video record
Media not available in the Digital Archive
Description
This film is part of the section of the Historical Data Course dealing with domestic service in Britain in the first twenty years of this century. It is the first of three extended interviews with ...people who remember this period. Mrs Grade Hargrave was born in 1889 and grew up in a household with three servants. Later she herself employed a housekeeper. She talks to Thea Thompson of the University of Essex about the attitudes of employers, the conditions and hours of work and the effects on family life of the presence of servants. As well as providing insights into many aspects of domestic service, the film demonstrates the techniques of conducting an oral history interview.
Metadata describing this Open University video programme
Module code and title: D301, Historical sources and the social scientist
Item code: D301; 08
First transmission date: 24-07-1974
Published: 1974
Rights Statement:
Restrictions on use:
Duration: 00:24:04
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Producer: Nicholas Gosling
Contributors: Thea Thompson; Grace Hargrave
Publisher: BBC Open University
Keyword(s): Domestic service; Historical sources; Social science
Footage description: Stills of Finsbury Park area in early 1900 as Thompson introduces the programme. Hargrave starts to talk about her childhood with the servants, how many they had etc. She discusses the servants' relationships with the children, whether they were allowed to punish them. Thompson asks what a parlour maid's duties were and what time she had off etc. Hargrave looks at the wages paid and whether the employers exercised any control, morally or otherwise over the servants' private lives. Other aspects, such as uniforms, are also discussed. More stills of the period. Hargrave discusses the daily help she employed when she went to work - wages, duties, attitudes etc. Credits.
Master spool number: 6HT/71444
Production number: 00525_2135
Videofinder number: 177
Available to public: no