Up and Down Stairs

by Jeremy Musson

  No Victorian mistress of any consequence could function without her lady’s maid, who ranked under the housekeeper and was usually found only in the wealthier households. Her role seems to have merged those of a waiting woman and a chambermaid. She would be a close confidante of the lady of the house (which might lead to her becoming housekeeper), and would have the added dignity of the title ‘Miss’, unlike the junior maids who were often called just by their surnames. Lady’s maids might have a background in dressmaking or millinery, and sometimes came from more middle-class families than female domestics further down the hierarchy. Those from France or Switzerland were popular, with the French being considered more chic, and the Swiss and German the most practical.69

  The Adamses, perhaps prejudiced by having worked their way up from the bottom, wrote slightly sniffily: ‘The business of the lady’s-maid is extremely simple, and but little varied. She is generally to be near the person of her lady . . . In her temper she should be cheerful and submissive, studying her lady’s disposition’. Her principal duties are ‘to dress, re-dress, and undress her lady’, to care for her finer clothes, to attend her in the morning, and to dress and comb her hair.70

  On the other hand, Mrs Beeton thought the work of a lady’s maid more onerous than that of the valet, who was not expected to do the work of the tailor or the hatter, whereas ‘the lady’s maid has to originate many parts of the mistress’s dress herself: she should, indeed, be a tolerably expert milliner and dressmaker, a good hairdresser, and possess some chemical knowledge of the cosmetics with which the toilet-table is supplied in order to use them with safety and effect’. As well as dressing her lady, arranging her hair, and having responsibility for maintaining all her clothes, hats and boots, including mending and cleaning the finer elements, according to Mrs Beeton a lady’s maid ‘will study the fashion-books with attention, so as to be able to aid her mistress’s judgement in dressing, according to the prevailing fashion’.71

  These paragons were also expected to be smartly dressed, often in the cast-off clothes of their mistress, which habitually set them apart from the other domestic servants, who were generally suspicious of them. Because they would have to stay up late with their mistresses and, indeed, travel with them, packing expertly, they also tended to be younger, in their twenties, and to hope for a post such as that of a housekeeper when they got older.72

  A list of instructions given to the daughter of Thomas Coke of Holkham Hall, Norfolk, in 1822, setting out the ‘essentials for a lady’s maid’, reads almost as a parody:

  She must not have a will of her own in anything, & be always good-humoured & approve of everything her mistress likes. She must not have a gr[ea]t appetite or be the least of a gourmand, or care when or how she dines, how often disturbed, or even if she has no dinner at all. She had better not drink anything but water. She must run quick the instant she is called, whatever she is about. Morning, noon and night she must not mind going without sleep if her mistress requires her attendance.73

  Many a maid must have been tempted to make free with her mistress’s extensive wardrobe. Lady Dorothy Nevill dismissed her German lady’s maid when she discovered that her ‘love of the stage’ had led to her to take parts at a low theatre ‘or penny gaff’. One particular vexed her exceedingly: ‘The worst part of the business was that being cast for the part of Marie Stuart, this Teutonic Thespian annexed a very handsome black velvet dress of mine in which to impersonate Scotland’s ill-fated Queen.’74

  The backbone of the household staff, reporting to the housekeeper, was the housemaid – essentially the cleaner. According to the Adamses, the upper housemaid had the care of ‘all the household linen, bed and table linen, napkins, towels, &c. which she also makes and keeps in repair, and besides cleaning the house and furniture, and making the beds . . . she [usually] washes her own clothes and has sometimes to assist the laundry-maid in getting up the fine linen, washing silk stockings &c.’75

  In larger households there would be a head housemaid, and perhaps several other housemaids, between four and seven, who would divide the duties between them.76 A typical day for the servant with the most hands-on, even ‘front-line’ role in cleaning and warming the principal rooms would, as their outline makes clear, start early. The housemaid would rise around five o’clock, open the shutters of the usual family sitting rooms, and clear away ‘all the superfluous articles that may have been left there’. She would then clean out and re-lay the fires, as well as brush, black and polish the fireplaces. ‘By this time the footman will have done all his work in the pantry, and have rubbed all the tables, chairs, cellerets, and other mahogany furniture, and cleaned the brass and other ornaments, the mirrors, looking glasses, &c., in these rooms.’ The housemaid would then clean the carpets (strewing them weekly with damp tea leaves to remove dust). Once the reception rooms were done, she should move on to the dining room ‘till all is made quite clean, and the rooms are fit for the reception of the family’.77

  Then, according to the Adamses, ‘she repairs to the dressing-rooms of the master and mistresses, and others in use, empties the slops, replenishes the ewers and water-carofts [carafes] with fresh spring and soft water, and fills the kettles for warm water, cleans up the fire-places, lights the fire and cleans the rooms’, and then makes way for the lady’s maid or the valet to make their arrangements previous to the rising of their superiors. Emptying the slops did not involve carrying chamberpots long distances; instead they would be emptied into pails and cleaned on the spot, or nearby, with fresh water.78

  After completing this essential task, ‘she sweeps down the principal stair-case and goes down to her breakfast.’ Then she returns to the bedrooms, airs the rooms, cleans fireplaces and relays the fires, changes her apron and with the under housemaid, makes the beds. In the afternoon, the dressing rooms had to be prepared again for the ladies and gentlemen to dress for dinner. Finally, ‘while the family is at dinner, the dressing-rooms must be again prepared; and in the evening the shutters of the bed-rooms and dressing-rooms must be fastened – the curtains let down – the beds turned down – the fires lighted, and the rooms put into proper condition for the night.’79 As if all this were not enough, senior housemaids might be called on to attend visiting ladies staying at the house without having brought their own lady’s maid with them.80

  In 1838, Thomas Creevey recorded with pleasure his stay at Holkham Hall: ‘I live mostly in my charming bedroom on the ground floor . . . A maid lights my fire at seven punctually, and my water is in my room at eight.’ The maid called again almost hourly to check that his fire was well stoked.81

  In some households, housemaids were under instructions to remain completely out of sight of family and guests. In Memories of Ninety Years (1924), Mrs Edward Ward, the artist, recollected her stay with the 3rd Lord Crewe, during which she never saw a housemaid except in chapel, ‘when a great number would muster, only to disappear mysteriously directly the service was ended’. One morning when needing help from a housemaid, she glimpsed one in the corridor and gave chase, but to no avail. She mentioned this to the housekeeper, who told her that Lord Crewe had given specific orders: ‘None of the servants are allowed to be seen by visitors; if they break the rules they are dismissed. Lord Crewe hates women and thinks all his guests must detest them too.’82

  Housemaids were often subjected to strict conditions of employment. The Countess of Fingall’s lady’s maid, Miss Devereux, recalled that the housemaids at Mount Stewart, the Marquess of Londonderry’s house, were ‘kept somewhat like novices in a convent! They were not allowed to go out alone, and every Sunday evening they must put on their bonnets and go to Service in the Chapel.’83

  In his memoirs, William Lanceley, a servant in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, wrote appreciatively of a housemaid colleague: ‘Another old servant was the head housemaid, who had been in the family for thirty years. She was always proud to relate that for twenty-five years she had been in charge of the best dinner service and
nothing had been broken or chipped. She would allow nobody to handle the plates and dishes, but washed and wiped them herself and she alone would carry them to the dining-room door and wait there to bring them back to the housemaid’s pantry where they were washed.’84

  Two junior levels of female staff were the laundrymaid and dairymaid. The former, who washed ‘all the household and other linen belonging to her employers’, certainly had one of the most unrelentingly hard jobs in country-house life.85 The housekeeper of Goodwood in Sussex, Mrs Sanders, recognised this, as is clear from the letter she wrote to the Duke of Richmond’s secretary, Dr Hair, in June 1857: ‘I thought it right for me to write to Munro Daughter to Acquaint her with her duties that she would be required to do as the place is a very hard one . . . I heard from her this Morning saying it is such a hard place she must decline it as she would not be strong enough.’ The same month she reports that one Louisa Carey, the under laundrymaid, was ‘very poorly’ and adds: ‘I am very sorry to think I frightened Munro Daughter with what little I said.’86

  Mrs Beeton described in some detail a laundrymaid’s typical week, including the areas required for her many tasks: a washing house with a mangle, an ironing room and a drying closet. In the wash-house should be ‘a range of tubs, either round or oblong, opposite to, and sloping towards the light, narrower at the bottom than the top, for convenience in stooping over’.87

  The laundrymaid had to sort the washing, putting white linens and colours, sheets and body linen into one pile, fine muslins into another, coloured cotton and linen fabrics into a third, woollens into a fourth, and coarser kitchen cloths into a fifth. Everything had to be recorded and examined for particular stains, for which they would be left to soak overnight. Then the coppers and boilers had to be filled, and fires laid ready to light under them in the early hours of the morning.

  The following day, once the water had heated, linen items were rubbed with soap and then boiled, rinsed and hung out to dry or spread out flat in the sun to bleach. All the other fabrics would be washed according to principles that would still be recognised today in the age of the washing machine.88 When the washing was done, the process was always ‘concluded by rinsing the tubs, cleaning the coppers, scrubbing the floors of the washing-house, and restoring everything to order and cleanliness’.89 And all this without the benefit of rubber gloves.

  Washing day was not the end of it either. As Mrs Beeton observed: ‘Thursday and Friday, in a laundry in full employ, are usually devoted to mangling, starching and ironing,’all according to the different textiles concerned. ‘Linen, cotton, and other fabrics, after being washed and dried, are made smooth and glossy by mangling and ironing. The mangling process, which is simply passing them between rollers subject to a very considerable pressure, produced by weight, is confined to sheets, towels and table-linen, and similar articles, which are without folds or plaits. Ironing is necessary to smooth body-linen, and made-up articles of delicate texture or gathered into folds.’90 There is no need to look any further for evidence of the hard work that scared off the poor girl at Goodwood.

  Female servants in the household were sometimes responsible for washing their own clothes and menservants usually had to make their own arrangements. Many of the bigger laundries at country houses such as Chatsworth in Derbyshire and Powis Castle in Wales catered for the laundry needs of all the other houses owned by the family, including their London town house.91

  The dairymaid or maids came under the supervision of the housekeeper but worked outside. She did the churning, so that freshly made butter could appear on the table every morning, organised milk and cream supplies for the kitchen and often made cheese as well. She might look after the poultry and collect the eggs for the household.92 In some households the dairymaid also had some baking duties.93 The cows themselves were more usually milked by the cowmen from the home farm.

  Naturally, Mrs Beeton stressed the key importance of hygiene and cleanliness in this process. The dairy, which, as in the previous century, was often ornamental because it was visited by the mistress and her guests, had to be sited to remain cool, requiring shelter and shade. Its walls should be thick and covered in glazed tiles, and deep slate shelves should be fitted for the milk dishes.

  For the essential butter-making process, milk was first strained through a hair sieve (usually made of horsehair and designed to remove any cow hairs). This was left for a day, maybe more, then skimmed with a ‘slicer’ and poured into earthenware jars for churning, which was usually done two or three times a week, preferably in the morning: ‘the dairy maid will find it advantageous in being at work on churning mornings by five o’clock’.

  Butter was produced by literally turning the jars for at least twenty to thirty minutes, although this took much longer in winter. When the butter formed, it was put into a wooden bowl with clean spring water and then washed and kneaded, and any excess liquid poured off. At the end of the process, the dairymaid must ‘scald with boiling water and scrub out every utensil she has used; brush out the churn, clean out the cream-jars, which will probably require the use of a little common soda to purify; wipe all dry, and place them in a position where the sun can catch them for a short time to sweeten them’.94

  The male side of the nineteenth-century household was equally stratified and calibrated. As in the eighteenth century, at the head of the male staff of the grandest establishments was the house steward who, according to the Adamses, was the ‘most important officer’ although he featured only in the households of ‘noblemen or gentlemen of great fortunes’. Elsewhere, the most senior staff member would be the housekeeper.95 A land steward, or agent, would manage the estates, probably with a bailiff to run the home farm.

  The house steward’s chief duties were ‘to hire, manage and direct, and discharge every servant of every denomination’. He must also manage the household accounts, paying all the bills and all the servants’ wages. When the household was on the move, he was further responsible for planning and arranging the packing up of the house, especially the valuables, and for transporting goods and people between houses, or between the country house and the London house.96 The steward (or the butler if there was no steward) was usually charged with overall security, such as locking up windows at night.

  He usually had a junior servant reporting to him, known as ‘the steward’s room boy’. (This individual might also be known as the steward’s room footman, hall boy or foot boy, although sometimes all these titles were used.) He would run messages; wait at table in the steward’s room; maintain the below stairs’ lamps; and clean the servants’ boots and shoes.97

  The steward’s job must have been the goal of all ambitious men-servants; indeed, they were trained to look upon it as such. As Mrs Beeton observed, ‘they are initiated step by step into the mysteries of the household, with the prospect of rising in the service, if it is a house admitting of promotion – to the respectable position of butler or house-steward’.98

  The steward often acted as something of a companion to the family and head of household.99 One steward cum secretary seems to have been partly recruited to his role at Burton Constable Hall in Yorkshire on the strength of his musical abilities. Stephen Octavius Jay was a gifted musician and had trained at the Royal Academy of Music. He was described in the will of his master, Sir Thomas Aston Clifford, as ‘my friend and secretary’. In a codicil to his will, added in 1870, he left Jay not only an additional year’s salary but ‘also my violin that is marked with the name of Sir Charles Wolseley’.100

  One of the major features found in all accounts of life in a great country house was the emphatic hierarchy between the upper and the lower servants. The upper servants – usually the house steward, housekeeper, wine butler, under butler, groom of the chambers, valet, head housemaid and lady’s maid – were generally known as ‘the Upper Ten’.101 The lower servants were known as the Lower Five, although in many cases there were more than five. The Upper Ten ate in the steward’s room, where they were served
by a specially designated steward’s room footman or boy (or, if there was no steward, in the housekeeper’s room). The Lower Five (a term that encompassed all the other junior indoor servants) ate in the servants’ hall.

  Under the steward came the butler. Like the steward, he was not a liveried servant but wore clothes similar to those worn by a gentleman, if of an old-fashioned cut or with some distinguishing element, such as a tie unlike that expected of a gentleman, so that in theory he would not be mistaken for one.102 William Lanceley witnesses the embarrassment caused in the late nineteenth century when the elderly Lord Redesdale, who had rigidly stuck to an outmoded style of evening dress, was famously mistaken at one house for a butler.103

  A butler’s first duty was, according to the Adamses, to see that breakfast was duly laid; either the butler or the under butler would wait on the family during the meal. With breakfast over, the butler was free to take his own breakfast with the housekeeper. He must then be prepared to receive visitors at the front door. At luncheon, the butler arranged the table and brought in the drinks. ‘If wine is wanted for the luncheon, it is his duty to fetch it from the cellar; and if ale, to draw or bring it up when wanted.’ The butler usually kept the keys of the wine and ale cellar, and maintained the stock book.104 The care and provision of wine and ale figured largely in the butler’s traditional role. As Mrs Beeton observed: