Commissionaires is a name given a class of attendants at continental hotels, who perform certain miscellaneous services. Employed to attend at the arrival of railway trains and steamboats to secure customers, they wait to take charge of luggage, see it passed through the hands of the custom-house officers, and send it on to the hotel; for all which service they charge a fee.
In 1859 the Corps of Commissionaires was established by Sir Edward Walter in England, with divisions in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, and other large cities in the United Kingdom. The corps has recently extended its operations to the principal cities of Australia, and purposes to continue its further development throughout the colonial empire. The corps is composed of picked men from every branch of His
Majesty's naval and military service, and in the London division alone there are 1200 men. They can be engaged by the day or any other period, and for any duty where honesty, sobriety, and intelligence are required. The wages range from twenty to forty shillings per week.