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If you get a copy of the marriage certificate, it will say whether Sarah was working at the time of the wedding.

It appears she moved around the southwest a bit with her family.

In 1851, the family were in Loders, Dorset. The oldest 3 children (including Sarah) were born in Crewkerne, the youngest in Loders.

1861 they were living in Sherborne, Dorset. I can't see Sarah in 1871 on a brief look but her parents and youngest brother were still in Sherborne, as was her older sister Elizabeth (a servant in a different household).

Is there any particular reason to think she may have been in Gloucester?

When was this marriage?

There was a marriage in q1 1874 between David John Jones and Sarah Guy, in Birmingham- is this your couple?

I don't know if it was an acknowledged "code" but I think it was quite common.

My gt gt grannie was "housekeeper" to a publican in 1911, having split up from her husband. You can see that an inn might need some sort of housekeeper. But actually her employer, said innkeeper, then funded her divorce case; and my grannie, born BEFORE her parents split up, actually turned out to be the innkeepers daughter (which i discovered thanks to DNA)!

So yep, gt-grannie may have been keeping house, but she was also definitely in a relationship with her single employer. And I think there were many like her.

I've been rereading Jane Austen recently and was reminded of all these wealthy young ladies with "portions" of £2000, 10000 or even 30000.

I'm presuming this was basically a dowry? And was handed it over to the husband as one lump sum (because I don't suppose for one moment that the women got to keep it - what was theirs, was his, once they were married!)

If the woman then died not long after marriage, say in the first year, in childbirth (not that uncommon), did it revert to her family? Or if not routinely, could such conditions(and others) be attached? If the husband died, did it revert to the woman, or only if specified in the husband's will?

And to look specifically at a family which I'm studying - what would a portion of £1000 in 1695 be equivalent to in 1810, when Jane Austen was writing?