Country Life magazine, 1907

If ever a magazine were part of the furniture, it must be Country Life. Always a weekly, it started in 1897 and is still available in paper form now. We have a good swathe of the title on our shelves and many more awaiting cataloguing, and that was where I found a 1907 copy, described here.

The readership was quite clear – at 6d, this was very much an indulgence, and we can imagine it draping the tables in the sitting rooms of the comfortably-off. Lest there be doubt here, most of the first twenty pages are dedicated to small ads for sales, or seasonal rentals, of country estates. A Georgian estate caught my eye, 15 rooms, ‘well away from road and motor dust’, in Billericay. With its sixteen acres and multiple outbuildings, it was yours for £2,200.

That detail about ‘motor dust’ is significant. Those were the days of unsealed roads and the new-fangled motor car was considered a menace for kicking up so much dust. No surprise, then, to see an ad for Perry and Turner’s ‘Ideal open or closed carriage’, which in turn reminds us that horse transport remained the first choice for so many of the well-to-do. That said, there were ten pages on motoring, including ads, with the one for Austin shown here. And to remind us that electric cars have always been available, the Electromobile town carriage is featured too.

Meanwhile the ‘corsetieres’ advertised by Hancock and James, left ‘plenty of room for breathing properly’. Only Greenland whalebone was used, no doubt accounting for the 35s price tag. These are the days before any national grid, and adapting your country pile to the new electrical lighting was a challenge. Crossley Bros offered a ‘gas plant’, where (I’m guessing) a gas boiler created steam for a compressor which in turn generated an electrical supply. The smaller ads shown here are for pianos, semi-riding knickers, children’s clothing and furniture. All looking reassuringly expensive. A lovely full-page ad for Lifebuoy soap assures us that using it is ‘an easy means for health preservation’.

Last and certainly not least, the ad for Colman’s Mustard had us all amazed. A lady is seen dolloping a tablespoon of it into her bath, and doing so, we learn, would make her flesh ‘glow with healthy excitement’, and ‘make head and brain feel clear and bright’. Now, it’s funny that Colman’s don’t make similar claims now…