SOURCE: “‘The Dullest Life Ever Dragged on by Mortal …’,” in Tyrant or Victim? A History of the British Governess, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991, pp. 66-75.

In the following excerpt, Renton contends that regardless of the qualifications of the governess, most employers treated her with disrespect and considered her simply a “superior servant.”

All things considered, in the nineteenth century an expensive education for a daughter was not a sound investment for a middle-class father. Even in statistical terms it was a risky one. Supposing he had five girls out of, say ten children: it was quite possible that during their childhood or adolescence he would lose one or two from measles, whooping cough, dyptheria, smallpox, scarlet fever, consumption or one of the other hazards that they might encounter before they reached adulthood. Even if they survived all these, the conditions of childbirth were such that it was likely that...