Today I want to continue learning about Victorian servants, and this time I want to look at what life was like for the laundry maid. These were the women hidden away from the main household, usually in hot, damp laundry rooms.
Many laundry maids came from poor or working-class families, much like the other domestic servants. Going into service gave them a wage, meals, and a place to sleep every night, even if the pay was not especially high. For some women, becoming a laundry maid may have seemed like an opportunity, but the reality of it was far from easy. Laundry was one of the hardest and most physically demanding jobs in a large household.
A laundry maid’s day usually started very early, especially on wash day. In many houses, washing was not done every single day in the way we do today. Instead, there were dedicated laundry days. Each wash day involved huge amounts of work. First they had to sort the laundry. Bed sheets, underclothes, towels, table linen, servants’ uniforms, and the family’s clothing all needed to be separated. Delicate fabrics had to be treated very carefully, while heavily soiled items needed extra scrubbing.
Without the modern washing machines or the modern cleaning products that we have today, everything would have been done by hand. Water would have had to have been carried or pumped, then heated up in large copper boilers over fires, that needed to be maintained. Just lifting the buckets of water must have been so exhausting. The laundry room would also have been an unpleasant environment to work in. It quickly became hot, humid, and uncomfortable. Steam would have filled the room, and the smell of soap, wet fabric, and starch would have hung in the air.
Washing clothes involved soaking, scrubbing, rubbing, beating, rinsing, and wringing them out. White linens especially needed to be spotless. Clean pressed linen reflected well on the household. This meant that there was pressure to make sure everything came out perfect.
After the washing came the drying, ironing, and folding. Heavy wet sheets had to be lifted onto lines or drying racks. Ironing must have been another exhausting task. Large metal irons were heated on stoves and had to be changed over regularly because they cooled down. Some items needed to be starched to help them stay crisp, items like collars, cuffs, aprons, and caps.
The laundry maid usually worked under the laundry mistress or the housekeeper in larger homes. In smaller households, she might have had to manage most of the work herself or even help with other duties. Like many servants, laundry maids often made friends with the people she worked with. They spent most of their waking hours together which could make them very close. This may have helped them through the long days. But if they didn’t get on, I imagine it made life even more awful.
The work did come at a cost. The constant standing, heavy lifting, hot steam, and the harsh soaps often left their hands red, cracked, and sore. The heat could be overwhelming in the summer, and in the winter the freezing trips outside to hang out washing would have been horrible.
The laundry maid worked mainly out of sight but they were an essential part of keeping a Victorian household running smoothly. But their hard work often went unnoticed by those upstairs.
This shows me just how much invisible labour existed in Victorian England. Could you imagine doing an entire household’s washing without electricity or running water?
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