Settling at Home: Gender and Class in the Room Biographies of Toynbee Hall, 1883–1914

This article rethinks historiographical approaches to the university settlement movement through a case study of one settlement house: Toynbee Hall. It argues that this institutional space was infused with domestic ideas and emotional attachments both for its wealthier male settlers and for its poorer users. The article demonstrates how a “room biography” approach can enable us to look at settlement space differently. Rather than seeing institutional space as a background for where things happened to people, the room biography approach developed here interprets space as an active participant in the formation of settlement sociality. By zooming in on Toynbee's everyday spaces, this article demonstrates how settlement ideals of renewed cross-class friendship and homosocial relations were lived in practice and considers the micro-spaces of settling.