How much were domestic servants paid in today's money.

This is something that has always fascinated me. I've long been a fan of period dramas, especially those that focus on the upstairs downstairs element of living in time gone by.
A lot of documentaries focus on the raw deal suffered by domestic servants, in terms of their working conditions, hours and salary.
The thing is, like any attempt to compare past to present it is essential you have accurate facts and figures or else you will have inconclusive data. Many documentaries and bloggers use salaries from the Victorian period to represent the salaries of Downton staff (which is set in 1912-1920).
So if you really want to know how much Anna Bates would have earned read on baked up by true history!

I first wanted to get an idea of Anna's salary.
I've compared two figures to get a median wage. The first salary is from Hichingbrook House in Cambridgeshire's website see here of £28 for an upper housemaid in 1910. Our second salary figure comes from official records for an upper housemaid called Florence Page who worked at Emo Court in Ireland from 1914-1917 her wage throughout her employment was £32 a year.
So let's say a wage for a housemaid like Anna in Dontown abbey would be £30 in 1912.
I found this fab site that allows you to  compare historical salaries to modern figures using the retail price index and the incomes economic status in equivalent terms.
The modern value (for 2010 ) using the rpi equates the salary to £2,320 which does sound pretty measly.
However it was common for upper house maids to receive tips of around £10 a year from guests
(it was expected when you went to your friends country house for the weekend that you would tip the staff to thank them for this service) add this and the salary becomes worth £3,100 in 2010's figures.
However the important thing is to look at the economic power this wage would of entitled our 1st housemaid to in relative terms.
Its very difficult for the RPI to give us this information as the value of assets like property, cars, was significantly different a century ago.
 To give us  better picture measuringworth.com  gives us an economic status  (measuring the relative prestige  value of that income or wealth is ) as £13,700.00 or £18,200.

 As this figure shows although not a high cash value of RPI the economic status is high. Add to the that the value of board and food provided to all servants (say £80 a week in today's money) and the earning look like  a much more respectable £22,300 per anum. Double the national minimum wage in 2010.

So was life as a servant in 1912 so terrible? Probably not. For most women service offered a job for life, a stable home and almost guaranteed career progression. Plus if they remained unmarried many ladies maids or maids were gifted annuity and lodging on retirement.

Would I do it? possibly. I suppose it would depend on my economic background. Right now I run a pub. Which is very similar to domestic service. Every day I clean 6 toilets, stoke up a fire, clear a large dining room and lay it up immaculately for the evening restaurant service, clean a busy kitchen, serve many guests, clean and present a saloon room and help assist people with menu choices. I work six days a work, 12-15 hours a day.

So is my life really that different from my century past counterpart?