The decline and the fall of the Bible of female kindness

The lady, the oldest women’s magazine in Great Britain, officially announced that she had stopped publication.

The magazine is famous for its label advice and its advertisements for majordomas, nannies and discreet links with well -swimming 60 years.

In a press release, publishers have confirmed that recent media reports that the magazine’s April edition will be the last, but added that the website with its employment council and the recruitment agency will continue.

Here is an overview of its place in British culture over 140 years.

The lady was created in 1885 by Thomas Gibson Bowles, as a magazine for Gentlewomen, a weekly guide to sail in the social mines of wealthy British life.

Its very distinctive character was affectionately supported by PG Wodehouse. In her Jeeves stories, Bertie Wooster is briefly used by a magazine called Milady Boudoir, which was hosted “in one of these Rami streets in the Covent Garden” district.

Real Lady Magazine was just at Bedford Street in Covent Garden.

The lady’s fame owned a lot to her advice to women on the mysteries of the British class system. In 1936, for example, his readers received an update on the acceptability of novels.

“Reading fiction, not long ago, deplorable thought by almost all social workers, now becomes almost a virtue,” he noted.

Its first edition began with an explanation that its objective was to cover “the whole field of female action”.

Almost all of this was written by a man – Bowles – using various alias. It was not a huge success. Fortune changed in 1894 when he appointed the housekeeper of her children, Rita Shell, to be an editor.

Under the control of Shell, he became a successful weekly guide for women who found themselves in charge of both a household and a budget to outsource the daily chore to the lower classes.

In December 1927, he warned young women “to become a good cook before getting married, darling. Then, you will be competent to reprimand domestic staff or to spend one”.

Eighty years later, these concerns remained central. The editor Rachel Johnson firmly believed not to be too familiar with the staff, by writing: “Never sit in the kitchen by chatting with your nanny, it will end in tears before bedtime.”

And even today, there are still classified advertisements for livery workers and other varieties with interior aid, but demand is now more for caregivers to live for the elderly than the Majordomas or Nanni.

This age profile has long been a concern. In 2009, Johnson was committed to giving the magazine a younger brand change. She was asked to divide the reader’s average, which was, when she started, 78.

A documentary Channel 4 revealed that he was not universally welcomed, and Johnson newspapers subsequently cataloged all the difficulties of targeting articles on younger players among advertisements for access baths and absorbing underwear as well as products to eliminate their associated odors. It was three hectic years that made more than a few titles.

However, while readership has briefly increased, like most printed magazines, sales have been decreasing in recent years. Once a week, he went from the fortnight to the month. The latest figures published in 2023 revealed that it had sold a problem for less than 18,000 copies.

And although the website continues, it is the end of the line for a very distinctive piece of British culture.

The current owner of the lady is the founder’s great-grandson, Thomas Bowles. Ben Budworth spent 17 years trying to keep it afloat.

He resumed the management of the magazine in 2008 and supervised the controversial brand change. His decision to sell Covent Garden offices and move production in a business park in Borehamwood in the Hertfordshire was welcomed.

The premises of Bedford Street were considered by many staff members as more than another office, they helped define the character of the lady.

No one had a direct telephone line. Instead, calls have all made a telephone operator. A former publisher said that the work would stop at 2 p.m. to listen to the archers, and again at 3.30 p.m. for tea.

Johnson said the wall of the wall was the place where the cream boxes were stored. A particular advantage was its own peach colored toilet. Every day, she received two freshly bleached towels.

The building has recalled its long history and the many contributors to the magazine, including Lewis Carroll, Nancy Mitford and Stella Gibbons, who, while giving the impression of being hard, wrote Cold Comfort Farm in the magazine’s offices.

However, heritage does not pay invoices. Tax demand problems made the headlines in 2024 and suggested that the move to Hertfordshire had not resolved financial misfortunes. The problem of shrinking and aging readership has never been gone.

Even the word Lady has gone over the years from an aspiration to a much -wide term considered degrading and disparaging.

And although there are older magazines, like the friend of the people (who did not start as a magazine targeting specifically women) and the American bazaar Harper, who absorbed the British Queen even older, the lady has a good pretension to be the oldest magazine for women surviving in the United Kingdom.

However, 140 years later, a magazine which once presented itself as an essential guide to the company noted that the company had evolved.