Life Below Stairs (15 page)

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

CHAPTER EIGHT

Hiring and
Firing

F
OR 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:

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

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 3
d
. instead of the rags that cost a mere 1
d
. 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.’

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.

REFERENCES

Being sacked from a good position was a threat hanging over domestic staff at all times and they could be dismissed for the smallest slight or misdemeanour. But their
biggest fear would be leaving without good references, effectively rendering them incapable of finding work elsewhere. An unjust reference was punishable with a £20 fine but in order to
enforce this rule, the injured servant would have to prove malice, which was not an easy thing to do. At the same time, the master or mistress giving the reference was legally obliged to tell the
truth about any character flaw that may affect future work, such as dishonesty or drunkenness, so generosity was not an option.

In 1923, a Government committee recognized the harm that could be done to a servant’s prospects under this system. ‘Our attention has constantly been drawn to the extent to which a
maid’s future is at the mercy of an unjust or spiteful employer who by withholding a reference, or giving an unfair or prejudiced account of her, may easily render her chances of obtaining
desirable employment very small.’ The committee
recommended that ‘unless an employer has sufficiently definite grounds for dissatisfaction to be prepared to state
them in writing, and to tell the maid at least what their general nature is, she should give a formal reference only and refrain from criticism or comment unless pressed for further details’.
However, without any legal sanction to help the maids, there was still no official protection against character slurs.

FALLEN WOMEN

The need for good characters before landing any position kept many a servant in an unhappy home for longer than they would have liked. Even so, dismissal could be instant
and unfair, with no repercussions for the quick-tempered employer, and would leave a young girl on the street. Many of these youngsters ended up in brothels, cajoled, tricked or bullied into
prostitution. In the publication
How to Improve the Conditions of Domestic Servants,
one male servant voiced his concern that the sacking without references of ‘many poor servant
girls’ meant they were being ‘led into immorality and thrown on to the street of London’. Many of the servant registry offices were actually recruitment fronts for city brothels
and older women were often employed to scout the railway stations and streets for naive-looking, out-of-towners on their own, who would then be offered a place to stay and find themselves forced
into prostitution.