They have changed the lives of our parents and grandparents by using technology to tackle the curse of domestic drudgery. Thanks to the vacuum cleaner, refrigerator, washing machine and microwave, the lives of householders have been changed in a few generations.
But now the UK’s most important museum collection of household appliances – from horse vacuums to pop-up toasters – is to close. On June 2, London’s Science Museum will close its gallery permanently Secret Life of the HouseA 29-year treasure trove of household gadgets ranging from early microwaves to the first flush toilets.
“Our devices are getting old, many of the interactive exhibits are not working properly and we are finding it very difficult to get spare parts,” Jessica Bradford, chief curator at the Science Museum, told the Observer last week. “It is simply time to retire the gallery.”
Over the summer, hundreds of these devices – which also include early gramophones as well as a set of 1920s gas-heated curling tongs, a clockwork flycatcher and a late 19th-century raisin brick maker – will go into storage at the museum’s Science and Innovation Park near Swindon . Public tours as well as school and research visits will be allowed. “If a historian is researching the impact of the vacuum cleaner on everyday life, this would still be the place to go,” Bradford said.
However, the collection of domestic wonders originally assembled by the Science Museum will no longer be available for casual visits by the public who have flocked to the gallery in their millions since its launch in 1995. “There is no doubt the secret life of the house gallery was popular,” added Bradford.
“However, a lot of that appeal has to do with nostalgia. People remember old devices from their childhood – their parents’ gramophones or double bath washing machines. Nostalgia is not necessarily the approach that the Science Museum should provide for our galleries.”
Among the most striking exhibits is one that follows the rise of the British vacuum cleaner. The earliest of these devices were the size of carts and were drawn by horses. Pipes and nozzles were pushed through windows or doors so operators could vacuum a house. People will pay large sums just to have their homes vacuumed this way. Today we can vacuum a room in minutes anytime we choose.
Such ease of use means that people need to spend less and less time on cleaning and cooking. In fact, we seem to spend just as much time on household chores as we did 50 years ago. “If it becomes easier and faster to wash your clothes, you tend to do it more often,” added Bradford.
“So we probably spend the same amount of time cleaning our homes and clothes as we did 50 years ago. It’s just that we do it more intensely. The idea that there’s going to be this revolution in home technology, and all of a sudden we’re going to languish in free time, certainly hasn’t happened.”
Some appliances – such as refrigerators and stoves – have maintained their popularity since their first appearance in our homes. Others flourished and then disappeared – like Teasmades, which once adorned wardrobes in millions of bedrooms across the country.
A Teasmade is designed to ensure that a fresh pot of tea is ready for consumption when a person gets out of bed. However, its early development was haphazard to say the least. One early device, dated 1904, used a metal arm attached to a brass alarm clock, which moved at a given time to light a match on sandpaper and light a spirit lamp. It then heated water in a copper kettle and once boiled it was poured into a teapot while a bell rang to announce that tea was ready. The risks of fire or incineration were considerable.
The advent of electricity meant that the use of gas or spirits to power Teasmades could be avoided and they achieved a popularity that peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, even appearing in the video for Queen’s I Want to Break Free in which Brian May is burned by one. However, demand has since fallen so much that in the few places they are sold as new devices, they do so as a retro novelty item.
Also on display are many of the advertisements used to promote home appliances. With only a few exceptions, these focus on women as the individuals expected to make use of these devices. Glamorously dressed women are seen shoveling coal into boilers in an ad for Coalite Nuts; others politely debate the hygienic virtues of Ekco plastic toilet seats, while another group celebrates the installation of a friend’s new Parnall washing machine by having a coffee and blanket washing party.
However, the most popular of all exhibits at Secret Life of the Home was its cross-sectional display of a flush toilet. It showed how a cistern is filled with water and then emptied to flush faeces into a toilet bowl – while a U-bend of water at its base prevents sewage odors from entering a home.
The device was a favorite with almost every child who visited the gallery, especially when it went wrong. A small plastic poo – used to demonstrate the everyday fate of our bodily waste – often went missing as it was taken out of the display and placed at the bottom of the display case. Staff had to return it to its original location.
“In fact, that interactive display is no longer operational,” Bradford said. “It stopped working a while ago which, if nothing else, tells us it’s probably time to move on.”
