Domestic servants and their urban employers: a case study of Lancaster, 1880–19141

It has been argued that domestic service heightened divisions of class and gender, and supported the private nuclear family in late nineteenth‐century England. This case study of one urban locality (Lancaster) between 1880 and 1914 uses qualitative and quantitative techniques, particularly longitudinal record linkage, to explore relationships between live‐in domestic servants and their employers. It is argued that there were considerable similarities between the backgrounds and life‐cycle‐related motivations of both servants and employers. Relationships were highly diverse, but service simultaneously depended upon and played a crucial role in sustaining complex, localized networks that extended far beyond the servant‐employing household.