ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the factors in an attempt to discover how Englishwomen gradually found an important place in the Victorian gas industry. Queen Victoria and the princesses were simultaneously royal patrons inspecting a national event, and an aging widow accompanied by her daughters obtaining some practical instruction in domestic economy. Like the women in the textile factories, women in the sweated industries often performed a double load of waged and domestic labour, undertaking domestic duties while the family slept. The debates about domestic subjects betrayed a social class bias since even feminist advocates of female education considered these subjects to be appropriate for working-class girls. By the mid-nineteenth century the 'combination' coal kitchener had grown in popularity especially in the Midlands and the south of England. The kitchen fire, especially the open hearth, was vital to the well-being of the household and was never allowed to go out.
