Aprons, Caps, and Below Stairs: Domestic Service in the British Country House.
- Authors
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MOTHI GEORGE
Assosiate Professor, Department of Economics, Government College,Ambalapuzha,India
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- Keywords:
- Domestic Service, Country House, The Servant Problem, Life Cycle Service, Industrial Revolution.
- Abstract
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From olden times onwards, wealthy households owning big country houses depended on an army of servants to get the domestic work done. Servants were divided into several categories and were assigned specific duties, which came to be known as domestic service. This way of life flourished and peaked just before the First World War. The post-Second World War period saw the emergence of middle-class and servantless houses, with domestic service attaining a new meaning. The paper analyses the basic structure and principles of domestic service in country houses, focusing on domestic service in Britain. It also examines the transformation in the meaning, nature, and functioning of domestic service over the centuries and the factors leading to this transformation.
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- Published
- 31-12-2025
- Section
- Articles
- License
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Copyright (c) 2025 Journal of Polity and Society
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
