Marching Through the Sands of Time

The evolution of time at Downton has been, at times, hard for me to remain cognizant of. Still caught in the days of horses and carriages where we first met the Crawley family, I find myself in awe as we're suddenly transported into the midst of the roaring 20s, where they have fashion shows and car races. Throughout the show we have watched as the family was introduced to many developments of technology, some not so warmly welcomed in the home, and I thought it would be fun to review. So, as Daisy buries her head in her textbooks and expands her mental horizons, here's your little history lesson for the week as well.

The first invention we come across was in the first season of Downton, as a skittish housemaid/kitchen assistant Daisy is petrified of electricity in the home even as Gwen chides her, "it's electricity, not the devil's handiwork!" While the Crawley family was just getting electricity in 1912, incandescent light bulbs had become commercially available in the 1870s after being patented and developed by British physicist Joseph Wilson Swan. The invention was improved upon by Thomas Edison and patented in the US. The Dowager wasn't too keen on it either, but gradually the carbon fixtures flared and spread through the many rooms of the abbey and its houses.

Shortly following the infiltration of electricity into the house came the torturous instrument of communication, the telephone. Again, a myriad of inventors contributed to the development of the phone as it when through its many transformations, but Alexander Graham Bell was credited with the patent in 1876. Again the Crawley house took its time acquiring the new toy, but soon adopted a Candlestick phone, which was developed in the 1890s and remained popular until the 1930s. Too bad Downton's finished, I'd like to see Carson try to work a rotary.

Perhaps the most jubilant and heartbreaking piece of technology was Matthew's gramophone. Originally intended to fill the rooms of the abbey with arias and honey-voiced crooners, the gramophone was there for the pivotal

 moment in Matthew and Mary's life: the moment Matthew professed his love for Mary as Lavinia watched from the staircase. In 1906, after a series of changes and yes, improvements over the graphaphone and phonograph, the gramophone we are most familiar with, the Tournaphone was developed. Building on designs from Thomas Edison, and Chichester Bell (Alexander's cousin), the French company Pathe-Freres released the common gramophone. This design buried both Edison's and Bell's, and continued to flourish into basic record players. After his dead, the gramophone was buried in the attic, but it found its way downstairs when Rose decided she wanted to throw a dance party and rip open Mary's wounds. Eventually it became a welcome musical piece in the house but always a faint reminder of the love that was.

Before his untimely departure, Matthew partook in the growing interest of motor vehicles. As the family transitioned from horses and carriages to motor cars, no one could have been forewarned of the grief these steel

 creatures would bring to the abbey in the few short years to come. The 1800s were spent largely in trial and error expeditions with combustion, steam and even electric cars. Sadly the batteries for electric cars were not sustainable and didn't go very fast (enter Prius joke here). Steam-powered cars ruled the markets for the first few decades of the 1900s, and Matthew was at higher risk of being blown up by a boiler and living his life beneath bandages like Patrick...or Peter...but thankfully he was blessed with the automotive skills of a California driver and got squished instead, preserving his boyish good looks, but not his critical organs. In the 1920s, the combustive engine took over and made Henry Talbot a very happy boy.

One always adverse to technology was Mrs. Patmore. With the changing times came the fear of being left in the dust and she stood against the winds every chance she got, So when the abbey made the transition from ice boxes to refrigerators, it was no surprise that she dug her heels into the ground. Ice boxes were typically insulated chambers that were kept cool with large blocks of ice that were delivered daily. So yeah...they were ice boxes. Following a few warm winters in the late 1800s, there was an ice shortage. So General Electric set to work on developing a solution. Many of the early refrigerators were build in Indiana, and bore names like the Guardian, the Kelvinator (Ice-ta la vista, baby...ha okay sorry that was bad), the Servel, and the famous Frigidaire. In short, Christof from Frozen had to go on welfare thanks to GE.

The next invention first caught the eye of Rose as her love for modern music was insatiable, but LG was not as keen on the wireless as she was. Guglielmo Marconi was one of the fathers of radio communication and gradually developed more advanced communications systems. Building and utilizing transmitter stations, he was able to bring commercials, music, and even speeches from King George VI to the ears of the family and servants of Downton. Marconi's developments with radio waves were also responsible for the rescue of the 700 survivors of the Titanic...but most of the Crawley family's friends and relatives perished.

The final invention was again an attack on poor Mrs. Patmore, and this time, it was personal.The electric mixer, sensing the adversity it faced living on the kitchen counter, finally had it out with Patmore when she attempted to learn how to use it. The electric mixer was developed in 1908 by Herbet Johnson, an inventor for the Hobart Manufacturing Company. In 1915, the mixer was implemented in most bakeries as industrial equipment, and by 1919, the home versions were developed under the popular KitchenAid Brand. Unfortunately, Johnson didn't plan for Mrs. Patmore's technological ineptitude and poor Mrs. Hughes was stuck cleaning into the wee hours when Mrs. Patmore's test drive went awry.

So there's a very vague and brief history of technology and inventions as the house of Downton Abbey has transpired through the sands of time. If you want more information, look it up yourself, I'm not a historian, physicist, scientist, or inventor. This was all I could comprehend.