Meeting With Munby
When Hannah was seventeen, she worked as under-housemaid for Lady Boughey at Aqualate Hall, Forton but was dismissed after only eight months because her mistress saw her (as she later recorded) "playing as we was cleaning our kettles."
She then obtained a position with Lady Louisa Cotes (1814–1887), wife of John Cotes of Woodcote, Sherriffhales (1799–1874). Louisa Harriet Cotes was the daughter of Charles Cecil Cope Jenkinson, 3rd Earl of Liverpool and half brother of Robert Banks Jenkinson, the 2nd Earl of Liverpool and Prime Minister from 1812 to 1827. Lady Cotes took her to London. There, in 1854, Cullwick met Arthur Munby on one of his regular urban expeditions to investigate working women. Munby was struck by her size (5' 7½", 161 lbs) and strength, combined with the nobility of character he claimed to see in working women. Cullwick saw him as an idealized gentlemen who celebrated the intense labor she did as a maid of all work. In order to be near Munby, she began to work in various middle-class households in London, including an upholsterer, a beer merchant, and widow with several daughters, as well as in lodging houses (which gave her more freedom from supervision). The two formed a lasting relationship that led to a secret marriage in 1873.
Before she met Munby, Cullwick saw a lavish musical called The Death of Sardanapalus, on the first time she had been to the theatre in her life. The musical, based on the play by Lord Byron, told of an ancient, pacifist king who loved one of his slave girls. The slave, Myrrha, loved the king, but also had her own democratic and republican desires. Cullwick identified strongly with the play's heroine.
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