Servants in 1800s England

[EBrand]

Hi there.

I'm researching my family history- one branch especially that came from around Surrey and Kent, in England. The families in question were millers and farmers by occupation, and to my general knowledge these weren't incredibly high paying jobs. I may be wrong, feel free to correct me. It puzzles me then how they were able to afford one to two servants (as listed in the 1851 census).

How wealthy did you have to be to afford servants in 1800s England?

Any help  would be greatly appreciated,
Thank you,
Emmy.

[Billyblue]

Did they work in mills or own the mills?
If the latter, they would presumably have been well off enough to afford servants.

But I have no idea what a servant earnt in 1850 - their keep plus about one pound a year?

Dawn M

[stanmapstone]

"The average income of the middle class Victorian male, distinguished from the aristocracy and gentry because they worked regularly for a living, was £300 a year and could run a household with at least 3 servants"
See http://logicmgmt.com/1876/overview/victorian_man/victorian_father_household.htm
This site gives examples of wages at various times http://www.wirksworth.org.uk/A04value.htm
While the wages paid to servants could be relatively low, their board and lodging were provided by their employers.

Stan

[Mowsehowse]

I think we need to be careful not to put today's ideas and perspectives into the 19c.  I have a household on my husband's tree where a niece is described on the census as a servant.

And in the 18c apprentices were often called servants.  These were female illeg children who were taken into a private household and trained there in household management. Thus they ceased to cost the parish money, but were providing labour in return for food and shelter. Male apprenticed children were officially learning a trade but many did mainly manual labour and were treated as servants rather than family.

[Greensleeves]

Millers were generally considered to be fairly well-off because even if they didn't own the mill, they did get a percentage of the grain brought by each landholder for milling.  So whilst smallholders might go hungry in the spring and early summer when their flour supplies had been used, the miller and his family were usually reasonably well fed.   As far as farmers were concerned, as has been suggested previously, not all 'farm servants' or 'domestic servants' were adults capable of demanding a certain level of wage.  Quite often the servant is incredibly young and - in my trees anyway - can often be traced to be children relatives who had fallen on hard times.  I suppose this is an example of 'keeping things in the family', where rather than ending up on parish relief, the young person is placed with a relative to work as a servant in return for their keep.

[andrewalston]

It seems that servants could be afforded on what we would consider quite modest incomes.

I've looked at the first owner of my car, who in 1911 worked for the Midland Railway as Clerk in Charge at the Orders Office in Derby.

Married with a 20-year old son, he was earning £250 a year.

He was also employing a 24-year-old live-in domestic servant.

[Skoosh]

In Scotland the mills were built & owned by the laird & the miller was a tenant who also employed a servant, the miller took a cut of the milled grain, his servant ditto. A horse was also necessary to take the millers share to market etc' & the cash raised paid the rent & supported the millers family so a croft was also required.
Even a small farmer needed to employ a servant if he had no sons for the work.

Skoosh

[ThrelfallYorky]

A servant could be a description of an employee who worked in the mill.

[stanmapstone]

A servant was also the description of a Railway Company employee. See the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalgamated_Society_of_Railway_Servants

Stan