Mrs. Hudson

plaidadder:

artemisastarte:

etaleah:

I’m sorry but this question has kept me up at night: what exactly is Mrs. Hudson’s position/status relative to Holmes and Watson?? Them paying her rent would imply that she owns the place and is therefore above them/an authority figure and yet she makes their meals, cleans their flat, and runs errands for them? And she calls them “sir” but they don’t call her “ma’am” or “madam”? Is she their servant or their landlady or what is the deal there I’m so confused.

Tagging people who seem like they have expertise in the matter, appreciate any info you can give me! @bakerstreetcrow @inevitably-johnlocked @plaidadder @i-love-the-bee-keeper Thanks 🤓 And if anyone knows of experts I missed please feel free to tag them too!

@etaleah Mrs Hudson clearly owns 221B herself, or she would not be able to let rooms in it. She is one of a relatively well-off group of independent female business-women in London owning a capital asset – the house – but needing income – Holmes and Watson’s rent – which for the suite of rooms they had could have cost anything from 4 to 15 guineas a week, but was likely to be at the lower end of that scale, since Baker Street was not the most fashionable area. For that, they get the rooms, and food: washing, coals and candles would be extra.

How does she come to have the house?

Mrs Hudson may not be married, for starters. Older, respectable women were often called ‘Mrs’ as a courtesy title. She could have inherited the house from a father, or a husband, in which case, as a widow, or an unmarried daughter, her only opportunity to make an income would have been to let rooms, and provide housekeeping, with the help of a servant or two, for her lodgers. In this case, she would have descended the social scale: she would be a lady, who had had to go into commercial business to support herself, as she has no male protector.

It’s unlikely, but she could have bought the house, and gone into business herself: she could, for example have been gifted the money to buy it in someone’s will, perhaps the mistress of a household whose trusted family servant she had been for many years. Perhaps she was a cook: most cooks were referred to as ‘Mrs’, whatever their marital status. In this case, she would have ascended the social scale: having been in service, and therefore working class, she would have been shrewd enough to work her way up to being a property owner in her own right, and therefore middle class.

A third possibility is that she was given the house as a payoff, or parting present from a lover. There is no guarantee Mrs Hudson is respectable: if anything, her tolerance of Holmes and Watson’s Bohemian habits rather argues she’s not: she’s not fussy and horrified enough about their tobacco smoking, crime fighting and harbouring of unsavoury urchins to be a born lady come down in the world, nor as concerned about propriety as she would be if she had clawed her way up to the middle classes, and didn’t want anything dragging her down. For me, her large tolerance argues a Bohemian background herself. So if she is a former prostitute, Madame of a brothel, or rich man’s ex-mistress, turning the profits of ‘immorality’ into a solid business, then she has transcended the social scale.

So why does she call Holmes and Watson ‘Sir’?

Because that would have been the usual form of respectful address from a middle class woman (and whoever she was, she’s middle class now) to Holmes, who despite his Bohemianism is unquestionably a ‘gentleman’ and Watson, who is both an ex-army officer and a doctor. She owns the house, but they outrank her socially. She is in business: trade. Holmes is a ‘consulting detective’, perilously close to being in trade, but only because he’s stepped out of line. (Mycroft is what he should have been!). Watson is an officer, and therefore a gentleman, and a professional.

Also, they effectively provide her livelihood. She owns the asset, but they keep her in it. So they are in an employer/employee relationship, where they enable her to keep the property she owns, in exchange for her providing the property and service for them. They have the advantage technically, since they could move (although they wouldn’t, as it’s comfortable and they have a more than plain, cool business relationship) in which case, if she didn’t find a replacement she might have to sell the house.

I hope that helps!

This is beautiful, and I have nothing to add except that in “Red Circle” we discover that there appears to be some sort of landlady solidarity, and that weird behavior is up to a point sort of the norm for lodgers.