It’s personal and it’s business
Introduction
Victorian Bournemouth (251) considers the female occupation ‘companion’, a contractual form of friendship. The 1901 census recorded over a hundred such women visiting or residing in Bournemouth. Genealogical analysis provides the basis for understanding different social factors associated with the occupation.
Victorian Bournemouth (251): Background
Companions at work
A companion acted as a personal assistant to a single woman, spinster or widow. Occasional examples have emerged where a married woman sought this service. As a rule, the employer belonged to the upper social levels, in some cases having substantial wealth. She would often preside over households staffed by several servants who occupied well-defined positions within the hierarchy. Most of these servants came from humble, labouring backgrounds. In contrast, a companion would have a social origin closer to, but not above, her employer. Her job consisted of keeping her employer company. The two women interacted as friends. At that time, well-to-do, single women spent much of their time secluded at home. The companion could alleviate her employer’s boredom by providing entertainment at home (reading, music). In addition, a companion made it possible for such employers to venture abroad without criticism, for example, by visiting such places as Bournemouth.
More work options for women
The 1891 census listed fifty companions active within Bournemouth. A decade later, this number had doubled. Increases in the town’s population will have accounted for this in part, but some evidence suggests that the occupation became more attractive to women. Analysis of the British Newspaper Archive provides a rough index of this. Each decade, 1871-1901, the incidence of the term appearing in advertisements increased. Thereafter, the number declines every decade. In the late Victorian period, employment opportunities for women increased. In particular, women displaced men within some sectors of the retail trade. Counter service provided an alternative to domestic service. The idea of women working outside the home became more acceptable. This trend may also have encouraged more women to seek employment as companions. Analysis of the companions found in Bournemouth, however, suggests that, as time passed, the job’s associations of social prestige and elevation may have undergone devaluation.
Victorian Bournemouth (251): nice people, nice places
Social background
In about two-thirds of cases, recorded evidence has survived, which identifies the companions’ social position. This comes from occupations associated with the companions’ fathers. For those known, about three-quarters of the companions had grown up in households headed by fathers working in the professions, commerce, or farming. The professional men included clergymen, lawyers, doctors and teachers. Those working in commerce covered a wider range, both the retail trades and manufacturing. The farmers worked substantial acreages, most having several hundred, one reaching 900. For some of these men, probate records have also survived. Although covering a wide period, they add further texture to an overall picture of families living close to gentility, if not inside it. On average, the farmers left the largest estates, followed by commercial men, while the professional men ranked third. Thus, many companions could have held their own within an atmosphere of gentility.
Geography
The incidence of companions varied across the town according to the 1901 census. In summary, they clustered in the wealthier areas. These consisted of the swathe running from Dean Park down to areas east of The Square, while extending westwards to Westbourne, Alum Chine, and West Cliff. A cluster also occurred across the area encompassing East Cliff. Thus, about a quarter of the census areas accounted for more than half the companions. Such a distribution conforms to the stereotyped understanding that companions swam in the upper levels of society. Very few appeared in the suburbs populated by working people, Winton and Moordown, Malmesbury Park, and Springbourne. A closer focus reveals that concentrations occurred on individual streets. For example, companions clustered on the roads around Dean Park, in particular Cavendish Road. Another concentration ran down the continuous strip comprising Alum Chine and Alumhurst Roads, a line connecting Westbourne with the sea.
Victorian Bournemouth (251): a need to work
Vulnerability
Levels of wealth constituted one factor in directing a young woman towards becoming a companion. In many cases, a radical reduction in their household’s income would present this occupation as a way to survive while preserving elements of their former social position. Thus, just as their social position often depended on their father’s income, so they needed to consider employment when this reduced or disappeared. The survey of Bournemouth companions provides an insight into this factor. It consists of the age at which women who would become companions lost their fathers. For 4/10 cases, their fathers had died before the women had reached the age of twenty. Before they turned thirty, half the women had become fatherless. Calculating the size of their father’s estate, where the information exists, provides further texture. This shows that, for women under twenty, their fathers left the smallest estates. This would induce severe vulnerability.
Working environment
The nature of a companion’s work emerges as a well-defined set of procedures: entertainment, secretarial work, and shared journeys. Three human factors, however, could affect the tenor or fabric of the relationship. First, marital status. The most common situation involved two single women, but companions might work for spinsters or widows. In the Bournemouth sample, spinster pairs outnumber those involving a widow. Second, age difference. Wide gaps might apply, as found in Bournemouth. A few companions worked for younger women, but the reverse applied most often. A few years might separate the women, but much larger gaps occurred. Thus, a companion might work with someone in her age cohort, or even generation, but she might encounter someone born into a different period. In addition, social granularities within their relationship might introduce tension into a companion’s work. These human factors, therefore, operated behind the job’s apparent simple theatre.
Takeaway
Victorian Bournemouth (251) has explored employment and social aspects relating to the women who worked as companions in the resort during 1901. Overall, the profile derived from analysing over a hundred people appears to match that found in contemporary fictional literature as well as modern third-party studies. The job may have offered the women a port in a life-storm, but the nature of the work environment and the relationships may have tested some.
References
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