RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: brigidmac on Wednesday 31 January 18 17:50 GMT (UK)
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Got to the library and finally saw the original of 1939 register for my mysterious g grandmother
She was a widowed ,retired housekeeper aged 58
Other woman in house was a widowed domestic worker aged 54
As usual i looked at previous page to find any relatives and discovered another 6 women at number 12 Dynham road too
Apart from a free lance journalist all were housemaids or domestics.
This seems a bit odd to me
what do you think ?
Does the fact that it was war time make a difference. ?
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Were they mostly single or married :-\ Maybe the owner of the property only let rooms to women.
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2 widows 66 and 58
2 married aged 45 and 58
4 single ages 32 66 67
* sorry i got some ages wrong miscalculating from.birth dates have modified
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12 dynham road in NW6 kilburn area of London
Looks like a nice 3 story terraced house
I'm having a job googling its history but the houses may have been bombed in ww2
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I have posted on your other thread http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=702286.msg6422373#msg6422373
Replies #173 onwards re occupants.
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As these women are not directly related to my great grandmothers story
I will ask another question on this thread
What exactly was an unpaid domestic
Were 2 women aged 67 ( born 1872) working for their board ?
Their names were Margaret Booth and Kate Clinick.
In 1939 what was the difference between Housemaid (Kay Mclaren b1894)
daily domestic (Edith Sheppard b 1910)
domestic worker ( ? KAYE b.1873 )
&
Housekeeper rebecca ROOK 1881
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My grandma (b 1901) is shown as unpaid domestic on 1939 Register; from a generation where women often gave up working when they had their first child. A stay at home wife and mother.
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Nanny jan
That cant be the meaning in this case as there were no children in the household
They were both single aged about 67
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Got to the library and finally saw the original of 1939 register for my mysterious g grandmother
She was a widowed ,retired housekeeper aged 58
Other woman in house was a widowed domestic worker aged 54
As usual i looked at previous page to find any relatives and discovered another 6 women at number 12 Dynham road too
Apart from a free lance journalist all were housemaids or domestics.
This seems a bit odd to me
what do you think ?
Does the fact that it was war time make a difference. ?
Housekeeper, housemaids, domestic worker/servant etc. were all employed people working for a living.
An unpaid domestic worker on the other had was what later was called a housewife in other words a married woman who stayed at home to look after the running of the (her own or her husband's rented or owned) house, either by doing the housework herself or by managing the domestic servants.
Don’t be mislead into thinks that every housemaid or domestic servant was employed in the house they lived in some (especially the married ones lived in a different house from the one they worked in).
The first world war changed the social structures in the UK more than the second world war which tended to have more of an effect on the work structure rather than the social structure, though both wars did of course have profound effects on daily life.
Cheers
Guy
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My mother in law had recently come over from Ireland as a nurse in 1939 and appears in London in a household of all females. There are 4 nurses/matrons and all the rest have varying jobs,from unpaid domestic duties (a 40 year old single lady with a P in the first column?),to private means and secretary of a company.
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Thanks for your input
I had considered that some of the women were working in another place and lodging there.
But the 2 single unpaid ladies is a bit strange
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From other thread information is
That Margaret Booth b1872 lived there from at least 1936-1945
Kate Clinick b1872 also was still there in 1945
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Thanks for your input
I had considered that some of the women were working in another place and lodging there.
But the 2 single unpaid ladies is a bit strange
*
From other thread information is
That Margaret Booth b1872 lived there from at least 1936-1945
Kate Clinick b1872 also was still there in 1945
Not really it simply means they do not work for a living but support themselves through other means. The could have been left a small inheritance or an annuity etc.
I suggest you are trying to read too much into the record.
Cheers
Guy
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Just a bit of random detail: when the freelance journalist Amelia/Natalie/Natalia Abraham returned to the United States in October 1939 she travelled in First Class on the SS St John. She was born in St Louis on Christmas Day 1907 and lived with relatives in France from 1913 to 1926 (per her passport application). In 1939 she was bound for San Diego but I can't find any trace of her after that.
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Thanks for your input
I had considered that some of the women were working in another place and lodging there.
But the 2 single unpaid ladies is a bit strange
*
From other thread information is
That Margaret Booth b1872 lived there from at least 1936-1945
Kate Clinick b1872 also was still there in 1945
Not really it simply means they do not work for a living but support themselves through other means. The could have been left a small inheritance or an annuity etc.
I suggest you are trying to read too much into the record.
Cheers
Guy
The house continues to show females only, up to and after grandmother’s death. Some of the women are living there for several years and I would say this indicates that it is rental accommodation.
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We had two unmarried sister who lived in the same house as their mother and looked after her. They also did a lot for the local church and were listed the same on the 1939 register.
Regards panda
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I agree with you all ...not a mystery after all .
Likely that they were all boarders and a private landlord not living there i suppose
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This certainly sounds like a ladies-only boarding house.
Servants are divided by class as much as anyone else in 1930s
Housemaid - probably uniformed in London, general duties poking fires, making beds, serving at table, blah. May well work alongside other staff (cook etc) in a grander house. Scrubbing floors is probably beneath her.
daily domestic - a "daily" pops in perhaps only for an hour or three's cleaning, and most likely has several customers
domestic worker - so vague, who knows, but perhaps the same thing, cleaning but for one employer
Housekeeper - top of ranking, generally trusted with keys accounts etc., most likely in charge of some other staff. It is however possible this lady is the landlord's agent in this boarding house.
Think like a mini version of the grand country house hierarchy, but downsized for e.g. the lawyer-with-a-townhouse market, with maybe one live-in maid, a cook and a cleaner who come daily.
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I would post a pic of the house I saw on Google search for inknew how to transfer pics and attach them
My g grandmother was down as a retired Housekeeper ..I believe she may have managed the household of her husband's uncle in the 1920s