During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries commentators were describing ‘men’s towns’, places which had a conspicuous masculine presence. This could be in industry, such as mining or steel working, or in the military.
They also referred, often dismissively, to places where women were in a visible majority and where they possessed a social and economic power base.
One such ‘woman’s town’ was Torquay.
Since its beginnings Torquay had far more women than men, particularly amongst the working-classes.
For example, in the 1880s England and Wales had a population of almost 26 million with slightly more women than men; for every 100 males there were 105 females.
But Torquay was always very different.
Our fabled seven hills boasted five hundred villas to where the prosperous middle classes had escaped the noise and dirt of urban humanity, to live in quiet residential areas or to holiday in hotels and boarding houses. To service this new population was an unusually large servile class which the resort pulled in from its surrounding villages and from across the nation.
The nature of the tourism and service industries then saw women far outnumbering men. This was largely due to there being a tax on indoor male servants making men’s wages considerably higher, and that women were regarded as being more obedient. As a consequence, in 1881 Torquay had a population of 13,665 males but 19,293 females.
Baroness Coutts’ Ehrenberg House, where the ERICC Centre is now
In a very wealthy Torquay house there might be a dozen staff, such as that of Baroness Coutts’ Ehrenberg House and the long-gone Daison Villa.
Also, affluent summer visitors often brought with them a lady’s maid. Additional servants were engaged locally or even included with the property when they were ‘taken’ for the season.
In a very wealthy Torquay house there might be a dozen staff:
the long-gone Daison Villa in Plainmoor
Victorian households built up their staff of domestic servants in accordance with a well-understood pattern based on a progression from general functions to more specialised ones. In larger houses and hotels there was a distinct social hierarchy with servants divided into upper and lower classes. Uniforms maintained this ranking, the maid’s black dress, white apron and white cap, for instance, disguised personal identities.
The maid of all work, often a young teenager could work 16 hours daily
at the most menial chores. ‘Her First Place’ by G. D. Leslie (1895)
Employing staff was itself a sign of respectability. However, even though new wealth had permeated down and led to a burgeoning Torquay middle class, many local households could only afford a single servant. This was the maid of all work, often a young teenager working 16 hours daily at the most menial chores. If the family had a shop or ran one of Torquay’s boarding houses she would also serve behind the counter or cater for the needs of paying guests. As a family’s income rose, so would the number of its servants with a housemaid and cook being the priority.
For all servants this was a hard life with extremely long hours, meagre pay, and often harsh treatment by employers. For many this drudgery lasted from their early teenage years to well past middle-age.
It was also a precarious living as staff could be dismissed immediately for breaking house rules or for displeasing the householder or hotelier. Their ‘box’ of possessions may well be retained after dismissal and without possessions and a ‘character’, a written reference, another position would be unlikely. In Torquay, without much in the way of alternative employment, the only other way of avoiding homelessness and starvation for dismissed women was prostitution.
The many thousands of Torquay servants, both female and male, are now largely forgotten. Few in wider society even recognised their existence while the organised working class looked down on those in service as being subservient and unwilling to fight for their rights.
But Torquay’s reputation as a woman’s town was much more than just a numerical imbalance of the genders. The town’s economy and culture had created another anomaly.
Victorian women had few legal, social, or political rights. They could not vote, could not sue or be sued, could not testify in court, and had little control over personal property after marriage. If divorced they would be unlikely to be granted legal custody of their children and could not enter higher education. On the other hand, some women had great power due to their wealth and status.
Some women held power due to their wealth: the philanthropist Baroness Burdett-Coutts
one of the richest women in England who lived at Ehrenberg House
Nineteenth century Torquay was indeed part of an unequal society with women and men imagined as inhabiting ‘separate spheres’. This idea was based on supposed ‘natural’ characteristics with women considered physically weaker yet morally superior to men, meaning that women were best suited to the domestic arena and men to the public sphere. It was this that was often used as an argument against giving women the vote.
Yet, while the resort was undeniably patriarchal, capitalist and Anglican, in the town’s interstices some women created spaces where they had power and agency. These included the professions of pub landlady, guest house owner, and Spiritualist medium.
By the 1850s Torquay already had 48 drinking establishments available for a population of 11,400. A good number of the smaller establishments were operated by women while their husbands went out to work. This was the realm of the pub landlady.
Many of these beer houses and inns catered for tourists. In 1850 there were only 150 hotel rooms available in Torquay. From the 1860s onward, to cater for growing demand, there was a rapid expansion of hotel building.
But beyond the large hotels, lodging was in 70 private houses which offered 350 rooms in 1850. These were independently owned and catered for the market by providing cheap and unpretentious accommodation. Notably, very few single men ran a guesthouse, the sector being clearly perceived as a woman’s business.
The terrifying and stereotypical Torquay Landlady
As profit margins were tight, the home limited in space, and the family workforce often stretched, many landladies found it necessary to impose a strict discipline. Hence their image as fierce and tight-fisted harridans; in contrast to their emasculated husbands.
As with many stereotypes, there was some truth here, but also the male-female role reversal and the existence of a cadre of powerful women does seem to have caused genuine unease. That landladies could come together to boycott local traders and discourage visitors from attending theatres and other attractions made them a force to be taken seriously.
Sybil Fawlty was a far more effective manager of Fawlty Towers than her husband
The landlady consequently ended up as a great British comic institution, the focus of jokes and seaside postcards for decades. If we want a later example, we have Sybil Fawlty, a far more effective manager of Fawlty Towers than her husband.
A further opportunity for women came with the growth in popularity of Spiritualism. Neither the Anglican nor Catholic traditions allowed for female leadership, but the practice of mediumship did, so allowing a few women to achieve the status of local celebrities, Spiritualist and psychic Violet Tweedale being one example.
Local celebrities: Spiritualist and psychic Violet Tweedale
By the beginning of the twentieth century, Torquay was changing. The population was expanding, the middle class growing and there were new opportunities. Nevertheless, the imbalance remained and even at times increased.
After war, pandemic, and economic decline, in 1921 the male population had fallen to 15,936; while the female population had increased to 23,495.
In 1939 the disparity had widened: 20,146 males to 32,081 females.
Since then, the gap has narrowed but we still retain a slightly higher female population than the national average. Torbay’s 2021 population is now 139,324, made up of 71,493 females and 67,831 males.
And so, after two-hundred years Torquay has converged with the rest of Britain, moving away from its origins as a tourist resort to become more like other provincial conurbations.
Yet, for more than a century Torquay was an untypical town. Against a background of exploitation and domination, local women created a series of communities of mutual support. In doing so, they reinforced the liminal nature of the coastal resorts, places on the margin between sea and land, where class and gender were confused and inverted.
Torquay: A Social History by local author Kevin Dixon is available for £10 from Artizan Gallery, Fleet Street, Torquay, or:
https://www.art-hub.co.uk/product-page/torquay-a-social-history-by-kevin-dixon
