Life Below Stairs (13 page)

Arthur Inch, in service for more than fifty years, was a footman at Londonderry House during one London Season, and spent a busy day wearing a pedometer as he rushed up and down the stairs and
along the vast corridors. He calculated that he had walked eighteen miles without ever leaving the house.

As well as the extra dinners, there were hundreds of balls during the London Season. The parents of a debutante who was ‘coming out’ that year often rented in the capital and threw a
ball to introduce their daughter to Society and, more importantly, to eligible bachelors. There could be as many as four balls in one night. For the servants, this meant laying on a lavish supper,
and staying up very late indeed. In 1912, Lady Charlotte Bonham Carter’s mother threw a ball in a house in Eaton Square she had taken for her daughter’s first season. ‘Supper had
to be taken downstairs unless it was a very grand house, like Surrey House,’ remembered Lady Charlotte in
Lost Voices of the Edwardians.
‘Supper generally began at twelve and
might consist of a clear soup, quails with white grapes and potatoes. It was a light but really delicious meal and you could take it whenever you liked.’ The servants who were up until the
early hours clearing up must have been pleased this was a rare event.

Footman Eric Horne revealed in his memoirs
What the Butler Winked At
, ‘A London season is very tiring to servants. There is not only the day work but the
night work as well. They would keep out regularly until one, two or three o’clock but we had to start work at the same time as the other servants. Often during the London season we were kept
so short of our hours of sleep that I used to go to sleep on the carriage.’

The season ended in August when the grouse-shooting season began and most men went north for shooting parties.

SHOOTING PARTIES

The Edwardian shooting parties were lavish events that required yet more catering from the servants. The valets or footmen would accompany the men in order to load their
guns and the maids would be up at the crack of dawn to cut sandwiches for the party. When the men returned with the spoils, the hallboy or scullery maid would be charged with plucking the birds and
hanging them in the pantry or game larder until cook was ready to prepare them for dinner. As the shooters left early, the butler and remaining footman would take their lunch out to them on the
moors or they would return to the house for a more substantial meal.

The Duke of Portland’s footman Frederick Gorst remembered shooting parties at Welbeck Abbey. ‘We footmen
served them from our stations at the sideboard which
held roast game in season, leg of lamb, game pie, roast chicken and roast ham. There were always platters of egg Rochambeau, fish, a garnished entrée of chicken en gelée and salad.
The sweet was often rice pudding.’

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

CHAPTER SEVEN

Code of
Conduct

A
S 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.