by Jacky Hyams
The rule is: a servant must ask their employer, via the housekeeper or butler, for this ‘character’ to be written when they leave a household. And they do not get to see the contents; the document is forwarded straight on to their new prospective employer.
And if a servant is out of work for some time, perhaps because of illness or a family problem requiring their presence, it’s very difficult to get back in once they step outside the country-house service network with no character to confirm they’ve been steadily working.
It’s not unknown for a servant who hasn’t worked for some time to send a begging letter to a house they’ve once worked in. The response, of course, would hinge on their relationship with their former employer. A woman who has left to marry and then finds herself widowed – not uncommon, given the lower life expectancy – will usually get a warm reception and be invited back into service. But only widows get this cordial treatment.
FINDING A JOB
By this time, there are two routes to employment in service that we are all familiar with: the printed advertisement in newspapers or magazines or the employment agency – more popular in the big cities where the middle classes have a greater turnover of domestic staff.
Yet for the country-house service roles, the toffs also have their own little hiring network if they need a new or replacement servant: the mistress of the house will write to her friends from other aristocratic families to let it be known that there’s a vacancy coming up. Or she might write asking for extra information on a job-hunting servant currently working for another family – their own version of Linkedin (networking website for those employed in business), if you like.
There are a couple of other routes into a job in service.
These are:
Being in a service family
Children of those already in service, usually in rural areas, are often seen as having good potential. These youngsters may have already started work at an early age, pre- teen years, maybe looking after an ageing local vicar or acting as an unpaid childminder. And country-house owners prefer rural servants to those from the bigger cities; they tend to be more hard working, more adaptable and less trouble.
The mobile servant network
A lady’s maid or a footman tends to get around quite a bit in the course of their work, going to London, for instance during ‘The Season’, which means they get to meet other servants like themselves – and can keep in touch with each other, by letter, to find out when jobs at other country houses come up.
THE DINING RULES
The servants in the house have their food and lodging provided by their employer. But the rules around where and how they dine are equally as rigid as everything else.
The eating of main meals is segregated, according to the sex and status of the servant. Not only do the uppers and lowers never socialise together, they have separate rules for how they eat.
Senior servants – ‘the Pugs’ – traditionally eat in a separate Stewards’ or Butler’s room, waited on by lower servants, usually one or two footmen, with better food and drink than the lowers. They drink white wine, claret and beer at lunch and dinner. (Even the china, glass and cutlery they use may be of the finest quality, with napkins rolled into silver napkin rings at breakfast and lunch. At dinner, the napkins and table linens are changed.)
Yet by the early 1900s, in country houses like Downton Abbey, all the servants eat breakfast, dinner and supper in the servants’ hall, a large area which is used both for eating and the lower servants’ brief periods of leisure. (Outdoor staff like stablemen and gardeners tend to eat their meals as a group in their own communal dining areas.)
Table seating is according to rank. The butler sits at one end of the table, the housekeeper at the other end. The first footman sits to the right of the butler, the lady’s maid sits to the butler’s left.
Male servants sit in order of hierarchy down one side of the table, women according to their own status, down the other side. (At Anglesey Abbey in Cambridge, the servants’ hall chairs are painted in a variety of colours, just to make sure they know where to sit.)
No one can sit down until the butler says so. When dining together in this way, everyone must remain silent – unless they are addressed by a superior.
THE SERVANTS’ DINNER RITUAL
Dinner or supper (a later meal, after dinner, sometimes taken by the uppers or the family upstairs) is the most formal meal.
A second footman rings a bell to announce dinner.
The upper servants then congregate in the housekeeper’s room. Then they walk, single file, down the corridor into the servants’ hall in order of rank. The butler always leads the way (the first part of the Pug’s Parade).
At dinner, the butler carves the meat and sends the plate down to the housekeeper who then serves the vegetables. The footman takes the plates around – serving, of course, according to servant rank.
After the meal, the upper servants march out, single file, to take their pudding, tea and coffee in the housekeeper’s sitting room (the concluding part of the Pug’s Parade). The first footman is then left in charge of the servants’ hall.
At certain grand houses, like Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire, the uppers even dress for dinner like their employers. So any visiting ladies’ maids or valets are required to do this too: the lady’s maid in a ‘dress blouse’ (an evening blouse with lace inserts and elaborate pin-tucking) and the valet in a velvet smoking jacket.
THE FAMILY’S MEALTIME RITUALS
All meals are served at fixed times with set rituals for the family. Here’s the timetable:
8am. The lady’s maid and the valet wake their respective bosses carrying a special breakfast tray with tea and toast (or an arrowroot biscuit), a newspaper and any correspondence.
9.30am. Breakfast is served to the family in the dining room. Food is laid out in silver dishes, arranged across a long sideboard. All adult family members living in the house are expected to attend. The master sits at the head of the table, the mistress at the other end. The mistress pours the tea for everyone and the butler, after enquiring how everyone wants their tea served, hands the cups out.
9.15am. Everyone in the house is summoned by bell to the main hall for prayers, read by the master of the house, who may also make an announcement to the staff regarding a punishment – or a word of thanks. The session ends with the words: ‘God make my servants dutiful.’
1pm. Luncheon The ladies enter the dining room first, two by two, followed by the gentlemen. Everyone is obliged to wear outdoor clothing or morning wear (for the women this means a tailor-made two-piece costume; for the men a morning dress coat, waistcoat, shirt, collar, tie and formal striped trousers).
5pm. Afternoon Tea is served in the Tea Room or the Drawing Room.
7pm. The sound of a dressing gong warns the family and their guests that it is time to go to their room to dress for dinner – in full evening wear. Dinner is the most formal and longest meal of the day.
8pm. Dinner The butler announces that dinner is being served. Family and guests make their way to the dining room. Each gentleman offers his arm to a lady and they make their way to dinner in pairs. The master of the household leads the procession with the lady of the leading guest on his right arm, followed by the mistress of the house on the arm of the leading male guest. After dinner, the ladies retire to the drawing room and the men remain at the table, drinking and smoking. Depending on how many guests there are, dinner may last until 11pm or later.
RULES FOR TABLE MANNERS
At the dining table, guests and hosts alike must follow the correct etiquette for their manners at the table. Here are the most important Rules of the Table:
NEVER take your seat until the lady of the house is seated.
NEVER lounge on the table with your elbows, or tip back in your chair.
NEVER play with your knives, forks or glasses. Cultivate repose at the table. It is an aid to digestion.
NEVER tuck your napkin into you
r vest, yoke or collar. It is unfolded once and laid across the knees without a flourish. After the meal, at a restaurant or formal dinner, lay the napkin unfolded at your place. If you are a guest in the household and will remain for another meal, you may fold the napkin into its original creases.
NEVER put the end of a spoon into your mouth; sip everything from the side of the spoon. Do this noiselessly.
NEVER put your knife in your mouth, nor use a spoon when a fork will serve. Forks are used for eating ice cream and salad is folded or cut with the side of a fork, never with the knife. Even small vegetables like peas are eaten with a fork.
NEVER hold your knife and fork in the air when your host is serving you afresh. Lay them on one side of the plate when you send it to the host by the servant.
NEVER leave your spoon in a coffee or teacup. Lay it on the saucer.
NEVER cool food by blowing on it. Wait until it becomes cool enough to eat.
NEVER take a second helping at a large, formal dinner. You will find yourself eating alone.
NEVER make noise with the eating implements against the china. Food must be eaten daintily, each thing by itself.
THE COUNTRY HOUSE OWNER’S RULES
Life for the toffs is a series of obligations, rules and social considerations. Here are five of the most important ones:
The hosting of social events is, by custom, a priority for the aristocratic elite and their circle. Their lives revolve around wealth, privilege and politics. So drawing up guest lists for these events is a crucial part of the social networking which dominates their lives.
The Shooting Party is a very important part of their social lives. It can last for several days. Usually, it starts with the master of the house hosting the shoot – but other activities like fishing or hunting may be involved for guests.
The children of the family are the only members of the household who can move freely around the entire house, above and below stairs. If the mistress wishes to inspect the kitchen she arranges this via the butler.
By custom, the children of the family live independently of their parents. They eat only one meal – luncheon – with their parents; other meals are taken in the schoolroom, sometimes with a tutor or nanny. (Very small children remain in the nursery, other than set times when they are brought down by staff to see the mistress.)
Reputation is everything. Which means a reputation for moral fortitude is essential for the family. The master and mistress must ensure that chaperones are always present when all adult unmarried members of the family meet with the opposite sex. Failure to adhere to this reflects badly on anyone ignoring this rule, as well as on the household.
THE HOUSEHOLD CLEANING RULES
Even cleaning does not escape the rules. Certain jobs are only allocated to women, others to men only: it all depends on the value or status of what is being cleaned. Dusting and polishing expensive house furniture in the public rooms, for instance, is a male-only task carried out by footmen. These servants, hired for their visual appeal, also carry coals up and down stairs to dining rooms, drawing rooms, libraries and the most spacious bedrooms. Yet the other staircases, corridors and bedrooms in the house – those less visible to the eye – are cleaned by housemaids, who have to get down and dirty on the floor, scrubbing and grate cleaning.
Expensive glass, china, silver and mirrors are cleaned by footmen, while scullery maids wash all the utensils and cooking pots in the kitchen.
So pernickety are the Edwardian toffs, however, that even the dirtiest, muckiest jobs in the house are associated with things they’d prefer to ignore, like sex and bodily functions. So the laundry maid, whose work involves washing things like soiled bedlinen or the lengths of white muslin that act as sanitary towels (disposable ones remain way ahead in the future), and the lowest-ranking housemaid, whose work involves cleaning out toilets or chamber pots, are seen as being ‘tainted’ by their work – yet another reason why the aristos are so keen to keep such people ‘invisible’ at all times by restricting them to their own quarters and stairways. Talk about control freaks. If only they’d known about robots…
The laundry maid has other woes, too. Traditionally, laundries are sited in the least accessible, most isolated areas of the country house, because the work itself is so labour intensive and messy. Yet because these laundries are far away from prying eyes, laundry maids are a fraction more accessible and likely to be more ‘at risk’ from male attention than the other young women. And, of course, not all big country houses have yet switched to outsourcing their laundry in the early 1900s. So a ‘follower’ might, just, be able to creep in on the laundry maid unobserved.
Could you blame her if she actually welcomes the diversion?
BREAKING THE RULES
In a pre-Welfare State era, unemployment is equivalent to near destitution for the poorest people in society. So breaking the rules and being sacked, without any kind of reference, is disastrous: a life of crime, the workhouse, or for many young women, prostitution, are the only options.
When you consider that many young servant girls, especially in rural areas, are quite innocent in the ways of the world, this is tragically unfair: one very good reason why the rising tide of political pressure and campaigning for better rights for workers and women is beginning, albeit slowly, to make an impact in the early 1900s.
But right now, being thrown out of a poorly paid, backbreaking job and a life of rules and restrictions is disastrous: you are either locked into service – or out on your ear and destitute. It’s a shamefully bad deal.
Servants sit down for dinner together in the evening.
KEEPING THEIR DISTANCE
One perfect example of the way the toffs maintain their distance from the servants is the method they use to receive messages or correspondence. When a letter arrives or a visitor leaves a calling card, only the butler or a footman can take it to the person concerned. But he cannot, at any time, merely hand it to them (even though he is wearing gloves).
Whatever the object, it must be first placed on a small silver tray (only ever used for this purpose) and the tray is then carefully handed to the recipient. Once the person has read it, they can, if they wish, place a reply on the same tray – and hand it back to the servant.
CHECKING FOR HONESTY
One way either the housekeeper or the lady of the house sometimes keeps a check on the standards of work of the housemaids is to hide a series of small coins in the rooms.
If a maid takes the money and keeps it, they are promptly sacked. If, however, the coins are not mentioned at all, it means they weren’t cleaning properly so they are severely ticked off.
Chapter 5
Who Runs this House Anyway?
It runs like clockwork from just before dawn to the wee small hours. The grand country house is a veritable hive of incessant activity on a scale similar to that seen in today’s finest luxury hotels; staff are cleaning, dusting, polishing, chopping, cooking, arranging flowers, gardening, stabling, greeting guests – the only difference between then and now is that the most pampered luxury hotel guests probably don’t expect quite the same level of personal service, someone to help them dress, undress or shave, as you would find in the big Edwardian country house.
The rules and etiquette of behaviour are rigid. Yet not all country houses are run on exactly the same lines. Nor do they have the same number of servants. Or the same number of rooms. Some owners have already installed indoor plumbing and electricity – yet still don’t permit the lower servants to use the flush toilets at night or have a bath more than once a week. Other families are more considerate of their staff ’s bodily needs. And some stubbornly insist on hanging on to the older, more labour-intensive ways of running the place rather than embracing the latest mod cons.
But with the family’s status and appearance so high on the priority list, one thing matters above all: any visitor here must be suitably impressed with the smooth, orderly way the house runs.
Essentially, this is a sh
owplace, a demonstration of the family’s wealth and privilege. And that smooth running operation can only be achieved by the hard work of all the servant labour. Without the precisely calculated, hour-by-hour routine of the house, the whole thing becomes a shambles. And that must never happen…
Here is a brief rundown of a domestic schedule of the grand country house. It can, of course, vary – the family will, at set times of the year, be absent, visiting friends and family and socialising in London. And the pace of activity revs up when there are guests to be entertained with multi-course meals and shooting parties. But from the servants’ perspective, an average day’s work would run something like this…
THE HOUSE
The big grandfather clock in the hallway near the servants’ quarters chimes 6am.
A 14-year-old housemaid in an attic room with sloping ceilings, shared with three other young housemaids who are reluctantly waking up too, gets out of a single, narrow iron bed and steps onto the bare wooden floorboards. A small table by her bed holds the candle that lit her way up a hundred stairs to an exhausted sleep the night before. On a washstand nearby sits a china basin and a big jug. Underneath her bed is a chamber pot, which will later be collected by an odd-job man or a very young hall boy whose role it is to empty the pots, take them downstairs and tip their contents into a covered slops bucket in the outdoor area.
