scullery maids
Dish-washing household staff
Scullery maids were the lowest-ranking female servants in large households, responsible for the dirtiest kitchen work—washing dishes, scrubbing pots, and cleaning floors.
The scullery was a back room adjacent to the kitchen where this work took place.
The term is historical; the position largely disappeared with modern household technology and the decline of domestic service.
- underlingPerson of lower rank
- minionServile subordinate
- ragsTorn cloth pieces
- domesticOf the home
- domestic servicePaid household labor
servant's quarters · Cinderella · dishcloth · cleaning · sweep · scrubbing brush · servants · chores · hired hand · low wages · Downton Abbey · period drama · Jane Eyre · mop · subordinate · bucket · dirty dishes · pot scrubber
- servantsbutler, servant, servants, domestics, valet
- Victorian childhoodstreet children, foundlings, urchins, waifs, destitute children
- manual laborfarming, lifting, carrying, shoveling, loading
- social classesupper class, middle class, lower class, working class, nobles
scullery maidsbutler
Chief domestic servant
head butler · housekeeper · lady's maid · valet · majordomo
scullery maidslady of the house
Female head of household
lord of the manor · master of the house · aristocrats · nobility · gentry
scullery, maid, maids, scullion, scull, maiden, maidens, maidenly, maidenhood