Definition of "breadwinner"

At one side lay the little town of Hollingford, into a street of which Mr. Gibson's front door opened; and delicate columns, and little puffs of smoke were already beginning to rise from many a cottage chimney where some housewife was already up, and preparing breakfast for the bread-winner of the family.

1865, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Wives and Daughters, Chapter I