Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian Servants

by Maloney, Alison

  Agencies, known as ‘registry offices’, were also possible sources for work, although in the Victorian era they had often been fronts for recruiting prostitutes for low-class brothels in big cities. The more respectable establishments offered country girls who were seeking work accommodation, albeit sparse, while they awaited appointment. Mistresses could then come to the premises and interview candidates in dedicated booths. The leading agency in the early 1900s was Mrs Hunt’s, in Duke Street, London. Established in 1896 by Mrs Ellen Hunt, it offered butlers, housekeepers, parlourmaids, footmen and cooks to fine households on a ‘no placement, no fee’ basis and its stairwell boasted a ‘roll of honour’, detailing the most illustrious clients and the impressive length of service of their upper servants. Virginia Woolf referred to the employment agency in her diaries, in 1938, when she wrote, ‘Here’s the unusual stir and bother: Nessa back tomorrow, Flossie ill: am I to go Hunting?’ The company survived until 2005 when it was taken over and became Top Notch Staffing Ltd. Mrs Massey’s ran on similar lines, operating first in Derby in the mid-nineteenth century and later expanding to a shop in London. In the 1890s owner Ernest Massey, who inherited the business from his mother, introduced the all-important ‘Certificates of Character’, or references.

  Mop Fairs

  Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in rural areas, girls could also be hired at ‘Mop fairs’ in the market places. These were colourful, noisy affairs full of young girls dressed in the finest clothes they had and enjoying a day out and a good natter. Agricultural workers also wandered about, hoping for employment, and masters and mistresses had the opportunity to scrutinize and interview the good, hard-working country girls they believed made the most industrious maids. By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, these hiring fairs were dying out.

  REFERENCES

  Being sacked from a good position was a threat hanging over domestic staff at all times and they could be dismissed for the smallest slight or misdemeanour. But their biggest fear would be leaving without good references, effectively rendering them incapable of finding work elsewhere. An unjust reference was punishable with a £20 fine but in order to enforce this rule, the injured servant would have to prove malice, which was not an easy thing to do. At the same time, the master or mistress giving the reference was legally obliged to tell the truth about any character flaw that may affect future work, such as dishonesty or drunkenness, so generosity was not an option.

  In 1923, a Government committee recognized the harm that could be done to a servant’s prospects under this system. ‘Our attention has constantly been drawn to the extent to which a maid’s future is at the mercy of an unjust or spiteful employer who by withholding a reference, or giving an unfair or prejudiced account of her, may easily render her chances of obtaining desirable employment very small.’ The committee recommended that ‘unless an employer has sufficiently definite grounds for dissatisfaction to be prepared to state them in writing, and to tell the maid at least what their general nature is, she should give a formal reference only and refrain from criticism or comment unless pressed for further details’. However, without any legal sanction to help the maids, there was still no official protection against character slurs.

  Mrs Beeton on giving references:

  IN GIVING A CHARACTER, it is scarcely necessary to say that the mistress should be guided by a sense of strict justice. It is not fair for one lady to recommend to another, a servant she would not keep herself. The benefit, too, to the servant herself is of small advantage; for the failings which she possesses will increase if suffered to be indulged with impunity. It is hardly necessary to remark, on the other hand, that no angry feelings on the part of a mistress towards her late servant, should ever be allowed, in the slightest degree, to influence her, so far as to induce her to disparage her maid’s character.

  FALLEN WOMEN

  The need for good characters before landing any position kept many a servant in an unhappy home for longer than they would have liked. Even so, dismissal could be instant and unfair, with no repercussions for the quick-tempered employer, and would leave a young girl on the street. Many of these youngsters ended up in brothels, cajoled, tricked or bullied into prostitution. In the publication How to Improve the Conditions of Domestic Servants, one male servant voiced his concern that the sacking without references of ‘many poor servant girls’ meant they were being ‘led into immorality and thrown on to the street of London’. Many of the servant registry offices were actually recruitment fronts for city brothels and older women were often employed to scout the railway stations and streets for naive-looking, out-of-towners on their own, who would then be offered a place to stay and find themselves forced into prostitution.

  ‘Honest, truthful, steady, industrious, respectful, and competent’ – the qualities needed for a good reference

  The importance of Character: servants advertising their qualities in a London newspaper

  Kitty Marion recalled a close shave with one such woman after a trip to visit a friend in London, on her Sunday afternoon off. Kitty befriended the woman who had asked her for directions and was offered a bed for the night in a flat in Gray’s Inn Road. On the way there, they bumped into two men and Kitty struck up a conversation with one of them. He edged her out of earshot before asking ‘Is that woman a friend of yours?’ Kitty continued, ‘I was surprised and told him how I had met her, and that she had invited me home, whereupon he became most concerned and said, “Little girl, she’s no fit companion for you, come along, here’s your bus,”’ and he hailed one. He helped me up the stairs and said “Good night, dear” as if he’d known me all my life.’ Telling friends later she admitted, ‘I was a greenhorn. I had no ideas that women had “evil designs” on others. This one was so ladylike too.’

  MOVING UP AND MOVING ON

  In the largest households, a lower servant might be able to progress through the ranks, learning their trade at the elbow of those above them. However, if the house was a good, comfortable one, held in affection by those who worked there, the upper servants were less likely to leave and the lower servants would be obliged to seek work elsewhere in order to ‘better themselves’.

  Having worked for three years as a kitchen maid, Margaret Powell applied for a job as a cook in Kensington. Although she was only eighteen she lied about her age, telling the mistress of the house, Lady Gibbons, that she was twenty, in order to seem more experienced. She had come a long way from the terrified teenager who had refused to speak at her first interview. During the ‘usual interrogation’, she was asked how much money she expected:

  I heard a voice that didn’t sound like mine saying, ‘Forty pounds.’ ‘Forty pounds!’ she echoed, as if I’d asked for the Crown Jewels. There was a pause as if she thought I would reconsider it. I didn’t. ‘Yes’, I said, ‘and I want a whole day off a month.’ Her face fell still further. ‘If I give you a whole day off every month,’ she said, ‘the housemaid and the parlourmaid will want one too.’ I said nothing. Just sat silent.

  Margaret got the job, and on her own terms.

  Getting a better job was not the only reason for moving on, however. For the maids, the most common reason for leaving service was marriage. In 1844, Lavinia Jane Watson, mistress of Rockingham Castle, was dismayed that her lady’s maid Lloyd was ill. It turned out she was merely too nervous to tell her employer of her decision to leave and eventually the housekeeper, Mrs Champion, had to do it for her. ‘Champion broke the ice about Lloyd, who wishes to marry Mr Lloyd,’ wrote Mrs Watson in her diary. ‘And as it incurred her leaving me, she was in low spirits. Had an interview with the bride and comforted her.’

  The expectation for maids to leave in order to marry continued well into the twentieth century. Margaret Powell commented in her memoirs on the hypocritical attitude of the upper classes, who encouraged their own daughters to meet young men at parties and balls while the servants were allowed ‘no followers’. And yet they saw marriage as the only a
cceptable reason for a young girl to leave service.

  ‘It was a funny thing that although none on them like you to leave if you were going to another job, if you left to get married, it was a totally different thing,’ she wrote. ‘It was acceptable and it was respectable. And yet the business of getting a young man was not respectable, and one’s employers tended to degrade any relationship.’

  DISMISSAL

  Although the work was exhausting and the conditions often meagre, the alternative to a life in service, for many, didn’t bear thinking about. Servants would put up with a harsh or mean mistress for months or years rather than leave without a reference but being dismissed for a minor misdemeanour was all too common. Hannah Cullwick, whose diaries were edited by Liz Stanley in 1984, was employed as a maid at Aqualate Hall in Staffordshire in the mid twentieth century and lost her position after her mistress spied her and another maid laughing while going about their chores. ‘I got on very well as under-housemaid for eight months, but Lady Boughey saw me and another playing as we was cleaning our kettles (we had about 16 to clean, they belong’d to the bedroom),’ she wrote. ‘I was vex’d to leave. I ax’d Lady Boughey if she would please forgive me and let me stop. But she said “NO” very loudly.’

  Bad behaviour, real or perceived, wasn’t the only reason for dismissal. Hannah also recalled being let go because she was considered too young and the aforementioned Lavinia Watson recalled in her diary how the replacement for her treasured lady’s maid Lloyd lasted just two days. ‘Short old fashioned mincing body – won’t do,’ she wrote, although she had the grace to admit that, having dismissed the unfortunate Stephenson, ‘her humble resigned manner on the occasion almost made me feel a lump, and yet I am sure I have never felt less fascinated by anyone.’

  The household uprooting for the Season could be enough to see a maid left jobless. Margaret Thomas remembered how she was summoned by the Lady of the House, a rare honour, only to be given her notice. ‘When the family were going to Scotland for the shooting season the Lady sent for me and told me they weren’t taking me as I wasn’t strong enough for the hard life there,’ she recalled. ‘I was upset because I was looking forward to the visit . . . But I appreciated the fact that the Lady told me herself, for it was the only time I saw her.’

  THE OLD RETAINERS

  For those who became too old or ill to do their jobs effectively, their fortunes depended on the largesse of their employers and their own financial prudence throughout their service. Giving evidence before the Royal Commission on the Aged Poor in 1893, Joseph Chamberlain outlined a sorry fate for some, commenting that households were reluctant to hire anyone over fifty and that ‘accordingly almost by necessity of the case, they will have to go to the workhouse’.

  But long and loyal service often paid dividends in old age, with employers making provision for their ‘old retainers’. Many an ageing housekeeper, butler or gardener were retired to a gatehouse or to a cottage in the grounds and, in some cases, they were employed in lighter duties, such as gatekeeping, sewing or providing sage advice for the younger servants. At Welbeck Abbey, the 6th Duke of Portland built almshouses for retiring staff on the estate. He was a huge fan of racing, won the Derby twice and kept one thoroughbred, St Simon, who sired numerous champions. Having paid for the building work out of the proceeds of his hobby, he named his charitable housing ‘The Winnings’.

  But it was not just the huge estates that looked after their servants in their dotage. Gillian Tripp remembers Mina, a loyal housemaid to her Aunt Tibby and Uncle John in a large house in Greenock, near Glasgow. ‘Every night, for as many years as we children could remember, Mina waited at the table in a black dress and white cap and apron,’ she recalls. ‘Even when she was quite old, Mina spent hours of her life carrying trays of heavy dishes up from the kitchen. She also lit all the beautiful gas chandeliers all over the house every night. After Tibby and John died the house was sold and, out of the proceeds, the family bought Mina a flat in Greenock.’

  Nursery nurses who had raised generations of the same family were most likely to be treated well in retirement. Children growing up in the upper classes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw more of the family nurse than their own parents and a close bond was formed well into adulthood. As such, they often remained within the household or nearby, in a flat or cottage provided by their one-time charges.

  Lady Astor had a strong bond with her children’s nurse, known as Nannie Gibbons, and described her as ‘my strength and stay and the backbone of my home. She was with us forty years, until she died. She had, I often think, every virtue, and added to them one that is not always found in Nannies – she was utterly and absolutely loyal to me.’

  Author Noel Streatfeild remembered the old nurse who had brought up her father and his nine brothers and sisters and lived out her remaining days in the nursery rooms at her grandfather’s house. ‘She had been married, but her husband had died and so she adopted my father’s family. She was a great character, and extremely proud of her nurslings.’

  As they grew up, many of her young charges took job abroad. ‘When they came on leave, almost before they had greeted their parents, they were up the stairs and flinging their arms round old Nannie’s neck. As each of the boys became engaged to be married, before the engagement was announced, the fiancée was brought to Nannie for inspection, and she would look them up and down and always ask the same question: “Can you needle?”’

  When this charming character died she was buried in the church near the family home. Although it was quite a distance the boys refused to let her travel in a hearse. ‘Instead they whom she had carried in her arms, carried her to her grave on their shoulders.’

  With no old-age pension or sick pay, staff had to think ahead and save for the future. Although their wages were a pittance, with all meals and accommodation provided those servants who never married but stayed in service for decades often accumulated a surprisingly large nest egg. One long-serving gardener at Erdigg in Wales amassed £4,000 over his lifetime and a maid, if careful, could stockpile up to £500.

  Some large houses provided annuities when servants retired and often these were made as a condition in a will. For example, Lord Northwick left annual payments of £5 for his butler, under-butler, groom, coachman and nurse which were to be forfeited if invested in a public house. He also left a lump sum of £100 to each member of staff who had been in his service for a year at the time of his death.

  Butler to the Earl of Sandwich

  Edward Montagu, the 8th Earl of Sandwich took his duty of care to his servants to a whole new level. In 1907 his butler, George Andrews, had a serious operation for a tumour on his spine at a hospital in Queen’s Square, London. The Earl was a believer in spiritual healing and visited the sick man, as he recalled later in his memoirs, published in 1919.

  My footman, who had been to see him, told me his agony was so great that he could not remain in the room with him. I went off at once to see him and found him lying in a ward adjoining the theatre. While I was talking with Andrews about a visit he had received the day before from the Duchess of Albany, he suddenly said, ‘Oh my lord, this agony is returning. It is more than I can bear.’ The intuition came to me to say that he was not going to have the return of his pain. I began talking to him about his schooldays etc. He remained free from pain and had no return of it. The nurse was much surprised.

  The Earl, who believed this was the first demonstration of his healing powers, treated his butler daily for about four months. ‘His improvement was marvellous. He became cheerful and was able to walk about, and lived for a year and nine months.’

  Constitutional expert Alastair Bruce worked with the cast of Downton Abbey as they filmed at Highclere Castle in Berkshire, which is still the family home of the Earl and Countess of Carnarvon. ‘If you worked in a house like this and were well behaved, your position was pretty secure,’ he remarked. ‘And if you were a good retainer, you could assume that when you ret
ired, you would be put into one of the cottages on the estate and the family who had grown to respect you, like you and possibly even love you – that tentacle of care went on until the day that you were buried in the family graveyard.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  The High Life

  ALTHOUGH LIFE BELOW stairs was tough, there was some fun to be had in the short periods when the domestic staff wasn’t rushed off its feet. In the large houses this was often known as ‘The High Life’ and would consist of a few servants, mostly male, playing cards, gambling or drinking together. For both sexes there would be conversation, practical jokes, laughter and often music. Many servants played instruments, such as fiddles, and a piano was often provided in the servants’ hall by kinder employers.

  Jean Hunt told author Frank Dawes, ‘I can well remember standing at the top of the “kitchen stairs” in my grandmother’s Welsh home and listening to gales of laughter coming from down in the kitchen . . . Although they did not go out in the evenings and didn’t have a radio or television, they seemed to enjoy themselves.’

  Dances

  Former footman Eric Horne recalled a particularly happy posting in the castle of an earl where the staff was permitted monthly dances. ‘Servants seldom wanted to leave that place, unless they had been there some time and wanted promotion,’ he said. ‘I think what kept them together to a great extent was that we were allowed a dance on the first Tuesday of every month. The mason who worked on the estate played the cello, his son played second fiddle, the tailor played first violin. I played sometimes as well. Our programme consisted of lancers, quadrilles, waltzes, schottisches, polkas, Valse of Vienna, Mazurka and country dances.’