It existed in Saxon times, when the household work was done by slaves.

The Saxons were notorious slave-dealers, and the Irish were their best customers.

The principal mart was at Bristol, from whence the Saxons exported large numbers of slaves into Ireland so that, according to Irish historians, there was scarcely a house in Ireland without a British slave in it.
When the Normans took possession of England, they continued slavery.
They made slaves of the Saxons themselves whom they decreed villeins and bondsmen.

Domesday Book shows that the toll of the market at Lewes in Sussex was a penny for a cow, and fourpence for a slave--not a serf (_adscriptus glebae_), but an unconditional bondsman.

From that time slavery continued in various forms.