GAS cookers were introduced in the late 19th century, offering women a cleaner and more efficient means of cooking in the home. But, despite the new technology being available, cooking by gas didn’t really take off or become practical for most households, until the 1920s.
To start with, the public had a certain fear of gas - it was highly flammable and poisonous. Many working class homes weren’t equipped for it, and the early cookers were expensive. Gas cooker rental schemes were introduced in the 1880s, but these cookers were more suited to the privately built suburban semis of the 1930s, than to rented terraces and early council housing.
The dominance of coal was also an issue, especially in mining areas like the Midlands and the North East. Many people in these areas lived in rented accommodation, owned by collieries. And, with workers getting free deliveries of coal, gas was low on the agenda.
Old habits die hard, and many women felt the cast iron range could hold its own with any gas cooker. This was probably true up until the 1920s, and countless homes relied on their ranges for warmth, hot water as well as cooking.
Early gas ovens were also at a disadvantage compared with the range. The gas oven’s heat came from a specific direction, from the bottom and back of the oven cavity, unlike the all - round heat of the range oven. This meant the gas oven had to “warmed up”, first.
Then the cook had to keep moving the food around the oven and turning it, to avoid burning. So, women were still very much tied to the cooker.
The great breakthrough came, first, in 1915, with the introduction of the “Regulo”. The new thermostat device allowed cooks more or less exact control of oven temperature.
Now you could set the oven to the right temperature, put in the food, and leave it cooking, while you got on with other stuff.
Nervertheless, this revolutionary cooking aid didn’t become generally available until the 1920s. One reason for this was the First World War. With the nation throwing all its precious resources into the war effort, what happened in the kitchen wasn’t a priority. People were more concerned with food rationing and where the food was coming from, than the means of cooking it.
Revolution Yet, it was also the war which sowed the seeds of domestic revolution, as more and more women were working outside the home.
Society was changing rapidly, during and after the war. Traditional class structures were breaking down and the working classes were now less likely to defer to their “betters” Fewer working class women were willing to go into service, especially if they’d experienced war work. So, the “servant problem” threw up a generation of women who had to learn household skills for the first time. For these new “home-makers”, the “Regulo” gas cookers promised to make life easy, and many gas cooker manufacturers began producing free recipe books that were included in the sale.
Domestic Goddesses After the war, as men returned from the front, there was a backlash against women working outside the home. Men wanted their jobs back and women were encouraged to become domestic goddesses, devoting themselves to home, husbands and family. For women confined to the domestic sphere, a good oven was essential.
Experienced cooks could, and did, manage very well with an uncontrolled range oven. And, for countless women, the new technology was way beyond their means.
I remember my nan still using her range well into the 1960s. She carried on with it for years, ignoring her shiny, new gas cooker in the kitchen. But, she was of a generation that was used to hard work and hard times. She loved her faithful old range, which was always spotless. Whenever I visited, the kettle was always singing on the hob, ready for a brew.
It took quite some time, and several advertising campaigns, before gas became more widespread in British homes. By the 1920s, the British Commercial Gas Association, representing the British Gas Industry, was extolling the virtues of domestic gas: “That’s goodbye to unnecessary drudgery & goodbye to all the work and trouble of fire-making, cleaning grates and removing ashes &whenever heat is needed whether for warming rooms, cooking food, heating water gas is the ideal fuel for the ideal home...” Controls With the new, thermostatically controlled ovens, the manufacturers waxed even more lyrical: “The “Regulo” does it again! While the dinner cooks, the hostess entertains & for the “Regulo” controls the oven heat and cooks the dinner perfectly...” And, true to the spirit of the times, while the women were the ones who did the cooking and ran the household, much of the advertising was directed at the husbands, as main bread-winners! The “Regulo” was promoted as “a boon to our wives and daughters, enabling them to prepare for us, with the minimum of attention, a repast cooked with automatic precision &” No doubt freeing the wife to fetch hubby’s slippers, make him a drink and darn his socks while dinner was cooking! But, there was still opposition to the Regulo ovens well into the 1930s, as this advert, aimed at women but, undeniably, written by men, shows: “When he asks you, what would you like for Xmas? stand boldly up to the opportunity and say you’d like a Triple Grate!” She may have preferred some nice perfume, something a tad more personal - but this was the 1930s! So, our heroine is urged to “sell” the “grate that does such beautiful cooking & that gives lots of hot water for baths and everything else ...” to hubby, by telling how much money it will save him.
The admen also try to convince us this Black Country product, from the Triplex Foundry at Great Bridge, is more space-saving and ergonomic than “that unsightly stove...” And, in a desperate bid to keep coal as the dominant fuel, they also appeal on health grounds: “How much better for everyone to have wholesome coal-fire cooking instead of fumes-tainted food ....” Norm It was a nice try, but within a couple of decades, killer smogs finally sealed the fate of coal fires in the UK. Newer, cleaner technologies were seen as the way forward, with homes fuelled by gas and electricity becoming the norm.
So, for the 1930s housewife, the “Regulo” gas cookers heralded a revolution a new age of laboursaving devices promising freedom from the drudgery their mothers and grandmothers knew.
