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  #11  
Old 29-09-12, 19:23
Asa Asa is offline
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Haven't seen it yet but I heard the presenter on the radio a few weeks ago and was a bit irritated at the time because she just talked about the drudgery and hardship of life in service. I know it was hard work but my grandmother (born 1904) loved her 14 years in service - worked hard but got away from the hamlet she was born in and saw a fair bit of life and had a lot of fun.
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  #12  
Old 29-09-12, 19:29
Olde Crone Olde Crone is offline
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I agree with that Asa - my late MIL went into service at the age of 10 (illegally) and said it was the first time in her life she had slept in a bed and had enough food to eat.

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  #13  
Old 29-09-12, 22:02
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V good show - a WDYTYA for all of us.
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  #14  
Old 29-09-12, 23:23
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I did think it was good, if rather negative all the way through.

I would have liked to have heard a little more on what people were expected to do during their day - I didn't fancy the cleaning 60 pairs of shoes and boots followed by 300 lamps to clean and prime, but then I was thinking, in a household with 60 indoor servants would there really only be one hall boy?

Seeing the amount of work required to clean a small mirror was a bit of an eyeopener!
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  #15  
Old 30-09-12, 09:55
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There is a huge difficulty in comparing with apples and oranges. Was the life of a servant better or worse than a day labourer or a factory worker? Shop assistants wouldn't have such rough work, but would have to stand all day. Laundrymaids, sempstresses, matchbox makers would all have had difficult lives.

The traditional way of improving your circumstances is changing your job. Servants rarely appear in the same household in successive censuses. What we can't tell is whether our ancestors worked for different factory owners etc.
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  #16  
Old 30-09-12, 10:40
Asa Asa is offline
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It's a fair point, Phoenix - my grandmother started off as a nursery maid when she was 13 and then became a housemaid. She only stayed in each place a couple of years and on her mother's advice, she only worked in 'big places'. She worked her way up, stopping at second housemaid because head housemaids didn't travel with the family when they went away - so she got to France when she was 18.
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  #17  
Old 30-09-12, 13:00
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Dr Pamela Cox from the University of Essex is a fairly well-known social historian. She wrote a book called Bad Girls which looked into the young girls in reform schools in the Victorian era. Some of them were 'reformed' and 'trained' for domestic service. She wanted to show that the Downtown version of service is a myth as none of the servants seem to do that much work.

My family is full of agricultural labourers and the accounts I've studied relating to the areas where they lived reveal a pretty tough life. The lucky ones were taken on at annual 'hirings'. The less lucky were taken on as day labourers on very low wages. As with so many families, many left the countryside to seek work in industrial towns and cities. One great-great grandmother worked in the coal mines, carrying coal on her back to the surface. Afterwards, she worked on the surface 'sorting coal'. I've read a book on the working life of women in the Fife coalfields and I can see the attraction of domestic service. Particularly when I compare those experiences to the working life of one of my great-grandmothers.

She was born to illiterate farm labourers in Devon. She started her working life in service at about the age of 12. In 1871, at the age of 12, she was a 'nurse girl' to a butcher's family in Devon. Ten years later, she was a housemaid in Russell Square in London (her bedroom was later the room TS Elliot worked in!). I would love to know what she did in the intervening 10 years. What drew her to London and how old was she when she went to London?

The family she worked for was headed by a wealthy French hat and feather merchant, who at the time of the 1881 census, was at his country house. As a Frenchman, he liked his wine and French cuisine. Whether the servants were served French food, I don't know. What I do know is that my gran, my father, one of his brothers and a cousin all worked as cooks or chefs.

By the time of the 1891 census, great-granny was still single and working as a housemaid in Sussex. She was employed by the Christy family - famous for bringing the 'Turkish towel' to Britain. I hope the housemaids got to use the lovely, fluffy towels.

Moving 10 years on, she was married to a Gaelic-speaking crofter in the west of Scotland. She must have continued to work in service. though. One of my uncle's said she was a ladies maid at 'the big hoose'. However, in 1911, she was recorded as a 'crofter's wife'. Still haven't managed to figure out how she met my great-grandfather. Did she move to Scotland and work there? Or did she meet him when a family she worked for took their servants to Scotland for the shooting season?

I have a copy of a letter great-granny wrote when one of her daughters died. In it she described how Mrs Hall wanted to send 'cousin Donald' with the 'Rolls Royce' to drive the family to the burial ground. The whole tone of the letter shows that there was a close relationship between my great-grandmother and Mrs Hall.

The country estate where Mrs Hall lived was built by one of the men who founded what became P&O.

Great-granny in service seemed to have a better time than great-great-grandmother who worked in the mining industry.

I enjoyed the programme. Some of the original sources were exquisite.

Last edited by Shona; 30-09-12 at 19:47.
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  #18  
Old 30-09-12, 15:43
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Ann from Sussex Ann from Sussex is offline
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What a fascinating post Shona.

During my lifetime, my aunt and uncle were housekeeper/cook/secretary and chauffeur/general handyman to the widow of a multi-millionaire who had a large "wedding cake" type house just behind Kensington Palace in London and a country estate in Hampshire. By this time (1940s,50s and 60s), they were the only full time staff she employed. Most of the time was spent in London where my aunt and uncle had a flat in the basement of the Kensington house - somewhere I remember staying many times as a child and a teenager. At the time, I thought ALL Londoners lived in such houses on such a street. My sister often stayed with them in their estate cottage in Hampshire before and during the war.

Mrs.X was a pretty good employer I think (she always gave me half a crown when I stayed in London as a child - which was quite a heady amount of money to a 1950s 6 or 7 year old!). When my aunt and uncle retired, she bought them a bungalow on the south coast and also left them something in her will.
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  #19  
Old 30-09-12, 15:49
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Moving 10 years on, she was married to a Gaelic-speaking crofter in the west of Scotland. She must have continued to work in service. though. One of my uncle's said she was a ladies maid at 'the big hoose'. However, in 1911, she was recorded as a 'crofter's wife'. Still haven't managed to figure out how she met my great-grandfather. Did she move to Scotland and work there? Or did she meet him when a family she worked for took their servants to Scotland for the shooting season?"

Shona; have you tried a bit of research for the Christy family? I am sure you know that it is a Scottish name (I have Scottish friends with that name) so maybe they were the employers who took her to Scotland and finding out more about them and their houses may give you some clues as to how your gt. grandparents met.
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  #20  
Old 30-09-12, 19:16
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Yes, Ann. I've traced the Christy family and their roots are in Lancashire/Cheshire. I must check out Mrs Hall's background to see if that family had homes elsewhere.
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