ABSTRACT
Home! Sweet Home!' was the most popular of all Victorian songs; it sold over 100,000 copies in its first year. Its composer, Sir Henry Bishop, was more successful than the duke; he was an incorrigible womaniser and wrecked several happy homes. The lyrics for 'Home! Sweet Home!' was written by an American actor, John Howard Payne. There was no place like home for middle-class Victorians because, being city and town dwellers, they had to spend so much time in it. Home gave Papa more than recreation: it gave him refuge from a business world which was risky and perilous, hard-headed and hard-hearted. Small businesses and family firms were vulnerable in ways unknown to twentieth-century companies and combines. Annual pregnancies made a permanent job outside the home next to impossible for a married woman even if she could find someone to look after her children and the house.
