Hannah Cullwick (26 May 1833 – 9 July 1909) was a working-class English woman whose diary depicts her immense pride in her work and reveals themes of domestic and racial fetishism that structured both her life and the society of the empire in which she lived.

Both of their diaries – as well as letters and photographs – document the role-playing, cross-dressing, and other fetish rituals that differentiate their relationship from the perceived norms of Victorian England.

The five children received a rudimentary schooling; Hannah was sent to the Bluecoat Charity school in Shifnal, and had to contribute financially to the family from the age of eight—first in the home of a solicitor's wife, Mrs Andrew Phillips, a friend and neighbor of the Cullwicks, and then in the Red Lion Inn before becoming the sole nursemaid to the large family of the Reverend Robert Eyton at Ryton Rectory.

Her mother died of an infection, at the age of 47, and Hannah's employer, Rev Robert Eyton, refused to let her travel to visit her family, fearing that the fever would spread to Ryton, the nearby village.

The three youngest children needed to be housed: Dick was placed in a saddlery apprenticeship in Horsley Fields, Wolverhampton, with his uncle, William Cullwick (1781–1853); Ellen lived with Aunt Small (née Sarah Owen) on her large farm, in Albrighton near Shrewsbury; and Polly went to live with her spinster aunt Elizabeth Cullwick (1789–1866), in Haughton, Shifnal.

[2] In reality, many middle-class women were working tirelessly to maintain the upkeep of their homes, desperately trying to preserve their station in the "respectable" class.

Maids and governesses were also expected to present themselves with clean, White sleeves and aprons, removing any indication of their labor from the domestic realm.

[1] Cullwick's diary entries and the existing photos of her cross-dressing illustrate her intense identification with her status and role as a working-class woman rather than a desire to change her position in society.

Her pride in her work stems from the belief that God would recognize her value, even if the dominant society around her refused to acknowledge domestic drudgeries.

Munby was struck by her size (5 feet 71⁄2 inches (171.5 cm), 161 pounds (73 kg)) and strength, combined with the nobility of character he claimed to see in working women.

To be near Munby, she began to work in various middle-class households in London, including an upholsterer's, a beer merchant's, in lodging houses (which gave her more freedom from supervision), and that of a widow with several daughters.

[1] Cullwick prioritized her status as a working-class woman, but eventually married Munby with reluctance in January 1873 in Clerkenwell Parish Church by Special License granted by Archibald Campbell Tait, the then-Archbishop of Canterbury.

Through dressing up as different classes and races, Cullwick and Munby's fetishization practices demonstrate how the power dynamics of empire trickle into everyday life.

Cullwick and Munby used real power relationships of their time – adult over baby, master over servant, White man over Black slave – as points of reference to create their scenarios.

In other words, dichotomous categories such as man and woman, slave and master, and White and Black are not natural, pre-existing divisions, but rather have been constructed and manipulated by hegemonic values of societies over time.

Cullwick defied Victorian social clothes by proudly wearing a "slave band" on her arm and displaying her dirt from domestic labor.

[1] In her diary, Cullwick recorded that she refused to remove the strap because it is "the sign that I'm a drudge & belong to Massa", which illustrates that she did not accept the degradation of her domestic work (McClintock).

In the dining room of a middle-class Victorian home, where women were supposed to exhibit their leisurely lives, Cullwick proudly wore a symbol of her work.

When Cullwick defiantly displayed her "slave band" in her employer's home, she plagued the bourgeois memory with images of imperial slavery.

Despite the information available through these diaries, Munby's biographer, Derek Hudson, and other historians strip Cullwick of any agency by portraying her as subservient with little will of her own.

Her refusal and eventual reluctant acceptance to enter society as his wife, for instance, reveals a measure of agency even in the midst of unequal power dynamics.

Munby paid Cullwick a housekeeper's salary for the remainder of her life – even though wifely duties were typically void of economic value during the time period.

Although historians such as Derek Hudson portray Cullwick as solely succumbing to Munby's desires, she held some power in the organization of their relationship.

Her remains were buried in St Andrew's churchyard in Shifnal, with a gravestone bearing the words: "she was for 36 years of pure and unbroken love the wedded wife of Arthur Munby of Clifton Holme in the Wapentake of Bulmer."

Emily Gibbs' daughter, Ada Perks (1882–1971), asked the Master of Trinity College if she should represent the Cullwick family at the opening of the boxes, and was informed there was no need.

A full biography published in 2022 by a distant relative, John Cullwick, contained many new facts about her early life, the reasons she and Munby were apart between 1877-1887 and much about their last 20 years together in Shropshire.