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ABSTRACT
This article explores the installation of electric bells and internal communication telephones at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, by Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, well known for his fascination in all aspects of science and new technology. The installation process of these pioneering new technologies at Hatfield House, their location within the house, how they functioned and their probable impact on the household are investigated through surviving correspondence, receipts, plans and the physical evidence preserved within the house.
When identified, recorded and interpreted, this evidence can contribute to our greater understanding not only of the early adoption of technology in the 19th century, but of the complex way that two separate but interdependent groups of people (employers and servants) lived, worked and communicated in a great country house, while maintaining distance, privacy and the division of rank.
Acknowledgements
This article originated as the author’s MSt dissertation titled ‘Invention, Installation and Impact: The Third Marquess of Salisbury’s Installation of Technology at Hatfield House During the Later Nineteenth Century’ (2020). The author is grateful to her supervisor, Jeremy Musson, for his guidance and valuable advice throughout her research, to Professor Marilyn Palmer for offering her support and knowledge on the topic and to the Archivists at Hatfield House Archives for aiding her search for relevant archive material and providing access to private spaces within the house.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Marilyn Palmer, ‘The Country House: Technology and Society’, Industrial Archaeology Review 27, no. 1 (2005): 97–103, 89.
2 Paul Barnwell and Marilyn Palmer, Country House Technology (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2012); Marilyn Palmer and Ian West, Technology in the Country House (Swindon: National Trust, 2016).
3 Barnwell and Palmer, Country House Technology, 20.
4 Mark Girouard, Life in the Country House (London: Yale University Press, 1978).
5 Jeremy Musson, Up and Down Stairs (London: John Murray, 2009), 2.
6 Mark Girouard, The Victorian Country House (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 100.
7 Palmer and West, Technology in the Country House, 138.
8 Hatfield House Archives (hereafter HHA): William Butterfield, Notes on Alterations In and About Hatfield House Since 1868 (privately printed 1908), 2.
9 Email exchange between the Author and Burghley Archivist John Culverhouse, 23 January 2020.
10 Christine Hiskey, Holkham: The Social, Architectural and Landscape History of a Great English Country House (Norwich: Unicorn Press, 2016), 368; Marilyn Palmer, ‘The Social Impact of Technological Innovation in the English Country House’, 1–21, in Barnwell and Palmer, 8.
11 Palmer and West, Technology in the Country House, 139.
12 Ibid., 133.
13 HHA, William Goodwin’s notebook of Useful Memoranda, 12.
14 Frederick Allsop, Practical Electric Bell Fitting, 5th ed. (London: E. & F.N. Spon, 1895), 60.
15 Palmer and West, Technology in the Country House, 133.
16 Ibid.
17 Shirley Murphy, Our Homes and How to Make Them Healthy (London: Cassel and Co., 1883), 156.
18 Ibid., 156.
19 HHA, Summary of Liverymen’s Duties, 1896.
20 Butterfield, Notes on Alterations In and About Hatfield House Since 1868, 2.
21 HHA, 3M/N1, letter from P. Prud’homme, 28 December 1868.
22 Ibid., 23 October 1868.
23 Ibid., 2.
24 HHA, Estate Labour Book, 1868.
25 Allsop, Practical Electric Bell Fitting, 6.
26 HHA, 3M/N2, Letter from Mosley and Co., 11 January 1869.
27 Ibid.
28 HHA, 3M/N2, Letter from P. Prud’homme, 29 November 1869.
29 HHA, 3M/N1, Letters from Pettit & Co., 2 and 4 November 1868; HHA, 3M/N1, Letter from Pettit & Co., 1 March 1869.
30 HHA, 3M/E/ McLeod, Letter from McLeod, 14 February 1879.
31 HHA, 3M/E/McLeod, Letter from McLeod, 9 June 1881; Gwendolen Gascoyne-Cecil, Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury, vol. 3 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1921), 5–6.
32 HHA, undated Dinner timetable.
33 Butterfield, Notes on Alterations In and About Hatfield House Since 1868, 2.
34 The Viscountess Milner, My Picture Gallery, 1886–1901 (London: John Murray, 1951), 86.
35 Musson, Up and Down Stairs, 102–3.
36 A Member of the Aristocracy, The Management of Servants (London: Frederick Warne, 1881), 186.
37 Allsop, Practical Electric Bell Fitting, 23.
38 Sarah and Samuel Adams, The Complete Servant (London: Knight and Lacey, 1825), 237.
39 Palmer and West, Technology in the Country House, 139.
40 A Member of the Aristocracy, Manners and Tone of Good Society (London: Frederick Warne, 1879), 37.
41 John Stevenson, House Architecture, vol. II (London: Macmillan and Co., 1880), 278.
42 Adams, The Complete Servant, 341.
43 A Member of the Aristocracy, The Management of Servants, 36.
44 Jonathan Swift, Directions to Servants (London: T. Plummer, 1746), 7.
45 Palmer, ‘Social Impact of Technological Innovation’, 9.
46 Palmer and West, Technology in the Country House, 142.
47 Murphy, Our Homes and How to Make Them Healthy, 157, Gascoyne-Cecil, Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury, 7.
48 HHA, 3M/N1, McLeod, Letter from McLeod, 3 December 1877.
49 Gascoyne-Cecil, Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury, vol. 3, 8.
50 Frederic Allsop, Telephones: Their Construction and Fitting, 8th ed. (London: E. & F.N. Spon, 1909).
51 Ibid., 86.
52 Gascoyne-Cecil, Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury, vol. 3, 7–8.
53 David Cecil, The Cecils of Hatfield House (London: Constable, 1973), 239.
54 Clive Aslet, The Edwardian Country House (London: Frances Lincoln Ltd, 2012), 105.
55 Gascoyne-Cecil, Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury, vol. 3, 8.
56 Hiskey, Holkham: The Social, Architectural and Landscape History of a Great English Country House, 491.
57 Palmer, ‘Social Impact of Technological Innovation’, 11.
58 Palmer and West, Technology in the Country House, 143.
59 Ian West, ‘Worthy of the Palace of Aladdin? The Introduction of Gas and Electricity to the Country House’, in Barnwell and Palmer, Technology in the Country House, 108–123, 120.
60 HHA, 3M/ N9, Letter from Shillito, 30 September 1881.
61 HHA/Property Plans C5.
62 Cecil, The Cecils of Hatfield House, 239.
63 Paul Smith, ‘Cecil, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-, Third Marquess of Salisbury’ in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2011), https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-32339?rskey = O6Po15&result = 2 (accessed 2 February 2021).
64 HHA, 3M/E/McLeod, Letter from McLeod, 14 March 1881.
65 HHA, 3M/N8, Letter from Gower Bell Telephone Company Ltd, 26 March 1881.
66 Clive Aslet, The Last Country Houses (London: Yale University Press, 1982), 103.
67 Palmer and West, Technology in the Country House, 142; HHA, 3M/N17, Letter from United Telegraph Company, 29 February 1888.
68 Palmer and West, Technology in the Country House, 147.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Lucie Clark
Lucie Clark graduated with an MSt in Building History from the University of Cambridge in 2020. She is a graduate of the Courtauld Institute of Art and holds an MPhil in History of Art and Architecture from the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on the introduction of lighting and communication technology into country houses in the 19th century. She is currently working as an assistant heritage consultant at the architectural practice Purcell. Email: [email protected]