The servant's labour: the business of life, England, 1760-1820
Social History, 29 (1):
1-29 (2004)Abstract
Taxation of domestic servants' labour was inaugurated under Act of Parliament in 1777. A pragmatic measure, designed to increase revenue to fund a war economy, it established right of appeal to the higher courts, and local commissioners and employers to seek the opinion of the judges as to whether or not a man or woman was truly a domestic servant and a master or mistress liable to the tax. These records are used here to discuss the kind of work performed by domestic servants, and the place of domestic service in a developing labour theory of value, throughout the eighteenth century and beyond. The largest occupational category in later eighteenth-century society may thus be inserted into a history of working-class formation in England and the interaction of two bodies of law (Poor Law and taxation law) in the making of a modern class society discussed. ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR
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