Life Below Stairs Page 9

  Beef Tongue

  2s. 6d. each

  £7.13

  Venison

  1s–2s.

  £2.85

  Lamb leg (English)

  1s.

  £2.85

  Lamb leg (New Zealand)

  9½d.

  £2.26

  Hare

  3s. 6d. each

  £9.99

  Chicken

  2s. 6d. each

  £7.13

  Duckling

  2s.–3s. each

  £5.71–£8.56

  Grouse

  3s. 6d. per brace

  £9.99

  Quail

  1s. each

  £2.85

  Snipes

  2s. each

  £5.71

  Widgeon

  1s. each

  £2.85

  Loaf of bread

  2½d. each

  60p

  Butter

  1s 2d.

  £3.33

  Sugar

  3d.

  71p

  Tea

  1s 6d.

  £4.28

  Potatoes

  10d. (20 lb)

  £2.38

  Cheese

  6d.

  £1.43

  Figures taken from Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management and the Black Country Living Museum

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Code of

  Conduct

  AS SOON AS ANY servant took a position in a household they were subject to a long list of dos and don’ts – some issued by their mistress and some by their downstairs superiors. Most establishments had the rules written on cardboard or framed paper that was then hung in the kitchen or in the servants’ hall. Those ‘rules’ that were not on the list, and which differed from house to house, they would pick up along the way, it was hoped before their ignorance of them got them into trouble.

  Most of the codes of conduct revolved around being as unobtrusive as possible. Although Edwardian families liked to be able to afford the armies of maids that ran around below stairs, they didn’t wish to see or hear them at any time. Most of the lowlier servants never spoke to their mistress or master, even if their paths crossed, and this was encouraged in the many regulations recommended at the time. The kitchen staff rarely left the basement and should a parlourmaid or chambermaid pass a member of the family they were expected to stand against the wall and look down at the floor.

  One contemporary servants’ guide advised, ‘Always “give room”: that is, if you encounter one of your betters in the house or on the stairs, you are to make yourself as invisible as possible, turning yourself toward the wall and averting your eyes.’

  A booklet produced by the Ladies’ Sanitary Association in 1901, entitled Rules For the Manners of Servants in Good Families, laid out a list of rules which would have made a young girl’s head spin. What follows are a few of the major ones.

  Do not walk in the garden unless permitted, or unless you know that all the family are out; and be careful to walk quietly when there; on no account be noisy.

  Noisiness is considered bad manners.

  Always move quietly about the house, and do not let your voice be heard by the family unless necessary.

  Never sing or whistle at your work where the family would be likely to hear you.

  Do not call out from room to room and if you are a housemaid, be careful not only to do your work quietly but to keep out of sight as much as possible.

  Never begin to talk to the ladies and gentlemen, unless it be to deliver a message or ask a necessary question.

  Do not talk to your fellow servants or the children of the family in the passages or sitting rooms, or in the presence of ladies and gentlemen.

  Always answer when you receive an order or a reproof either, ‘yes ma’am’ or ‘I am very sorry ma’am’ to show you have heard.

  Should you be required to walk with a lady or gentleman, in order to carry a parcel or otherwise, always keep a few paces behind.

  Do not smile at droll stories told in your presence or seem in any way to notice, or enter into, the family conversation, or the talk at table, or with visitors.

  This is a small sample of the strict regulations governing the daily lives of servants. Other requirements included being punctual at mealtimes, having all doors locked by a certain time such as 10.30 p.m., when the servants’ hall also had to be cleared and closed, and paying for breakages out of meagre wages. Gambling, swearing and drinking to excess were banned and the female staff was forbidden to smoke.

  The maids were considered so lowly that should they need to hand a family member or visitor a letter or parcel, they were to do so on a silver platter to minimize the risk of physical contact. If they were obliged to lift something by hand, they were to lay it on a table nearest the recipient. This was one rule that kitchen maid Margaret Langley, later Powell, fell foul of when she started out in Hove. One morning, while she was cleaning the front door, the newsboy came by with the papers. As she took them her mistress, Mrs Clydesdale, descended the stairs and Margaret offered her the papers:

  She looked at me as if I were something subhuman . . . She didn’t speak a word, she just stood there looking at me as if she couldn’t believe someone like me was walking an’ breathing . . . I couldn’t think what was wrong. Then at last she spoke. She said, ‘Langley, never, never on any occasion ever hand anything to me in your bare hands, always use a silver salver. Surely you know better than that.’ I thought it was terrible. Tears started to trickle down my cheeks; that someone could think that you were so low that you couldn’t even hand them anything out of your hands without it first being placed on a silver salver.

  FOLLOWERS

  A ban on ‘followers’ was common to the majority of houses. The main reason this rule was put in place was to discourage boyfriends and potential suitors to the girls from coming to the house but the term also took in relations and friends, who were seen as an unwelcome distraction from daily chores. Cassell’s Household Guide declared, ‘Whether “followers” are allowed is a question often put by a servant on applying for a situation. Except under very rare circumstances, it is better to disallow the privilege.’ It continued: ‘While speaking on this subject, we may add that the word “followers” has a very elastic meaning, and as it is difficult to draw a line between those that are unobjectionable and otherwise, no hardship can be felt in refusing to admit visitors to the kitchen save upon express permission.’

  With one evening off a week and a chance to go to church on Sunday it was tricky for the domestic staff to see their family, let alone their friends. And finding a potential spouse was incredibly difficult for some. Even within the household, any servant found ‘fraternizing’ with the opposite sex faced instant dismissal. It’s a wonder any of the young maids ever found a suitor at all.

  Violet Turner recalled to author Frank Dawes, ‘We weren’t allowed a young man near the house, but I always let the cook’s young man in the back door on Friday evenings.’

  Kate Brown revealed she was sacked from her parlourmaid’s job in 1911 for allowing her boyfriend into the house: ‘Of course it was forbidden in those days in case your boyfriend might be a burglar. They could never imagine a servant choosing someone respectable.’ Her future husband was, actually, a baker from Fulham Road.

  CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

  Breaking the rules, or being seen to, meant swift and often severe punishment. This could range from a ‘tongue-lashing’, usually enough to put the wind up the inexperienced maid, to dismissal with no references, or ‘characters’, a terrifying prospect for most domestic servants. The favourite sanction was the denial of the little time off they had, as there were so few pleasures in life. One servant recalled losing her day off for the heinous crime of feeding lumps of sugar from her own ration to a black horse on the farm where she worked.

  Some were a little more eccentric in their punishments. The 5th Duke of Portland, William John Cavendish-Bentin
ck-Scott, became a recluse in the late nineteenth century and hated his female servants to see him. If he passed any of them in the corridors, he sent them outside to skate on a specially constructed ice rink.

  While the domestic staff devoted sixteen hours a day to backbreaking chores, mistresses often rewarded their efforts with suspicion of dishonesty and idleness. Some would employ subterfuge to test the honesty of the staff. The most common method was to slip coins under rugs and down the side of upholstered chairs. If the coin was removed and not declared, the housemaid was deemed to be a thief and, if the coin was undiscovered, she was a shirker.

  RELIGIOUS FERVOUR

  Society households often used religion as a tool for keeping their domestic staff in check. By drumming passages from the scriptures about hard work and cleanliness into them they reinforced the message that the hierarchy that kept the upper-class employers at the top and the work-ravaged servants at the bottom was all part of God’s plan. Employers liked to believe they were the guardians of their servants’ morals, and that they needed to be taught how to behave by their educated betters. ‘They didn’t worry about the long hours you put in, the lack of freedom and the poor wages, so long as you worked hard and you knew that God was in Heaven and that He’d arranged for it that you worked down below and laboured, and that they lived upstairs in comfort and luxury, that was alright with them,’ wrote Margaret Powell.‘I used to think how incongruous it was when the Reverend used to say morning prayers and just before they were over, he’d say, “Now let us all count our blessings.” I thought, well, it would take a lot longer to count yours than it would mine.’

  Religious mantras hung around the servants’ area included such messages as ‘Cleanliness comes next to Godliness’ and, from Ecclesiastes, ‘Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.’ No doubt they omitted those less convenient to their way of thinking, such as the famous line from Exodus which commands that Christians should ‘Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy,’ and continues, ‘On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant.’

  Christian societies were keen to get in on the act and issued numerous pamphlets for mistresses and maids on the subject of servants’ morals. In 1890 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge published a booklet which advised staff not to worry about wages as a ‘safe, happy home is of greater consequence’, not to lose their temper if the steps they had just scrubbed were instantly splattered with mud, not to gossip with tradesmen or servants and not to read ‘silly sensational stories’ in the ‘poisonous publications which are brought to the back doors of gentlemen’s homes’. Above all, it counselled, a servant must remember to pray carefully and regularly.

  In his memoirs, Eric Horne recalled the country house of an unnamed peer where he worked as a footman, and the staff having to sit opposite the family during the Sunday service. ‘One Sunday the Bold Bad Baron sent for the butler and asked him if we had been drinking too much beer as he noticed several of the men were asleep during the sermon. The parson was brother to the Baron, the living was in his gift, so of course he preached a sermon to please him; generally about the lower orders being submissive to their betters. No wonder we fell asleep.’

  ADDRESSING THE SERVANTS

  Those who lived upstairs were also expected to adhere to strict rules of etiquette in their treatment of the staff, particularly in how each member was addressed. The name used by the master and mistress was part of the rigid hierarchy and it would be an insult to the higher ranks to stray from the usual titles.

  The following is a guide on how to address servants adapted from the Channel Four series An Edwardian Country House.

  The Butler should be addressed courteously by his surname.

  The Housekeeper should be given the title of ‘Missus …’, regardless of marital status.

  The Chef de Cuisine should be addressed as such, or by the title ‘Monsieur …’.

  It is customary for your Lady’s Maid to be given the title of ‘Miss …’, regardless of whether she is single or married. It is however acceptable for the mistress to address her by her Christian name.

  It is very much the custom in the old houses that lower servants, when entering into service, adopt new names given to them by their masters. You may follow this tradition and rename certain members of your staff. Common names for matching footmen are James and John. Emma is popular for housemaids.

  It is not expected that you take the trouble to remember the names of all your staff. Indeed, in order to avoid obliging you to converse with them, lower servants will endeavour to make themselves invisible to you. As such they should not be acknowledged.

  The housekeeper should be given the title of ‘Missus ...’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Hiring and

  Firing

  FOR MANY OF the lower female staff, the initial interview for the job was the only time they would speak to the mistress or, in some of the larger houses, see her at all. Margaret Powell remembered her first interview for a kitchen maid’s position in Hove, when she was fifteen. Her mother came with her and they were let in by the front door. ‘In all the time I worked there, that was the only time I ever went in by the front door.’

  Margaret and her mother were shown into a nursery where the mistress of the house interrogated them. ‘My mother did all the talking because I was overcome with wonder at this room, for although it was only a nursery, you could have put all the three rooms we lived in into it. Also I was overcome with shyness; I suffered agonies of self-consciousness in those days. And the lady, Mrs Clydesdale, looked me up and down as though I was something at one of those markets, you know one of those slave markets.’ As the rules and conditions were outlined, Margaret’s spirits sank and she said, ‘I felt I was in jail at the finish.’ But like many girls, she was not given a choice. Her mother had made up her mind that she would take the job, and that was what she did.

  Positions often came to the attention of potential candidates by word of mouth, via a relative, friend or neighbour who already worked there. For a teenager looking for their first job particularly, it would be easier if someone within the existing staff ‘spoke for’ him or her. One Norwich maid recalled entering into service in Kent after she was recommended by a neighbour’s daughter who already worked there. After packing her things into a wicker basket, she travelled up to London and on to Beckenham. ‘I quite expected a Rolls Royce to meet me at the station,’ she said in Cap and Apron. ‘Instead of that it was the gardener with the wheelbarrow.’

  Mrs Beeton advised that hiring the staff was ‘one of those duties in which the judgement of the mistress must be keenly exercised’. And she recommended that the best way to find new servants was to ask among friends, acquaintances and tradesmen.

  She also counselled mistresses to be absolutely clear what the job entailed:

  We would here point out an error – and a grave one it is – into which some mistresses fall. They do not, when engaging a servant, expressly tell her all the duties which she will be expected to perform. This is an act of omission severely to be reprehended. Every portion of work which the maid will have to do, should be plainly stated by the mistress, and understood by the servant. If this plan is not carefully adhered to, domestic contention is almost certain to ensue, and this may not be easily settled; so that a change of servants, which is so much to be deprecated, is continually occurring.

  Cassell’s Household Guide goes one step further, castigating employers for not being candid with applicants for a housemaid’s job from the outset:

  Many ladies, when engaging a housemaid, hold out the ‘lightness of the work’ as an inducement to get the place filled. Consequently, no sphere of domestic service is so crowded with young women in delicate health as that of the housemaid. Good health is, nevertheless, indispensable to the fit discharge of all kinds of
labour.

  But word of mouth was not the only way that servants found places. Many advertised their qualities in The Times, since it was the preferred paper of the upper classes and offered potential staff the opportunity to place a free advert, paying only when a position was secured. A persuasive argument put forward in an editorial suggested that servants engaged through a newspaper which cost 3d. instead of the rags that cost a mere 1d. were likely to find themselves a comfortable position in a family of ‘the best class’ who kept many servants. ‘They are not cheap, commonplace people, but good families having fine establishments and too anxious to have everything of the best not to keep plenty of servants for the work to be done.’

  Positions wanted, from a 1902 edition of The Times

  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.