Pregnant servant staying at work?

[Annie65115]

How common was it for women to keep their jobs if they had an illegitimate child in the 19th century?

I'll try to keep the story shortish.

Two brothers, living next door to each other in a pair of houses built 1860ish. Brother T was widowed and lived with his children and his widowed sister. Brother B was married, lives with his wife, and had no children. Servant S (unmarried) was with brother B in the 1851, 61 and 71 censuses (so formany years before they moved in - she must have been "part of the family"?)

By 1881, brother B had died, and servant S was with B's widow.

By 1891, the widow had also died; brother T had moved into the empty house and his original house was now occcupied by T's married son and family. But servant S was still there, now with brother T.

The twist -- Servant S (who never married) had an illegitimate daughter, E, in 1858. E was with her grandparents in her early years, but by 1881 had joined the family and was with brother T as a servant!

It seems unusual to me that a servant would be kept on if they fell pregnant and had a child; and the child obviously wasn't a secret and she ended up with the family! I find myself wondering if one of the brothers was actually the child's father but I guess I'll never know.

Any thoughts or comments on this?

[Andrew Tarr]

I don't see how you can hope to get an accurate answer to your question, as while there may well have been regular examples of this, I don't think the true circs will have been recorded anywhere ? It is easy to imagine scenarios which appear to fit the visible data - I have made some myself - and of course there may be family folklore.  But we also know how genuine that can be ...

The characters who appear in censuses every 10 years may well have had no qualms about giving their details, and would never have imagined that 150 years later people like us would have been trying to put 2 and 2 together 

[Annie65115]

Oh, I know it's all conjecture, and I'll never know what actually happened. It's just that I hadn't before come across a longterm servant keeping their position after giving birth, and wondered if it were maybe more common that I imagined. Folklore would have us believe that women or girls who married or had illegitimate children in Victorian times promptly lost their jobs, but I wonder how true that actually was?

This isn't actually my family; I'm tracing the history of my daughter's house and these were the occupants.

[coombs]

Quite an interesting thing to ponder anyway, I guess any descendants of the 1858 born child of Servant S may be able to get an answer about the father through autosomal DNA testing, providing the baby survived and later had children.

[Ruskie]

It may be nothing more than Sarah being a valued long term employee/friend as the reason she was kept on, or maybe not all Victorians were as prudish and judgemental as we have been led to believe?

But yes, it does seem quite possible that one of the Thomases could be Elizabeth’s father, if ages and dates tally.

To satisfy your curiosity it might be worth buying that 1858 birth certificate in case the father is named.