governess

In Rebecca Solomon's 1851 painting The Governess, the title figure (seated right, with her charge) exhibits the modest dress and deportment appropriate to her quasi-invisible role in the Victorian household.

A governess is a female employee of a family who teaches children within their home. In contrast to a nanny (formerly called a nurse) or a babysitter, she concentrates on teaching children, not their physical needs. Her charges are of school age, not babies.

The position is rare now, except within large and wealthy households such as those of the Saudi royal family. It was common in well-off European families before World War I, especially in the countryside where no suitable school existed nearby. Parents' preference to educate their children at home—rather than send them away to board for months at a time—varied across time and countries. Governesses were usually in charge of girls and younger boys; when a boy was old enough, he left his governess for a tutor or a school.

Role

Governesses taught the "Three Rs" to young children. They also taught the "accomplishments" expected of middle class women to the young ladies under their care, such as French or another language, the piano or another musical instrument, and often painting (usually the more ladylike watercolours rather than oils) or poetry. It was also possible for other teachers (usually male) with specialist knowledge and skills to be brought in, e.g. a drawing master.

A governess was in an awkward position in the Victorian household, neither quite a servant nor a member of the family. As a sign of this social in-between-ness, she often ate in isolation. She had a middle class background and education, but she was paid and not really part of the family. Being a governess was one of the few legitimate ways an unmarried middle class woman could support herself in that society. Her position was often depicted as one to be pitied, and the only likely way out of it was to marry. Once her charges grew up, she had to seek a new position, or, exceptionally, might be retained by the grown-up daughter as a paid companion.

In fiction

Several well-known works of fiction, particularly in the nineteenth century, have focused on governesses.

• Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre
• Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey
• Henry James's most famous governess is the over-sensitive, perhaps hysterical one in The Turn of the Screw.
• Maria, the main character in The Sound of Music, leaves convent life to become a governess.

Notable governesses

• Katherine Ashley, governess to Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen.
• Madame de Maintenon, who became the last mistress of Louis XIV of France, gained entry to his inner circle as governess to his illegitimate offspring, the children of Madame de Montespan.
• Louise Lehzen, Queen Victoria's governess.
• Anne Sullivan, the so-called Miracle Worker, who educated the remarkable deaf and blind girl Helen Keller
• Marion Crawford ("Crawfie"), governess of Queen Elizabeth II and HRH The Princess Margaret.

Other uses

In the past, the term "governess" also referred to a female politician who serves as governor, but the term is now exclusively used to refer to a female teacher employed by a family, with the term "governor" being used in politics for both men and women.

See also

• Home schooling

External links

• The Victorian Governess
• The Victorian Governess, a bibliography, at Victorian Web

Further reading

• Hughes, Kathryn: The Victorian Governess, London: Hambledon, 1993. ISBN 1-8528-5002-7

• Peterson, M. Jeanne: "The Victorian Governess: Status Incongruence in Family and Society, in Suffer and Be Still: Women In the Victorian Age, ed. Martha Vicinus. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972.

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