The late Victorians and the Edwardians lived through a domestic revolution. Theirs was a bold and exciting age of innovation, groundbreaking discoveries and dramatic scientific changes, many of which altered life at home in profound ways - including some that were terrible and unforeseen, writes historian Dr Suzannah Lipscomb.

Much of their ingenuity was a response to the challenges of living in the newly booming cities - in 100 years, the urban population of Britain had leapt from two million in 1800 to 20 million at the turn of the 20th Century. By 1850, London was the biggest city the world had ever seen, and such enormous concentrations of people posed brand new problems of feeding, watering and housing the masses.

In addition, the newly enriched middle classes - whose incomes had risen as mass production meant the cost of necessities dropped dramatically - had more money to spend on luxuries than ever before, and those they purchased were designed to make their homes into comfortable, fashionable havens of domesticity....