Many years ago I saw a beautiful graphic portrait from the 1950s. It was of a very smart looking aristocratic woman with a young maid across her knee giving her a spanking. The drawing was within an otherwise vanilla collection and no particular attention was drawn to this image as if it was quite commonplace.

I have not seen this image since, but I do remember the caption was simply ‘spanking the maid.’

Now I have posted on this topic before but every now and then I chance on something I haven’t seen or don’t remember seeing before. This time I found some interesting articles on Google Reader.

This incomplete snippet was taken from Woman’s Weekly in 1911 was supplied under the heading ‘domestic discipline.’

Do you still spank your servant girls? Many perfectly sound housekeepers still do, although the practice seems to be in decline. Professional agencies have suggested that the decline is down to modern thinking and the growing shortage of girls willing to enter service in the first place.

The Modern Woman’s Guide to Good Housekeeping says that spanking of girls over 21 is very much a thing of the past and good servants will expect better conditions than previous generations.

Your grandmothers probably had girls in their house who had begun their service at aged 14 or 15 and who were treated as part of the family. But this way of things is sadly in decline and modern women are more inclined to move on or even get married younger.

In 1883, the Domestic Gazette, suggested that “birching your maid is decidedly old hat, and not to mention barbaric. If one has a girl in their house needful of such harsh treatment, then this humbler reporter is of the opinion that you might consider seeking a new maid.”

However, unlike the later article there is no doubt that maids needed punishing as the article goes on to say, “if your maid needs corporal chastisement then might this writer suggest that a good old-fashioned slipper applied to the naked posterior is quite effective enough. Or for the older more recalcitrant girl that one applies a patent leather strap to the same place.”

I particularly like an advertisement form an even earlier date that ran the legend ‘Domestic Trouble?’ above a crude line drawing of a nervous young maid and went on to offer: “Whips, crops, rods of all sizes for those difficult servants.”

No doubt the reality of this employee abuse was rather grim, but I chose to remember that drawing I saw of the 1950s maid and the romantic fantasies it conjures up.