Victorians like us – Domesticity and worldliness

From novels to government reports, the Victorians attached unprecedented significance to domesticity. The household was a central institution, and their occupants played out their different roles according to custom and circumstance. Within its sphere, gender, class, economic and political conflicts were played out as the household provided the background for important social practices. These practices ranged from the kitchen to the parlour, from the street to the Houses of Parliament, from the colonial metropole to the British colonial outposts in Africa, Asia, Australia and the Pacific