JW found herself a governess position after her father's death. On 24 January 1750 John Mulso reported that she had a new post with a Lady Sherrard at Hampton Court, where he looked forward to visiting her. During her illness at the end of this year, Hester Mulso was already looking for a new position for her, and in less than a year she took up a job with the family of Dr Sneyd . Then in1753 she went to work for the family of William Thoyts . The two little Thoyt girls, born in 1747 and 1749, in due course became the Two Young Married Ladies to whom JW addressed her conduct book.

According to the Gentleman's Magazine, EST had to set aside her own interests to serve as governess to the innumerable younger children in the family. The same article asserted that for the last seven years of her father's life (that is from 1798) she actually superintended his legal work. This seems to imply that she directed an office of legal clerks.

Though sad to see her friend emigrate, Charlotte Brontë understood Mary's motivation: Mary has made up her mind that she can not and will not be a governess, a teacher, a milliner, a bonnetmaker nor housemaid. She sees no means of obtaining employment she would like in England, so she is leaving it. During her first years in the colony Mary supported herself by teaching the piano and by renting the house she had built; by 1850 she had raised enough capital to go into business, which was the type of occupation she desired.

While her career ambitions centred on becoming a writer, she also at her mother's urging found work as governess to a brilliant pupil, Oliver Knox, seven-year-old son of Dillwyn Knox —and nephew, therefore, of the writer Winifred Peck (though it is not clear that ET was aware of this relationship). Then she was asked to teach other children, and ran an impromptu kindergarten at her parents' home. Later came a job in the Boots circulating library at High Wycombe. She enjoyed this job, but left it when she got married. More important to her was her involvement in amateur theatricals. She was active on stage with High Wycombe Theatre Club in 1932-4, often playing leading ladies. She returned to acting only a week after her wedding, playing opposite her husband.

Facing poverty and wishing to improve her status, HS began to write magazine stories. She and her sister Elizabeth also qualified as a governesses. Though Hesba's teaching was limited to Sunday School, Elizabeth became by 1867 a well-paid governess with an annual wage of £70.

Owing to her father's financial crisis of 1817, MS obtained employment as a governess (that is in later terminology a teacher) for a short period of time at a school in Essex.

They taught all subjects except French and German. They later employed additional masters and a governess, and ES enlarged her house to accommodate their students.

It was during this lean period that she began writing, teaching (she was probably though not certainly a governess, and possibly worked for Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire ), and acting.

On leaving the St Quintins' school FAR became a governess. Her employers included, for several years, Lord Bessborough (one of whose children was the future Lady Caroline Lamb ).

In the same year, 1803, she was suggested by Thomas Erskine as a suitable person to become governess to the seven-year-old Princess Charlotte , who stood second in line for the British throne. She wrote in courtierly terms of her willingness to take up the honour of educating the princess, but she was not in the end appointed.

DR worked briefly as a governess for an upper-class family just outside London.

BP worked briefly as a governess at Katowice, Poland, before the worsening political situation necessitated her return to England.

About this time MP was working as a governess in a Quaker family of Mountmelick in Queen's County.

In July 1797 Isaac Taylor the elder responded to the harsh economic climate (caused in turn by the war with France) by beginning to employ his children in his engraving business instead of apprentices. He paid them wages (which was not the practice in many family businesses). AGT's later comment suggests how far this was out of step with usual gender roles. She said he thought he was fitting us for self-support in after life, not otherwise than feminine. The implication is that others, then or later, saw their work as unfeminine. From 1797 she and Jane alternated a week of engraving with a week of housekeeping. During their non-engraving weeks they each in turn saw to the cooking, washing, and getting up the fine linens. Ann later turned down a job as a governess; but well-meaning people were always advising the sisters to teach instead of engraving.

EH began work in London: she taught, worked as a both a paid companion and a governess, and did secretarial work.

It is probable that she moved to the capital in the early 1870's initially hoping to find work as a governess or embroiderer, and then began writing for The Ladies Drawing Room Gazette. She quickly found success in the field of journalism. CEH preferred working early in the day: She is up at six every morning, and puts in two hours writing before breakfast, recruiting her energy by a short siesta in the afternoon.

She may have worked as a governess.

Having ended her schooling at sixteen, HL found a job as sub-editor on an Irish provincial paper, but she did not feel well qualified for this work, and instead got herself employed as a governess on the Continent (in Spain, Greece, Austria, France, and Italy), teaching English to the children of noble families.

She charged five guineas a quarter for Board and Washing. Entrance money was three guineas. Individual subjects (such as French, Writing, Geography, Drawing, Dancing, and Music, cost from half a guinea to one and a half guineas a quarter plus another half to one guinea at first entrance. The Plan of the establishment, published at the beginning of The School volume two, says that the young Ladies, who are of sufficient age, will be made to keep a Journal of the Employment of every Hour; and, at the End of each Day, the Governess will write a Testimony of their good or bad Behaviour.This second volume gives the school's address as Miles Court instead of Beauford Square (which is just behind the Theatre Royal), and its proprietor's name as Mease instead of Maese.

KOB worked fairly briefly at a range of jobs: as a freelance journalist, reviewing for The Sphere in London; then working for C. P. Scott in the foreign-language department of the Manchester Guardian Weekly in Manchester; and as a teacher at a convent in Hampstead for the first part of 1921. While in the US, she worked as secretary to her brother-in-law . During her time in Spain she worked as governess to two children. After her marriage ended she became secretary and publications editor for the Sunlight League .

As copyist, she transcribed her father's work without editing. He had last copied out a whole play in 1781, and had been virtually blind for a decade when his four-volume Dramatic Works appeared in 1798, Prepared for the press by the author. This suggests that Adelaide must have played a major role as editor. She also probably worked intermittently as a governess.