Speaking of the 1880s and 90s, Flora Thomson tells us that

"There was no girl over twelve or thirteen living permanently at home. Some were sent out to their first place at eleven. The way they were pushed out into the world at that tender age might have seemed seemed heartless to a casual observer. As soon as a little girl approached school leaving age, her mother would say, "About ime you was earnin' your livin', me gal', . . .From that time onward the child was made to feel herself one too many in the overcrowded home.

When the place (in domestic service) was found, the girl set out alone on what was usually her first train journey…. The tin trunk would be sent on to the railway station by the carrier……What the girl, bound for a strange and distant part of the country to  live a new, strange life among strangers, felt when the train moved off with her can only be imagined"

[Thompson, Flora - Larkrise, 1939]