Week 7 domestic service frances.richardson@conted.ox.ac.uk http://open.conted.ox.ac.uk/series/womans-work-never-done- womens-work-england-and-wales-1600-1914

Week 6 key points on industrialization Middle class men argued a woman’s place was in the home. Employers wanted to employ cheap women where automation created unskilled work. Greater demand for women after restrictions on child labour. Male workers sought to exclude women, or confine them to separate less skilled and/or lower-paid areas of work. Male workers and trade unions used rhetoric of domestic ideology to improve male wages. Most women industrial workers unmarried, but different patterns of married women’s labour force participation in different industries.

Women in domestic service - key themes Largest female occupation 1851-1911 Reasons for increase in servants Variety of roles but maid of all work most common Wages of most female servants did not increase in real terms Did service lead to social betterment? Pitfalls Growing unpopularity in late 19th century

DISCUSSION What do we learn about the work of a Victorian maid-of-all-work from Hannah Cullwick’s diaries, and about female servants in larger households from Mrs. Beeton? Did domestic service provide young women with an opportunity for social betterment in the nineteenth century? Hannah Cullwick

Major women’s sectors 1851 1881 1911 1911 % female Domestic service   1851 (k) 1881 1911 1911 % female 1911 % of occupied women Domestic service 870 1,230 1,371 82% 28% Clothing 286 493 617 81% 13% Textiles (cotton, linen, silk, wool) 284 462 548 61% 11% Char & washerwomen 191 269 318 95% 7% Shop-keeping 48 132 293 41% 6% Teaching 44 124 187 71% 4% Clerical (PO, local gov., commercial) 9 144 26% 3% Agriculture (labourer and farm servant) 119 40 13 2%

Why was there a growth in service? Separation of home from work High point of aristocratic households Growing urban middle class Increased gentility among farmers’ and tradesmen’s wives Higher standards of cleanliness, more possessions to keep clean New types of food and drink Servants at Erddig, 1887

Who employed servants? 1851 1901 Farmers 31 29 Quarrymen/miner 4 13 Penmachno employers 1851 1901 Farmers 31 29 Quarrymen/miner 4 13 Agricultural Labourer 2 Weaver Carpenter/joiner 1 Other craftsmen 3 Professional/managerial Shopkeeper 8 Other Total 50 59

Attractions of service Poor parents with large family needed to get girls ‘off-hand’ Regular work, board and lodging provided Declining opportunities for women especially in rural areas Learning cooking and housework and social skills Contributing to family budget, nice clothes, ability to save Life-cycle phase Maid’s bedroom, Erddig

Variety of roles Housekeeper Cook Ladies’ maid Housemaid Kitchen and scullery maids Laundry maid Tweeny Maid-of-all-work

Frederick Elwell, The housekeeper’s room (1911) © the artist's estate. Ferens Art Gallery The stillroom, Harewood House http://harewood.org Housekeeper Most senior female servant, own sitting room in large households In charge of female servants, waited on by junior servants Respectable, kept household accounts, supervised linen, china, stillroom, organised visitor arrangements Helped dispense charity 140,836 housekeepers in 1871 census, included those looking after working-class bachelors and widowers

Housemaid Weekly programme Monday, drawing room Sweep breakfast room before breakfast Clean, black-lead and make fire Sweep stairs, clean and lay fire in drawing room Clean drawing room at least twice a week, light clean daily Change into clean clothes, boil kettle, lay breakfast table, serve breakfast Clean bedrooms, make beds, empty slops, scald slop pails Thoroughly clean each bedroom weekly Help with household sewing Serve dinner, clear away, wash up, tidy pantry Serve tea Assist mistress to undress if no lady’s maid Weekly programme Monday, drawing room Tuesday and Wednesday, bedrooms Thursday, stairs Friday, dining room, hall, kitchen utensils Saturday, cleaning kitchen and plate Joseph van Aken, A tea party (18c) CC BY-NC-ND Manchester Art Gallery Thomas Gainsborough, The housemaid (1782-6) CC BY-NC-ND Tate

Cook 19th century kitchen technology: Large and smaller households Late-19c closed range with baking and roasting oven, Cogges Farm Museum Large and smaller households Most were plain cooks 18th century kitchen technology: open log fire in fire dogs wrought iron chimney crane roasting by spit grilling with gridiron boiling water in cauldron, later kettle baking on griddle or bread oven frying in saucepan 19th century kitchen technology: kitchen range patented 1780 open fire range still common mid-century roasting using a bottle jack iron oven retained heat hob for saucepans hot water on tap adopted first near coalfields and in London More fuel-efficient closed ranges introduced after 1850 Cook and maid relaxing by an open-fire range (Punch, 1853) 18th century kitchen, York Castle Museum

Kitchen-maid In small households, cook performed other work, e.g. cleaning dining room, hall and front doorstep French chef employed by some aristocratic households, hotels and restaurants Cook assisted in larger households by kitchen-maids, scullery maids or tweeny Kitchen-maid prepared food for the cook, cooked meals for the staff Scullery-maid did washing-up, blackleading fire, scrubbing tables and floors, cleaning and polishing copper pots Aynho House kitchen, 1847

The tweeny and maid-of-all-work ‘Her life is a solitary one, and in some places her work is never done.’ (Mrs. Beeton) Combination of housemaid and cook Cleaning out the slops Keeping fires going all day Shopping, running errands, attending ladies, carrying their cloaks and shopping, escorting them home

Laundry work ‘To iron properly requires much practice and experience’ (Mrs. Beeton) Few specialist laundry-maids Assisted by house-maid In smaller rural households, washerwoman came in quarterly or monthly to help with big wash Washing with a tub and dolly or washboard Box mangles used for wringing Ironing with flat irons Crimping to pleat e.g. maids’ cuffs and collars Henry Robert Morland, A laundry maid ironing CC-BY-NC-ND Tate Erddig laundry www.nationaltrust.org.uk/erddig

Lady’s maid Mrs. Beeton: Duties more numerous than a valet’s Henry Robert Morland, A lady’s maid soaping linen (late 18c), CC BY-NC-ND Tate Mrs. Beeton: Duties more numerous than a valet’s May attend mother and daughters Clean yesterday’s clothes and shoes, restore hat Prepare dressing room, light fire, lay out clothes Help lady dress and undress Clean and air the bedroom and dressing room Clean, iron and mend lady’s clothes

Nursemaid From better families Physical care of children Lucy Hitchman, the Yorke children’s nurse, Erddig, 1911 Frederick Walker, Mother with a baby and a nursemaid (mid-19c), © Fitzwilliam Museum From better families Physical care of children Play and exercise Teaching good behaviour Children saw parents for an hour in afternoon

Wages Women rural servants earned half to ¾ of male servants’ wages Source: Field (2013) Women rural servants earned half to ¾ of male servants’ wages Over period 1700-1850, senior male real wages increased fastest Maids’ wages barely rose Senior servants’ perks

Did service lead to betterment? Victorian assumption that service would help a girl ‘better herself’ Girls from workhouses Domestic skills taught in elementary schools Assumed working class girls would learn housework and cooking skills – attractive to a potential husband Edward Higgs found mid-19c Lancashire servants NOT upwardly socially mobile Servants often from the country – lacked contacts to obtain well-paid industrial work But helped girls migrate from declining rural areas to towns or cities James Hayllar, Happy is the bride (1890), © Atkinson Art Gallery

Pitfalls Unemployment Dismissal without reference Illness Pregnancy Reduced opportunities with age Old age Richard Wilson, The foundling Hospital (1746), © The Foundling Museum

Declining supply of servants Number of servants increased more slowly 1881 to 1911, but less than pro-rata to population Industrial wages overtook general servants’ wages in 1860s Girls in industrial areas preferred factory work – greater freedom Growing social stigma Rural decline reduced supply of country girls Increased opportunity for urban girls Source: Higgs (1986)

Growth of other female work sectors   1851 (k) 1881 1911 1851 % female 1911 % female 1911 % of occupied women Domestic service 870 1,230 1,371 82% 28% Clothing 286 493 617 81% 13% Textiles (cotton, linen, silk, wool) 284 462 548 61% 11% Char & washerwomen 191 269 318 95% 7% Shop-keeping 48 132 293 41% 6% Teaching 44 124 187 71% 4% Clerical (PO, local gov., commercial) 9 144 26% 3% Agriculture (labourer and farm servant) 119 40 13 8% 2%

Charwomen and washerwomen Walter Sickert, The laundry shop, Leeds Art Gallery Growth of service providers in later 19th century Role for older married or widowed women Avoided the problems of living in Also a growth of cafes and restaurants

Summary Growth of service in 18th & 19th centuries to meet demand from growing middle and more affluent working class Relied on cheap female work and lack of alternative opportunities A driver of urban migration Stagnation in later 19c due to growing unpopularity as a job, growth of other work opportunities Led to growth of service-providers, e.g. laundries, charwomen, cafes

Prep for Week 8 Who worked in sweated trades in the period 1880-1914, and why was sweated labour seen as a problem requiring government intervention? Readings from class handouts on: The 1888 Lancet reports on ‘Sweating in Birmingham and the Black Country’, and ‘The sweating system in Leeds’. The Handbook of the 1906 Daily News exhibition on Sweated Industries.   AND/OR Why was there a growth in women’s work in sweated trades in the second half of the nineteenth century? Jenny Morris, ‘The characteristics of sweating: the late nineteenth-century London and Leeds tailoring trade’, in A. V. John (ed.) Unequal Opportunities: Women's Employment in England 1800-1918 (Oxford, 1986). (Class loan copy) Jenny Morris, Women Workers and the Sweated Trades: the Origins of Minimum Wage Legislation (Aldershot, 1986). (Bodleian Library closed stack reference copy) Duncan Bythell, The Sweated Trades: Outwork in Nineteenth-century Britain (London, 1978). (History Faculty and Bodleian Libraries, 2 class loan copies of ‘outwork in tailoring’.)