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Through oral histories, diaries, newspaper reports and never before seen testimonies, domestic servants tell their stories, warts and all - Downton it isn't! * Revenge on a mistress with a box of beetles * The despair and loneliness of a 14 year old maid * The adventure of moving to London to go into service * An escape from an unhappy home life Find out about the 'servant problem' and how servants found work; how National Insurance began to improve their lot; the impact WW1 had on domestic service; and what was done to try to make the occupation appealing to a new generation.  Praise for Michelle Higgs  'A delightful layman's guide for tourists from 2014, where you'll glean plenty of juicy detail to paint a more accurate picture of your ancestors' lives.' Family Tree (for A Visitor's Guide to Victorian England)  'An enjoyable and well-written social history, helpfully revealing more about what life would have been like 'below stairs'. Who Do You Think You Are? 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Michelle Higgs combines thorough research with a fresh outlook on a crucial period in British history, and in doing so paints a vivid portrait of an era and its social standards that continues to fascinate, and tells us much about the society we live in today.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49535604293905,"sku":"GOR003183468","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49561386975505,"sku":"GOR003946183","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49730546696465,"sku":"NGR9780752442143","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51182729396497,"sku":"GOR012127915","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53684520288529,"sku":"GOR008420048","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0752442147.jpg?v=1750913644"},{"product_id":"prison-life-in-victorian-england-book-michelle-higgs-9780752442556","title":"Prison Life in Victorian England","description":"It is a commonly held assumption that all Victorian prisons were grim, abhorrent places, loathed by their inmates. This is undoubtedly an accurate description of many English prisons in the nineteenth century However, because of the way in which prisons were run, there were two distinct types: convict prisons and local prisons. While convict prisons attempted to reform their inmates, local prisons acted as a deterrent. This meant that standards of accommodation and sanitation were lower than in convict prisons and treatment, particularly in terms of the hard labour prisoners were expected to undertake, was often more severe. Whichever type of prison they were sent to, for many prisoners and convicts from the poorest classes, prison life compared favourably with their own miserable existence at home.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49547093541137,"sku":"GOR001943134","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49615747580177,"sku":"GOR008627826","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50273440792849,"sku":"GOR011240794","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0752442554.jpg?v=1773317038"},{"product_id":"visitor-s-guide-to-victorian-england-book-michelle-higgs-9781781592830","title":"A Visitor's Guide to Victorian England","description":"A colourful introduction to the realities of life in the 19th century. Readers will learn hidden details of history, from how to fend off pickpockets to the correct way to fasten a corset. 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It occupied an extraordinary range of individuals - surgeons, doctors, nurses and specialists of all kinds. Yet, despite burgeoning interest in all aspects of history and ancestry, medicine has rarely been considered from the point of view of a family historian.  This is the main purpose of Michelle Higgs's accessible and authoritative introduction to the subject. rn Assuming the reader has little prior knowledge of how or where to look for such information, she traces the development of medical practice and patient care.  She describes how attitudes to illnesses and disease have changed over time.  In particular, she looks at the parts played in the system by doctors and nurses - at their role, training and places of work and she also looks at the patients and their experience of medicine in their day.'rn Each section identifies the archives and records that the family historian can turn to, and discusses other potential sources including the Internet. 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The first Christmas card appeared in 1843 but the idea did not catch on until almost twenty years late. The invention of the chromolithographic process and the introductin of comprehensive postal reforms sealed the success of the Christmas card. 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She provides a fascinating introduction to the subject and gives readers the means to explore the records for themselves.  She concentrates on the period from the eighteenth century through to 1948 when the National Health Service was founded and looks in particular at the Victorian era which is the most popular period for research. Using original records, contemporary accounts, photographs, illustrations and case studies of real individuals, she brings the story of the asylums and their patients to life.  Different types of institution are described such as private madhouses, county lunatic asylums, facilities for idiots and imbeciles, and military mental hospitals. Chapters look at the admission procedures and daily routine of patients, plus different kinds of mental illness and how they were treated - for instance, those with depression or mania, criminal lunatics, mothers with puerperal insanity, epileptics and soldiers suffering from shell shock. 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