Towards the end of the nineteenth century servanthood was the largest employer of women; the 1881 census records almost 1.6 million women employed in domestic service (indoors) representing 35% of the working female population aged 10 and upwards. Although by 1911 this had decreased slightly to 28%; service remained the largest single employer of women in the UK. The real percent may be even higher as this figure excludes charwomen, laundry workers or those classed as ‘farm servants’ who certainly had some domestic duties to undertake.
The rise in the number of domestic servants in the Victorian era had mirrored the rise of the middle classes. So much so that many social commentators of the time began referring to the ‘servant problem’, referring to the difficulty some families were having finding suitable employees. For women it was regarded as a respectable profession and training ground for marriage. Upon marriage, women would then dedicate themselves to running their own household and raising their children.
Working in domestic service was a very tiring job; hours were long and irregular; tasks were generally manual and often lonely. Working conditions remained largely unchanged for decades, and those employed may have feared being replaced if they complained about working conditions.
The working day would typically start about 6-7 am, doing maybe 3 hours work before breakfast. Days would end when the family members retired for bed; if they were entertaining this would be late. Working days could be 12-15 hours long. Daily duties would begin with cleaning out fireplaces, fetching coals, re-lighting fires and taking hot water to the bedrooms – this was often done by a housemaid; the youngest often got the dirtiest and heaviest jobs to do. The day would often end in a similar way, preparing hot water bottles, turning down bed covers and ensuring hot water was available. In between would be a routine of cleaning and following orders. Time off was limited, often it was expected that servants would attend church, walk family dogs or sew to repair clothes…so it wasn’t really time off at all. Holidays were less frequent, an expense that was simply unaffordable for the majority, returning home once a year was considered a treat.
Those ‘girls’ working in larger homes, on estates or for the aristocracy would have had undoubtedly a different experience to a maid working as the only live in ‘help’ in a middle-class home. Larger households would have a range of servants with different and specific roles to play in the running of the household. Often servants were divided into upper and lower or under servants. Upper servants would have more responsibility or possibly directly have served the family they worked for. Female upper servants would include a housekeeper, lady’s maid, possibly a cook. Female under servants included a huge range of maids; housemaids, parlour-maids, still-room maids, kitchen maids, laundry maids. Overseeing the management of the household would be the housekeeper, quite often the feared matriarch. Servants were expected to know their place within the structure, and know what they were there to do. Mrs. Keaney in her oral history testimony (held at Northumberland Archives) as a Head-Housemaid at Linden House talks about the Housekeeper having a store cupboard that was opened once daily, that was the only opportunity she had to get whatever supplies were needed for the day.
The interest in obtaining a real insight into day-to-day life and routine for those employed in domestic service has maybe increased as a result of television programmes like Downton Abbey and range of books published as memoirs to a time in service. From an archival point of view, estate papers often hold information, although typically from the ‘family’ perspective. Financial records can hold details of wages, household expenditure and management of staff, receipts can indicate who had the responsibility to place orders with local traders. Correspondence can provide a view of daily routines but also a rarer glimpse into the personal nature of relationships between the family and household staff. Amongst the papers for Ewart Park, Wooler, for example, correspondence relating to wedding preparations includes a letter from Mia (daughter of Horace St. Paul and Jane Grey, preparing for her marriage to George Grey Butler) noting that she had scrubbed a table, Jane [a servant/lady’s maid] ‘shook her head on the destruction to my hands’, but Mia notes that her servants had their full amount of work, and that the table had to be scrubbed. Photographs may show family members surrounded by staff wearing their uniform or livery proudly. Oral histories can tell not just the life below stairs, but also what it was like to be a family member in charge of the household with less experience than the cook who had looked after the family much longer! These different types of resources are able to give the viewer a greater insight into the lives of women in history.
