The aim of this study is to explain why some middle-class Victorian women took up various kinds of public social service, as social workers, researchers or reformers. The conventions of the time made it difficult for women to move out of family into public life and the nature of the work they chose demanded great physical and mental courage and endurance. The author examines the family and social background and the individual character of ten famous nineteenth-century women to try to identify the social circumstances and personal qualities that encouraged their social service activities and relates her findings to the problems faced by women of the present who endeavour to combine family responsibilities and outside employment.