A between maid (nickname tweeny, also called hall girl particularly in the United States) was a female junior
domestic worker
A domestic worker is a person who works within a residence and performs a variety of household services for an individual, from providing cleaning and household maintenance, or cooking, laundry and ironing, or care for children and elderly ...
in a
large household with many staff.
[Pierce, John Alexander. ]
The Masterpieces of Modern Drama: Abridged in Narrative Form with Extracts from the Chief Scenes
'. United States, Doubleday, Page, 1916. 233. The position became largely defunct in the 20th century, as few
household
A household consists of one or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is im ...
s needed or could afford great retinues of domestic workers with the elaborate hierarchy of the past.
Description
Between maids were roughly equivalent to
scullery maid
In great houses, scullery maids were the lowest-ranked and often the youngest of the female domestic servants and acted as assistants to a kitchen maid.
Description
The scullery maid reported (through the kitchen maid) to the cook or chef. Alo ...
s (dishwashers, floor scrubbers, oven minders, etc.). The term ''hall girl'' came from her chief duty, which was waitressing in the
servants' hall
The servants' hall is a common room for domestic workers in a great house, typically referring to the servants' dining room.
If there is no separate sitting room, the servants' hall doubles as the place servants may spend their leisure hours and s ...
. The term ''between maid'' came from the fact that her duties were split between the area of responsibilities of the housekeeper,
butler
A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments, with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantries, pantr ...
and
cook
Cook or The Cook may refer to:
Food preparation
* Cooking, the preparation of food
* Cook (domestic worker), a household staff member who prepares food
* Cook (profession), an individual who prepares food for consumption in the food industry
* C ...
. If those individuals did not like one another, the job of the between maid was a very difficult one.
A between maid was required to set the table and remove the dishes, as well as waiting at table. She may also have carried meals up to the
head housekeeper, if that head of staff had breakfast or
afternoon tea
Tea is an umbrella term for several different meals consisting of food accompanied by tea to drink. The English writer Isabella Beeton, whose books on home economics were widely read in the 19th century, describes meals of various kinds an ...
in her room(s). A between maid should not be confused with a ''parlour maid'', though both maids had similar household duties. Parlour maids cleaned and tidied reception rooms and living areas in the mornings, and often served refreshments at afternoon tea, as well as sometimes serving
dinner
Dinner usually refers to what is in many Western cultures the biggest and most formal meal of the day. Historically, the largest meal used to be eaten around noon, midday, and called dinner. Especially among the elite, it gradually migrated to ...
. They tidied studies and libraries and, with footmen, answered bells calling for service.
See also
*
Hall boy
In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and the Early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gre ...
*
List of obsolete occupations
This is a list of obsolete occupations. To be included in this list an occupation must be completely, or to a great extent, obsolete. For example, there are still a few lamplighters retained for ceremonial or tourist purposes, but in the main the ...
References
Bet
Domestic work
Obsolete occupations
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