Story: Household services

Importing domestic servants

Importing domestic servants

British domestic servants arrive in Auckland on the Ruapehu in June 1925. There had been frequent calls for special schemes to bring out women who would help solve the ‘servant problem’, and at times the government subsidised their passages. In 1920 Harriet Morison of the government’s Women’s Labour Bureau said every woman who arrived could have been placed a dozen times over. The British women had to agree to stay in service for a year, but most left as soon as possible for better-paying jobs or marriage.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library, Herbert Otto Roth Collection (PAColl-4920)
Reference: PAColl-4920-3-10-01

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page:

Jane Tolerton, 'Household services - Domestic service since 1900', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/photograph/21787/importing-domestic-servants (accessed 5 May 2024)

Story by Jane Tolerton, published 11 Mar 2010