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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: brigidmac on Tuesday 03 November 20 16:41 GMT (UK)

Title: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: brigidmac on Tuesday 03 November 20 16:41 GMT (UK)
Ive heard of children having indian nurses called Ayahs
 and actually found one listed as Ayah on a 1911 census in Leicestershire

She was born in india and an indian national ....first name Sarah .

Working for an army captain and his wife  and two children under two

I wonder why they didnt call her a nursemaid ...was the role different or was it a reflection of her nationality.?
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: BumbleB on Tuesday 03 November 20 16:48 GMT (UK)
If she was born in India and initially employed in India, then her occupation would be "Ayah"

https://www.lexico.com/definition/ayah
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: ThrelfallYorky on Tuesday 03 November 20 16:54 GMT (UK)
Nursemaid, servant, wider than a "Nanny", and, quite simply an "Ayah" would describe her job, and she probably had come to England with a family who had lived / were based in India.
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: brigidmac on Tuesday 03 November 20 17:01 GMT (UK)
I cant.read her surname
Alstrom * according to ancestry
 
 she was age 50 married 20 years  9 children 6 living

 Yorky : Would her family  have travelled  from india with her & her employees or been left behind ?

She was working for captain edmund PACKE at Stretton.Hall great glen Leicestershire
He + wife nora olive had charles william age 1yr 11 months & arthur age months

The PACKE  s owned Glen Hall link to upstairs downstairs life there

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=839596.msg7055657#msg7055657
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: BumbleB on Tuesday 03 November 20 17:15 GMT (UK)
So, the eldest child was born in PMB, Natal, and the youngest in Mauritius.  Married for 3 years.  And I note that Edmund is said to be "British Subject by parentage", and so I would assume he too was born overseas - sorry, perhaps not, as everyone except Sarah has the same entry! 

Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: BumbleB on Tuesday 03 November 20 17:34 GMT (UK)
Married:  24 February 1908 - Pretoria, SA - Olivia Rachel Nora Maclean - Family Search.





Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: BumbleB on Tuesday 03 November 20 17:50 GMT (UK)
1901 - the Packe family are at The Vicarage, Feering, Essex - RG13/1724 7 6 - Edmund being 2nd Lieutenant, Royal Fusiliers.  A large household.




Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: a-l on Tuesday 03 November 20 17:52 GMT (UK)
My Mum was born in India and had an Ayah. She was solely a Nanny because the family had other servants.
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: Kiltpin on Tuesday 03 November 20 19:21 GMT (UK)
My Ayah was called Irene and from the pictures that my parents took, she was a strikingly beautiful woman. Every morning, she would take me to the Zoological Gardens. Two paces behind us was always a tall Patan with a sword and immense moustaches and a fierce look about him. Unfortunately, we left India when I was still young and all Ihave is pictures. 

Regards 

Chas
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: a-l on Tuesday 03 November 20 19:28 GMT (UK)
My Ayah was called Irene and from the pictures that my parents took, she was a strikingly beautiful woman. Every morning, she would take me to the Zoological Gardens. Two paces behind us was always a tall Patan with a sword and immense moustaches and a fierce look about him. Unfortunately, we left India when I was still young and all Ihave is pictures. 

Regards 

Chas


What a wonderful memory  :)
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: a-l on Tuesday 03 November 20 19:30 GMT (UK)
I also remember that the lady who washed the dishes was called a Doby. I found that amusing as a child because of the Doby washing up liquid.
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: brigidmac on Tuesday 03 November 20 19:52 GMT (UK)
Thanks for all these lovely replies so nice to get an insight into a different life

Bumble B I found that 1901  census it looks like they kept
Their cook and parlour maid for over a decade taking them to leicester all had same positions in 1911 ...hope they had a pay rise at least

I think ellen Hurwick Harwuck is the housemaid too ..all unmarried
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: brigidmac on Tuesday 03 November 20 20:02 GMT (UK)
Id love to see that picture kiltpin

Anyone who has access to 1911 what do you think the surname is .

Is there a way of finding out more about Sarah s family

I found a boat passage for Edmund & Nora & the children .
(Then tried to look at subsequent pages and lost the page totally
My ipad jumps to previous searches arbitrarily )

My mother interviewed Margaret the youngest of the Packe children b 1922
I wonder if  she had an aya or a nurse
*apparently there is a photo of Margaret PACKE as a baby being pushed by a nurse
I will try and get hold of it ...

In 1901 there was a married nurse age 37 Sarah BUTLER presumably for edmunds younger siblings
Unless she was a medical nurse

I did wonder if they had married nurses for particular reason.
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: Sloe Gin on Tuesday 03 November 20 22:09 GMT (UK)
How is "Ayah" pronounced?  It's a word I've never heard spoken aloud.
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: Jebber on Tuesday 03 November 20 22:16 GMT (UK)
How is "Ayah" pronounced?  It's a word I've never heard spoken aloud.

Pronounced Hiya without the H in front.

In China it would be Amah, as in armour.
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: brigidmac on Tuesday 03 November 20 22:41 GMT (UK)
good question sloe

I always pronounce it "eye a"

My indian flatmate has never heard of the word .
(His word for carer was banji..which also means sister )

There are lots of indian languages tho ..

Im sure there were Aya.s in Kipling stories but may have been spelt differently

Hopefully  a_i & kiltpin will tell us how they said it and if they know which language it was from

Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: Treetotal on Tuesday 03 November 20 22:43 GMT (UK)
An interesting post to read, I have never heard of it before! You learn something every day on here.
Carol
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: youngtug on Tuesday 03 November 20 22:47 GMT (UK)
.

Im sure there were Aya.s in Kipling stories but may have been spelt differently
  Quote from Kipling; “Our ayah was a Portuguese Roman Catholic who would pray—I beside her—at a wayside Cross. Meeta, my Hindu bearer,
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: youngtug on Tuesday 03 November 20 22:49 GMT (UK)
From Kiplings  autobiography,,"Something of Myself"


  http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks04/0400691.txt
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: brigidmac on Tuesday 03 November 20 22:56 GMT (UK)
Thanks so much young tug
And for the link to indian research you posted in chatterbox

I will take a look in the morning and see if theres anything about Sarah ARETRION & her family tho im.not convincinced thats the spelling it looks more like ARETRIOUS on 1911 census

Shes not on freebmd in uk deaths in UK.under that spelling but other members of PACKE family travelled abroard so she could easily have gone with them or back.to india when her charges were sent to school and no longer needed her

Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: youngtug on Tuesday 03 November 20 22:59 GMT (UK)
https://www.bl.uk/subjects/south-asia
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: brigidmac on Wednesday 04 November 20 09:45 GMT (UK)
What were childminders called in other countries
In.France some are referred to as NouNou whivh always makes me think of the hoover in teletubbies

Nounou is short for Nourrice ....which I.believe is because the original wet nurses were employed to breast feed or nousish the children of Ladies .

What are the words in other countries
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: brigidmac on Thursday 05 November 20 13:52 GMT (UK)
Looking for Ayah Sarah.s family

I couldnt find any other ARETION names in UK in 1911

The indian ladies in.my.coffee morning zoom group all thought she.d have left her children behind while she worked

The link provided by Tug wouldnt allow me to do a search withuit subscribing  .
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: youngtug on Thursday 05 November 20 22:45 GMT (UK)
 India office collection on FindMyPast
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: brigidmac on Thursday 05 November 20 22:47 GMT (UK)
Thanks Tug I.ll try that ....can you remind me of the name of the town please
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: youngtug on Thursday 05 November 20 22:48 GMT (UK)
Maybe the National Archives of India would be useful
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: Kiltpin on Friday 06 November 20 10:04 GMT (UK)
Hopefully  a_i & kiltpin will tell us how they said it and if they know which language it was from
   

I learned the word from my mother and she would pronounce it - Eye yah. I believe that it comes from Hindi, which is an oral language only. Because of the lack of being pegged to the written word, it tends to evolve in any direction that it is needed. It is the Pigeon English of the Indian sub-continent. 

For example - Go You Shops. Depending on the inflection of the speaker this could either mean "Are you going to the shops?", or "I want you to go to the shops!", or even "Please do me a favour and go to the shops."

Regards 

Chas
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: youngtug on Friday 06 November 20 10:50 GMT (UK)
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/mar/01/one-way-passage-from-india-hackney-museum-colonial-ayahs-london
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: brigidmac on Friday 06 November 20 11:32 GMT (UK)
That's an amazingly sad report Tug
& What an impossible task to identify the abandoned Ayahs

I hope the Drummond's were punished in some way .what a horrible thing to do to someone who had cared for your babies
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: brigidmac on Sunday 08 November 20 15:55 GMT (UK)
I have posted a photo of three younger Packe children in 1921

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=839596.msg7054494#msg7054494


Whether baby is in the arms of a mature indian Ayah or a younger lady I cant tell

 can you  zoom in..?

Rootschat wont let me post same photo twice       Ive already tried on photo enhancement board
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: danuslave on Monday 09 November 20 00:54 GMT (UK)
Looking at the 1911 census I would say Sarah's surname is ARETRIOM.  This is how FindMyPast have transcribed it

It's worth noting that much of the transcription for this record on Ancestry is wrong!
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: JohninSussex on Wednesday 11 November 20 11:48 GMT (UK)
I learned the word from my mother and she would pronounce it - Eye yah. I believe that it comes from Hindi, which is an oral language only. Because of the lack of being pegged to the written word, it tends to evolve in any direction that it is needed. It is the Pigeon English of the Indian sub-continent. 

Not true at all.  Hindi as a written language goes back hundreds of years, in Devanagari script in India and in Muslim areas including Pakistan in Arabic script.  Other main languages like Bengali or Tamil also have very long written records.  But it may be true of more local languages that they were originally oral only.

My Mum was born in India and had an Ayah.
Same here.  My grandfather was a Consulting Engineer and probably most of the Indian engineers he worked with were trained in English so he didn't have to learn too much of the local language(s).

I asked mum once, did she ever learn any Tamil?  She said no, but she did learn some Hindi due to spending all day with the ayah.

Once the family was out in the car and got lost between villages.  Father asked someone for directions but he wasn't sure he understood the reply.  My mum who must have been no more than six, took control and said No Daddy he said go along here and turn right and ...

Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: brigidmac on Saturday 14 November 20 22:39 GMT (UK)
Thats a lovely story john
Quite typical of families who lived in other countries .

The children always pick up the language quicker .

Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: brigidmac on Thursday 11 April 24 01:45 BST (UK)
Update

I never did manage to find anything else about Sarah the ayah to colonel packes children
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: radstockjeff on Thursday 11 April 24 08:40 BST (UK)
I can vaguely recall Ayahs and doby from my brief spell in Kenya back in the early 1950s. And on return to England always greeted my parents with "Jambo". (hello).
rj
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: brigidmac on Thursday 11 April 24 08:50 BST (UK)
Jambo is Swahili for hello .

What did the Indian Ayah s wear
If they came to England ?
I expect they felt the  cold after India or Kenya

This is a nanny in 1922

Could be Sarah I suppose but she would have been ages 60

I've not seen 1921 census

Arthur Packe  died before this photo 1920 age 9
 . Baby Margaret died in 2015

Same house as Sarah was ayah
11 years earlier to  the older siblings of these children .
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: brigidmac on Thursday 11 April 24 09:06 BST (UK)
Grave of the Packe family
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: Viktoria on Thursday 11 April 24 14:05 BST (UK)
Ayahs were often the one who fed the babies, they would have babies themselves but had to leave them and they were “ wet nurses “ to European babies .
It was thought that European women would not be strong enough in the hot enervating climate to feed their babies ,many upper class women did have such nurses in England .
They were not allowed to have their babies with them ,so you can imagine what a strong bond there was between them and the babies they nursed .
It was a cruel system , but acceptable at the time.

Viktoria.
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: Wexflyer on Thursday 11 April 24 20:15 BST (UK)
An Ayah did what you told her to do....
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: brigidmac on Thursday 11 April 24 20:47 BST (UK)
Ha ha Wex
I think that Sarah must have been picked up in 1909 in natal where the PACKE s 1st child was born
Then gone to Mauritius with the family where second child was born in late 1910
He was only 5 months old in 1911 census so she probably travelled to England
And would have had plenty of work over the next decade if she did stay with the family other children were  born in 1913 + 1916 & 1922

Other people in domestic service followed this family around and according  to local memories colonel
PACKE was a good payer
So I'm beginning to think Sarah could be the dark skinned nanny in the photo or is it a trick of the light
Does anyone have access to the 1921
Census to see how many domestic servants the family had and who  was the ayah nanny or nursemaid
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: brigidmac on Saturday 13 April 24 13:23 BST (UK)
Found the 1921 census
With Mrs Packe & 3 children age 7 .4 and 4 months

She has a butler  cook housemaid nursemaid + a trained children's nurse
Evelyn Mary LUCAS single woman aged 43

So that would be the lady in the photograph
Title: Re: What exactly did an Ayah do
Post by: John915 on Monday 15 April 24 13:53 BST (UK)
Good afternoon,

Only just read this so a few years behind. But to elaborate on YTs replies this is the definition of Ayah.

Origin

Anglo-Indian, from Portuguese aia ‘nurse’, feminine of aio ‘tutor’

John915