Servants and the Household Unit in an Elizabethan English Community

Abstract

During the early modern period many English young people spent five to ten years as servants, leaving their parental families in their teens to live with and work for another household until they were financially able to set up their own homes, usually in their mid- or late twenties. Servants were employed in agriculture, crafts, retailing, and domestic work. The place of servants in the large manor of Havering, Essex, 1560-1620, may be examined through a listing of communicants by household unit, parish registers, and other local records. The mean projected household size in the urbanized parish of Romford was 4.2 people, including 0.9 servants. Servants constituted about 20 percent of the total population; around 40 percent of all households included a servant. Havering's servants gained occupational training, accumulated cash and goods, and often formed lasting friendships with their masters and peers.