In service

Many girls and single women worked in domestic service. For reports received of these go to :-

Beatrice Harman (click Fred & Beatrice Dormer for Beatrice's married life.

This is a conversation reported by Madeline Cleaver.

Starting Work. Beatrice Hamon left school at 13 (1903) and went to work on a farm doing domestic work, there was very little other work for any school leavers then and she used to start at 6 a.m. and finish 12 hours later, 6 days a week for 2/6d, but in that time she learned quite a lot and was well fed.

At 19 she went to London in service and was eventually cook to a family, earning £1 a week as well as her keep. This was in a household where only a few servants were kept and so housemaids and cooks were prepared to help with children and it was Beatrices's friend's job to bath the 5 children of the family each evening while Beatrice lent a hand. One evening there was some difficulty and one of the children informed her "You're only a servant and we're proper children" - earlier times might have seen a remark like this swallowed without protest but Beatrice was more independent than that and complained to the children's father, who promptly administered punishment.

Edith Janes (click George & Edith Walton for Edith's two marriages.

This report is of a conversation with Madeline Cleaver

In Service aged 12. After working for a few months at "The Whip" Edith went to work in service at Wardrobes Farm and hard work it was for a girl so young, doing most of the work of the house, fires and grates, scrubbing stone floors and so on. Bedtime was 5.30pm as she was up at 5.30 in the mornings in order to light the fires and scrub the pails for milking, except on Mondays when she rose just after four so as to get Sunday's washing up done before getting the copper boiling ready for Carrie Rutland to come along to do the washing.

The farm took summer visitors, so there was often a great deal of washing as well as all the extra places to lay, meals to serve and washing up afterwards. Washing up was done with soda only in the water and the tables, boards etc had to be scrubbed with cold water to keep the wood white and when possible they were put out in the sun to dry.

Mrs Eggleton at Wardrobes was a religious woman and no work was doe on Sundays, hence the early rising on Monday for the little servant. To keep her on the right road the walls of her bedroom were covered in texts and as it was well away from the family you can imagine how lonely and perhaps nervous she might have been, but she used to sing hymns to keep her spirits up before she went to sleep.

In Service in London. At 14, with references from Mrs Eggleton, Mrs Smith at "The Whip" and the Vicar, Edith obtained a post as parlourmaid in London. Here there were prayers every morning in the servants' hall and the staff were expected to go to Church each Sunday and sit in the staff pew, wearing a black dress and special shawl and caps, a uniform in fact. Time off was alternate Sunday mornings or afternoons and evening and a half day in the week.

Spring cleaning time was different, when for a month they would be unable to leave the house except for one day when an outing to Crystal Palace was arranged with all expenses paid and they were able to stay until the evening and the firework display, although they paid next day with very hard work.

Edith would arrange with another maid for one to have an outing to see the changing of the guard while the other went to church and took in the sermon to pass to the other, so that they could answer any questions on it and then change about the next week.

In this household there were lists of all the jobs with the minutes allowed for each so that no one could find excuses for wasting time. Edith was supposed to do the mending. This was stipulated when applying for the position, and one afternoon she could not face all the darning and "ends to middle" of sheets etc. so she skipped off and played in the garden. When the mistress asked why the mending had not been done she pleaded a headache and felt it a judgement when a few days later she really suffered from a very bad headache.

From parlourmaid to kitchenmaid is really a demotion, but Edith wanted to train as a cook and this was the only way to do it, so she accepted the hard and menial work necessary, which included scrubbing stone flagged floors and then sanding them, that meant they were walking all day on gritty sand in the kitchen, but it absorbed spillages and was deemed hygienic no doubt. By the time the servants had climbed the stairs, bare wooded ones also scrubbed daily, and reached the carpets of the upper house, the sand had walked off.

It was hard working under a very severe cook but marvellous training, Mrs Walton says. Things once learned thoroughly were never forgotten. Each night it was Edith's job to wash all the teatowels and hang them up to dry before going to bed and one night she was brought from bed and made to dress completely and go down to the scullery and pick up a towel which had dropped and wash it again in cold water, by candlelight, and re-hang to dry. She never mis-hung one again.

She worked at one time for a German family, learned German cuisine and some of the language, and eventually worked for a French family. The German proved useful during the war when Mrs Walton was able to converse with German prisoners-of-war.