G

Gamekeeper

 

A female gamekeeper was a rarity but not unknown. On Thomas Coke’s Holkham estate in Norfolk in the first half of the 19th century one of the gamekeepers was ‘black-eyed Polly Fishburn’, who eventually went to Yorkshire to work on the estate of Coke’s son-in-law. Adeline Hartcup in Below Stairs in the Great Country Houses (Sidgwick and Jackson, 1980) tells her story and adds that in later life Polly ‘grew strange side-whiskers to match her butch style of dress’.

The First World War, as with other ‘male’ jobs, found women willing and able to take on gamekeeping, and the Sunday Chronicle in May 1916 reported: ‘Miss Hilary Dent, engaged as a gamekeeper by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, is the pioneer in this particular form of feminine activity. As soon as the idea was suggested to Lord Montagu he was sufficiently broadminded to recognise its possibility, and Miss Dent was forthwith engaged, the only reservation being that she was not allowed to go on night duty unaccompanied.’ (Noted in Clifford Morsley’s News from the English Countryside 1851–1950, Harrap, 1983.)

Her duties would have included not only the care of Lord Montagu’s game on the estate and the control of vermin but also involvement in and organisation of shooting parties, and the protection of game from poachers, who often came armed, hence the embargo on solo night-time patrols.

Gangworker, gangmaster

 

In areas where there was not sufficient farm labour locally available, or where there was a strong seasonal demand, e.g. for weeding, hoeing etc, the gang system was sometimes used by farmers, earliest reports dating from the 1820s. Groups of men, women and children were hired by the day to work in the fields, often coming from other villages or outside the neighbourhood, usually through a gangmaster who handled all the negotiations with the farmers and paid the workers.

The system was subject to a great deal of criticism, not only because the workers were poorly paid but also because the women working in mixed-sex gangs were thought to be at risk of moral corruption. Evidence was examined by a Royal Commission in 1862 and in 1867 the Agricultural Gangs Act was passed, ensuring the compulsory six-month licensing of gangmasters by local magistrates, and that women could not be employed in the same gang as men ‘unless a female licensed to act as Gangmaster is also present with that Gang’. Gang labour continues to be used to the present day (usually today with migrant workers).

Gardener

 

Gardening has always had an appeal for women but their involvement was usually on an amateur basis until the later 19th century, when women gardeners can be found in census records. Outside the great houses, the mecca of professional gardening must be the Botanical Gardens at Kew and the first women gardeners to be taken on there were Annie Gulvin and Alice Hutchins, who had studied at Swanley Horticultural College, in 1896: the staff registers had no suitable columns for women and they had to be recorded as ‘boys’. Annie had to leave in 1900 when she married and Alice was gone by 1902, and despite good, and slightly surprised, reports on their work, no more women crossed the threshold until during the First World War. The first women students were not taken onto the three-year postgraduate course until the 1950s.

Earlier than this, Fanny Rollo Wilkinson can lay claim to being the first professional female landscape gardener, amongst her designs being Myatt’s Fields Park in Brixton and the gardens at the New Hospital for Women in Euston Road in the 1880s, although her case is exceptional in that she was within the talented and influential circle that included the Garretts and later the Pankhursts.

Most 19th century male gardeners served long apprenticeships on one of the landed estates or at Kew, but the establishment of horticultural colleges meant that women could take up the profession without necessarily having to break untrained into the rigid hierarchy under the traditional head gardener. Apart from local authority horticultural colleges, a college for lady gardeners was established at Glynde in 1901 by Frances Wolseley (1872–1936), under the patronage of Gertrude Jekyll and Mrs C.W. Earle, which gave women the opportunity to train as professional gardeners and horticulturalists. In 1896 a magazine mentioned that ‘many noblemen and gentlemen now employ female gardeners. The late Duchess of Montrose used to employ a lady, at a large salary, to advise about and superintend her orchid collection, and both the Duchess of Devonshire and the Duchess of Newcastle have lady gardeners in their employ.’

The Museum of Garden History, Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1 7LB (www.museumgardenhistory.org) is a great place to start – not long ago they had an exhibition on professional women gardeners. The archives of the Royal Botanical Gardens are at Kew and their website (www.kew.org/library/archfaqs.html) has advice for family historians. The Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists, Ray Desmond (Taylor & Francis and Natural History Museum, 1994) includes plant collectors, flower painters and garden designers.

General servant, general, maid-of-all-work

 

The servant with possibly the hardest job of all, the ‘general’, was a lone servant employed by households who could not afford or did not have room for more (see also cook-general). Although she could be an older woman, Mrs Beeton sympathised especially with young girls: ‘She starts in life, probably a girl of thirteen, with some small tradesman’s wife as her mistress, just a step above her in the social scale.’ She did all the domestic work throughout the house: she cleaned, cooked, served at table, washed, ran messages and undertook any other duties imposed by the mistress. If she was lucky, her lonely life was eased by a kind family; if not, it could be a depressing and exhausting existence.

‘Print dresses, with neat white aprons and caps, should be worn for mornings, and large coarse aprons should be used when stoves have to be cleaned or scullery work done. A black dress, pretty muslin apron and cap, should be worn in the afternoon,’ was advised in 1911. The general’s hours were then likely to include one evening a week off (from 6 pm to 10 pm), alternate Sunday afternoons and evenings, and perhaps an extra afternoon and evening once a month, with a week to a fortnight’s holiday a year. Apart from that, all her time was spent in the house. At that time, her wages were anything from £12 to £24 a year.

 

Dinnertime at a boarding house in the early 1900s. The servants in such places were often overworked for very little pay.

 

General servants were not only employed in private houses – the sheer drudgery endured by some women in this job can be gauged from this description of ‘Domestic Slavery in the West End’ that appeared in The Times in 1878, concerning ‘a young servant girl, of 17 years, in a fashionable lodging house near Piccadilly’:

 

‘The cooking was done by the landlady, assisted by a young girl of 14 who also undertook a certain amount of cleaning below stairs. The remaining work rested entirely upon the shoulders of the servant of 17. Every morning she began by filling seven baths, for each of which she carried two cans of water from the basement to the bedroom floors of a four-storied house. She then supplied every room with coal, and swept and dusted three sitting rooms. Three breakfast tables were next laid, and cleared after use. Every bedroom having been put in order, the work of lunch began, and dinner, of course, followed in the evening. When at last the meals were over, and china and plate had been cleaned and replaced, fresh duties succeeded. There were cabs to be called, and the maid-of-all-work must remain up until all the lodgers had returned home from the theatre or parties. She was never once in bed before 12, seldom before 1, and sometimes as late as half-past 2. She was expected to be at her post by 6 in the morning . . . Her food consisted of scraps from the dishes, and even from the plates, of the lodgers and their maids. She seldom tasted a potato, and never any other vegetable or pudding.’

 

See also domestic servant.

Ginger beer seller

 

Ginger beer, lemonade and other fruit sherbets could be bought on the streets in summer in Victorian times, the sellers male in the majority but with a number of women in their number. Some made their own ginger beer (water, ginger, ‘lemon-acid’, essence of cloves, yeast and sugar) while others bought from the manufacturers. The apex of the profession was to run a ginger beer fountain; in 1861 Henry Mayhew describes one, drawn by two ponies: ‘It is made of mahogany and presents somewhat the form of an upright piano on wheels. It has two pumps, and the brass of the pump-handles and the glass receivers is always kept bright and clean, so that the whole glitters handsomely to the light.’

For a full description of the brewing and trade, see Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, vol 1.

Glassmaker

 

Some 2,000 women were employed in the manufacture of glass in the 1870s. Four types of glass were made in factories at the time: plate glass for mirrors and windows, crown and sheet glass for ordinary windows, flint glass for ornamental work such as lamps etc, and bottle glass. Prior to that time women had worked in the manufacture of black bottle glass, taking the bottles from the kilns, but by the last quarter of the 19th century they were employed usually only on polishing (‘smoothing’) plate glass, or on ‘cutting, roughing, or obscuring’ flint glass for lamp globes etc, or in painting or enamelling (see enameller) – from 1867 it was against the law for women to be employed in any part of a factory where melting (or ‘annealing’) glass was carried out. Rates of pay for roughing, cleaning and smoothing were from 6s to 10s a week in the 1870s.

For a background to the techniques involved in glassmaking, see Glass and Glassmaking, Roger Dodsworth (Shire Publications, 1998). The Red House Glass Cone (High Street, Wordsley, Stourbridge, West Midlands DY8 4AZ; www.dudley.gov.uk/redhousecone) is one of only four glass cones (something like a bottle kiln in pottery making) in Britain and is now a heritage site; in the same area is the Broadfields House Glass Museum, Compton Drive, Kingswinford DY6 9NS (www.dudley.gov.uk/glassmuseum).

There were of course also several famous glassmaking firms in Scotland, including Edinburgh Crystal, Caithness Glass and Selkirk Glass, all of which have their own websites; www.futuremuseum.co.uk has a great deal about Scottish industries in the south-west.

Glovemaker

 

Glovemaking was an important home industry for women in several areas of the country. In some places it was a part of the leather industry (Worcestershire, Wiltshire and Oxfordshire, for instance), while elsewhere (Hampshire, Dorset, Somerset, for example) the gloves were knitted or of fine fabrics.

Worcester was a significant centre of the leather glove industry and the firm of Dent, Allcroft & Co, for instance, employed men to go around the local villages with stocks of unsewn gloves and to pick up the finished product – at the village of Redmarley D’Abitot an agent called at the Rose and Crown twice a week until in the 20th century machines took over much of the trade in hand-made gloves. The process in the 1880s was described as follows: ‘Glove-sewing is mostly done by the aid of a “clam” stand, something like a vice, which is held between the feet and knees. The glove is slipped into the “clam”, the cut edges being almost level with the top surface, which is of brass, and is really a series of fine teeth. The needle – a very short one – is passed between these teeth, the worker being thus guided to regular stitches. . . . the women of the villages are mostly kept to the thumbs and fingers, while the backs and “topping” are, for the most part, done by persons in the city itself.’

Woodstock in Oxfordshire had also long been a glovemaking area, including specialist sporting gloves. In the factories, ‘the men cut the skins, pressed them, and then cut them into the pattern of the gloves. The pointing on the backs was done and the ends of the stitching tied. Then workers fitted thumbs and fourchettes in place. The gloves were taken in dozens round to the outworkers to stitch and complete in their own homes.’ (Oxfordshire Within Living Memory, Oxfordshire Federation of WIs, Countryside Books, 1994.)

 

Stitching a glove by hand at the cottage door in the 1940s, using a clamp to hold the piece in position.

 

Knitted gloves were still being made by Dorset women in the 1940s for firms over the county border in Yeovil, with agents collecting from the villages. They used a yarn called ‘silkette’, which was soft and hardwearing, and were paid one shilling a pair. The women were so proficient that they could walk while they knitted: ‘They never seemed to look at what they were doing, and I should think they could even manage it in their sleep!’ recalled one knitter’s daughter (Dorset Within Living Memory, Dorset Federation of WIs, Countryside Books, 1996).

See leather worker for back­ground to the leather industry; also hosiery worker and knitter.

Goldsmith, silversmith

 

Women working in gold and silver were by no means uncommon and records at the Goldsmith’s Company show that female goldsmiths and silversmiths were treated seriously by their male counterparts. Confusingly, the term ‘goldsmith’ also covered women working in silver and silver plate. For both men and women it had for centuries described a wide range of activities relating to precious metals, including unofficial banking and pawnbroking. It also encompassed those who were in the retail side of the business if they were members of the Goldsmith’s Company, while by the late 1700s being termed a ‘silversmith’ usually implied someone who actually created the pieces, either as a manufacturer or a worker. In fact, the names of over 300 women appear in the Goldsmith’s Company’s records from 1685 to 1845 and their occupations include spoonmaker, bucklemaker, watchmaker, (watch) casemaker, hiltmaker, jeweller, cutler, chainmaker, chaser, engraver, and finisher. Many women worked as smallworkers or largeworkers, i.e. outworkers who made small pieces such as thimbles or larger items to order, or who chased, engraved or burnished the finished goods.

Women seem to have in general learned by experience, working initially with other members of their family or their husbands, before being recognised in their own right. Some registered their own maker’s mark, and created work valued today for its beauty and variety, but many more women worked in the trade than the recorded marks suggest. In the early 19th century, Rebecca Emes, for instance, ran ‘the largest manufacturing business’ of the time with her partner Edward Barnard in London and registered her mark; while Mary Godley worked in silver flatting (producing sheet silver from ingots); Ann and Elizabeth French were silvercasters in Birmingham; Elizabeth Packer was a watchmaker in Reading; and Rebecca Jacobs a silversmith in Portsmouth – but no records exist of their registration.

Women Silversmiths 1685–1845, Philippa Glanville and Jennifer Faulds Goldsborough (Thames & Hudson, 1990) is the essential introduction to the subject, with references to sources and a name list of more than 300 women workers. The website of the Goldsmiths’ Company is at www.thegoldsmiths.co.uk. See also burnisher; jewellery worker.

Governess

 

Governessing was almost the only profession open to women from an educated middle class (or impoverished upper class) background before the last quarter of the 19th century, and it was often a path taken by those who had no alternative but to make their own living, due to bereavement or bankruptcy in the family. The resident governess is the one most familiar to us from literature – in 1850 two very different governesses had just been presented to the world: Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair, and Jane Eyre. Until the 1880s there were consistently more women seeking posts than posts for them to fill. Some took the option of emigration, though in practice they often discovered that a background in domestic service was of more use and value in the new colonies.

The governess occupied an often uncomfortable middle ground between servant and employer, providing a paid service yet maintaining a claim to be a lady rather than a menial. Living in, her world was the schoolroom. However, there were several other types of governess.

The visiting or daily governess came to the house to teach the children, but lived at home; ‘She is not hired as a caretaker and trainer of youth, nor as an example of manners and morals, and her responsibilities cease with the lesson she gives’ (Girl’s Own Paper, 1883). Nursery governesses taught children (including boys) from four to eight years of age, concentrating on reading and writing, although their poorly paid duties might include generally looking after the children. Preparatory governesses taught girls aged about eight to twelve (left at home when the boys had gone off to preparatory – ‘prep’ – school), giving them a grounding in essentials such as English grammar, history, geography (or ‘the globe’), drawing etc. Holiday governesses would accompany a family away from home; and governesses were also employed in private schools. Finishing governesses took on the education and polishing of young ladies in their mid-teens; this advertisement appeared in ‘Situations Wanted’ in 1870:

  

‘A FINISHING GOVERNESS (married) has three days disengaged. Converses with her pupils only in pure French, German, or Italian (long residence abroad). Teaches successfully literature, advanced arithmetic, music and drawing. High testimonials. – Alpha, 10 St Mark’s-crescent, Notting-hill, W.’

  

By the end of the 19th century the growing opportunities for more satisfying and independent female employment, combined with the increasing number of schools for girls, smaller families, a greater desire for privacy in the family, and the rise of the professional nursery nurse, meant a sharp decline in the number of resident governesses, though the upper classes continued to rely on them well into the 20th century.

When a governess became ill or old, she had little to fall back on and the Governesses Benevolent Institution was founded in 1843 to offer support for a small number each year; records are at the London Metropolitan Archives. See The Victorian Governess, Kathryn Hughes (Hambledon Press, 1993) and The Governess: An Anthology, eds. Trev Broughton and Ruth Symes (Sutton, 1997) for background.

Gunmaking

 

Women were employed in the 19th century in the gunmaking factories of Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire – and particularly at the centre of the industry in Birmingham – in some of the finishing processes: ‘making-off’, sandpapering and polishing, and barrel smoothing. It was dirty and laborious work.