Household textiles 1660-1935: hidden items of material culture

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Lowry, EH, 2024. Household textiles 1660-1935: hidden items of material culture. PhD, Nottingham Trent University.

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Abstract

This study seeks to demonstrate through an examination of its contribution to comfort, sociability and status that household linen played a more important role in the country house habitus than its practical functions might suggest. This research is sited within the broader investigations of country house consumption where these items, bed linen, table linen and the many textiles underpinning the elite lifestyle remain largely absent from the literature and indeed from the houses themselves.

Using original, unpublished archival research and testing the findings against historical and recent studies, the interdisciplinary approaches in this thesis will analyse the role these items played in the lived environment of the country house and assesses the contribution they made to the communication of the wealth, prestige and taste of the owner through consideration of the values and meanings placed upon them by contemporaries. Interrogating inventories, household accounts and sales catalogues together with contemporary literature it provides evidence for the range of household textiles in use during the period 1660-1939. It examines their acquisition, management and maintenance. The investigation explores the link between the acquisition of household textiles and life-cycle events and the degree to which such items demonstrate consumer choice and fashion. Through the selection of relevant sources consideration has also been given to questions of regional and temporal difference in these quotidian items together with the extent to which external events such as prolonged periods of war, economic slump or changes in taxation might affect acquisition.

The inclusion of extant examples of household textiles enables the study to understand the construction and subsequent maintenance of these objects adding a further dimension to the understanding of the country house economy. This research places these hitherto neglected textiles within the everyday spending patterns of the country house. It demonstrates that their practical functions were linked to sociability, comfort and hygiene whilst signalling status through their owners’ display of culturally appropriate goods.

Item Type:	Thesis
Creators:	Lowry, E.H.
Contributors:	Name Role NTU ID ORCID King, S. Thesis supervisor HLI3KINGS https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9152-9190 Pickering Wood, R. Thesis supervisor HLI3PICKER UNSPECIFIED
Date:	2024
Rights:	© The copyright in this work is held by the author. You may copy up to 5% of this work for private study, or personal, non-commercial research. Any re-use of the information contained within this document should be fully referenced, quoting the author, title, university, degree level and pagination. Queries or requests for any other use, or if a more substantial copy is required, should be directed to the author.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Arts and Humanities
Record created by:	Laura Borcherds
Date Added:	08 Aug 2025 16:02
Last Modified:	08 Aug 2025 16:02
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/54154