Requirements: types, qualities, skills

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (128) continues the series of studies about domestic service advertising for female staff to work in the resort 1878-1881. The analysis references a database constructed from details of job requirements and advertisers which appeared each week in the Western Gazette. Businesses working in the hospitality industry and their service staff requirements form the basis of this article.

Victorian Bournemouth (128): the hospitality ‘universe’

Hotels and pubs

The directory listed fifteen pubs for Bournemouth during 1880. Very few used the Gazette to recruit staff. Of the seventeen hotels for that year a few did advertise in this paper. The Lansdowne and Stewart hotels appeared to find the Gazette a useful tool for recruitment, making several calls 1878-1881. In 1881, according to the census, the Stewart employed eight female domestics. These included both upstairs and downstairs workers. The Lansdowne employed six female workers that year, most of whom laboured downstairs. Perhaps some of these had arrived via the Gazette. The Royal Bath hotel, however, employed a dozen female workers in 1881, but never during this period advertised in the Gazette. The Highcliffe, another signature hotel employed about the same number of female staff, but did not advertise in the Gazette. These prestigious hotels, therefore, chose other recruitment channels, perhaps having a better social fit than Gazette readers.

Lodging houses

The 1880 directory listed two hundred businesses categorised as apartments, boarding-houses and lodging-houses. These perhaps offered differing services, but they all catered for resort visitors who did not use hotels. Companies in this business category appeared to advertise often for staff during this period. The 1881 census shows that some of the regular advertisers did have several staff who could have resided on site. The Merivale, in relative terms a frequent advertiser, employed perhaps as many as ten female servants. Several servants appeared in the listings for the Allegria, Balmoral, and the Clairville. All these advertised in the Gazette. Analysis shows, however, that only about half of all such businesses advertised in the Gazette, most of these doing so once. Nevertheless, because of the category’s size, even infrequent advertising by some of them sufficed to sustain both an advertising and employment market.

Victorian Bournemouth (128): types of domestic

Main types sought

Grouping the jobs available resulted in four categories. Those who worked upstairs constituted the largest category, almost half of all availabilities. These included various types of maid, of which housemaid or house-parlourmaid occurred most often. Openings for general servants and kitchen staff, numbering about the same, together accounted for half the category. Jobs for cooks occurred in only about a tenth of all advertisements placed by these businesses in the Western Gazette. A noticeable difference appears between hotels and lodging-houses. The former almost never advertised for general staff. They looked for upstairs maids or kitchen staff. The Bath Hotel, for example, according to the census, employed a kitchen-maid, a stillroom-maid, a scullery-maid, and one that dealt only with vegetables. Lodging-houses still looked for upstairs and kitchen staff in large numbers, but less so than for hotels. Owners, however, showed great appetite for general servants.

General servants in lodging houses

Owners of lodging-houses often required their general staff to have a special skill in addition. Some wanted their general staff to wait on table, but far more looked for women who could cook. Advertisements for cooks occurred less than half the time than for cooking-general servants. The 1881 census appears to support this inclination for lodging-house owners to employ general staff. The Allegria, the Balmoral, Bourne Villa and the Clairville all had such staff present on census night. Merivale Hall differed, employing several specialists, but this business perhaps operated more as a hotel than lodging-house. Analysis suggests that specialist staff – cooks and, in some cases, maids – might earn more than general servants. Cooks, for example, could earn around £20 a year, whereas general staff might receive £5 less. The former might also receive ‘all found’. Thus, employing a cooking-general servant would help with operating costs.

Victorian Bournemouth (128): wider points

Successful personal qualities

Many advertisements included descriptors which related to the required work characteristics and personal qualities desired in prospective staff. The list contained many words, but a handful occurred with great frequency. Overall, owners of hospitality businesses wanted respectability, strength, and steadiness amongst their staff. Differences, however, appear when comparing employers of lodging-houses and hotels. The latter wanted staff having these descriptors: active, respectable, clean, experienced, and steady. Lodging-house owners, however, prized strength and respectability above steadiness. In both cases, cooks needed to create plain meals beyond all else. Qualities required appeared most often in advertisements for upstairs workers, whatever their location. Respectability ranked highest. Thus, owners of hospitality businesses appear to have taken care to select staff working in public areas. Encounters with affluent tourists would therefore not result in difficulties. Respectable maids would represent that essential quality for which their owners, middling people for the most part, strove.

Advertising mechanics

Advertising success depended on prospective employees having both access to the Western Gazette and the ability to read it. Access required buying the paper, a penny per issue. Literacy standards included finding a pathway through the dense columns of type, poring through many lines of job descriptions, and having the ability to make an application. Apart from their letter, successful applicants also needed references from previous employers. Thus, the process required sustained effort for working people to deploy social skills more typical then of their middling counterparts. The newspaper will have valued their employment pages not only for boosting circulation and, thus, cover price revenue, but also for their ability to attract female readership. Most newspaper editorial aimed at male readers. Job advertising, however, attracted females, in particular employers. Their presence enabled the paper to sell display space to packaged goods advertisers, most of whom aimed at the female audience.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (128) has analysed the situation advertisements placed in the Western Gazette (1878-1881) by owners of hospitality businesses. Lodging-house owners used this channel to find staff from time to time. Their number, however, provided regular advertising business. Not all hotels sourced staff this way. The advertising presents the middling social qualities and skills needed by working girls to obtain employment in service. Domestic employment advertising drew female readers to the paper whose content for the most part aimed at males. This offered wider opportunities to obtain other advertising business.

References

For references and engagement, please get in touch. Main primary sources: here and here (subscriptions needed). See also here, here, and here for Bournemouth servants. Thanks for the illustration.