Hi John, I'm no expert but I believe that governesses taught whatever they had skills and knowledge of themselves, so it varied one to another. They might be teaching young children primary level stuff, preparing boys for public school, helping young girls become accomplished young women, it all depended. The reason they ate alone was because they were technically not servants, they were professionals on contract - often they were from genteel levels of society themselves, perhaps fallen on hard times, which is why they were considered suitable to teach the children of well-off folks. They were between upstairs and downstairs in a role of their own. As with most jobs at the time that were open to women, the door shut fast the moment they married, because it was then considered their job was looking after husband, home and children. The fact that many women still had to do paid work as well to help the family make ends meet wasn't the point - their paid work was often invisible, seldom mentioned in censuses etc. I can still remember that it was the norm when I was young for female teachers to leave their jobs when they married, or if not then, certainly once they started to have children, and it was only a decade or two before that when female teachers would automatically lose their jobs when they married, as was the case in other professions too. Celia Renshaw in Chesterfield UK On 15 April 2013 09:21, John Palmer <johnpalmer@wirksworth.org.uk> wrote: > Hello folk, > What subjects did a Victorian governess teach? Why did she rarely get > married? > Why did she eat by herself? > > Does anyone know anything about Miss Mary Emma PIPER who was Governess > at Wirksworth Hall with the WOOD family 1862-1875? She never married though > living for > 95 years. She had brother George 1819 and sisters Fanny 1826 and Hannah > 1829. > > Some answers to these questions on www.wirksworth.org.uk/X643.htm > > Regards, > John Palmer, Dorset, England > Author of Wirksworth website > www.wirksworth.org.uk > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > DERBYSGEN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >