by Tessa Boase
George III, King 11
George V, King 166, 180, 182
Gibson, Charles Dana 99
Gibson, Sheila 284, 289
Gladstone, W.E. 63
Good Housekeeping 254–5
goods and supplies, transport and
delivery of 3, 15–16, 17
Gordon Square, Bloomsbury 220–2, 248
Gorky, Maxim 269
gramophones 81
Grant, Duncan 216, 222, 225, 230, 235, 245, 247, 252, 254, 260, 261, 265, 267–8, 269, 270, 271, 272, 274
Granville, Henrietta, Viscountess 5
Grenfell, Billy 199
Grenfell, Julian 199
Grey, Lord 33, 36
Gunton, Mr xvi, xvii, xviii
Haigh Hall, Lancashire 299
Hardy, Thomas 183
Haremere Hall, Sussex 262
Harewood House, Yorkshire 167
Harrison, Rosina 233
Harvey, Martha 109, 118, 123
Hatfield House, Hertfordshire xv, xviii–xix, 167
health insurance 166
Henley Hall, Shropshire 123
Herbert, Bron see Lucas, Lord
Herbert, Honourable Nan 162, 163, 165–6, 167–8, 171, 173–5, 178, 179, 181, 185, 186, 190, 191, 192, 195, 196–7, 201, 202–4, 205–6
Higgens, Diana 232, 259–60, 263, 264, 265, 270
Higgens, Grace xx, xxi, 213–76, 283, 289
Higgens, Peter John (John) 232, 237, 238, 239–40, 241, 247, 250, 251–2, 256, 258–9, 262, 263, 264, 270, 271, 273, 275–6
Higgens, Walter 230–2, 235, 239, 243, 247, 254, 255, 256, 263, 264, 265, 272, 273–4, 275
Highclere Castle, Hampshire 51, 167, 173
Highland Clearances 10, 28, 29
Highland Territorials 180–1
Hitchman, Lucy 123, 129
Holkham Hall, Norfolk xii, 277–89
Hoover, Herbert 208
Hope, Lottie 227, 245, 248, 250
Horne, Eric xiii, 94
hot-water plumbing 52
house parties 90–1, 106, 127, 133–4, 136, 217, 225
household appliances 80, 98, 107, 160, 214, 261
Household Cookery and Laundry Work (Mrs Black) 124–5
housekeepers
caricatures xiii, 53
children 21–2, 72, 236–7, 238, 239–40, 241, 279
duties xii–xiii, xiv, 70–1, 236
education and literacy 11, 116–17
isolation from other staff xix–xx
literary portrayals xiii, 72
marriage 12, 229–30, 232
mistress–housekeeper relationship 4, 53, 71, 88–9, 91, 101, 122–3, 145, 171, 215, 221, 228–9, 238, 243, 253, 255, 266–7, 281–3, 287–8
numbers of 51
pregnancy 13, 21, 22, 25, 26–7, 31, 41, 45, 236
professionalism 51, 280–1, 285, 288
retirement 41, 93, 271, 272
twenty-first century housekeepers 277–89
wages xi, xii, xvii, 11, 13–14, 114, 153, 171, 215
Hudson, Stanley 208, 210
hysteria 87
illness and disease 16, 23–5
Industrial Revolution 13, 117
infanticide 22
Ingram, Mrs (housekeeper) 15, 16
inheritance tax 166
inventory-taking 32
Jones, John 100
Jones’s Views of the Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen 6
Kelmarsh, Nottinghamshire 21
Kennedy, Jackie 163
Keynes, John Maynard 221, 222, 255, 256
King, Sir William 76
Kingsley, Sergeant Major 198, 200
Kirke, Mrs 3, 25, 31
kitchen ranges 124–5
kitchens 79, 118–19, 223–4, 275–6
Knutsford, Lord 175
Kodak box cameras 81, 178
Labour Party 110, 256–7
Lady Helps 110–11
Lambert, Edward 69
Land, John 171, 206
Langtry, Lillie 210
Lanhydrock, Cornwall 21, 85
Lawrence, D.H., Lady Chatterley’s Lover 270
Leconfield, Lady 74
Leeds Castle, Kent 167
Lees-Milne, James 287
Lewis, William 6, 14, 17, 18, 25, 26, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34–5, 36, 38, 39–40, 43–4, 45, 47
Liberal Party 128
Lichfield, Countess of 233–4
Lieven, Princess 31
life expectancy 11, 98
Lilleshall Hall, Shropshire 3, 5
linen 19–20
Lloyd George, David 166, 183
Loch, James 10, 11, 13, 26, 27, 28–30, 31, 34, 35, 36–7, 38, 42–3, 45
Lopokova, Lydia 222
love affairs 162, 188, 190–1, 195–6, 199, 200–1
loyalty xx, 4, 5, 93, 100, 215, 259, 269, 273
Lucas, Lord 165, 167, 168, 175, 177, 194, 195, 196, 199, 205
Lutyens, Edwin 169, 183
McCardie, Mrs (housekeeper) 299
Macdougall, Judy 300
Mackenzie, Hannah xxi, 159–211, 283, 289
Mackenzie, Ross 163, 181–2, 207, 210
Mackinlay, William 170
mail deliveries xvii, 26
Manners, Angy 169
Manners, Lady Diana 230
Marie Antoinette, Queen 9, 34
married staff 12, 58, 108, 118, 229–30, 232
Martin, Miss (matron) 173, 186–7, 196–7
Mass Observation Project 249, 262
Massé, Charles 209
melancholy 86
Meller, John 103
mental health 86–7
mental institutions 84–5
Merevale Hall, Warwickshire 299
Middleton Park, Oxfordshire xvii
Ministry of Food 246
mistress–housekeeper relationship 4, 53, 71, 88–9, 91, 101, 122–3, 145, 171, 215, 221, 228–9, 238, 243, 253, 255, 266–7, 281–3, 287–8
money handling 76–7, 131, 144, 153
moral attitudes towards domestic staff 13, 21, 174, 201
Mountbatten, Lord and Lady 208
Murray, John George 205
National Health Service 214, 257
National Trust 96, 157, 261, 287
Neill, Mrs (housekeeper) xv, xvi
neurasthenia 86
Nicholson, Virginia 268–9, 271
Nicholson, William 183
Nicolson, Harold 234
Nicolson, Nigel 273
‘No Followers’ rule 12
Overstrand Hall, Norfolk 169–70
Pankhurst, Emmeline 112
Penketh, Ellen xxi, 97–157, 283
Penny Dreadfuls 53–4
pensions 41, 93
People’s Budget 98, 166
Peterloo massacre 23
‘phoney war’ 247
pneumatic tyres 81
Polesden Lacey, Surrey 262
Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 2, 47
Potteries 11, 13, 16
Powell, Margaret 233
pregnancy 13, 21–2, 25, 26–7
women’s rights in 26–7
Prince, Anne E. xvi–xvii, xix
prison records 141, 218
prison work 148
Pugs’ Parlours 18, 39
Puleston, Annette Fountayne 104, 105
recruitment
advertisements and replies xi–xii, xiv–xv, xvi–xvii, xviii, 71, 80, 171, 283
character references 114
employment agencies 111, 283
Reform Bill 2, 22, 28, 33, 45
Reid, Whitelaw 166
Repton, Sir Humphrey 54
retirement 41, 93, 271, 272
Roberts, George 100
Roche, Paul 232
Rogers, Harriet 100, 104, 110
Royal Flying Corps 199
Rudge, Sarah 123
Russell, Bertrand 273
Ruthin Gaol 147–8
Ryan, Mary 230
Sackville-West, Vita, The Edwardians 136–7
Sa
lisbury, Lady xv, xvi
Salisbury, Lord xvii
sanctity of home 244, 262
Sarsfield, Norah Kavanagh 209–10
savings 41, 94, 95, 263, 271
Saxon, William 117
school leaving age 219
Scott, Robert Falcon 102
Screech, Florence 299
Scriven, Dr Samuel 13
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) 86
Second World War 210, 214, 243–56
Sellar, Patrick 10
‘servant problem’ 80, 146–7
servants see domestic staff
servants’ balls 120–1
service tunnels 21, 67–8
sewing machines 50, 81
Shackleton, Ernest 102
Shaw, George Bernard 183, 273
Sheffield Park, Sussex 254
Shrewsbury Gaol 140–1
Shugborough, Staffordshire 233
Smith, Sydney 34
social injustice, feelings of 94
South Harting 63, 83
Southover Grange, Sussex 254
Spanish Civil War 242
Spillman, Mrs 3, 8, 31
spring cleaning 53, 88, 121–2, 132
staff quarters
basement living 84, 85, 86
bedrooms and furnishings 17–18, 173, 237–8
butler’s pantries 66
housekeeper’s rooms 19–20, 66, 85, 119, 130, 197–8, 279
kitchens 79, 118–19, 223–4, 275–6
privies 18
servants’ halls 66–7, 100
Stafford, Elizabeth Leveson-Gower, Marchioness of (later, Duchess of Sutherland) 5, 8, 9–10, 12, 25–6, 30, 31–2, 35, 38, 42, 43
Stafford, George Granville Leveson-Gower, Marquess of (later, Duke of Sutherland) 4–5, 9, 24, 29–30, 43, 45
Stafford House, London 3, 4, 14, 24
status, markers of 16, 17–19, 20, 73, 74
Stephen, Adrian 220, 222
Stephen, Julia 220
stewards 51
Stichill House, Roxburghshire xvi
still rooms 65, 86
Stoke-on-Trent 11, 16, 17
store cupboards 19
suffragettes 98, 112, 134, 142
Sutherland, Ann 55, 56, 57, 64, 92
Talleyrand, Prince 26, 31
Taplow Court, Buckinghamshire 170
Taylor, Edith Mary 193
television 260–1
theft 39–40, 41–5, 47, 134, 135–56
Theosophy 168
Tilton House, Sussex 241, 255
Trent and Mersey Canal 15
Trentham Hall, Staffordshire xxi, 1–47, 59
Tricker, Mrs (housekeeper) 299
Triple Entente 134
uniforms 12, 51
Uppark, West Sussex xx, xxi, 49–96
Upstairs, Downstairs 214, 215
vacuum cleaners 107
VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) 170, 179
Vanderbilt, Grace 163, 179, 208–9, 211
Victoria, Queen 103–4, 107
wages 106
domestic staff xi, xii, xvii, 11, 13–14, 114, 122, 131, 153, 171, 215
factory workers 220
perquisites (perks) 11, 14, 36, 40–2
waitresses 117
Wakehurst Place, Sussex 262
war hospital 161–205
washing machines 261
Webster, Mary 41
welfare reforms 98, 128, 166, 257
Wellington, Duke of 35, 36
Wells, H.G. xx, 52, 61, 72, 73, 74–5, 76, 77, 82, 85, 86, 89, 93–4, 95, 183
An Experiment in Autobiography 61, 75, 89
Mr Britling Sees it Through 166–7, 176
Tono-Bungay 72, 73
Wells, Joseph 58, 59–60, 61, 72, 77, 95, 96
Wells, Sarah xx, xxi, 49–96, 282–3
Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire 91
West Dean Park, West Sussex xii
West Hill, Surrey 3, 31–2
Westminster, Duchess of xiii
Westminster, Duke of 285
William IV, King 33, 34, 42
Wilton House, Wiltshire xx
wireless telegraphy 107
Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire 185
women’s suffrage 50, 81, 98, 134, 156, 160
women’s war work 170, 243
Woods, Maria xvii–xviii
Woolf, Leonard 216, 249, 256
Woolf, Virginia 216, 220, 221, 225, 234, 249, 252, 253, 272, 273
A Room of One’s Own 227
Wootton, William Monk 122, 132, 146
workhouses 46–7, 117
Wrest Park, Bedfordshire xii, 159–205
Yorke, Louisa 101, 102, 105–10, 111, 112, 113–15, 117, 120–2, 124, 125, 126–7, 128, 131, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 142–5, 146, 147, 148–51, 154, 155, 156–7, 284
Yorke, Philip 100, 102, 104–5, 106–7, 109, 115, 121, 124, 131, 135, 137–9, 143, 145, 146, 147, 149, 151, 155, 156
Yorke, Simon 103
Plump, beribboned and complacent, ‘The Housekeeper’ as caricatured in Heads of the People, 1840. Her badge of office is her bunch of keys; the sherry glasses hint at a gathering of upper servants. This was the stereotype–the reality was rather different. © Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Trentham Hall, Staffordshire, in the 1820s. For all its splendour, the upper servants took their after-dinner brandy in an outbuilding squeezed between a washhouse and a chicken run. © British Library/Robana/REX
In her youth the Duchess of Sutherland (Lady Stafford) was a celebrated beauty–but by the 1830s she had ‘all the appearance of a wicked old woman’, according to diarist Thomas Creevey. © Copyright 2014 Bridgeman Art Library
By the early 1900s the lake at Trentham Hall was so foully polluted by waste from the Potteries that the Sutherlands stopped visiting. In 1912 the house was knocked down; all that survives are the gardens. Trentham Gardens
Dorothy Doar’s letter to agent James Loch, 3 April 1832, begging for six weeks leave to have her baby and send it out to nurse. It was highly unusual for a housekeeper to be married, or to have a child. Reproduced with permission of Staffordshire Record Office D593/K/1/3/20
Uppark, West Sussex: where the servant-master relationship was irrevocably undermined when the master married a dairymaid in 1825. The dairymaid’s sister later inherited the estate. © National Trust
Sarah Wells, High Victorian housekeeper of Uppark, photographed in her sixties for the house records. © National Trust
The service tunnels at Uppark, connecting stables, dairy, kitchen and laundry with the great house. Mrs Wells spent much of her working life underground in these passageways. © National Trust
Miss Frances Fetherstonhaugh (left), plain ‘Fanny Bullock’ before she inherited her sister’s title and the estate in 1874. © National Trust
A bill for repairing Uppark’s crockery from Joseph Wells of Bromley. Within days of becoming housekeeper, Mrs Wells put some business her husband’s way–he was a struggling dealer in china, glass and cricketing goods.
Sarah Wells’s diary, 1892: downstairs politics between female servants fill its pages. Ten cooks come and go in as many years.
Courtesy of The Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Ellen Penketh, cook housekeeper at Erddig. Her mistress was to take her to court for allegedly stealing £500–and yet, surprisingly, kept this portrait of ‘the thief cook’ in the back of a family album. © National Trust
The Yorkes of Erddig Hall, North Wales: Louisa, Philip and their children ‘Little Phil’ and Simon. Louisa, rescued from spinsterhood at 39, had no experience of running a large house. Reproduced with permission of Flintshire Record Office
Erddig Hall: ‘I have, I think, undertaken more than I can accomplish,’ wrote Louisa Yorke in her diary, one month into her marriage. ‘The management of this huge house with 6 female and 3 male servants is no joke.’ © National Trust
Louisa Yorke’s accounts book from 1907, evid
ence in the court case she brought against her housekeeper. Her bookkeeping was ridiculed by Ellen Penketh’s barrister as ‘rather confused’. On the right-hand page she lists the departure of later housekeepers: Miss Brown (pictured on The Housekeeper’s Tale book cover) and Miss Hitchman. Reproduced with permission of Flintshire Record Office
After two months in Ruthin Gaol, Ellen Penketh faced her employers from the dock. The case was widely reported in the local press, much to the Yorkes’ mortification. Reproduced with permission of Flintshire Record Office
Wrest Park in the early 1900s: an 18th-century-style chateau–and a millstone inheritance to the young Lord Lucas. © Country Life
Housekeeper Hannah Mackenzie (seated) and Cook, Hetty Geyton, both hired in 1914 when the house became a war hospital. Private collection
Cecil Argles, land agent for Wrest Park: a ‘sedately married man’ who fell violently in love with Hannah Mackenzie. © Estate of Martin Argles
After clashing with her mistress, Hannah was replaced by Mr King, a former ship’s steward: pictured here in the housekeeper’s sitting room. Private collection
Wrest Park floor plan, early 1900s. The service wing to the east was transformed to receive soldiers straight from the Front, with bathing house and ‘louse house’. © Holfords of Westonbirt Trust
Cook Hetty Geyton (right) and her girls in Wrest Park’s kitchen. Private collection
A studio portrait of Hannah Mackenzie in New York, by then housekeeper to Grace Vanderbilt, the ‘Queen of Fifth Avenue’. © Ross Mackenzie
Hannah celebrates her hundredth birthday. ‘She enjoys a glass of whisky and a cigarette,’ reported the Northampton Chronicle & Echo, 1981. © Ross Mackenzie
Wrest Park library: before and after its transformation into a hospital ward, freshly wired for electricity. Both private collection
Charleston Farmhouse as it is today. Cook-housekeeper Grace Higgens was not allowed to walk in front of the house when guests were dining. © Paul Cox/Alamy
Grace, aged nineteen, in 1922: already a beauty. ‘Mr Bell came to lunch, & as usual said some very idiotic remarks, making me feel very uncomfortable.’ © The British Library Board (Add 83246A 1:f3)
