So I’m going to assume that at least some of you guys watch “Downton Abbey”. I’m wondering what Daisy’s (the kitchen maid) childhood would have been like, for those of you who are knowledgeable about the lives of the poor in the Edwardian Era in England.
I’m asking because Daisy always seemed like such an innocent person until I read this excerpt from “The Chronicles of Downton Abbey: A New Era” by Jessica Fellowes, Matthew Sturgis, and Julian Fellowes:
“Daisy is treated as an inconsequential junior by the other servants. ‘She would have had a tough childhood’, says Julian Fellowes, ‘so low in class that there is a greater distance between her and Carson than there is between him and Lord Grantham. They’re from the functioning upper end of the scale and she’s from the dysfunctional lower end.’ In fact, she would have been almost rescued by Mrs Patmore. ‘We know she has hardly any family at all and Mrs Patmore may have taken pity on her and brought her into the house,’ says Julian.”
Daisy also said herself in one episode that in all her childhood, she never had anybody she could always trust.
I just hope that doesn’t mean she was sexually abused. I’ve asked this question elsewhere and the majority of people seem to think that her naivete in regards to Thomas’ sexuality is a good indicator that she wasn’t sexually abused as a child, and that the excerpt from the book is simply indicating that she was perhaps neglected.
For those of you who have knowledge of that era, was child abuse rampant among the poor? What percentage of children from poor families were sexually abused? Was it a widespread problem or was a surprisingly small percentage of children molested? What about children who were in workhouses? Were the majority of them fortunate enough to survive the workhouse without getting sexually abused? Was there a difference in the treatment of children who lived in the big cities as opposed to the countryside?