You go to school until you're 14 where you learn needlework, cookery and laundrywork. You become a member of the Girls Friendly Society when you're 14, which trains you in aspects of domestic service. You then become a servant.
You start work in a country house, serving the housekeeper and doing other general work. You're often ticked off for insubordination – the senior servants think you're cocky. You strike up a relationship with a footman but like so many female servants of the time, you become pregnant and you're instantly dismissed from the house. You have nowhere to go as your family haven't got the room to take you back, so you're forced into a workhouse. You find employment in a sweatshop, putting the bristles into brushes sixteen hours a day.
While you're working at the country house, you have to wear one of your four working dresses. You enjoy borrowing copies of The Illustrated London News and the Sketch, to look at pictures of actresses and ladies in pretty clothes. When you're thrown out, you long for the days when you worked in the country house and had a few hours a week to yourself.
Whilst in Service, you have a small, simple room. After you leave, life in the workhouse makes even that room seem sumptuous. In the workhouse, up to 100 men and 60 women sleep in bunk-like beds. Your diet is made up of bread, milk, porridge, and gruel.
With a child in tow, you're not great marriage material. You remain single, and continue to work into your old age, gradually gaining more and more benefits, as new forms of social security are introduced.
You carry on working in the sweatshop, as the brushes are for use by soldiers. Your boss becomes rich with all the orders he wins from the military.
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