Hostel, House and Chambers - Accommodating the Victorian Woman in London

Join author Emily Gee to explore how 20th-century architecture empowered working women in London.

In this talk, Emily Gee will tell the story of campaigns to house a new generation of working women in London, 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.

The handsome, if occasionally austere, façades blended into the vibrant Edwardian streetscape. However, architectural plans, literary descriptions and historic photographs reveal 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 Edwardian women. In turn, these little-known buildings supported, enabled and empowered a new generation of intrepid working women. This talk will focus on the architecture, the residents and previously untapped sources from The London Archives that help to tell this story.

About the Author:

Emily Gee IHBC FSA has worked in historic building conservation in London and nationally at English Heritage, Historic England and the Church of England. She also teaches architectural history at New York University in London. Emily is a member of the English Heritage Blue Plaques Panel and a Trustee of Oxford Preservation Trust.