The kinds of jobs which were available for young girls after leaving school in Victorian times were very limited.
Most Victorian schools had a 'Sewing mistress' who would take a class for the girls for one or two half-days every week. She would teach the girls sewing, knitting, and other domestic skills.
This would help them to prepare for married life at home, but it was mainly to provide some of the skills needed for working as a servant in one of the large estates in the district. They might also get jobs working in the homes of the wealthier local professional people. This was known as 'going into service'.

The diaries of the early schools often record the names of children who leave to become servants, as with these two examples from the Log Book of Llandewi'r Cwm School in 1882 -
9th January - "Lucy Stanton left school and gone to service.
............................. .Admitted Mary Jane Davies".
13th February - "Elizabeth Morgan left school, gone to service".

It was not only girls who went into service, because in the years when servants were paid very little most of the big houses employed large numbers of women and men as servants. They worked as cooks, maids, gardeners, estate workers and many other jobs.

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