Elsie Marsh

A young laundress of Southwark who washes for better houses across the river, and who, delivering, hears what the servants of those houses say.

Elsie Marsh works a tub in a Southwark wash-house court and carries the finished linen across the river herself. The houses she washes for do not know her name; their servants do, and talk to her over the basket while the housekeeper counts the sheets.

She is short, sturdy and cheerful, and saves a little every week towards a mangle of her own.

In person

Young, short and sturdy, with dark-blonde curls, freckles, blue eyes, a small scar through one eyebrow and a gap in her front teeth. Her forearms are red from the tub.