Summary of Amanda Vickery's Behind Closed Doors

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

#1 The dusk spreads from the river. The clatter of shuttering echoes and answers as every house in the Georgian metropolis fortifies itself against the advancing dark. The November gloom hastens lodgers home, and they scurry back with sausages, oysters, and a pennyworth of tea.

#2 The idea of private life is a creation of the early modern period, and England is the birthplace of privacy. Between 1500 and 1800, the family changed from an economic institution that suppressed the individual to an introspective emotional unit built around children.

#3 The issue of privacy still affects the history of space, even in the 21st century. The architecture and equipment of segregation expressed a growing elite longing for privacy.

#4 The chapter opens the London house to consider how internal space was conceptualised, demarcated, and policed, using the records of the Old Bailey, the principal criminal court in London.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669385295

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Insights on Amanda Vickery's Behind Closed Doors

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The dusk spreads from the river. The clatter of shuttering echoes and answers as every house in the Georgian metropolis fortifies itself against the advancing dark. The November gloom hastens lodgers home, and they scurry back with sausages, oysters, and a pennyworth of tea.

#2

The idea of private life is a creation of the early modern period, and England is the birthplace of privacy. Between 1500 and 1800, the family changed from an economic institution that suppressed the individual to an introspective emotional unit built around children.

#3

The issue of privacy still affects the history of space, even in the 21st century. The architecture and equipment of segregation expressed a growing elite longing for privacy.

#4

The chapter opens the London house to consider how internal space was conceptualised, demarcated, and policed, using the records of the Old Bailey, the principal criminal court in London.

#5

The external perimeter of the house was a frontier in custom and law. The house had long been a universal metaphor for the person and the body. The weak points of the house were its orifices: the doorway, the windows, the chimney and hearth, but without them, a house was an airless prison.

#6

The law recognized the inviolability of the domestic threshold. Property in private possession was under private control, so an owner was permitted to use, alienate and control the land as they saw fit. If private property was invaded, an owner could recourse to the civil law action of trespass for damages.

#7

The head of household was responsible for patrolling the boundaries and locking up at night, a fateful moment that set in motion a ritual ceremony of fortification. The external boundaries of the London house and the security of its access points were of obsessive concern to the judges of the Old Bailey.

#8

The Old Bailey Proceedings provide a unique source on locking. Since burglary involved a break in, a house had to be seen to be secure for a robbed victim to bring a successful case. Houses were far less barricaded in daylight, so it was not always easy to lock someone up.

#9

The perimeter of the private house was not the only area where privacy existed. Outside the house, Londoners were not as anonymous as they were inside it. The history of the lodger has been overlooked until recently.

#10

Lodgers were typically poor people who rented rooms in someone’s house. They were usually not allowed to lock their rooms, and would have to share access to the key with the landlady.

#11

The outer defences of the house raised yet another set of combinations. The lodging house might be left unlocked all day, so the tenants