Arts National Murray River | SPECIAL INTEREST HALF DAY

Name: Arts National Murray River | SPECIAL INTEREST HALF DAY
Start: 2026-08-16T10:00:00+11:00
End: 2026-08-16T10:00:00+11:00
Location: Albury Library Museum

About

Working as a housekeeper was one of the most prestigious — and demanding — roles open to women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Far removed from the fiction of Downton Abbey, real-life housekeepers faced gruelling physical labour, low pay, insecure employment and often capricious employers.

In this special interest half day, social historian, journalist and author Tessa Boase - known for uncovering the hidden histories of women — draws on secret diaries, unpublished letters and neglected service archives to reveal the extraordinary women who really ran Britain’s great houses.

The first part focuses on the Victorian era. Through a remarkable bundle of letters from the Hatfield House archives, Tessa reconstructs the meticulous search for a housekeeper to serve Lord Salisbury, Queen Victoria’s Prime Minister, in 1890. The story is enriched by the revelatory diary of Sarah Wells, mother of H.G. Wells, who recorded fourteen years of life below stairs at Uppark.

The second part examines the upheavals of the twentieth century, when domestic service was reshaped by social change, war and new expectations of work. This period is embodied by the formidable housekeeper Hannah Mackenzie, whose long career spanned extremes of privilege and hardship. The lecture concludes with a contemporary perspective from Holkham Hall in Norfolk, asking how the role of housekeeper — and the country house itself — has adapted to the modern world.