Louisa Ellen Roberts Scowles 1881 (Updated) (General)

by Mike Pinchin , Bedford, England, Thursday, March 30, 2017, 19:53 (2804 days ago) @ ALEXQUILL

The distances involved are not so very far. Raglan is about 11 miles from Coleford as the crow flies and Cheltenham about 23. In Census you will find plenty of examples of young women travelling much further than this to take up domestic work. It was still an era when daughters of working class folk expected to go into service as a matter of course until, perhaps, they married. Bear in mind that the present British rail network is a shadow of its former self and it was once possible to get to or near many more, smaller towns or villages by train. Raglan certainly had a station until 1955 although I imagine you would have had to travel via Monmouth to get to it. At those kinds of distances I expect they would have been resident at their places of work for most of the time. As to how they found the work, if they didn’t find it by word of mouth the newspapers of the day were full of advertisements for domestic and other servants.