Rich Class The father was a very important figure in the household. His word was everyone's command. The father was probably an important businessman or a titled person. The children would have been very polite around him. They would never have been cheeky. Mother would have been very social. She would often attend parties and go to the theatre. They would have been no washing or cooking for her. Very often children hardly ever got to see their parents. They had a nanny to attend them. As they got older, governesses would have been employed to look after the girls and the boys would have been sent to boarding schools. The children would have lots of fancy and expensive toys. When they got older the boys would be expected to go and work while girls stayed home with their mothers. They were expected to marry as soon as possible whether they liked it or not. The servants were almost like part of the family. They went everywhere even o the family's holidays. But being a servant wasn't always nice. A maid would have had a lot more work than she would do now. For example there were no washing machines in those days so maids had to clean clothes by soaking them into a tub of hot water and then beating them with a stick called a 'dolly'. Normally there would have been a housekeeper ready to box the maids on the ear if they did anything wrong. There would also have been a cook, butler and a driver. Poor Class/working class A poor family worst nightmare would have been the workhouse. Conditions were made so bad that no one would go there unless they were really desperate. The father would have been a labourer. It their father could get no work that meant no food that night. Sometimes the fathers died through exhaustion so the mothers were left to cope with what usually was a large family. Children were sent to work instead of getting an education. They could work as a miner, maid, chimney sweep or they could work in a loom. Sometimes they would get jobs looking after children not much older than themselves. They didn't have good toys. Many of their toys were homemade, dolls were made from shoes and balls were made from pigs bladder. Due to the horrible conditions many children didn't reach twenty. They died of TB, Polio, Typhus or measles.