In service since the age of sixteen, a young maid writes:

I went to service because I have never had a home. No parents to look after me—never seen them—I am nobody’s child. 

Many in service were expected to behave with strict propriety and obedience, unquestioningly and without resistance.

We lower servants had to walk the chalk-line, confessed one servant. Obey—or else. 

It was an unpleasant way to live, day after day, always under lock and key, always under a kind of distant (but ever-present) surveillance. There was little trust, and even less evidence of patience or understanding or kindness. 

If we had kinder mistresses, I think we should love service.