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Produced and published by the School of Historical & Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne
Published July 2008
Published July 2008
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The main form of employment available to women in Melbourne before 1914 was domestic service. But few shared the experience of Agnes Stokes, whose recollections of working at Government House are recorded in A girl at Government House. The servility implicit in the mistress-servant relationship sat uncomfortably with colonial aspirations to social mobility.
Discussion of 'the servant problem' bemoaned both quality and quantity. While women needed to employ servants to claim bourgeois status, few could afford more than a 'general'. The Irish immigrants most willing to accept such work rarely displayed the required mix of deference and skill. Although wages for domestic and factory work were comparable, the local-born increasingly chose the latter. Inmates of orphanages and female rescue homes, conscripted to fill the gap, needed the bed and board, but were vulnerable to abuse, their future employment dependent on maintaining their 'reputation'.
Although the East Melbourne Servants' Training Institute, founded by the Anglican Church in 1883, survived until 1939, increasing numbers of middle-class women invested instead in domestic appliances, made possible by the introduction of gas and electricity. World War II brought the final decline with domestic servants, as a proportion of the female workforce, falling from 18.3% in 1939 to 6% in 1945.