Ayahs and Amahs

Photograph of an amah with her mistress and a child, Singapore Swimming Club, 1939. Collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library, New Zealand

This project is dedicated to studying the female domestic care workers from India and China who travelled to Australia and elsewhere during the period of British colonialism, the travelling Ayahs and Amahs.

These were extraordinarily mobile women, accompanying colonial families along circuits of empire between Australia, Asia, and the UK over two centuries.

By exploring the historical experiences and cultural memories of these earliest global domestic workers, the project aims to illuminate a broader transcolonial history of domestic work.

Learn more

F. G. R. ‘The “Ayah”’ [postcard, n.d.]
Sikh family group, with amah, in a photographer’s studio, Shanghai, 1936. Image courtesy of Jaskaran Sangha and Historical Photographs of China, University of Bristol (www.hpcbristol.net)
An ayah’s boarding house in Hackney, London

Ayahs and Amahs: Transcolonial Servants in Australia and Britain 1780-1945 brings together prominent historians from Australia and the US to conduct internationally collaborative research on the transcolonial origins of global migrant domestic work. University of Newcastle historian of domestic service and colonialism, Professor Victoria Haskins, is leading the project and joins with Dr Claire Lowrie from the University of Wollongong and Professor Swapna Banerjee from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

More information on team