The Lowly Maid of All Work
Even the poorest gentry did not expect to do their own dirty work in the Regency era. If your annual income was £100-200 (approx. $9,000 - 18,000 spending power in today’s money), you could afford “help” in the person of a maid of all work.This luckless dogsbody would work 18 hours a day, seven days a week, for the price of her keep and wages of £8-12 ($720-1080) a year; perhaps a kind employer would grant her one or two days off each month. Even the impoverished Dashwood ladies in Jane Austen’s Sense [...]
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Outsiders Within – Romani in the Regency
By the time 'Gypsies' appeared on the pages of Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott and Maria Edgeworth, Romani people had been in England for centuries. Sidebar: Believing the copper-skinned migrants to hail from Egypt, the Europeans had coined the term "Gypsies" for these migrants. Some consider [...]
