Life Below Stairs (3 page)

Playtime in the nursery

The Governess

In the Victorian era, older children, especially girls who would not be sent away to boarding school, required a governess. By the turn of the century, with many girls now
getting a formal education, fewer and fewer families were employing governesses.

Although a paid member of staff, the governess would have come from a similar social class as her employers and she was not considered a servant as such. As she would need to be educated, the
majority were unmarried daughters of middle-class or well-to-do families who, for one reason or another, needed to support themselves or simply wanted to work. Being too genteel to consider work as
a servant, they entered the house in a social limbo. They were often scorned by the servants who saw their elevated status as unfair and may well have been looked down on by the family, who would
see a woman’s need to work as an indication of her family’s failure.

OUTDOORS STAFF

Land Steward

Only to be found on the larger estates, which included farmland or tithe cottages, the land steward was more employee than servant and was responsible for managing the
rents and keeping the business profitable. He was well educated, highly paid and lived in a house on the estate so his social status was closer to that of the family itself and he would be in
charge of hiring and firing outdoor staff.

The Gardener

The head gardener was considered ‘upper staff’ and on a par with the housekeeper in the hierarchy. Although this meant higher wages and good living conditions,
his position as outdoor help meant he was separate from the upper servants of the house.

In smaller houses the gardener might have worked alone or with one under-gardener but in the larger country houses and stately homes he would have had a formidable
workforce. For example, at the Buckinghamshire mansion of Waddesdon Hall, owned by the hugely wealthy Rothschild family at the turn of the century, the head gardener tended the vast gardens with a
staff of six under-gardeners.

The Stable Master

Like the head gardener, the head groom or stable master was ranked with the ‘upper staff’, although he would not have been afforded all their privileges.
Depending on the size of the house, he would have presided over several grooms and stable boys, some of whom started as young as ten.

Coachmen

Although cars were becoming fashionable in the Edwardian era, most families still relied on horse-drawn carriages and it was the coachmen’s task to keep them in good
working order and pristine at all times. They were also responsible for cleaning the tack, although this job might have been delegated depending on how many stable hands were employed. The coachmen
ranked above the grooms.

DAILY DUTIES

The Valet

Although he commanded as much respect as the butler, the master’s personal valet had no staff directly under him. His sole responsibility was to tend to the
master’s needs, such as his wardrobe and toilette. He would rise before his employer and go to bed after him, so he needed to be able to survive on little sleep.

Every day he would ensure that the correct outfit for each occasion was pressed and ready to be worn and that his master’s shoes and boots were clean and polished, often with newly ironed
shoelaces. In the morning he would shave his employer, sometimes using a shaving soap or balm of his own recipe, and he would make sure a bath was drawn when his master demanded it.

A valet had special standing in the household, treated as he was as a close friend and confidant of the head of the household. On shooting days on larger estates he might
be responsible for looking after the guns and loading his master’s weapon, unless there was a ‘loader’ or under-keeper to take that role, and on outings he would take charge of
train timetables and travel arrangements, as well as supervise the packing of suitcases. He would travel with his master, often abroad, and would even act as a translator and tour guide on the
trips, sorting out any problems that arose through ignorance of local customs.

In order to procure all the goods and services required, a top valet would be phenomenally well connected and discreet, rather like the best hotel porters of today. The famous fictional valet
Jeeves, created by P.G. Wodehouse in 1915, is the perfect example of the invaluable ‘fixer’, able to lay his hands on whatever his master, Bertie Wooster, requires at short notice and
capable of helping him out of any tight spot.

As well as a top-end salary, the valet received many tips and gifts, and would often be given unwanted clothes to sell or wear himself. In fact, many made enough money to go into the hotel
business, or open high-end stores. Lord Byron’s valet James Brown and his wife Sarah became the founders of the famous Brown’s Hotel, in Mayfair.

By the Edwardian era, as servant numbers reduced in all but the biggest households, dedicated valets were becoming rare, with many of their duties being taken on by the butler.

The Lady’s Maid

Like the valet, the lady’s maid was a luxury few could afford but, for those with the means, she became a trusted and valued companion. Her duties were somewhere
between dresser and secretary and she needed to be well versed in the latest fashions, charged as she was with keeping her mistress up to date with elegant trends. In fact, in the Victorian era,
when they had been more numerous, French ladies’ maids became something of a status symbol because they were thought to know more about the Parisian designs.

The lady’s maid would look after the wardrobe, help her mistress choose dresses for each occasion, and help her with her hair and make-up. With some society ladies changing up to five
times a day for various engagements, this was a full-time job in itself. She would also be on hand to suggest lotions and beauty enhancements to stem the march of time, and help with the brimming
social calendar. In large houses, she would be the only person permitted to enter the lady’s boudoir, forbidden ground even for the master of the house.

Although they were invariably young, with the majority leaving to marry by the time they were in their mid-twenties, ladies maids enjoyed a senior position similar to that of the valet. This
meant they were regarded with some suspicion and even hatred by the lower staff, because they had the ear and the trust of the mistress.

They too would receive perks in the shape of cast-off dresses and beauty products, and many developed airs and graces above their station, objecting strongly if asked to
attend to any other female. A Victorian guide entitled
The Lady’s Maid
warned them against such pretensions and urged them to bear in mind that their elevated position, better clothes
and ‘seat in the dressing room and on your master’s carriage’ were merely temporary perks of the job. ‘Your heart should still be where your station is – among the
poor; so that if you have to return to your old ways of living when your years of service are over you may not feel hurt or degraded but as if you were returning home.’

The Butler

During the Victorian era the butler had seen his position elevated by the paring down of household staffs. The house steward, once his superior, had almost disappeared and
valets were retained only by the wealthiest of families, leaving the butler to tend to the master of the house and to run the domestic staff.

The butler oversaw the running of the household and was directly in charge of the serving staff, footmen and hall staff and, therefore, held responsible for their conduct. In addition, he would
liaise with the housekeeper on the duties and conduct of the kitchen and household staff. He ran the extensively stocked wine cellar, polished the family silver and oversaw the smooth
running of all meals, keeping a watchful eye on the footmen waiting at table to make sure they observed the correct etiquette. When guests were being entertained, he would oversee the
menu and choose the wine, filling the glasses himself.

At lunch he might serve the meal alone, as the footmen were often otherwise engaged, and at dinner he was required to
set the starter on the table before calling in the
family. Mrs Beeton observed that

As a mark of respect the other members of staff always addressed the butler as ‘sir’.

The Housekeeper

The duties of a housekeeper, and the meaning of the term, varied widely depending on whether she was employed in a middle-class home or a ‘big house’. Widowed
or single men of means often had a housekeeper who would provide the most basic functions of a housewife, keeping the home clean, cooking meals, looking after children and, in some cases, even
sharing the bed.

In wealthy households, however, the housekeeper was the head of the domestic staff, and would run the establishment with military precision. She was in charge of the kitchen staff
and the maids and was assisted in her domination by the cook and, in some instances, by the head housemaid. According to the 1825 householders’ bible,
The Complete
Servant
, she should be ‘a steady middle-aged woman, of great experience in her profession and a tolerable knowledge of the world’. The description was as relevant at the turn of the
century as it was when it was written.

One of her most important duties was to greet the master and mistress when they returned home from a journey, or even a day out, by standing at the top of the main staircase or inside the front
door. She would also greet weekend guests in order to show them to their rooms. She invariably jangled with the many keys attached to her waist as she controlled the storerooms, china cupboards and
linen cupboards and carried keys for all of the rooms in the building. She kept the household accounts and oversaw orders to tradesmen. She was also the sole keeper of the ‘still-room’
where the preserves, fruit wines and cordials were kept.

The housekeeper was addressed as ‘Mrs’ regardless of marital status and often inspired more fear from the ‘unders’ than the mistress or the butler. In his memoirs Albert
Thomas, who went on to become a butler at Brasenose College, Oxford, recalled having to wash the butler’s gout-stricken feet during his time as a footman to the Duke of Norfolk. Afterwards he
joked to the other servants that he was pleased the old man wasn’t a centipede, so unpleasant had been his task, but his jocular
remark was overheard by the tyrannical
housekeeper. He wrote, ‘I would rather his grace had heard us, he was human but her, Oh Lor’ we did cop it.’