This article analyses the history of the travelling Chinese amahs (nursemaids) that came to Britain with employer families. Chinese amahs were engaged to care for children on voyages from Singapore, Hong Kong and China to London from the mid-nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century. Very little is known about the lives of these women and their stories have not been acknowledged in histories of Chinese labour migration. This article seeks to recover the history of Chinese amahs in Britain by drawing on fragmentary historical evidence, including shipping records, immigration documents, newspaper articles, employers’ memoirs, and institutional archives. I argue that, while the mass digitisation of historical records presents new opportunities for bringing to light the stories of mobile subaltern workers, it has not resolved the challenges associated with research of this kind.