Miserable Life of a Victorian 'Slavey' Maid (19th Century London House Servants)
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- The life of a Victorian 'Slavey' maid was hard, lonely and often dangerous. Pauper girls were discharged from the workhouse at a mere 14 years of age and had to find a means to survive. They could be recruited as slaveys and paid little to wash floors, clothes and cook food; or they could enter directly into service, often escaping the drudgery of a poor life and ill treatment at the hands of an alcoholic parent. In either case, slaveys were young, poorly paid and often worked at physically demanding tasks from dawn to dusk. In this video you will learn about slavey maids from an account made in the 1880s - discover opinions and prejudices held by employers and even the report writer about the young girls who suffered this life of drudgery.
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Credits: Maid in thumbnail photo is a model and is used for illustrative purposes only.
Narration - markmanningmedia.com
CC BY - Postcard; poor children Croydon England, Members of the Matchmaker's Union, Little Gillians Croxley Green Parlour Maid by Wellcome Collection; The Servant during 19th century painting in high resolution by Edouard Manet by Rawpixel; Vangogh girl kneeling front bucket 1881 by ErgSap
CC BY-SA - Room in Nidderdale Museum, Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire, England by NiddMuseum
#VictorianServants #VictorianServantsDocumentary #VictorianServantStories #VictorianMaid #Victorian #VictorianEraDocumentary #VictorianDocumentary #VictorianLondon #VictorianLife #HistoryDocumentary #FactFeast
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Great. Voice. Sublime!!!!!
According to the 1891 census, there was a young servant living in my (very modest) Victorian terraced house. She must have slept in the kitchen. given the size of the family that was living here at the time. She was 14 at the time of the census. I often think about her and the amount of work she had to do. there are 5 fireplaces plus a kitchen range to deal with, for starters.
Thank you for this very informative video.
That’s very interesting and the maid in your house slept in the kitchen, just like the story told here. I imagine there were many young maids working in similar circumstances and it must have been very hard work. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
I wonder if her spirit still walks the corridors at night.
Think Cinderella. At least it was warm.
Every time I here stories like these it just reminds me of how crappy so many people are, the fact that they treat these poor young girls worst than there farm animals. Just terrible how people can be so very unloving to children.
What is her name please
You mean the life of a servant isn't as glamorous as Downton Abbey portrayed it to be? I feel like I've been lied to! I'm being sarcastic of course.
You do realize downtown abby depicts a relatively nice household?
@@jonathanburmeister1946 ever heard of sarcasm? Damn bruh lmao went way over your head huh
Lied to by a royalist no less
A Big House Would be Different Thuo...!!
@Jonathan Burmeister this guy can't even recognize sarcasm when it's EXPLICITLY POINTED OUT. Everyone point and laugh. 🤣
More people need to watch these videos, social history is so often 'skipped over' in formal education. My own Great Grandmother was the most amazing woman who fought tooth and nail to keep herself and her 7 children out of the workhouse. Her husband had abandoned her. Those children all grew up to be lovely people, despite the hoops and hardships. No privilege of any kind other than having a strong willed mother. Bless them all.
I'm sure she was a strong and determined woman to cope with such a difficult situation. Thank you for sharing.
Your Great Grandmother sounded like the perfect mother- loving, hardworking and devoted to her children. Bless her!
@@FactFeastdid housekeepers get to be the boss of the house if the boss wasn't around or does that only happen in fiction? (Mrs macgreedy and Mrs Medlock in Narnia and the secret garden get to order the staff and even the children who are living in the house around when the boss ant around) both are creepy old woman with permanent serius no nonsense looks on their faces and who wear almost exclusively black or brown dresses and walk around like the own the place even though the technically don't.
🎉❤
My old boss had a favorite grandmother who came to the US as a girl and, in England would earn six shillings a week and 'give four of them to the poor'.
She would set him on her knee and tell him about Robin Hood.
He was so inspired by her tales, he grew up to be a great attorney, helping people fight big corporations for death and injury awards. Rule number one was Never Take a Fake Case.
He was heroic to me as well. He was inspired and inspirational.
All because of a sweet old Irish maid and her storytelling. ❤️
That's a nice story. Thank you for sharing!
❤❤ĺ❤❤l o😢
Sounds like your grandmother was quite a liar as there is no way on earth she would be able to give her money away also robin hood isn't real and the equivalent of him today is in jail! Amazes me people look down at theives but admire robin hood
@@FactFeastdid some servants move up in life in real life or only in fiction? (Evangeline the maid in the first nanny macfee movie and Jane eyre both got out of poverty by marrying their masters or get married to some old gentleman after they get fired or quit the job , like miss turner from the HBO MAX series the guided age , who after losing her position because she was a ladie's maid that tried to seduce her minstress's husband and then married some rich old man.)
@@dondamon4669did some servants move up in life in real life or only in fiction? (Evangeline the maid in the first nanny macfee movie and Jane eyre both got out of poverty by marrying their masters or get married to some old gentleman after they get fired or quit the job , like miss turner from the HBO MAX series the guided age , who after losing her position because she was a ladie's maid that tried to seduce her minstress's husband and then married some rich old man.)
It had nothing to do with the colour of your skin in england most of the time. It was whether you were rich or poor.
My grandmother went into service at 14 for a family who had an undertakers business. I never asked her about it but she must have had some lucky breaks. She married and her son became a senior official at the Bank of England. So sad that most of these girls won't have had any lucky breaks.
The social history of Britain should neither be overlooked nor forgotten. I do appreciate how you describe the conditions and tribulations faced by individuals according to age and sex, each facing their own exploitation and struggle. The individual acts of kindness and compassion are so typically Victorian as well. This channel really is an education. Thanks.
At least our history is not as bad as other countries like Spain,Italy, Africa, Denmark etc in fact we probably have the best history
My paternal grandmother went into service in London around 1913, age 14. A lady's maid. It was that or staying in Selborne, a then small village in a farming area in Hampshire. She hated farming. It seems she was treated quite well and was well liked.
Contrary to how domestic servants are often portrayed she was well spoken. In fact all her family were, as it seems were a lot of servants. If they weren't already so they learned to be. Their employers didn't usually like to hear "Cor blimey" accents in their homes so the well spoken servants were expected to teach them.
The fact that people would even judge you and still do to this day over your native dialect and accent is repulsive.
I live in Hong Kong and this situation still exits commonly in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, India and Middle East, where even people living in a 400 SQ ft flat with 4 other ppl, employ a Domestic Helper, even if they are in lower middle class jobs,, like a taxi driver or a shop assistant. In HK Helpers are from the Philippines or Indonesia. Where Helpers work for people who have a low income, conditions for the Helper are usually the worst.
this is happening a lot in London...lower class foreign workers hiring native Brits as cleaners..some of them with degrees..
Unfortunately those girls are often tricked by unscrupulous agents that make all sorts of false promises and then end up having to take large chunks of their pay to pay the debt to said agent. It's very sad.
Yeah. Hong Kong is modern day Victorian England albeit half of the employers are far from high society. I've seen a grumpy housewife make her Filipino maid stand several feet away while she (the wifey) "indulged" in eating Mc Donald's with her kids; the maid kept watching them with an embarrassed look all over her face and she was carrying a handful of shopping bags - no,not from Chanel or LV or anything fancy ( they were In & Out, Maple and so on those local, budget fast fashion). And then, oh boy the mistress called the maid over and gestured her to discard all the wastage unto the bin! I was watching them from a distance amused and offended at the same time. Seriously, I wanted to give them brood a nice throttle 😂😂 To close the chapter, I saw them walk away with the maid pushing the stroller while still carrying the shopping bags. Felt bad for her.
The girl who ran away from the Major was just a lonely kid who was sad and homesick. What’s wild here is how the people writing this seemed to think having one’s spirit broken was a good thing. Also the landlady thing is wild. It just sounds like someone running a business who is admittedly cruel to the servant girl.
Breaking these poor girls' spirits was a "good thing" for the rich folk because it ensured that they had obedient workers who would do as they were told without question!
The saddest part about this is that it still happens, today right under our noses. There is human slavery, and mostly of girls from countries away from their own, hidden in houses, alienated further by language barriers and lack of their own passports which are kept by the slave owners who call themselves “employers”. When they’re abused, they have no one to tell, and they’re afraid. When they die, they disappear without being reported.
The owners say a lot of the same things we heard here...
Talking so much about how much a girl takes advantage of a man, (her employer who has full control over everything she does) but in the same breath insulting her for having a dirty, ragged dress, and apron. Blaming her for her own poverty they caused, and chastised for wanting more.
Never giving a child a day off or letting it have any money or freedom to leave the house at all. Making her care for all the children, and even dress with a baby in her arms that’s as big as she is, being so young and starved.
Condemnation of a child who runs away for loneliness and homesickness for her mother... why wouldn’t they just let her see her family? OH it would upset her for weeks??? Weeks she didn’t get to see them, again.
Or she sees her mother even worse off than she, maybe because she’s not being paid enough to help her family, much less herself. Hire two girls so she wouldn’t be alone? It’s just sickening to me.
Even giving a girl away when a woman sold her belongings to move. Then, having no sympathy or accountability for her, having given her without knowing or caring where she went. The girl who was abused and now pregnant. Don’t be blind. It’s still happening, just where you don’t notice.
Absolutely! And many adult servants in rich homes almost never see there own children. I’ve always asked if your employer is that damn rich why wouldn’t more just move your kids closer for Pennie’s in comparison to how much they make in a month! It’s sickening that so many people have almost zero empathy. They never stop to consider how to make a servants life just a lil better as it would bring them so much more joy and less loneliness. But yes I agree this standard is still deeply embedded in the culture of the wealthy.
And yes it sickens me as well I wouldn’t be upset at all if all people like this with no empathy just had bad endings.
We can start with the NBA who have all their shoes and clothes made by slaves in factories in concentration camps in China. But it would be 'racist' to bring that up I suppose. And all those NBA players would have smaller contracts, and make less Dinero.
You're absolutely right. Most people think this is stuff that only happens it other places.. breaks my heart. I encourage everyone to research signs of forced labor.
Their humanity was taken away
No family, friends or hobbies must have been the saddest most monotonous existence for these poor young women
And the hard work and abuse!
Their families were often abusive. The lower classes had and still often have the tendency to perceive their offspring, especially if afab, as a commodity and little else.
this was a time when people were expected to take care of themselves from a young age... and if they couldn't, well too bad
@@shaunsteele8244 Correct, and this is why we consider ourselves more civilized now.
@@velinas_ It was necessity that caused young children to start work at an early age, it did not mean the parents did not love or care for their children. Lower class or not, parents feel the same for their children as the middle classes and aristocracy. Lower class children went out to work, the higher classes married their children off early for financial or social gain.
The stories of how people suffered in Victorian times are so sad.
Excellent video. These are the parts of history which interest me the most, the everyday life of the average person. I always find that people focus too much on the history of the upper class and ignore the working class despite them making up the majority of the population. Sure, rich folk tended to be behind most of the big events in history but they don't provide us with an accurate representation of society at the time. For that, you need to look at cases like these.
Thank you! It's great to know you found value in watching this. Lots more videos about the lives of the working class and poor on my channel.
My grandmother and her sister were indentured from 8 years of age for several years in Budapest. When she was finally able to obtain her freedom she and her sister immigrated to the US. This was in 1912
Immigrated to the US in 1912 you say? 😬 That could have gone terribly wrong. 🚢 🧊
When I see these videos depicting the lives of the poor, used and abused in big British cities I can't but help wondering how my English ancestors lived, worked and socialised. Many thousands escaped the awful lives they lead by emmegration to Britain's colonies where egalitarian societies were hoped for, but were only partially realised. Yet, still much better for many than the life they left behind.
Wasn't just in Britain ..get educated
@@angelamary9493 He didn't say it was. Get educated. Learn to read.
@@angelamary9493 Calm down Angela.
How do you become educated without the means to do so??
With industrialisation your ancestors moved from the country to the cities.The trouble was city society was not ready to support all the children ....but see this in context...it was far preferable to the poverty and high mortality that was happening in the countryside when crops or farms failed....there was a steady income for 99 percent of the people who moved to the cities.in the period my family moved around the country to where the wages were....your family heard that the best wages were achieved by getting on a ship....it looks like they made the right choice for them
It still amazes me, man's inhumane treatment of his fellow man.
I heard that at least in my country (The Netherlands), rich(er) women mainly promoted this system of slaveys because of their own new status as middle class. They couldn't afford real staff, but they didn't want to do household tasks themselves either. For example, it was not done for the lady of the house to answer the door herself. She needed someone for that. So they established this system where they could have poor girls working for them for barely nothing, under the veil of 'helping' these girls.
This video also tells how these organisations basically pull the girls away before they can find different occupation, leaving them no choice. That different occupation could be something worse, like prostitution, but also something better, like day maids.
I do think though, that for many girls it was a way out of even worse circumstances, and at least it was a way of learning a trade, but I don't believe that the middle class women who hired them and started these organisations truly had the best intentions.
My great grandmother was an orphaned girl who had to work as a slavey. After she married, her husband died within a year (Spanish flu) and she, now unmarried with a baby, had to work as a maid for the rest of her life because she never learned anything else. It has damaged her son (my grandfather) greatly.
A thought provoking comment and terrible hardship for your great grandmother. Thank you for taking the time to share!
I've come across the term before but I didn't really know there was a specific definition. Those poor sad girls.
I have a picture of my mothers grandmother. She was a young irish girl working as a domestic servant in Birmingham.
What strikes me is that she's a pretty petite girl but her hands look unusually strong, no doubt due to years of manual domestic duties.
Thank you for your interesting comment. I imagine that manual work was the reason, constantly on the move scrubbing floors or washing clothes, for example. It was hard physical work.
The exploitation of children is evil 😈 😢 😔
So much of this seemed to blame much of the fears and sadness of the girls on the women they served. Much pain, fear and hurt was brought on by the males of the house, shops and streets for these unprotected and seemingly unwanted girls too.
Kinda reminds me of my ex-girlfriend in China, living in the village in a 19th century house without AC. Her mom works in a factory sweatshop making underwear and can barely provide her with money for school and lunch and hospital visits so I send her a few hundred bucks a month. Being a high school dropout, well if it weren't for this booming economy in China these few decades, there wouldn't be many good prospects except marriage.
She's your exgf and you still send her money? You're an angel, Nick, a really good guy. 👍🏻
@@heyokaempath5802 perhaps this apparent largess had underlying benefits such as tax right offs for foreign aid payments?
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Last part of my research in addition their wages they were provided with meals and clothes accommodation was often given working in service provided opportunities for servants to progress professionally through hard work thrift little luck greatly majority of female domestic servants get married about 25 years old victorian age 1800 called maid scullery the maid performed most strenuous tasks in kitchen such as mopping scrounging surfaces cleaning dishes. Hannah cullwick born in 1833 died in 1909 she was diarist who wrote about relationships between Victorian servants their masters worked her life as maid servant in 1854 she met Arthur munby man of two world upper class author poet with lifelong obsession of law class women began their strange secret romance for eighteen years marriage she wrote diaries written on munby suggestions offer absorbing account of life blew stairs in Victorian England these diaries are remarkable historical document thank you for giving us chance to read learn new information improve our English language as well we appreciate your efforts as foreigners subscribers as overseas students stay safe blessed best wishes for you your family friends.
An interesting story. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
It amazes me that this really wasn't that long ago, not only in the UK but in other developed countries, yet no one today seened to know what went on in their great-grandparent or great great-grandparents day.
Never heard this term *slavies* before ... *TY FF* I agree that children like to be around other children
It must have been quite a shock and very lonely for children that came from large families. Thank you for watching.
It's hard to believe that this still goes on today
I watched this again for a second time now I understand why they called them slavies. So very sad 😔
Wow that is sad 😔 children should be children it is a very 😔
Never forget John Majors plea for us all to go back to Victorian values great for him and his type awful for everyone else.
Anyone who glorifies the past should listen to one of those
Poor are always exploited by the rich. Nothing changes but the date
How are you doing sir although the Victorian age as I mentioned very sad time especially for low class but deserves reading as always iam gathering main information about topics you mentioned briefly here it’s British census in 1891 founded that 103 milion of girls , women worked as domestic servants in Victorian England they were recruited between age of 10 and 13 after they had been through some elementary schooling . The maids had most grueling job of all they had to do all chores for house they often working from 6 in morning until 10 at night with very little off female servants they launder , sew , empty chamber post dust haul water for bath light fire shop helping mistress with appearance including makeup hairdressing clothing jewelry shoes . Female servants worked 17 hours with time off limited to church on Sundays morning one afternoon a week. They slept usually near kitchen they wear uniform called miss eat roast mutten veal Irish stew .mistreatment of servants was commonplace young maids were especially vulnerable to being sexually exploited once hired themselves in house hold in which strict unreachable hierarchy blew stairs
Thank you for sharing this information. Very interesting!
And you thought YOU had it bad, right? Listen to this video!
It seems from where I'm standing regarding the economy this topic could be closer now than we want to think about.
Hopefully if they got a nice house they might be ok. But I don't imagine many did.
There was one mentioned who had a nice situation as a lady's maid. On this occasion it was probably down to the lady of the house being a nice, kind woman, who may have been a bit lonely herself. She might have had a "family approved marriage"- that is cajoled into marrying a man she didn't love, but was well off and with the right social standing and with family approval. The house may have been several miles away from her family home and friends, so she too, might have had little social contact with familiar people and left alone a lot when her husband went to his gentleman's club of an evening, and perhaps he was a business owner and caught up with that in the day. The maid would have related to the loneliness of the lady of the house and perhaps they bonded over it.
Sad
Poor babies what kind of sick fool could treat kids that way
Brilliant! The sad tale of an all too common life for so many children and young girls. I shudder to think about the kinds of treatment they received at the hands of unscrupulous masters. A sad tale of an all too common way of life that is, thankfully, mostly disappeared. Thank you!
Depends who you are and where you live. I've read about poor immigrant girls from developing countries recruited and "employed" by rich Middle Eastern families working for little or no money, passports confiscated, not allowed to go out and working from morning til night.
Noooo! I'm an hour late!!!😲 You've rekindled my fascination with the Victorian era.
Great! The Victorian era is fascinating... though, of course, dark and disturbing too. Thanks for being a regular viewer.
My maternal grandmother, born in 1903, was from a large family who lived in a cottage with no running water ( she had to go and carry buckets back from a well and was a tiny person), no bathroom and an outside privy. In the 1920s she worked as a nanny and maid of all work for a middle class family. She was there for many years until she met my Grandpa and got married. Incidentally the cottage still exists!
I'm sure she worked long hours as a nanny and maid. Thank you for sharing your story.
Thank you. Hope you are well 🙂
I'm well, thank you. Much appreciated.
I love how you tell the stories of the good folks from the past. Not everyone was abusive or bigoted.
it’s a nice break from the sadness in the world
Cruelty to children
Ugly and horrible life if you were born into a poor and destitute family.
Awful.
Poor little girls.
16:27 She charges for his coal 3 times as much as she pays herself. In China here the landlord or the building manager usually charges double for electricity, pocketing the difference. Hot summers get expensive with AC, like hundreds of dollars for the wealthy, and using the fan for the normal people.
Watch the video’s on china as you seem extremely taken by china, I wonder why?.
Here to appreciate the top quality attention to the audio of your videos, it warms my soul. As well as the subject!
I appreciate that! Thanks for taking the time to watch and comment.
and now we have an insane lazy society and have nothing to do except whine about what pronoun we want to be called
Thank you for taking the time & effort to share these.
Glad you like them! Thanks for being a regular viewer.
One of my distance grandmas was put into service as a child
This is the kind of thing that should be taught in schools. Everybody today thinks that black slavery was the only kind, but this kind was more endemic. These girls were not technically slaves, but in reality, their lives were exactly the same. Not only in the working conditions but in other ways. In rich households, the sexual abuse of female servants by the men of the rich family was typical. Rich men saw nothing wrong in raping and abusing servants, male or female. And if a girl got pregnant after being forced or raped? Well, the society then called them "bad girls" and "fallen women", as if they were to blame, instead of their male attackers. Often, girls in this condition would be thrown out into the street to starve. If the girl was lucky, she would be kept employed in the house, or in some other rich house, and her baby would be raised to be a servant in that house. It was common for some servants in rich houses to be the illegitimate children of the rich house owners, or of their rich friends. These people's lives were every bit as miserable as any slave brought from Africa.
You make the most fascinating history videos. I could listen to them all day
It’s great that you enjoyed the narration! Thank you for viewing and taking the time to comment.
Amazing as always! Keep up the fantastic work, we love this channel!
I really appreciate your support, thank you! I’ve got lots more ideas for future content.
Just like fighting for cna wages
I wholeheartedly agree Cathy, I worked as a cna for 4 hard years, it took me only a few days in the beginning of those 4 years to realize that I better go to school and improve or else I’ll b a CNA for the rest of my life, long story short, I huffed and puffed and put myself through Respiratory School, last year I finally retired after 39 years as an RT + 4 as a CNA although I was a CNA between 1979 through 1983 wages back then were as bad as they are now, I remember that as cna’s we worked so hard without concessions or consideration, the threat to get fired was very real.
If you are a cna you too can enhance your future, everything is possible with commitment and an iron will, I had no parents to back me up nor pay for my studies, I did it, and you can do it too, no one’s better or stronger than you are.
This reminds me of a short story by Chekhov. It's about a very young overworked slavey, who was so sleep-deprived that she strangled the baby she was supposed to look after, because it was constantly crying.
"Slavey"? I'm sure this doesn't relate to the term "slave". God that sounded gruesome! BTW, I was sarcastic in my first sentence.
What is that about the physios that you would be sarcastic?.
Video.
I think that is exactly what it means, as if making the name sound cutesy makes it less horrid. Truly horrific.
Room and board and a small wage in exchange for work say on a farm might be better than the cost of a car and gas and overpriced rent. Just saying......
@@richsclageter521 Not when your workday was 18 hours long, you had one half-day off a week, and you weren’t allowed to have friends or to date. (Employers hated it when their maids had boyfriends.) Plus your employer had near-total control over you, including changing your name if your real name was “too fancy for a maid.”
Great episode I appreciate these episodes love history thanks so much
I'm glad you found the topic so interesting. Thank you!
It was merely luck was your only option in them days 😪
Ah, the good old days, when the English had an empire and treated the poor like they treated the natives in the colonies....
Back then they had children working naked in the hot coal mines with adults.
I have never heard of that. Was that in Great Britain? I can imagine it's true.
That is sick! 😷
@@missolesoul Yes it is true. And boys were sent up chimneys to clean them, and of course many fell and died. Also children as young as 6 were working in the cotton mills going under the machines and picking up threads. About aged 12 some were working the machines too. Many got injured and lost fingers and even legs.
These are the kind of people who take advantage of anyone's innocence and poverty!
I really enjoyed learning about this. Thank you
I’m really glad you found value in this topic. Thank you for your comment.
Next time my niece gripes about helping around the house ill show her dad this to show her she doesn't have it so bad loading the dishwasher and taking out the trash and cleaning the litter box isn't anything like a gal her age had to do in 1800s vs 2024
You forgot the walking miles to get milk
Thank you
Great GrandMother went into service at age 11
So young to have to work and leave your family. It must have been hard.
@@FactFeast Mum said at least her Mum was fed,dressed and learned how to read and write abit. Heartbreakers just a child
This also happened in the USA.
Thank you for shedding light on the harsh realities faced by young girls in domestic service during the Victorian era. Your detailed account serves as a poignant reminder of the importance of supporting vulnerable individuals and advocating for their rights.
You’re welcome. Thank you very much.
Your looking at life then with today's eyes. Servants took pride in their work and knew their place. Their work reflected on how their mistress turned out each day. They knew their place. My gran was maid in a big house and her future husband was a chauffer. When they left the house they had good standards, they bought the best linen, knew how to use cutlery and looked down on those who didn't. Pity today couldn't take a leaf out of their book.
Forget victorian England,we and fellow poor people are virtually there
I’m surprised that the churches didn’t do more to help & teach these vulnerable young ladies.🙏
Society at that time looked at those in poverty as deserving. There were church services provided to the poor, but it was barely enough to scratch the surface compared to the need.
The Church was an integral part of the upper reaches of the British class system. Not known as an institution that offered much more than salvation in the afterlife if certain standards of behaviour were met. Now while there were ministers who administered to the wretched poor and outcast, there were costs involved.
Not the least of which was the abandonment of alcohol, a common and easily obtained panacea at the time. This, along with the acceptance and acknowledgement that God is great and watching over them. A bitter paradox and a betrayal if indeed the word of God was believed. Booze offered a more immediate easing of their dreadful existence if only for the time when they became comatose from an excess of bathtub gin.
Many christian charities did do exactly that at the time. But there were simply too many kids/teens in need. The numbers were too high for them all to be helped.
the church did all they could, but they couldn't help everyone. This was a time before contraception was really a thing, and poor people were popping out 10-12 children without a means of providing for them.
Are you kidding me? An ancient, misogynistic, archaic patriarchal cult caring about women and girls? Get outta here lol. Religion is the enemy of women.
Thanks For Another Interesting Video From Blue
Much appreciated! Thank you for being a regular viewer.
Being taken in "without character" means without written recommendation from their previous employment. Having one's "character" withheld was the worst thing that could happen because few proper houses would hire someone who "obviously" had been dismissed for gross negligence, theft or other failures.
Everyone knew everyone else and in the countryside it was families and cousins who had the jobs understairs. In the cities they came from everywhere and needed written references
You have a great voice👍👍👍👍
Great to know you enjoy the narration, thank you!
Oh so basically they're what I was to my family...
Another "good" one, showing the awful trap the young pregnant "in service" young teen was .... a catalogue of the " patent medicines" to get rid of " female obstructions" sold over the counter (unwanted side effects explained too) for a small fortune at the chemists' would be an enlightening subject for a video ...
as usual a very good work! I love your channel!
It’s so sad,my heart aches
Great content as always man. Was there many social documentations of foreigners in serfdom era Russia? Just wondering if you know?
That's an interesting subject. I don't know of any sources, though that's not to say there aren't. I think a lot could be in Russian rather than translated.
@@FactFeast Yes that's true I didn't think of that.
We only hear about slavery, but at least slaves had a value. These people did not. They were expendable.
Thanks for the vid!
A pleasure. Hope you enjoyed!
Which silent movie is that one?
I was wondering the same…
Thanks! Have a tea on me man.
Thank you so Much! That's really kind of you. I'll enjoy a tea :)
In 1878 my GG Grandmother was 13 yrs old in the Fulham Workhouse. She had been living there for 16 months and came from a very poor family; so it wouldn't surprise me if she ended up as a "Slavey." Sadly, by age 28 and a domestic servant, she got "in trouble" and in 1891 gave birth to her son as a single parent in the Kensington Infirmary. Sounds like she had such a hard and solitary life. Thank you for this great article.
Inequalities are so disgusting
I have some ancestors that came to American during the great potato famine. Mary came over as a teen girl by herself and I can find her on the census as a servant girl. She later married Patrick who ended up being a very well to do farmer. They had 7 children of their own. But I found a beautiful headstone they had erected one year for two girls with different last names. I wondered why such a beautiful headstone and who were these two girls?
I was able to find the girls on one of the census listed as servants in their home. I searched their names in the newspaper and found the girl's obituaries. Mary and Patrick had adopted these two servant girls in their old age. I also found a family photo of one. She was a beautiful and well dressed girl. But sadly both girls had died in the same year several months apart. One at 17 of Typhoid fever and the other aged 27 of Consumption.
I felt very proud of Mary and Patrick taking two servant girls and loving and raising them as their own, even in their old age, and the beautiful headstone was a testimony to how much they cared about them. They came from poverty themselves and Mary lived as a servant. It honestly brought me to tears figuring out the circumstances of these two girls. I didn't know these great great grandparents but yet I feel I know them and what kind of people they were.
Thought they were called "maid-of-all-work"?
That was the normal term. “Slavey” was crass and slangy.
@@mrjones2721 Crass, slangy and more accurate.
Its crazy to watch this but know that Britain has the best history out of nearly every other country. Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Africa etc were all monsters compared to Britain
This world is sick! 😷
Poor kids 😞
Can someone tell me why they call them slaveies
Cause they were e seen as slaves
@@daphne4983 thanks for clearing that up for me
Hello
Hello and thanks for visiting!
It was like that everywhere.
We have a terraced house built around 1900 . It has stairs into the attic room. When we moved in, 2 older relatives insisted that the top floor was where the servants would have lived lol.
Tories trying to get us Back There...lol..2022
Handmaid's tale
Seriously 🤣🤣🤣🤣 handmaids tale is fictional . This actually happened.
At 8.53 there's a hand on one of the girls shoulder..who's is it?
Gee alphabet agencies existed back then , wow.
Well, at least they were paid.🤷♀️🤷♀️
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