The Servants Hall 2

The role of servant was not a glamorous life. The hours were long and hard. In a small household there may only be money enough for a maid-of-all-work. Her duties inluded, well, everything. She did all the household work, while also looking after the children. She stayed by herself at night in the kitchen while the family gathered in the parlor or went out. Her wages were around two shillings a week.

Larger households may have many housemaids, as they did the bulk of all work. Their day began around 6 a.m. and might end at 11 p.m. The kitchen and servant's hall were below the main floor of the house. The drawing room was located one flight up from the main floor, and bedrooms were up another floor. That, alone, guaranteed an exhausting day. The duty of the maids were to keep the house gleaming. Water for washing and bathing had to be brought by hand to each family member's room. Fresh water was expected four times a day. Carpets had to be beaten, floors and woodwork polished, and clothes and linens mended. They were expected to stay out of sight of the family and still do their work.

The footman's job was to open the carriage door, pull down the carriage step, and help people down. In the house, they trimmed lamps, carried coal or fire wood, attended the guests at dinner parties, and stood around looking impressive. When the ladies of the house went calling, they took her calling cards to the front door while she waited in the carriage. When placing an ad for employment they often included their height, as having a pair of footmen unmatched in size was intolerable.

Having servants were a sign of wealth. In nineteenth centuary England carriages and servants were taxed thus insuring the wealthy paid their fair share of taxes.

The average term of service in a household for the lower servants at the end of the century was less than one and one half years. The ones that stayed, did it because of job security, and the hope of a pension at the end of their years of service. It was also, for some, a chance to travel.

Below the housemaids were the kitchen maids followed by the scullery maids. The kitchen maids assisted the cook to prepare meals. The scullery maid, the lowest of all, spent all her time washing dishes, pots and pans. And there were a lot to clean. A ten course meal for a dinner party of a modest group of eighteen might generate as much as five hundred individual items to be washed by hand. A ten course meal didn't mean ten different foods, it meant meat, vegetables, and dessert ten different times with a complete place setting at each course. One wonders where they put it all!

There was an array of outside servants also. The groom looked after the horses, in the country one needed a gamesman to raise and protect the game on the property, and who took the visitors out shooting and arranged hunts, and the bailiff or land agent who collected rent from the tenants and oversaw the agricultural management of the estate.

Some of the "perks" of employment were cast offs. The lady's maid was given her mistresses cast off clothes. She also coul keep a rag bag of linen that she could sell. The cook was given drippings from the cooking of meat that she could sell after the family was done with them. Drippings was used by servants and in lower class families on bread as a substitute for butter.

Around the middle of the century, most maids earned around only eleven to fourteen pounds a year. Vacations were usually two weeks a year plus a half day off on Sunday. Most got one evening out a week, and a day off each month. They slept in tiny rooms in the attic, stiffeling in summer and freezing in the winter.