In 1914 before world war one-started women’s roles were just normal duties. If they were married they would stay at home to look after the children while the husband worked for the weekly wage. (A women’s place was in the home also cooking and cleaning.) In 1911, a census showed that 90% of all married women did not work. Women worked as servants and in factories. In 1914 there was 5.9 million women working out of 23.7 million. There was about 1.5 million working in domestic service, 900,00 working in textiles and 500,000 in the sweated trades. Some of the middle class women worked as lawyers, teaches or doctors.
Domestic Service
The middle class women sometimes worked in domestic service but normally had the better jobs as working as governess, chamber maid or lady’s maid. A lower class women normally worked as a scully maid which involved all the dirty jobs. The best job to get was housekeeper. Some girls were as young as twelve in service and if any got married or pregnant they were to leave. They normally work in bad conditions and lived in the attics of the houses. You would have to work about fourteen hours a day and start as early as 5am.Sometimes you would work longer hours if there was a party at the house. Yearly wages depended on your job. For a housekeeper they would earn about £45 a year down to a kitchen maid, which earned £24 a year, and a scullery maid earned the least at about £12 a year. The typical day for a scullery maid started at 5-6 am when they would get up, washed and dressed with their hair tied neatly under their cap. There first job would be to stoke the kitchen range to a good heat, so they could boil water for morning tea. Then they had to empty chamber pots and wash them round. Other jobs in the morning would include cleaning kitchen passages, pantries and scullery, laying up servants table for breakfast and tea and wash up after. At all times keeping the kitchen spotless. They had there dinner at midday with the kitchen maid. In the afternoon they would wash up after the other servants and the family dinners. In the afternoon they were expected to wash up all the pots and pans after dinner and tea and lay up the servants table. They also assisted the kitchen maid with food preparation and clean the kitchen passages, scullery and the kitchen again. After laying up the table and cleaning away after the servant’s supper and providing all there work is done they might be finished by 9pm.