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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 April 2021
Washerwomen in the Georgian period belonged, for the most part, to the small army of part-time and casual workers who found employment when and where they could. As handlers of one of the most coveted (as well as necessary) commodities of the period they were a focus of interest to a wide range of society and were growing in number as many householders came to rely less on resident domestic servants. Washerwomen were prime players in the ‘economy of makeshifts’, relying on a miscellany of supplementary activities to ‘get by’ and in which they showed both enterprise and agency.
Les lavandières de la période georgienne appartenaient, pour la plupart, à la petite armée de travailleurs occasionnels et à temps partiel, toujours en quête d'emploi, n'importe quand et n'importe où. Manutentionnaires de l'un des produits les plus convoités de l’époque (et des plus nécessaires), elles étaient recherchées dans plusieurs milieux sociaux, et leur nombre ne cessait de croître, car les ménages avaient de moins en moins de servantes logées à la maison. Les blanchisseuses étaient alors des acteurs de premier plan dans ‘l’économie du pis-aller’, comptant sur un ensemble de travaux d'appoint dans le cadre d'un ‘système D’ où elles faisaient preuve à la fois d'esprit d'entreprise et d'efficacité.
Waschfrauen gehörten im Georgianischen Zeitalter größtenteils zur kleinen Armee der Teilzeitbeschäftigten und Gelegenheitsarbeiterinnen, die Beschäftigungen nachgingen, wann und wo sie konnten. Weil sie eine der begehrtesten (und zugleich notwendigen) Waren der damaligen Zeit hantierten, waren sie für weite Teile der Gesellschaft von besonderem Interesse, und ihre Zahl nahm deutlich zu, weil man sich immer weniger auf Dienstboten verließ, die im eigenen Haushalt untergebracht waren. Waschfrauen agierten an vorderster Front der ,Notbehelfswirtschaft‘ und griffen auf eine Vielfalt von Zusatztätigkeiten zurück, um über die Runden zu kommen. Dabei zeigten sie sowohl Initiative als auch Durchsetzungsfähigkeit.
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21 Old Bailey Proceedings Online (Hereafter OBP) September 1783, trial of John Burton and Thomas Duxton (t17830910-1).
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28 Styles, Dress of the People, 82.
29 John Fielding, Plan for a preservatory and reformatory for the benefit of deserted girls and penitent prostitutes (London, 1758), 13.
30 OBP, February 1780, Richard Moulds (t17800223-42).
31 Mary Thrale ed., The autobiography of Francis place, 1771–1854 (Cambridge, 1972), 80.
32 Sambrook, Country house servant, 133.
33 John Trusler, The way to be rich and respectable: addressed to men of small fortune (London, 1787), 58.
34 The House Bills of the Most Honourable Marquis of Carnarvon, Huntington Library, ST389, Box 14, 15 February 1761, 19 January 1761.
35 Jon Stobart and Mark Rothery, Consumption in the country house (Oxford, 2016), 91.
36 See, for example, Anon., Domestic management, 60.
37 Weatherill, The account book of Richard Latham, 1724–1767, 117–9.
38 Styles, Dress of the people, 81.
39 Sambrook, Country house servant, 140.
40 Committee Book 1781–95, 2 June 1783, MS1622/1.1/1/4, BCA, 18.
41 Haly, The complete servant, 105.
42 G. Eland ed., The Purefoy letters, 1735–1753, Vol II (London, 1931), Elizabeth Purefoy to Mrs Fenimore, 10 October 1744, 147, Letter to Mary Sheppard, 2 November 1743, 144–5. For further information on washing processes and the use of the buck tub, see Sambrook, Country house servant, 104–77.
43 Anon., Domestic management, 59–60.
44 Thomas Balston ed., The housekeeping book of Susanna Whatman, 1776–1800 (London, 1956), 41, 31–2.
45 Ann Shackerley, 1775, Cheshire RO, DSSI/6/40/2. I am grateful to Pamela Inder for drawing my attention to this source.
46 Mary Collier, The woman's labour: an epistle to Mr. Stephen Duck (London, 1739), 13.
47 Gibson, A parson in the vale of the White Horse, 44–5.
48 Eland, Purefoy letters, 1735–1753, Letter 560 to Susan Price, 5 January 1741, 378.
49 OBP, May 1786, William Stone (t17860531-85).
50 Beresford, The diary of a country parson, 1758–1802, 10 June 1799, 586.
51 Ibid. 10 June 1799, 586, 28 November 1796, 538.
52 See Craig Muldrew's estimates, Food, energy and the creation of industriousness: work and material culture in agrarian England, 1550–1780 (Cambridge, 2011), 88. Muldrew believes that in general servants can be included in this generous meat-eating culture.
53 Vaisey, The diary of Thomas Turner, 1754–1765, 28 March 1764, 317.
54 OBP, May 1786, William Stone (t17860531-85).
55 OBP, October 1783, Jane Field (t17831029-11).
56 Sambrook, Country house servant.
57 William Reitzel ed., The autobiography of William Cobbett (London, 1947), 36–7.
58 OBP, April 1783, Jane Griffiths (t17830430-12).
59 OBP, October 1743, Eleanor Scrogham (t17431012-29).
60 OBP, June 1810, John Green (t18100606-23).
61 Collier, The woman's labour, 12, 16.
62 William E. Adams, Memoirs of a social atom (London, 1903), 33, cited in Jane Humphries, Childhood and child labour in the British industrial revolution (Cambridge, 2010), 111, 166.
63 Collier, The woman's labour, 14.
64 Olwen Hufton, The prospect before her (London, 1995), 80.
65 Pamela Horn, Flunkies and scullions: life below stairs in Georgian England (Stroud, 2004), 151.
66 The Times, 29 January 1817, cited in Horn, Flunkeys and scullions, 152–3.
67 OBP, June 1778, Samuel Bullock (t17780603-27).
68 OBP, February 1779, Thomas Norman (t17790217-23).
69 Adams, Memoirs of a social atom, 33–4.
70 OBP, September 1769, Jane Beddis (t17690906-87), December 1784, John Cashon (t17841208-68).
71 Indenture for Elizabeth North, 26 June 1777, LMA, A/FH/A12/004/082.
72 Indenture for Jane Gates, 6 May 1789, LMA, A/FH/A/12/004/001/002. This contains the indenture for reassignment to Sarah Stokes in 1790. In 1793 Jane was reassigned to Thomas Purnell but no reason is given in the General Committee Rough notes.
73 For the Foundling Hospital's procedures for vetting applicants for apprentices see Jenifer Dyer, Children in Domestic Service c. 1760–1830, PhD, Oxford Brookes 2017, 197–9.
74 Hannah Barker, Family and business during the industrial revolution (Oxford, 2017), especially chapters 1 and 5.
75 Adams, Memoirs of a social atom, 33, cited in Humphries, Childhood and child labour in the British industrial revolution, 111, 166.
76 Adams, Memoirs of a social atom, 33–4.
77 Patricia E. Malcolmson, English laundresses: a social history, 1860–1930 (Urbana and Chicago, 1986), 18.
78 Dorothy Wise ed., Diary of William Tayler, Footman 1837 (London, 1962), 15.
79 On this point, see Humphries, Childhood and child labour in the British industrial revolution, 119, 102–21.
80 Sokoll, Pauper Letters, 1731–1837, Letter 268, 16 March 1816, 300.
81 Vaisey, The diary of Thomas Turner, 1754–1765, 15 July 1760, 208, 28 March 1764, 317.
82 House bill of the most Honourable Marquis of Carnarvon, Huntington Library, ST389, Box 14, June17 1760, 25 June 1760.
83 Ibid. 1 June 1763, 29 March 1763.
84 Babington Family Household Account Book, 116–110, 16 July 1806 and 9 October 1807, 12 January 1809, ROLLR, 2D/31 403.
85 Beresford, Diary of a country Parson, 10 March 1801, 601, 17 September 1791, 404–5.
86 Adams, Memoirs of a social atom, 63.
87 Peter King, ‘Female offenders: work and life-cycle change in eighteenth century London’, Continuity and Change II, 1 (1996), 61–91 at 81.
88 Martyn Beardsley and Nicholas Bennett eds., Grateful to providence. The diary and accounts of Matthew Flinders Vol. I, 1775–1802, May 1777, 51 (2007).
89 Collier, The woman's labour, 13.
90 Madame Johnson, Present: or every young woman's companion in useful and universal knowledge, 1765 cited in Alan Mansfield, ‘Dyeing and cleaning clothes in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries’, Costume, 2, 1 (1968), 24–9, 27.
91 Farm and Account Book of Frances Hamilton, 1792-1801, SCRO, DD/FS, cited in Carolyn Steedman, Labours lost, 77, 78.
92 Steedman, Labours lost, 77, 83.
93 W. Branch Johnson ed., The diary between 1798 and 1810 of John Carrington (London and Chichester, 1973), 67.
94 OBP, September 1788, John Coyle (t717880910-21), October 1790, Edward Gardener and Mary Parker (t17901027-6), February 1793, William Butterworth (t17930220-2).
95 OBP, July 1783, Sarah Gilchrist (t17830727-35), May 1771, Ann Barnes (t17710515-5); April 1754, Ann Smith (t17540424-46).
96 King, ‘Female offenders’, 75–6, 81.
97 Shore, Heather, ‘Crime, criminal networks and survival strategies of the poor in early eighteenth century London’, in King, Steven and Tomkins, Alannah eds., The poor in England 1700–1850: an economy of makeshifts (Manchester and New Haven, 2003)Google Scholar, 139 and passim.
98 OBP, February 1728, Elizabeth Winnock (t17280228-30), Ann Britain, May 1757 (t17570526-21).
99 OBP, December 1793, Ann Gladden and Mary Douglas (t17931204-53). Pawnbrokers were frequent attenders at the Old Bailey as witnesses in cases of stolen goods or to defend themselves against accusations of receiving stolen goods.
100 King, ‘Female offenders’, 63.
101 Ruth Paley ed. Justice in eighteenth century hackney: the Justicing notebook of Henry Norris and the Hackney Petty sessions book (London, 1991), 38–9; OBP, July 1781, George Elliot (t17810711-15).
102 OBP, September 1742, Mary Crosby (t17420909-17).
103 Crawford, Patricia, Parents of poor children in England, 1580–1800 (Oxford, 2010), 122–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar, shows how the sale of the meanest of clothing could produce rewards.
104 OBP, February 1779, Thomas Norman (17790217-23), January 1776, Thomas Williams (t17760109-20).
105 OBP, December 1784, John Cashon (t17841208-68), September 1780, George Duffey (t17800913-13), October 1783, Richard Sharpling (t17831029-19).
106 OBP, January 1776, Thomas Williams (t17760109-20), December 1784, John Cashon (t17841208-68), September 1780, George Duffey (t17800913-13).
107 OBP, January 1776, Thomas Williams (t17760109-20), December 1774, Pritchard, Thane and Parker (t17741207-36).
108 OBP, December 1771, Elizabeth Hill (t17711204-3).
109 OBP, May 1762, Jane Sweating (t17620526-4).
110 OBP, February 1790, Susannah Brush (t17900224-8).
111 Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker, London lives: poverty, crime and the making of the modern city, 1690–1800 (Cambridge, 2015), 169.
112 London Lives, St Clement Danes Parish, 3 January 1786, Westminster Archives Centre, 3 January 1786 (WCCDM0361030131).
113 London Lives Bridewell Hospital, Minutes of the Court of Governors, 19 June 1771 (BBBRMG202080167).
114 Mary Ashford, Life of a Licenced Victualler's daughter, 1787-c.1840, London, 1844, 10-4.
115 OBP, April 1754, Ann Smith (t17540424-26).
116 Amanda Vickery, The gentleman's daughter (New Haven and London, 1999), 2.
117 OBP, February 1784, William Cummings (t17840225-48), and January 1787, Michael Dunn (t17870110-37).
118 OBP, See, for example, January 1787 Mary Allen (t17870110-26) and July 1802, Robert Coombes (t18020114-26).
119 OBP, 1754, April 1754, Ann Smith (t17540424-46).
