Get The BookBrowse Anthology, our 880 page collection of our past decade of Best of Year reviews, now available in hardcover!

Household servants in Victorian Times

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reading Guide |  Reviews |  Beyond the Book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

The Observations by Jane Harris

The Observations

by Jane Harris
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (10):
  • First Published:
  • Jun 8, 2006, 416 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jul 2007, 416 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Household servants in Victorian Times

This article relates to The Observations

Print Review

According to The Victorian Web if a Victorian household could afford only one servant it would likely be a 'general' maid-of-all-work (usually a girl of 13 or 14) similar to the role Bessy takes on. Next would come a house-maid or nurse-maid, followed by a cook. Only once this female trio was in place would the first manservant be employed, usually with indoor and outdoor responsibilities, such as waiting and valeting and care of the horse and carriage. To maintain a household staff at this level would have taken about £500 in 1857. If more servants could be afforded the roles of the household would become increasingly more specialized - such as a dedicated ladies-maid, kitchen-maid, nursemaid, butler, coachman etc.

In the list of source material for The Observations, Harris cites The Diaries of Hannah Cullwick, Victorian Maidservant. For a time Cullwick was maid-of-all-work for solicitor Arthur Munby and for 40-years they conducted a clandestine love affair (eventually ending in marriage) based on her slavish devotion and his erotic obsession with menial labor. On his instructions, Cullick wrote letters almost daily to Munby, describing her long working hours in great detail. Despite the somewhat warped nature of the relationship, Hannah's scrupulously kept diaries (now published in 16 volumes) provide historians with a rich insight into the lives of female servants during the Victorian era.

According to Love & Dirt: The Marriage of Arthur Munby & Hannah Cullwick by Diane Atkinson, during the Victoria era one-third of all females between fifteen and twenty-one were domestic servants and an average working day could easily be 16-hours.

Filed under Cultural Curiosities

This "beyond the book article" relates to The Observations. It originally ran in July 2006 and has been updated for the July 2007 paperback edition. Go to magazine.

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access become a member today.
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Devil Finds Work
    by James Baldwin
    A book-length essay on racism in American films, by "the best essayist in this country" (The New York Times Book Review).
  • Book Jacket
    Real Americans
    by Rachel Khong
    From the author of Goodbye, Vitamin, a novel exploring family, identity, and the shaping of destiny.
  • Book Jacket
    The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris
    by Evie Woods
    From the million-copy bestselling author of The Lost Bookshop.
  • Book Jacket
    The River Knows Your Name
    by Kelly Mustian
    A haunting Southern novel about memory and love, from the author of The Girls in the Stilt House.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    The Fairbanks Four
    by Brian Patrick O’Donoghue

    One murder, four guilty convictions, and a community determined to find justice.

  • Book Jacket

    Happy Land
    by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

    From the New York Times bestselling author, a novel about a family's secret ties to a vanished American Kingdom.

  • Book Jacket

    One Death at a Time
    by Abbi Waxman

    A cranky ex-actress and her Gen Z sobriety sponsor team up to solve a murder that could send her back to prison in this dazzling mystery.

  • Book Jacket

    The Seven O'Clock Club
    by Amelia Ireland

    Four strangers join an experimental treatment to heal broken hearts in Amelia Ireland's heartfelt debut novel.

Who Said...

Polite conversation is rarely either.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

J of A T, M of N

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.