Life as a Domestic Servant in Service

DOMESTIC SERVANT

A domestic servant had only two choices depending on their situation at hand.  They had to become a live-in servant or live outside of the home they are servicing; and in most cases, men and women who entered into this type of workforce had no choice but to live within the confines of the home chosen for them.  These men and women who entered into this kind of labour were more than likely very poor and (in some cases lonely); some were young children and teenagers whose parents needed the extra income to make ends meet for the family and had no other choice but to send their young one's off to a workhouse to learn to become a domestic servant.  The youngest a domestic servant started out if they were children was 7 years old; but if you were a young man or woman (teenager mostly) you started at the age of 14.  Depending on what kind of labour you'd be doing as a servant, these young men and women lived within the confines of a workhouse -- which was kind of like a boot camp for domestic servants -- and you were literally taught how to do all the jobs expected of you as a servant of some kind.  Sometimes this schooling took only a year, in other cases two years. 

Most of the men and women who were chosen for a job was chosen for that specific job according to their height, weight, build and stature, and most of all their looks.  The prettier you were, more than likely your job would be to show you off in front of visitors.  A beautiful young woman would be chosen domestic jobs such as serving tea, child care or chambermaid services to the mistresses of the household (whenever the lady of the house wanted to go shopping or travelling she would take the young girl with her as a need for extra hands to carry her bags and purchases).

A handsome young man would be chosen for domestic jobs such as being a footman, servant to the butler, or a man servant to the man of the house (where he was rendered the same chore as the female servant being extra hands for their master whenever he wanted to shop or travel).  Being a beautiful servant also had it's benefits for some.



For all the other men and women who weren't as beautiful or too common looking, they were chosen for much hard working jobs with even lesser benefits than their counterparts who were beautiful.  Their chores included scullery and kitchen chores and cleaning up the rest of the house.  When they did their chores these women and men were not to be seen or heard by the owners of the home; and their daily chores took up most of the day leaving them very little time to eat or take a break;  if they were lucky and their were enough servants in the house to divvy up the chores equally, they would be lucky enough to have three meals a day (although they had to be consumed in very little time) while most households that couldn't afford as many, the servant or servants may have been allotted only two meals a day.  Not much when you need an energy boost in the middle of the day.

The life of a domestic servant was not a glamorous lifestyle or a labour of love.  If you found yourself as a domestic servant in this time period, more than likely it was because it was the only job that insured you a somewhat cleaner place to live (instead of out on the dirty streets or in alley-ways), food to eat every day (instead of searching in someone else's trashcan), and it also (in most cases) insured you a pension when your retirement day came along should you decide to stick with this job for the duration of your life.  The unglamorous choice of labour meant that you would find yourself working long hours, doing lots of back-breaking chores, along with catering to the master and the lady of the house, and your reward was nothing except your pay, which wasn't much during this time.

Numerous members of both our families sought out work as domestic servants, either in the towns they lived in within middle class families, or with a neighbouring farmers family.  Most of the work for a female would have been similiar to what has already been mentioned, and was certainly not glamorous.

Domestic Service in the 1920's