GENTILITY VS REALITY

Although people tried to fulfil the social ideals of creating the impression of a formal and comfortably respectable way of life, daily existence in mid-Victorian Toronto was not without its challenges. The realities of dwelling in an expanding urban environment included social divisions, poverty, hunger, illness, and inadequate sanitation. Even within those segments of the population that affirmed a middle-class status, disparities in domestic comfort meant that some families were more successful than others in aspiring to, and maintaining, the aura of respectable comfort, and the financially-stretched Mackenzie family faced great challenges in presenting themselves well to the world around them.

TORONTO ROW HOUSES, 1856
City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1498, Items 7 and 17

While in exile in the United States the Mackenzie family moved almost annually, and William Lyon Mackenzie changed jobs even more frequently in his struggle to support his wife and children. He established three short-lived newspapers during his American sojourn and worked intermittently as a book-keeper, substitute editor, and freelance writer. He even resorted to the occasional clerkship when times were especially bad, although he felt that this sort of work was beneath him, and his pride often prevented him from accepting such offers. Consequently, the Mackenzies relied on the generosity of friends to maintain at least the illusion of a middle-class way of life. Various accounts convey how the family often was under-fed and suffered from poor health. Nevertheless, domestic help was hired and the children went to private schools but, if adequate funding for clothing was not available, the Mackenzies preferred to spend Sundays at home rather than attend church where they would be seen in public in shabby attire.

 
A ROMANTICIZED, BUT ECONOMICALLY MODEST FAMILY, GODEY’S LADY’S BOOK, 1865
Toronto Public Library (TRL)

Financial strain increased with the ever-expanding size of the family. The year 1843 saw the birth of the Mackenzies' 13th child, Isabel Grace. (She would grow up to become the mother of Canada’s tenth Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King.) As was not uncommon in the 19th century, only eight of William and Isabel’s children survived infancy, and of those eight, only three lived beyond their forties. An especially tragic year for the family was 1848, when the eldest daughter, Barbara, was committed for a brief period to an insane asylum and their 12-year old daughter Margaret died after a long-term illness. When pardoned by the Crown in 1849 and allowed to return to Canada, Mackenzie resumed his political career by winning a seat in the Legislative Assembly of the United Province of Canada, a position he held from 1851 until his retirement in 1858. During that time, the family again benefited from the loyalty of friends and political supporters who formed a committee in 1856 ‘to take into consideration the providing [of] a homestead for W.L. Mackenzie, ESQ, MPP, as a token of gratitude by the people of Canada, for his unswerving integrity and consistency during a long period of useful public life.’ The committee collected over $7,000 which, by 1859, enabled it to purchase the brick house on Bond Street in what then was a new and centrally located neighbourhood with houses that were among the first in Toronto to have gas lines installed during construction. With the home costing $3,550, the remaining funds presumably allowed the Mackenzies to furnish and maintain the dwelling after William’s retirement, which gave his wife and children, as he described it, ‘a more comfortable dwelling of their own than they or I ever before occupied.’

TORONTO IN 1857
Toronto Public Library (TRL), T1857/4Mirg c2

Despite this new-found security and comparative comfort, and the Mackenzies’ concern to have such ostensible luxuries as a rented piano and a domestic servant, the family records indicate that they still struggled, as, for instance, bills for basic necessities, such as groceries and utilities, often went unpaid. The form and contents of the home in today’s presentation as a historic site therefore speak to the lives of a middle-class family of limited means as it tried daily to keep up a respectable appearance in mid-Victorian urban Toronto. For instance, while the Mackenzies did have the luxury of gas lighting – when they could afford to pay for it – there is no evidence to indicate that the home had running water during their tenure. Presumably, a well at the rear of the property served their need for water. Laundry and bathing occurred in the kitchen where large tubs could be filled with water heated over the fire. The more frequent washing of the hands, face, and the upper body was done in the bedroom in front of a washstand equipped with a pitcher and basin. The absence of running water in the home meant that the Mackenzies had to use an outhouse or privy behind the home. Given the characteristics of row housing, we can imagine the sights and smells associated with a series of outhouses in close proximity to each other, especially during a fly-infested humid summer. During cold weather, sickness, or the night, people normally used chamber pots instead, usually located in bedrooms, but the emptying and cleaning of these conveniences were unpleasant tasks for the servants.

IDEALIZED WOMEN AND THE CREATION OF DOMESTIC COMFORT, GODEY’S LADY’S BOOK, 1863
Toronto Public Library (TRL)

Another reality of urban living included pollution – indoors and out – caused by coal-burning stoves and coal-gas light fixtures. The growing number of urban houses, business, and factories that used coal, contributed to the general pollution of Toronto and other Victorian cities, but indoors the effects could be even more noticeable. The smoke and heat generated by a coal-burning stove could make a house uncomfortable in terms of air quality and temperature, and the fumes created by coal-gas light fixtures were toxic beyond a certain level of exposure. Sooty black residue from burning coal accumulated on walls and ceilings, on picture frames, and around the bases of fixtures. Given the Victorian standards for cleanliness and maintaining the appearance of domestic perfection, walls, floors and ceilings constantly were repainted, repapered, or whitewashed when families could afford to do so in an effort to combat the dirt. Whitewashing, for instance, was an inexpensive wall treatment comprised of finely ground chalk, water, salt, and lime. Colour could be added if desired, but often the solution was left white to create the effect of a sparkling interior, particularly in secondary spaces, such as basements. The reality surrounding this concept was that dirt and grime did not always disappear, but merely were covered over for a short period of time.

GODEY’S LADY’S BOOK, 1857
Toronto Public Library (TRL)

There are certain social overtones in the practice of whitewashing in that middle-class families applied the same process to the matter of their reputations. Behind the attempted façade of a respectable mid-Victorian dwelling lurked all the usual moral and social challenges of the human condition. William Lyon Mackenzie, for instance, fathered an illegitimate child prior to his marriage to Isabel. He also suffered from bouts of depression and other symptoms of mental illness that he sadly seems to have passed on to several of his children. Barbara Mackenzie lived in and out of homes for the mentally disturbed most of her adult life, and it was in one such institution – the Provincial Lunatic Asylum on Queen Street in the city’s west end – that she committed suicide in 1860 at the age of 32. Correspondences between William and friends and relatives indicate that financial concerns often affected Barbara’s mental health. The entire family, in fact, had to cope with the burden of living little above a state of poverty, in which funds often were borrowed, household items were acquired on credit, and bills were left unpaid.

MACKENZIE HOUSE IN ITS ROW OF HOUSES, 1919
City of Toronto Culture

Despite all of these challenges, it was the Victorian middle class that embraced ideals of formality and respectability of living, and so the Mackenzies did their best to appear to uphold these standards. Through material possessions, such as their furniture, household decorations, and clothing, as well as through the social customs such as private education and hired domestic help, the Mackenzie family tried to construct their image as genteel, middle-class citizens. Consequently, Mackenzie House today represents many significant architectural and decorative mid-Victorian trends, but also captures a fascinating social history that reminds us through its family’s humanity of a time not so very far removed from our own. It was a modest home, but one imbued with the joys and the sorrows, the pride and the poverty, and the heart and the soul of the family that once enlivened its rooms.

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Constructing Gentility - Contents

1. Introduction
2. A Victorian Consumer Revolution
3. A Greek Revival Row House
4. Gentility vs Reality

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