Intro to Maidhood102
The Uniform in History
By Bobbi Swan
One of the most important aspects of maid service is the wearing of the uniform. As many times as it is said, "Clothes Make the Man", so the uniform makes the maid! It’s important to set this servant off from society in proper markings that match her station. Of course, the maid is always feminine and submissive to her Master and Mistress (who most often runs the household) so for those males who aspire to this role suitable transformations are essential and prerequisite to this seminar. Be sure that you are properly prepared!
The uniform of the proper maid became most notably established in the 19th Century in England. The social classes in the second half of this century were vastly divided between a very small wealthy gentry class and an immense populace of poorly paid or unemployed workers. Lower class families could hardly provide food and lodgings for their children and parents would do their best to hurry their offspring out of the home and into service of any kind. Young boys were urged into early apprenticehood and the girls were whisked into household employment, often being sold into indentured service into wealthy homes. It put a roof over their heads and most important, they ‘knew their place’.
By the end of the century nearly 1 1/2 million maids were at work in England* boasting a population of twenty nine million. Their lives were regulated by strict rules. They were required to wear uniform or livery and work from dawn until late at night sleeping in barely furnished attics and customarily working in the dark lower regions of big Victorian houses and stately homes. Too often, they were treated abominably by our present standards and regarded as inferior beings. Wages, when paid, were poor and at the bottom of any scale available in those times. One cleric urged employers to hire their servants by the year, rather than the month, and not pay them until the twelvemonth was up. This system he observed, ‘purchased respect’.
So easy to understand that in matters of dress, the Victorians liked their servants to be easily recognized as such. Maids in the early part of the century had no standardized uniform and were expected to dress plainly in common working dresses with quilted petticoats, worsted stockings and leather shoes. The Victorian uniform as we know it today was developed during Queen Victoria’s reign. By then the maid’s uniform was as recognizable as that of a policewoman, a nurse or a traffic warden today.
A typical maid had to have three sets of clothes packed away in her little trunk when she went into service: cotton print dresses for mornings, black dresses with white caps and fancy aprons as well as her outdoor clothes.
One young ‘tweeny’ remembers starting in a Stately Home where she had to have three or four print dresses, white bibbed aprons, a blue apron and a coarse hessian apron for scrubbing the stone passages. For afternoons she required a black alpaca dress down to her ankles because legs were never to be seen. The dress had long sleeves and a high white stock collar. The aprons for afternoon wear were large white muslin affairs with frills on the bands which went over the shoulders and were worn with large frilled mob-caps, some of which had long streamers down the back.
A nation-wide standard practice at Christmas time was to present the maid with a length of print dress material, usually in a ghastly shade of pink, or blue with which to renew her uniform to be made at her expense. For the ‘downstairs’ maid or kitchen scullery servant it might be the only time she was permitted ‘upstairs’ for the presentation.
Even on the Sabbath the many servants were required to wear a special uniform when they went to church. Servants at ‘the Hall’ in country villages had an outdoor uniform of dark grey coats or cloaks, black Salvation Army style bonnets, black gloves, black shoes and black stockings. "Black, always black, everything black" wrote one housemaid. It is not surprising now to note in the few photographs available and see servant girls in neat and charming outdoor clothes when finally released from their bondage of cap and apron. The symbol of maidhood that is preserved from the 19th century to today.
Still more important was the hierarchy that developed to keep the lower orders in their place. Indeed, it was a matter of one "working herself up to the top." Pretty and skilled girls could raise themselves and their lives from the lowest of the kitchen staff, the scullery maid to the upstairs parlourmaid and maybe even eventually rise and become the ‘Lady’s’ maid and enter into her boudoir and take charge of her dressing and wardrobe. Of course the uniform escalated in pride and splendor to a finer material and a lacier apron and cap with trailing streamers.
These ‘upstairs’ maid uniforms are the most remembered today. Who will ever forget the very long black dress with long sleeves, high neck and lace collar and tightly buttoned cuffs covered so completely with the apron. A white well starched lace pinafore with ruffled shoulder straps would be crossed in back and tied into a huge bow with long streamers running well down over the derierre. A neatly coifed and pinned up hairdo topped with a filly white lace cap and comely black ribbons perfected this magnificent model of a Victorian servant.
These uniforms have indeed set a standard that has evolved into the modern maid’s uniform always adorned with apron and cap, the apron surviving while the use of the cap is fading and sometimes replaced with a perky bow. Wearing them proud and proper with pride brings perfection in service. And that’s what superior maid service is all about!
To this day many of these uniforms endure and can be found in wardrobes often used for costume parties and many special occasions. I’ve got mine and keep it fresh and neat and wonder how the poor girls of that age managed to do all they accomplished in it. It’s fun to wear now, but just going up and down stairs with all the petticoats underneath are a chore in itself. And with high heels! Come try it on sometime and I’ll show you. Indeed zipping it up the back is a chore in itself and a smartly dressed French maid would come in mighty handy. But that’s for another seminar and term!!
* "Not in Front of the Servants", A True Portrait of Upstairs, Downstairs Life, by Frank Victor Dawes, Century Publishing Spouses interested in an earnest training program may also contact me.
You can E-mail Bobbi
Or visit her webpage:
Bobbi Swan’s Nest
|