Servants Abroad: Travel Journals by British Working People, 1765–1798
Contents
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Servants Abroad: Who, and How Many? Servants Abroad: Who, and How Many?
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Sources for Travelling Servants Sources for Travelling Servants
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Travel Journals by Servants Travel Journals by Servants
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The Evidence of Servants’ Travel Journals The Evidence of Servants’ Travel Journals
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Working Life Working Life
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Relationships on the Road Relationships on the Road
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Sightseeing Sightseeing
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After Travel After Travel
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Note on Editorial Method Note on Editorial Method
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Cite
Abstract
The ‘Grand Tour’ has a long historiography, but scholars have moved away from aristocratic experience in recent accounts of eighteenth-century travel. Servants’ journals can be an important part of that, shedding light on transnational mobility by working people. The term ‘servant’ encompasses men and women of different ages and backgrounds, performing various roles, but they outnumbered their employers. They are nevertheless left out of most elite portraits and writing. Servants’ journals are therefore valuable sources, but they are rare in two ways: that they were kept, and that they survive. More exist from the late eighteenth century, when there were more opportunities to travel and more inspiration to write. In doing so, servants engaged in working-class life writing. Their work underpinned elite travel, but their journals reveal changing dynamics with employers on the road. We also find relationships with an international cast of servants and local people. The journals engage with elite priorities (art, classical ruins) but also with servants’ own interests, despite restrictions on their time and movement. Two offer views of the French Revolution and one of the Ottoman Empire. Finally, the introduction places travel in service within lifetimes, considering what it meant and how people remembered it.
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| Month: | Total Views: |
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| August 2025 | 2 |
| October 2025 | 4 |
| December 2025 | 2 |
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