At Home with the Georgians

Safe as Houses

In this third part of the series about how the British obsession with our homes began 300 years ago, historian Amanda Vickery uses sources, from intimate diaries to Old Bailey records, to reveal how the 18th century home was constantly under threat from theft, fire, divorce, poverty, illness, old age and death. Georgian houses may seem like sanctuaries of calm elegance to us today, but at the time they were noisy chaotic places bursting with extended families, servants and lodgers and threatened by the lawlessness of Georgian streets. How did the Georgians make their houses havens of safety and security? How did the Englishman fight to make his home his castle?