Servants and how long they stayed at a certain employer.

[coombs]

Such things can be difficult to pin down but are interesting nonetheless. How long a domestic servant changed employers. I guess it depended on whether they were local servants, or ones who lived on their employers premises.

One ancestor is living with her employer in the 1861 census in Oxford, her parents had died by then and she was aged 18 and was employed by a master stationer. She was living just a few miles from where she was born. I found a document where her employer gave up that premises in Nov 1861. I then found him as a stationer in Spalding in 1862 according to directories. I found he then married in London in October 1863 and gave a Camberwell address. My ancestor later married in that area of London. If she was still employed by him in Nov 1861, 7 moths after the census, she probably would have gone with him.

My great gran was in the 1911 census in Bexhill, Sussex as a servant aged 15, and she married in 1917 in Essex. I found she had spent time in a Hackney, London convent a year before she was in domestic service in Sussex, and was also from Oxford originally. According to the 1911 census, the convent had young girls training for domestic service.

[brigidmac]

I don't know how long this Indian lady
Sarah ARETRION.   had been employed as an Ayah ( nursemaid ) in great glen hall but she was recorded as age 50 married 20 years 9 children 6 surviving

I know some high class families kept nannies on for many years but I wonder where her own children were and what happened after she was no longer needed

Wasn't this a longer topic originally??

[Ruskie]

Coombs, you’ve done well to trace the movements of your ancestors especially between censuses, but  I’m not sure anyone can speculate on reasons for changing employers. Could be any number of factors.

There’s probably no average time range for how long a servant stays with the same employer - for some it could have been a lifetime and others a few weeks, months or years.

Just guessing here, but pesumably once any training was completed, they would be more employable, and be able to command higher pay, which could mean moving elsewhere. Females, once married and having children may have had to reassess their employment. Opportunities for employment by families on estates for example would be dependent upon availalbity of accomodation nearby. Singles would likely have had more flexibility and opportunities.

[Top-of-the-hill]

  Just a vague impression, maybe I should do some research, but I think the staff turnover was higher in large households. I have a couple of distant female relatives who never married and were with the same small households in 2 censuses, so 10 to 20 years. (or should that be 30?)

[Kiltpin]

My wife's grandmother was the Housekeeper to the Duke of Sutherland for 45 years. After she retired, she stayed on as an event planner for the Duke's children - birthdays and outings and such. 

Regards 

Chas
 

[coombs]

Coombs, you’ve done well to trace the movements of your ancestors especially between censuses, but  I’m not sure anyone can speculate on reasons for changing employers. Could be any number of factors.

There’s probably no average time range for how long a servant stays with the same employer - for some it could have been a lifetime and others a few weeks, months or years.

Just guessing here, but pesumably once any training was completed, they would be more employable, and be able to command higher pay, which could mean moving elsewhere. Females, once married and having children may have had to reassess their employment. Opportunities for employment by families on estates for example would be dependent upon availalbity of accomodation nearby. Singles would likely have had more flexibility and opportunities.

It is likely my first ancestor I mentioned went with him when he left Oxford for Spalding, as he was a stationer, and it was just her and him living in his property in 1861. She was a "servant at work" on the 1861 census, and he later left for Spalding. Seems a coincidence that they both ended up in the Camberwell area of London before going their separate ways about 1864/1865. 
.

[JAKnighton]

I own a book called Fenland Chronicle by Sybill Edwards, which recounts the memories of her grandparents who were born in the 1870s. In one chapter they discuss working in domestic service and they go into detail about how different the experiences could be. Some women were treated horribly, but others developed good relationships with their employers that lasted a lifetime.

I have some evidence of this in my tree. My 5x great aunt Ruth Knighton was employed by a man named Healy Thomas Chapman. After she got married (to John Cunnington) she named one of her children Healy Thomas Cunnington. This name was passed on to other branches of the family as well.

Also my 3x great-grandmother Mary Ann Smith was a domestic servant for the Shepperson family in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire. Her eldest daughter Sarah Ann Knighton worked for this same family when she was young. This may have been a coincidence but I like to think that she had a good experience and referred her daughter to them when she first started looking for work.

[coombs]

I agree about how more niche businesses who had a servant often hung onto them longer than a huge household with many of them.

[Stanwix England]

I've read a few memoirs of women in domestic service. I think for those in large urban areas, it was pretty easy to get a new job if you didn't like the one you were in. Plus, employers could be terribly picky over silly things and sack someone on a whim. So I can imagine that was a big factor in how often people changed jobs.