Genealogy Chat

I am interested about where female servants stay. Because my great grandmother was fostered and I suspect her single mother might be a female servant so she would be unable to look after her baby.

I have her census from 1871 to 1891 that she worked as a servant at a Post Office in Caversham. I wonder where she stayed.

I think she might have a problem to look after her baby while working as a servant, was it? Did she live in a house as a servant or she would go home after her work?

I would be great appreciated what your suggestions are about the servants.

Regards, Steven.

Most of them would live in .Houses that could afford servants would have servants quarters normally in Attic rooms. My old family home was a Victorian house which had two attic bedrooms with dormer windows which would be the servants rooms.Running along the back of the row of terrace houses was the stables with rooms over the top where the grooms would be housed,When we lived there and indeed now its used as a wood yard by a separate private owner,
This was in South East London.
My mum was born in 1909 and she and her sisters went into Domestic Service and would live in .

Whoops that was me deleting I hit Delete instead of Edit but managed to recover my reply

I live in a Victorian semi, built 1898 which has two attic bedrooms, very hot in summer, very cold in winter, which is where the servants would have lived. The 1901 census shows the house occupied by a hosiery manufacturer and his family plus a general servant and a nursemaid (the nursemaid was only 15). By 1911 the house had changed hands and was occupied by a single lady of independent means, but still employing two servants - a housemaid and a cook.
Just after the 19th century I know, but things didn't change much until WW1.

Yes tell me about it !! I used to sleep in one of the attic bedrooms and in the winter was absolutely freezing . You woke up in the morning with the tip ofyour nose frozen and red cos used to put head under the blankets just keeping the nostrils above them so could breath. The inside of the windows would be frozen in patterns from the warm air that we generated from our breath. I used to have two other siblings in the same room. me in a single bed and the two others shared a double bed.
You had to psych yourself up to get out of bed and runs down 4 flights and one half flight of stairs to the warm kitchen that was on the garden level at the back of the house. . We had the small bedroom caste iron fireplaces but these were never lit.
Bet these house now cost a fortune to central heat

Central heating doesn't reach the top floor! No room for a header tank and if there was the boiler wouldn't cope.
As Shirley says, girls went into service and lived in. Often this would be some distance from home because (a) there wouldn't be any friends nearby to gossip to and (b) it was more difficult to run back home if they didn't like the job [I think I found that on someone else's post - apologies for plagiarism if someone recognises it!] Of the 4 servants in the 1901 and 1911 censuses the nearest came from about 3 miles away, the others 12-40 miles.

Hi many thanks for your messages in my thread. It was very interested.

So I think she could not look after her baby while she lived and worked there.

Regards, Steven.