The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant

Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant written by Pamela Horn and published by Alan Sutton Publishing. This book was released on 1995 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Victorian England measured social acceptability in terms of the number of servants employed in a household. This frequently overlooked body of workers actually formed the largest occupational group in the country by the end of the 19th century. In this account, the author draws on contemporary sources, including servants' books and personal reminiscences of servants and employers, to offer a record of recruitment and training; the duties expected of servants; and the range of conditions under which they worked - some of which led to happy retirement, others to prostitution or squalid death. Complemented with photographs, Punch illustrations and other ephemera, the book offers a picture of this vanished social system.