Dorothy M. Elliott, The Status of Domestic Work in the United Kingdom with Special Reference to the National Institute of Houseworkers, Geneva, 1951, p. 9. The National Institute of Houseworkers (NIH) was established under the Companies Act of 1929 as a company limited by guarantee and not having share capital. See details in the NIH file, MSS.292/54.76/62b, Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick (hereafter cited as MRC)
The Status of Domestic Work in the United Kingdom with Special Reference to the National Institute of Houseworkers
9
Training Scheme for Houseworkers: National Institute of Houseworkers, n.d. [c.1947], Trades Union Congtess (TUC) Library, HD.6072
Celia Briar, Working for Women? Gendered Work and Welfare Policies in Twentieth-Century Britain, London, 1997, pp. 56-8. Pamela Horn, Women in the 1920s, Stroud, 1995, pp. 86-7
Working for Women? Gendered Work and Welfare Policies in Twentieth-Century Britain
56
8
Report on the Post-War Organisation of Private Domestic Employment, Parliamentary Papers (PP) 1944-45, vol. V, p. 6
Report on Post-War Organisation of Private Domestic Employment, pp. 7-8
Report of the Ministry of labour and National Service (MLNS) for 1947, PP 1948-49, vol. XVII, pp. 73-5. Statement by the Minister of Labour and National Service, 7 February 1946, regarding the decision to set up the NIH on an ‘experimental basis’, in MSS.292/54.76/61, at MRC
Report on Post-War Organisation of Private Domestic Employment, p. 7
Helen Jones (ed.), Duty and Citizenship. The Correspondence and Papers of Violet Markham, 1896-1953, London, 1994, p. 177
Duty and Citizenship. The Correspondence and Papers of Violet Markham, 1896-1953
177
Report on Post-War Organisation of Private Domestic Employment, p. 8
See, for example, her letter to The Times, 13 January 1955
Report of the Royal Commission on Population, Cmd. 7695, 1949, p. 183; Report on Post-War Organisation of Private Domestic Employment, p. 7
Report on Post-War Organisation of Private Domestic Employment, p. 3
TUC Annual Report, 1938, pp. 73, 97 and 101-2; ibid., 1939, pp. 138-40. See also Pamela Horn, ‘Training and Status in Domestic Service: The Role of the League of Skilled Housecraft, 1922-42’, History of Education Society Bulletin, 65, 2000, p. 40. Sheila Lewenhak, Women and Trade Unions. An Outline History of Women in the British Trade Union Movement, London, 1977, p. 230, includes a brief, not entirely satisfactory, account of the establishment of the National Union of Domestic Workers (NUDW)
Memorandum on Post-War Position of the Domestic Worker, produced by a sub-committee of domestic workers' and TUC Women's Advisory Committees in the records of NUDW, Minutes for 1943, MSS.292/54.76/57, MRC. According to a summary survey of the organisation of domestic workers produced in about 1947, the NUDW membership in 1943 was 269 (MSS.292/54.76/7, MRC)
Jones (ed.), Duty and Citizenship, 186
Elliott, Status of Domestic Work, p. 21
Report on Post-War Organisation of Private Domestic Employment, p. 3
Annual Report of the NIH, June 1949, p. 2, Markham MSS.12/10
Elliott, Status of Domestic Work, pp. 17-19. Annual Reports of the MLNS, 1948, PP 1948-49, vol. XVII, pp. 46-7; ibid., 1949, PP 1950, vol. XII, p. 38
Annual Report of the National Institute for Housecraft (Employment and Training) Limited for 1965-66, p. 12, LAB.70/62, PRO
NIH, The Employer and the Worker in Private Domestic Work, n.d., MSS.292/54.76/61, MRC. Elliott, Status of Domestic Work, pp. 12-14
Briar, Working for Women?, pp. 99-109, discusses the advances and the limitations of the female economic and social position in the 1950s
Hansard, 5th Series, vol. 487, 27 April 1951, col. 803
The Houseworker, September 1948, MSS.292/54.76/62a, MRC. See also The Houseworker, January 1948, commenting that the Oxford centre was the smallest of those established
NIH, A Plan for the Girl Who Likes Homecraft, n.d. [c.1948], Markham MSS.12/10. The Houseworker, January 1948
Annual Report of the MLNS, 1949, p. 38
Elliott, Status of Domestic Work, p. 16
Elliott, Status of Domestic Work, p. 17
‘Relationship between Employer and Worker’, NIH, The Employer and the Worker in Private Domestic Work
Annual Report of Ministry of Labour for 1960, PP 1960-61, vol. XVIII, p. 34
The Times, 7 November 1952; David C. Marsh, The Changing Social Structure of England and Wales 1871-1961, London 1965 edn, pp. 136 and 147
The Houseworker, May 1948
The Houseworker, November 1948
Carol Dyhouse, Girls Growing Up in Late Victorian and Edwardian England, London 1981, pp. 92-3. Pamela Sharpe (ed.), Women's Work. The English Experience 1650-1914, London 1998, p. 342
Girls Growing Up in Late Victorian and Edwardian England
92
3
NIH, Report on the London County Council Home Help Service, n.d. [c.1949], Markham MSS. 12/10. Annual Report of the MLNS, 1949, p. 38
Hansard, 5th Series, vol. 487, 27 April 1951, cols 803-6. See also Dorothy Elliott, Report on the Cost of Training Students, 22 March 1949, MSS.292/54.76/62a. ‘Servant Scheme Waste of Money’, The Sunday Pictorial, 16 January 1949
Hansard, 5th Series, vol. 509, 18 December 1952, written answers, col. 227
‘Room for Economy’, Manchester Guardian, 26 September 1951. See also ‘The National Institute of Houseworkers’, Ministry of Labour Gazette, October 1951, which pointed out that in addition to giving training in its own centres, the Institute had agreed with the Girl Guides' Association that training for the diploma might be given at the Association's Homecraft Training Centre in Surrey
The Times, 10 July 1952
The Times, 26 August 1952
Annual Reports of the MLNS, 1952, PP 1952-53, vol. XIV, p. 39; ibid., 1953, PP 1953-54, vol. XVI, p. 39
NIH, Progress Report to 16 January, 1954, MSS.292/54.76/62b, MRC; Annual Report of the Ministry of Labour, 1960, PP 1960-61, vol. XVIII, p. 34
Audrey Hunt and Judith Fox, The Home Help Service in England and Wales. A Survey on behalf of the Ministry of Health in 1967, SS. 407, 1970, pp. 3, 9-10. Annual Report for 1964-65 of the National Institute for Housecraft (Employment and Training) Limited, p. 13, TUC Library, HD. 6072
Annual Report of the National Institute for Housecraft (Employment and Training) Limited for 1965-66, pp. 12-13, LAB.70/62, PRO. Report of the First National Conference of the NIH, 8 May 1951, MSS.292/54.76/62b, MRC
The Houseworker, May-June 1954
The Houseworker, May-June 1954
The Houseworker, September 1954
Arthur Marwick, The Sixties. Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c.1958-c.1974, Oxford, 1999, pp. 11, 67, 399-400
The Sixties. Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c.1958-c.1974
11
Report of the MLNS for 1939-1946, PP 1946-47, vol. XII, p. 209; Annual Report of the MLNS for 1947, p. 45. In 1955, 18,614 permits for private domestic service were issued. See Annual Report of the MLNS, 1955, PP 1955-56, vol. XXII, p. 28. After that date no distinction was made between private and other forms of domestic service
Annual Report of the National Institute for Housecraft (Employment and Training) Limited, 1964-65, p. 14
Annual Report of the NIH for 1956-57, pp. 3-4, TUC Library, HD. 6072
Annual Report of the Ministry of Labour for 1959, PP 1959-60, vol. XVII, p. 49
Annual Report of the National Institute for Housecraft for 1966-67 (TUC Library, HD.6072), pp. 7-12, detailed some of the courses then provided
For a discussion of the position in the 1980s see Nicky Gregson and Michelle Lowe, Servicing the Middle Classes. Class, gender and waged domestic labour in contemporary Britain, London, 1994, pp. 41-2
Annual Report of the NIH for 1966-67, p. 10; Annual Report of the NIH for 1964-65, p. 6
Copy of an extract from Hansard, 9 December 1971, LAB.70/10, PRO. See also letter from Robert Carr, Secretary of State for Employment to Baroness White, 17 January 1972, LAB.70/11, PRO
Miss M. Brodie, Executive Director, NIH to Sir William Alexander, Association of Education Committees, 29 August 1972, LAB.70/11, PRO; Final Report to the Directors of the National Institute for Housecraft (Employment and Training) Limited, 19 September 1972, LAB.70/11, PRO
Copy of an extract from Hansard, 9 December 1971, LAB.70/10
Dominic Byrne (ed.), Waiting for Change? Working in hotels and catering, Low Pay Pamphlet No. 42, 19 July 1986, p. 20 notes that low pay and poor conditions meant that turnover of staff aged sixteen to twenty-one was particularly high. In hotels and guest-houses it ran ‘at around 6 per cent of staff in one average month alone’. Low Pay Unit, The Low Paid and the Minimum Wage, vol. 3, n.d. [1999], p. 37, discusses pre-National Minimum Wage Training Policies, particularly for young people