mate and remove from the room
2: Strip the bed and leave for a time to air
3: Attend to the waters at the washstand
4: Brush the mattress, dust the bed-stead well and make the bed, covering over with a dust sheet
5: Wash or dust all small ornaments. Place on bed and cover with a dust sheet
6: Take down pictures, clean with a wash leather. Put out of the room. Dust and polish all small furniture and cover with a dust sheet
7: Polish all large furniture and cover with a dust sheet
8: Sweep the walls with a soft clean broom
9: Sweep the floor towards the fireplace
10: Place down a hearth cloth and clean the fireplace
11: Clean the windows, dust or wash
A recipe for ‘Everton Toffee’ suggests boiling 1lb of syrup with 1lb of ‘moist sugar’, half a pound of butter and 4lb of almonds.
The Premier League football club of the same name, based in Liverpool 32 miles from Bowden, were nicknamed the Toffees because of local toffee shops in the area dating back to the 1700s.
Mrs Pimlott’s handbook, which is expected to fetch £100, sells tomorrow.
In March 2007, a 280-year-old book called The Compleat Housewife or Accomplish-d Gentlewoman’s Companion was found at a valuation day run by auctioneer Charles Hanson in Kings Bromley, Staffordshire.
The book by Eliza Smith was originally published in 1727 and offered ‘above two-hundred family receipts of medicines’ – including a remedy for boils using a newly laid egg mixed with honey and a cure for ‘spotted fever’ with snake-weed, treacle and raspberry juice.
Mrs Smith also advised an unlikely-sounding remedy for baldness – involving ‘two ounces of boar’s grease, one dram of the ashes of burnt bees and one dram of the ashes of Southernwood’.
The owner of the tome, which was revised 18 times in the three decades after its release, came forward after Mr Hanson, a regular on BBC show Bargain Hunt, sold a work by the man described as the Gordon Ramsay of his day.
The Accomplish’d Cook – the Art and Mastery of Cookery, penned by 17th-century ‘celebrity chef’ Robert May in 1678, fetched £4,500 at Hanson’s Auctioneers two months earlier.
