In 1900, over a third of all working British women were employed in domestic service - yet by 2000, that number had dwindled to statistical insignificance.
Servants at Curraghmore House, Ireland In 1900, women in service lived in a wide variety of conditions. Most were in employment as maids-ofall-work in middle-class households, dealing with a never-ending variety of general housework. At the grander, Downton-Abbey-esque end of the scale, large country houses could employ over forty servants. In 1900, much of Britain relied so heavily on cheap domestic labour that one Edwardian aristocrat, unable to work out how to open a window by himself, reputedly had to throw a log at it to overcome his problem. For many, as reflected in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Booker Prize-winning Remains of the Day, a life in service was perceived as respectable and desirable. However, life for those servants was very hard, particularly for the maids-of-all-work, working seventeen-hour days never to be seen or spoken to by their employers. The butlers and footmen would at least get to see the people that they served. The abundance of cheap labour also stifled innovation in the domestic world, as things could continue to be done in the same way that they always had been.
Servant’s bells at Dunster Castle
However, after World War I, servant numbers began to fall dramatically for the first time, with the percentage of working women employed in the sector falling below 20%. The middle class began to live without servants, whilst the press promoted servant-free living. Grand country houses similarly had to cut back on the number of servants. There was another dramatic fall after World War II, with the percentage of working women employed in domestic service falling to below 5% by the early1950s. The great country houses generally became servant-free, with their place often taken by laboursaving devices. The names of many of these products paid, and continue to pay, homage to the world of servants. For example, “Marigold” yellow rubber washing-up gloves pay homage to the lot of a faithful maid. By the 1960s, the idea of large numbers of full-time servants seemed to be something out of a country house novel. However, service was sustained with part-time cleaners and nannies.
Electric bell box at Wightwick Manor There are many reasons for this dramatic decline. Large numbers of women had gained experience working in shops and factories during the war and began to move away from domestic service towards better paid jobs with less demanding lifestyles. The remaining servants wanted better, equivalent pay and pensions, otherwise they would find better work elsewhere. Employers also needed them less with the emergence of domestic appliances. Many male servants also, killed in the World Wars, were therefore unable to return to work in service. Ultimately, these changes reflected aristocratic and imperial decline, as well as wider social changes of the sort described by Anthony Sampson in his Anatomy of Britain (1962).
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