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Kitchen-Sink Laughter: Domestic Service Humor in Twentieth-Century Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

Lucy Delap
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Journal of British Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , July 2010 , pp. 623 - 654
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Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2010

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References

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17 Light, Alison, Mrs. Woolf and the Servants: The Hidden Heart of Domestic Service (London, 2007)Google Scholar.

18 Light, Mrs. Woolf and the Servants, 83, 252. I am grateful to Leonore Davidoff for her insights on the emotional content of servant keeping. See also Giles, Judy, “Authority, Dependence and Power in Accounts of Twentieth Century Domestic Service,” in The Politics of Domestic Authority in Britain from 1800, ed. Delap, Lucy, Griffin, Ben, and Wills, Abigail (Basingstoke, 2009), 204–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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21 Robert Darnton's analysis of an eighteenth-century cat massacre by Parisian printing apprentices connects the older symbolic economies of charivari and rough music to what now seems an “unfunny joke” of cat torture, in order to uncover and explain the “Rabelaisian laughter” and resistances of this episode. See Darnton, Robert, “Workers Revolt: The Great Cat Massacre of the Rue Saint-Séverin,” in The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York, 2000), 75–106.Google Scholar

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36 Davidoff, Leonore, “Above and Below Stairs,” New Society 26 (April 1973): 183Google Scholar. On the humor of role incongruity, see McLaren, Angus, The Trials of Masculinity: Policing Sexual Boundaries, 1870–1930 (Chicago, 1997), 47–51.Google Scholar

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50 E. M. Delafield published her very popular tales of “servant trouble” from a mistress's perspective in Diary of a Provincial Lady, in the weekly Time and Tide, and they were collected in her 1929 Diary of a Provincial Lady (London, 1979).

51 Thanks to the work of Michael Epp for this insight.

52 Felix McGlennon, quoted in “A Chat with Felix M’Glennon,” Era, 10 March 1894, 16; also quoted in Russell, Dave, Popular Music in England, 1840–1914 (Manchester, 1987), 109.Google Scholar See also Pearsall, Collapse of Stout Party, chap. 2, “Domestic Humour.”

53 See, e.g., Hanging Out The Clothes; Or, Master, Mistress And Maid, film, directed by George Albert Smith (1898); The Magic Glass, film, directed by Hay Plumb (1914).

54 “Provincial Theatricals: Manchester,” Era, 11 August 1906, 9.

55 See, e.g., “Mary Ann, Mary Ann Come In” (written by Fred Murray and Charles Collins, ca. 1912); “The Bell Goes a-Ringing for Sai-rah” (written by G .W. Hunt, ca. 1873); “The Servant Question (by One Who Knows)” (written by Harry Ivimey, ca. 1901).

56 “I Never Does Nothing at All” (composed by T. German Reed, written by William Brough, ca. 1862). See Medhurst, A National Joke, 76.

57 “Provincial Theatricals: Dover,”Era, 11 August 1906, 7, “Love and Laughter at Shoreditch Olympia,” Era, 10 September 1924, 14.

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68 Light, Mrs. Woolf and the Servants, 234–35.

69 “Tennis ‘Her Game,’” Evening Standard, 17 May 1939, 10, and “Maids Say, ‘We are Treated Like Machines,'” 20 May 1939, 17.

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72 Mrs. Mopp became such a popular character that she merited her own radio series in 1946, titled The Private Life of Mrs. Mopp. On the humor associated with chars, see Light, Mrs. Woolf and the Servants, 252–53.

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81 Graham Cross, interview with the author, 8 May 2007.

82 K. Oliver, Domestic Servants and Citizenship, People's Suffrage Federation pamphlet (1911), 13–14.

83 “An Ex-Maid,” in Wood, The Present Conditions as to the Supply of Female Domestic Servants, 15.

84 E. P. Harries, Plight of the Domestic Workers, Publicity Department of Trades Union Congress (1937 or 1938), Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick, 292/54.76/3.

85 Rennie, Jean, Every Other Sunday: The Autobiography of a Kitchenmaid (1955; repr., London, 1978), 157.Google Scholar

86 Interview with Miss Spence (b. 1891), George Ewart Evans collection, British Library Sound Archive, ref. T1442R.

87 Powell, Below Stairs, 135.

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92 Quoted in Pearsall, Collapse of Stout Party, 17.

93 Ursula Holden, “Maids,” n.d., unpublished manuscript, 1; in possession of the author.

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100 Breese, Charlotte and Gomer, Hilaire, The Good Nanny Guide: The Complete Handbook on Nannies, Au Pairs, Mother's Helpers, Childminders and Day Nurseries (London, 1988), 218.Google Scholar

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102 Interview with Mrs. Sturgeon (née Powley, b. 1917), George Ewart Evans collection, British Library Sound Archive, ref. T1434WR. See Light, Mrs. Woolf and the Servants, for a sensitive account of the life in service of Nellie Boxall.

103 Dickens, One Pair of Hands, 214.

104 Mrs. Mary Ann Mathias (b. 1899), interview 409, Edwardians.

105 Segal, Lore, Other People's Houses (London, 1985), 83.Google Scholar On the experiences of Jewish refugees who entered domestic service in Britain shortly before World War II, see Kushner, Tony, “An Alien Occupation: Jewish Refugees and Domestic Service in Britain, 1933–1948,” in Second Chance: Two Generations of German-Speaking Jews in the United Kingdom, ed. Mosse, Werner E. (Tubingen, 1991), 553–78.Google Scholar

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111 Gil Chard, “My Maid and Me,” Housewife, January 1939.

112 D. K. Tolley, ‘”Treasure's Tip,” Housewife, January 1957, 101.

113 Gregson and Lowe, Servicing the Middle Classes.