During the 1870s the future LCC developed a passion for art. She went on to become a close associate of some of the most famous artists of the day. Much of her journalistic career drew on her connections with the Victorian art scene. In her youth, she and her father were familiar figures at exhibitions and art sales in both Paris and London, and were friends of Sir Frederic Burton , the Irish painter who was now Director of the National Gallery in London.

CC made her stage debut, as Madamoiselle in Vanbrugh 's Provok'd Wife, by personal request of the leading actress Anne Oldfield , and for Oldfield's benefit night.

Between receiving her BA degree and getting married, Gillian Williams (later GC ) worked as a news researcher for the BBC in London.

On returning from France, Mary Novello (later MCC ) took up her intended profession in the position of governess for the Purcell family. She was responsible for five children, the eldest only two years younger than herself. She scored a great hit with her charges for the plays she composed and performed in their dolls' theatre, but (being used to such high standards) she always worried that her piano teaching and playing might not be good enough. Her salary was twenty pounds a year, and when she received a five-pound note for her first quarter's pay she slept all night with it under her pillow, before receiving special permission for a day off in which to take her earnings home to her mother.

To help support her family, CC found work teaching English and music. She also travelled across Switzerland and France as an accompanist and costume model. A few years later she spent some time in Ireland working as a governess.

MC , advertised as Signorina Marie Corelli, gave a pianoforte improvisation to an invited audience in London.

Following her graduation, JC taught drama for a year in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). In 1965 she took up a position as producer for the African Music and Drama Association in Johannesburg.

At the age of sixteen, CD took a year out from her education to teach French in Geneva.

During the twelve years between her graduation and her first flush of success as a writer with Life in the Iron-Mills, RHD lived at home, helping her mother to manage the household and to school her younger siblings. Also during these years she honed her journalism skills at the Wheeling Intelligencer.

Edmée de la Pasture (later EMD ) worked for the Exeter Voluntary Aid Hospital in Devon as a VAD worker, earning her first salary, at one pound a week.

As a duchess, Georgiana became a dazzling leader of fashion and of charititable activity. She followed her mother in the patronage of women's writing particularly. Anne Penny , to take one example, published a poem to her as the Genius of Britain in her volume of 1771; Georgiana and her mother both subscribed to Penny's volume of 1780.

Having entered in haste on her vocation as a nun, GD proceeded painfully first to waver in it, then to repent of it. She received permission to spend some time outside the convent at the time of her eldest brother's marriage on 22 February 1866. After that she entered a period of doubt and despair, and some time in the early 1870s, after about a decade in the convent, she had her vows annulled by the Pope.

After this she spent some time teaching in Brantford, but she still had her eye firmly on journalism.

After finishing her BA degree at Oxford , KKD returned to Calcutta to teach at Jadavpur University for one year.

To earn a living for himself and his wife, Eliot became a schoolteacher, a prolific reviewer, an extension lecturer for London University , and the literary editor of the avant-garde magazine The Egoist.

SSE spent much time nursing and worrying about her many sisters, nieces, and other relations who suffered serious illnesses.

This female household practised a pattern of charitable giving which paid particular attention to the needs of poor women. At the initial gathering of the Swarthmoor Women's Monthly Meeting , on 23 October 1671, the first item of business was to take up a collection for the poor. On one occasion MF paid the fines levied on some fellow-Quakers for speaking at a prohibited meeting, only to have them return the money, preferring to pay it themselves.

Academics such as E. A. Freeman and J. R. Green sought her historical expertise, and asked for her help in a history textbook series.

From shortly before the armistice at the end of the First World War, and for further months thereafter, RF was an ambulance-driver for the Société de secours aux blessés militaires . She enjoyed the work, partly because for her pleasure was still closely linked with service. She was twice decorated for gallantry. She then went to Paris at the time of the peace conference, intending to find work there.

IOF rose to prominence as a Trade Union organizer during a period of labour unrest in Leeds in 1888-90. She helped to organize striking weavers in 1888, and maintained a leadership role in the lengthy strike of women tailors in 1889. In 1890 and 1891 she took part in the Millingham mills dispute in nearby Bradford. Her key roles were that of leader, conciliator, and organizer. She often sought to reconcile conflicting views to maintain labour unity.

PF declined to try for university. She wished to earn a living. The thought of university life presented a protraction of school, an unfamiliar school where all the children were grown-up. At seventeen, after a year living at home, she went to work.

Between school and university Antonia Pakenham (later AF ) worked at various jobs: as typist in an accounts department and serving behind the counter in the hats department of Fenwick's department store in London.

After seeing Pinero 's Trelawney of the Wells, KPF recorded in her diary her longing, if only she had talent, to have a try at the one profession I love the best—going on the stage. Her efforts that way began with bit parts at various venues around the London suburbs with the Ben Greet Players . In a month by this means, with sixteen performances, she earned just one pound. Her first proper professional engagement (a speaking part consisting of just one word) involved touring with a production of J. M. Barrie 's Quality Street, not only in the London area but to Birmingham, Blackpool, Liverpool, Dublin, Belfast, Bristol, and Brighton, staying in digs which contrasted sharply with her elegant home surroundings, several of them with outdoor toilets. Other tours followed.