SOURCE: “Fighting for Respect,” in Tyrant or Victim? A History of the British Governess, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991, pp. 96-105.

In the following excerpt, Renton discusses the difficulties governesses faced with their social standing within the family as well as frequently unfavorable working conditions and inadequate pay.

Whatever the circumstances, a governess had to maintain her appearance of gentility; one of her best selling points was the fact that she was, or appeared to be, a gentlewoman. She was described in one issue of the Quarterly Review as ‘a being who is our equal in birth, manners, and education, but our inferior in worldly wealth’. This was a kindly way of depicting her, since the typical governess was the spinster daughter of a poor clergyman, of little education and of means so slender that she would work for a pittance. But it is an insight into the perception of...