This study presents the history of the English family in a new light. It adopts a radical approach which looks at dimensions of family life which are often overlooked by historians, for example: fatherhood, singleness, illegitimacy, lodgers and servants and broadens our understanding of family life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

This study presents the history of the English family in a new light. It adopts a radical approach which looks at dimensions of family life which are often overlooked by historians, for example: fatherhood, singleness, illegitimacy, lodgers and servants and broadens our understanding of family life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.