to help make them respectable venues for middle-class audiences and to
offset the ‘sexual energy’ potentially created by men and women min-
gling in crowds in dimly lit environments.^21 The first class parlour in
Newcastle’s Empire Music Hall undoubtedly performed a similar function.
All the familiar signs of Victorian domesticity were in evidence, from the
decoration on the carpet and wallpaper, to the eclectic mix of loosely
arranged furniture items. The same desire for respecta bility undoubtedly
underpinned the use of the domestic aesthetic in first class saloons in
ocean-going liners and trains. The ornamented ceiling, draped curtains,
patterned rug and comfortable, upholstered furniture in the mid-nine-
teenth-century drawing room car of the South Eastern and Chatham
Railway Folkestone Express, served to align that interior with the domestic 29
The first class parlour in the Empire Music Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne, England,
photographed by Beford Lemera, 1891.