Over the last 18 months many of us have found ourselves thrust into the role of unpaid lockdown teacher. As we donned our best ‘teacher face’ and attempted to impart some semblance of learning to our (at times unruly) offspring, we could at least do so in the knowledge that it was a temporary arrangement. But for the humble governesses of the 19th century, it was often a career choice born out of necessity. A governess was not only expected to teach the ‘three R’s’ (reading, writing and arithmetic) – as well as French conversation, history and ‘accomplishments’ such as watercolour painting, piano, dancing, and deportment to girls who could be anywhere between five and 15 years old – but also prepare her older charges for the marriage market. With the destiny of many a young girl in their hands, and a lingering awkwardness over their status in the household, little wonder the figure of the governess became synonymous with quiet obedience and a meek acceptance of her own bleak prospects.

‘I know not what planet ruled in full malignity when the invention of private Governesses took place, an invention purely diabolical,’ a journalist of the Penny Satirist wrote in 1843. ‘The private governess is an innovation in society, belonging to no class or station, identifying herself with no human creature… she has no friend in the house, or out; she sits by herself – she watches the embers of the lonely fire – she wonders for what she is destined – she sighs and wonders on, and grows old a-sighing.’

With such a depressing outlook, it is hard to imagine what would drive any self-respecting Victorian lady to become a governess, but frequently she had no choice. Governesses were primarily middle-class young women who had themselves received an education to be a ‘lady’ but for various reasons had found themselves in need of an income.

Working in factories or shops alongside working-class folk was deemed too lowly, meaning the only respectable opportunity for middle-class women was to find work as a teacher in a school, or in someone else’s home as a governess. The upper classes had employed governesses for centuries, but as the aspirational middle classes began to emulate the customs of the wealthy in the 19th century, governesses found themselves in high demand. Finding a position within one’s own network of friends and relatives was infinitely preferable to advertising oneself for hire in a newspaper or journal – an action that was most un-genteel but sometimes unavoidable:

“PREPARATORY GOVERNESS – A young Lady, of most respectable connexions, wishes for a reengagement as Preparatory Governess. She is qualified to instruct in the usual branches of an English education; Writing, Arithmetic, rudiments of French etc. This advertisement is particularly addressed to those who are desirous for the assistance of a well-educated person, of cheerful and obliging disposition, in the management of a young family.”

(Dublin Evening Mail, 7 October 1842)

The young lady above was desirous of a ‘moderate salary’, but many governesses who had reached the point of needing to advertise simply wanted a roof over their heads – even if it meant declaring it in the Morning Post:

“WANTED by a young Lady, well connected, whose education has been liberally attended to, a situation as a GOVERNESS… Salary rather unimportant, a comfortable home being of the greatest consequence. ”

The Morning Post, 25 March 1837)

Such a declaration of desperation meant many governesses were ripe for exploitation, not just by potential employers but by unsavoury gentlemen with something else in mind entirely. In 1843, the Times published an exposé of a ‘brutal debauchee’ who had preyed on vulnerable young women by replying to their advertisements under the guise of a ‘Father of Five Daughters’. The man in question had

“…after exhausting the more vulgar artifices of seduction, … length resorted to the scheme of replying to the advertisements inserted by governesses who are in want of situations… We know this fellow’s address, and if he does not abandon his disgusting machinations against unprotected virtue, we will at our own risk unmask him to the world.”

A governess herself could also be underhand, as some unlucky employers found out. At best, a governess may have lied about her skills to gain a position, but at worst she might have criminal intentions. Marie Julie Jandeon – a ‘notorious Brighton governess’ – obtained goods and large sums of money, ‘on false representations that she was a French countess, and had a large estate in France,’ reported the Southern Echo in March 1889. Her French conversation skills had clearly come in useful for something – just not what they were intended. One notorious case from 1903 involved a German governess who made off with £5,000 of jewellery and furs from her employers. The thief hot-footed it to Liverpool before boarding a ship to America, from where she was extradited back to Britain to face the music.

Such incidences exposed the need to regulate the profession and in 1841 the Governesses Benevolent Institution was formed, which established a free governess registry where a young woman could – on production of two satisfactory letters of reference – enter her skills and qualifications. Anyone wishing to engage a governess could then consult the register, which was kept at the Institute’s offices in Harley Street. There was also a register for employers with vacant positions. Once interviewed – an ordeal, since the young lady would be carefully scrutinised as to her background and claims to gentility – and outside inquiries made as to the ‘ladylike’ credentials of the candidate, a situation might be offered and the opportunity for a new life beckoned. Nineteen-year-old May Pinhorn, whose journey to a new posting at a vicarage is recounted in Kathryn Hughes’s The Victorian Governess recalled that,

“At last an appointment was secured in the depths of Wales at £25 a year, and I started off on a cold winter day on a long journey to Aberystwyth…The time seemed endless, as I sat cold and alone in a poor third class carriage of a Welsh train. When I got to Aberystwyth I was met by a rubicund little carrier, who told me in barely intelligible English that he was to take me to my destination…”

Having made it to the vicarage, despite ‘impenetrable darkness’ and a storm ‘threatening every moment’ to blow everyone away, she was less than impressed with her new charges and accommodation:

“Three plain girls next appeared, the eldest suave and rather humbuggy in manner, the other two awkward and uncouth, the third having the appearance of a wild, wicked little elf. Then the young only son entered, but promptly retired in a paroxysm of laughter… I was then taken up to a grease bedaubed staircase to my room, which had only been half cleaned for my reception.”

The ordeal of the journey was just the start of what was for many, a baptism of fire. Not only was a governess responsible for her charges’ basic education but also their moral instruction. This meant ensuring prayers were said every night, encouraging honesty and kindness, and maintaining sibling harmony – which was a tall order, as any parent will attest. Outdoor activities were a useful way to curtail any ungenteel boisterous behaviours, although running, jumping or sports were to be discouraged. Chastising one’s charges for unruly behaviour was all part of the job – as was governess-baiting, a sport that could involve leaving live animals in the governess’s bedroom, stealing her belongings, or hiding from her.

At the end of a long day mothering someone else’s children, the governess could look forward to a separate meal in the schoolroom and an evening alone, writing letters or reading with only portraits on the wall or photographs for company. Edith Gates, a governess in the 1870s, confided to her diary that having spent Christmas with her family, on returning to her employment she felt lonelier than ever. ‘It was with difficulty,’ she wrote, ‘I suppressed the continually returning longing to be where my thoughts so often lingered.’ A lack of time off to maintain friendships or forge new ones exacerbated the sense of isolation and it was not uncommon for it to all become too much – often leading to a fatal conclusion. ‘An inquest held at Newcastle last Saturday night on the body of Sophia Kobel, a young German governess, 23 years of age, whose body was found in the River Tyne on Thursday last,’ reported the Stockton Herald in January 1890. The inquest heard that the girl had wished to leave her situation, against her parents’ wishes. The coroner concluded that the girl had probably thrown herself into the river.

The figure of the lonely governess and her plight also inspired artists and novelists. With her fall in social status and need to make her own way in life, she was a useful trope for an acceptable female heroine that middle-class audiences would engage with. Barring the scheming machinations of William Thackeray’s heroine Becky Sharp, characters such as Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre highlighted the oppression and exploitation of governesses. But unlike Charlotte Brontë’s well-known heroine, the chances of a governess improving her situation by marrying into her employers family were slim. Intimate relationships with family members were strictly off limits – after all she was just the governess – and could cost a girl not only her position but her reputation. To forge a relationship with a male servant would have meant bridging the social divide to the governess’s detriment. She was too good for the servants yet not good enough to be on a social par with her employers. Instead, she inhabited an awkward position – a no-woman’s land full of contradictions. Was she a servant? Or part of the family? She was expected to raise the children of the family – but she wasn’t their mother, and she certainly wasn’t a nanny. She was expected to be devoted to her charges yet received only mild affection in return. She was often poor but expected to be well-connected and genteel. She was surrounded by people, but conversely very much alone.

Despite these challenges, some pupils remember their former governesses fondly. ‘She was a woman of great cultivation,’ recalled Lady Dorothy Nevill about her former governess, Eliza Redgrave. ‘Her tender care and companionship – in childhood a preceptress, in after-life a much-loved friend – I have always felt to have been an inestimable boon…’ Even those who were remembered as ‘bad-tempered’ and ‘common,’ such as Annabel Grant Duff’s governess, Fraulein Schubnall, had some redeeming features: ‘…she had extraordinarily good qualities and one was that she kept us amused and taught us delightful things to do with our hands.’

The governess continued to be a fixture in middle- and upper-class households well into the 20th century – although as the century progressed, she blended in with her peer group of teachers, nurses, and clerks and became a less conspicuous figure as more and more middle-class women began to find work outside the home. Her ability to transcend 19th century social expectations and forge her own path in life is perhaps her biggest legacy. A remarkable achievement for, arguably, one of history’s most unremarkable of figures.