A Respectable Occupation: - University of Hertfordshire Research ...

schools were female, they were mainly in elementary schools and were
recruited from the working class. Middle class women avoided elementary
teaching because it would involve their mixing with working class children
and teachers. 122
In Tosh‘s view, "The ranks of governesses in middle class households
were swelled by young ladies whose fathers had failed in business or had
lacked the means to lay by a nest egg for them." 123 However, life as a
governess was not a very attractive option. Moberly Bell and Tosh point out
that, not only were the wages poor, the incumbent was socially in an
unenviable position. She was of the middle class, employed by a middle or
upper class family, yet viewed by them as a member of the domestic staff
and not accepted as a social equal. While the servants, for similar reasons,
equally viewed her as an outsider. 124 A governess was dependent on the
servants to provide her meals, do her laundry and clean her room. These
services were sometimes provided grudgingly because the servants viewed
her as little different from themselves, particularly in a small household
with a few over worked servants. 125 Equally the governess was unsure how
to behave towards her employer‘s friends. Should she adopt the familiarity
of a family member or display the detached attitude appropriate to a
servant. 126 Governesses also faced another difficulty. Once the children in
her charge had grown up, she became redundant and could well be left to
122 Holcombe, Victorian Ladies at Work, pp. 34-35.
123 Tosh, A Man’s Place, p.13.
124 Bell, Storming the Citadel, p. 14 and Tosh, A Man’s Place, p. 20.
125 Lady E. Eastlake, „Vanity Fair, Jane Ayre and the Governesses‟ Benevolent Institution‟, Quarterly
Review, 84, (Dec. 1848) 177 quoted in Hughes, The Victorian Governess, p. 94, note 26.
126 Hughes, The Victorian Governess, p. 100.
176