This study examines why some Victorian women took up various kinds of public social service, as social workers, researchers or reformers when the conventions of the time made it difficult to move out of private family life into public work. The family, social background and the individual character of ten famous 19th-century women are portrayed in an endeavour to identify the social circumstances and personal qualities that encouraged their social services. The author relates her findings to the problems faced by women of the present who combine family responsibilities and outside employment. Julia Parker has also written Portrait of Social Work (with Barbara Rodgers), Local Health and Welfare Services and Social Policy and Citizenship .