This blog is based on the findings of my PhD thesis. Drawing on Victorian coroners’ inquests, ‘Dangerous Spaces: Working-Class Homes and Fatal Household Accidents in Suffolk, 1840-1900’, (completed in 2012) explored daily life and its inherent dangers in urban working-class and rural labourers’ homes. My research contributed to our understanding of household accidents, examining in depth the causes and victims of fatal accidents in the home, including those accidents suffered by the elderly. The findings of the thesis challenged historical and contemporary assumptions as to the causes of household accidents. Furthermore, it helped to construct a picture of the home’s physical space, its features and objects, and how they were utilised by inhabitants. This thesis provided a significant contribution to a number of other areas of social and cultural history, namely childhood, old age, the role and function of the working-class community, the provincial press, the Victorian coroner’s court, and the Government’s role in daily domestic life.

http://essex.academia.edu/VickyHolmes

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