This paper focuses on autobiographies of three maids and two modern girls: Winifred Grace, Margaret Powell, Rosina Harrison, Flora Thompson and Noel Streatfeild. Analysing the common factors that enabled these working girls to grow into professional writers, this study considers the social and historical significances of their achievements in literature. It is a curious coincidence that all their memoirs were penned or dictated at the ripe old age of more than sixty. Accordingly, their books retrospect to their personal lives and the nation’s past from the late Victorian era to the early twentieth century suitably in a broader perspective and with a deeper insight. Vividly portraying their firsthand experiences in daily life, their narratives record precious observations of the changing status of working women in Britain. Their diligence and patience as domestic servants, a post office clerk and an actress result in their perseverance as authors; more importantly, their ethics in labour lead to their sense of duty to serve the country especially in times of crisis through WWI and WWII. Owing to this earnest and proud self-awareness as the basic and essential components of the system—of the household/mail/drama, and also of the empire—their autobiographies are elevated to the position of the unique chronicles of English society compiled from their modest standpoints, which should be duly regarded as the nation’s legacy.