Abstract:
In the long-term decline of domestic service that occurred in Europe and North America
between about 1880 and 1980, the interwar period marked a significant intermission. In the
United Kingdom and the United States the numbers and proportion of population employed
in domestic service actually increased, whereas the general trend was determinedly downward.
The case of Australia was somewhat different, the interwar period characterized by a plateau
rather than a minor peak, but the overall pattern matched. Australia had fewer servants per capita
than the United Kingdom but more than the United States, before falling to a consistently
lower rate after 1945.(1) Australian employers and governments sought to augment the supply
through a variety of strategies of recruitment, particularly migration. This article examines one
such scheme directed at the prior training of migrant British women destined for domestic
service in Australia. Official and participant points of view are interrogated in an attempt to
explain how the inherent contradictions and ambiguities of the enterprise brought its eventual
failure.
