On This Day, 22 May 1918

Birmingham Mail

Wednesday 22 May 1918

TO SOLVE THE SERVANT PROBLEM.

WORKERS AT 30S. A WEEK.

Lady Rhondda has promised to preside at a meeting to be held next month to inaugurate a scheme formulated by the Women’s Industrial Council with the object of solving the domestic servant problem.

A 48-hours’ week, with wages at the rate of 30s. per week, has been worked out by the Council as suitable for the women who are to be the trained and organised domestic servants of the future.

Under a scheme, known provisionally as the “Household Orderly Corps,” it is proposed to establish centres throughout the country. From these centres skilled domestic workers will be supplied to households for a desired number of hours each day.

Attached to a centre will be a training school, a hostel, and a restaurant, all in charge of a manager. A board of management, composed of representatives of employers and workers, will decided charges to be made to employers, hours of work, uniform, holidays, etc.

Provincial mayoresses are to be asked to help in the inception of the scheme, which, besides promising a solution of the “servant question,” suggests a career for the thousands of girls who will lay down war work with the coming of peace, and who would find no attraction in domestic service as it is at present organised.