A scullery maid is a general-purpose maid who is in charge of everything from cleaning pots and pans in the kitchen to scouring the halls. The position has largely vanished from most households, but historically, she would have been at the bottom of the household hierarchy, doing arduous and thankless work. Former scullery maids who were interviewed by historical organizations about their jobs compared their conditions to slavery.
The scullery maid would have been at the bottom of a household’s complex organization of servants, reporting to the kitchen maid and the cook. She was in charge of a variety of tasks, and because of her low status, she would have taken orders from many other servants in the house, while the house’s residents would rarely, if ever, interact with her. These maids were unseen and extremely hardworking as members of the “downstairs” staff.
Scullery maids were usually among the first to rise, as they had to prepare the house for the rest of the household. Lighting the fires in the house and removing the chamberpots would have been among her first tasks, as would lighting the stove in the kitchen and beginning to prepare breakfast. The scullery maid waited on upper-ranking servants in many households, setting the table for them, bringing out food, and cleaning up afterward.
Scullery maids did the heavy cleaning work in the kitchen, from scouring pots to mopping the floors, and they would have mopped floors, beaten rugs, dusted shelves, and done a variety of other cleaning tasks throughout the house after breakfast. Depending on how the house was organized, a person in this position might also work on the household laundry.
The average scullery maid would have been working from before dawn until well after dark, and her pay and benefits would have been limited due to her low status. Many were given little more than room and board, as well as emergency medical care, with few days off and no chance to keep, barter, or sell any of the lucrative leftovers that upper-ranking servants could keep, barter, or sell to supplement their wages.