Lizzie Borden Society Forum

After reading up on what maids and servants had to do in 1800 households, Bridget had it pretty easy. She did some of the cooking and dusting and thats about it.

But I got to reading up on the maid job, and back in the victorian era, there were different types of maids. Here's a short rundown of the types.

Parlour maid--Guess they took care of the parlour.

Chamber maids -- think thes ladies took care of the bathrooms(chambers) and chamber pots. (UGH)

Laundry maids-- The laundry

Still room maids -- not sure what kind of maid this is.

"Between maids" Best I can gather is that thes maids take care of what isn't being cared for by the other maids.

Maids of all work-- Mostly maids in smaller housholds that took care of everthing.

Scullary Maid -- Worked in the kitchen assiting the kitchen maids and cook. And these ladies were on the botton of the rung. Even the other servants ignored them, just as the family they were serving did.

So, what type of maid do you think Bridget was? I am going with "Maid of all work" because it was a smaller household and she did alittle of this and alittle of that, and didn't dothe bedrooms of the family.

Well, Snokkums, you pretty much answered your own question.

The larger the house, the more maids that were needed.

A.J. could have afforded another maid, but what would have been the point?

The house wasn't all that large.

Bridget's principal responsibilities were cooking and laundering. Beyond that, housekeeping chores (such as window-washing, obviously) that Mrs. B., Lizzie, and Emma were either unwilling or unable to perform.

Bridget did NOT have to clean upstairs (beyond tidying her own room and probably dusting/sweeping the back stairs); apparently, Abby did most of the light housework downstairs, including dusting. Emma said she and Lizzie tended to the front parlor as well, but-- who knows? Emma probably did some cleaning in there at some point, but I don't believe she cleaned in there on any sort of regular basis.

So: Bridget was principally a cook/laundress. And dishwasher.

Bridget was well-compensated for a live-in maid of the period. She probably could have saved most of her weekly salary (I would have, and caught a boat back to Ireland at that).

Since she was the only one I believe you're right Snokkums. Interesting about the labels, thanks for sharing. I've often heard stories of scullery and chamber maids but hadn't heard of still room maids or a still room. Is that like a distillery or something?

Yup, I never knew there were so many types of maids. I always wondered about that. I thought that one maid for a big house, bet the maid never went to sleep for trying to clean the house. But now I see that the rich had several types of maids so no one person was getting worked to death, all thou they did have back breaking work. And didn't get paid very well.

I was wondering what a still room maid was and found this http://rmhh.co.uk/occup/s.html
It's a list with descriptions of old occupations and I found it really interesting , hope you do to lol

Yeah, I found the very interesting too. It's amazing the jobs they had back then.Thanks for posting the website Hyacinth.