Brandeston and Bruisyard are still largely rural farming communities.
Woodbridge is a bustling Market Town and has always been linked with sea faring jobs and boat building too. There have been soldiers stationed there back in the days of the Napoleonic wars.
Often people would advertise in Suffolk newspapers for servants as they considered strong, healthy country girls would work well.
Many northern employers advertised in our county.
There were also more job oppotunities in the north in the cotton mills and the mining industry - Suffolk was and is still largely dependent on farming. Farming was a precarious life in the 19th century (today's farmers would say it still is), but for the Ag Lab so much depended on the weather and if work would be available. We now have huge fields of wheat and barley, and oil seed rape in the summer - we are known as the bread basket of England
If you know the name of the family in Doncaster, it might be possible to find they had links with Suffolk. You often find that Suffolk girls who became servants in grand houses in London, for example, on further investigation you find that the London family have a country home in the county.
SM ...
