Country Servant.....

[Caroline]

Can anyone tell me if a COUNTRY servant is just a servant that works outdoors, as opposed to a DOMESTIC servant. I've just come upon the term, on a marriage certificate, for the first time.

Caroline

[Russell]

Hi Caroline

Just a guess but I have been researching my country cousins who worked on an estate in the Borders. The Pringle family who owned the estate also had a Town house in Edinburgh and appeared to have staff for both premises. they may have differentiated them this way although the description could be applied equally to the person who worked the land. They were often referred to as farm servants rather than agricultural labourers. Perhaps the person writing it felt it was easier to spell.

Two possibilities. Take your pick!
Do the occupations of other in the family give a clue?

Russell

[DavidWW]

Can anyone tell me if a COUNTRY servant is just a servant that works outdoors, as opposed to a DOMESTIC servant. I've just come upon the term, on a marriage certificate, for the first time.

Caroline

Fascinating!, - never seen that.

On the one hand I'd have thought that a "domestic servant" was just that, whether in the town or country; but on the other hand one never really knows unless a source can be found that clarifies this term.

If you dig deeply enough, but a visit to NRH or Kew may be required, there were lists of acceptable occupational terms laid down for the enumerators, but these don't help if the enumerator in question didn't follow the guidance , and the area supervisor didn't make a correction.

It would still be interesting to see if the term "country servant" was permitted.

Could it have been an alternative for a (female) agricultural labourer in the manner that Russell suggests? Does the context give any hints?

Or, as Russell also suggests, the Head of Household distinguishing between a servant in the town house and a servant in the country house

David

[Caroline]

Hi Russell and David,

Sorry I've taken so long to reply to your posts, but I've not been online for the past week.

Thought if I gave a bit more detail about the context of my "country servant" it might be easier to figure out.

"Country servant" was given as the occupation of the groom in a marriage I was looking at that took place in Greenock in 1893. I initially thought that it was just another term for farm servant , but then I noticed that the brides occupation was given as farm servant , so I assumed a country servant was something different.

I also though he might have been a servant at a country house, but at the time of his marriage both him and his bride were living at 79 Dempster St, Greenock which I assumed was just a tenement flat from looking at pictures of the area.

Interestingly eniugh I have seen the occupation mentioned a few times in the 1881 census for Greenock, but nowhere else.

Caroline

[Russell]

Hi Caroline

Thanks for coming back to us on this one. There's nothing like learning something new every day and that certainly applies to this site!!!

I think it hughly likely that the groom was a member of the household staff of one of the bigger houses in Greenock.The road to Gourock has some lovely big houses which merchants and businessmen would own then. Some still have outbuildings which were originally stables but have been turned into terrific, desirable residences so a groom or coachman would be required to look after the the big bosses transport.
Nowadays some of the big houses have been converted into Nursing Homes or subdivided into flats.
Living in Dempster Street he would only be 10 minutes walk away from the big houses along the front (the posh bit!).
I think the Registrar for Greenock at that time didn't follow the general guidelines for recording occupations and just put down what he thought represented a good description of a servant who did not actually live at the 'big house' with his employers.

Hope this makes sense?

Russell