Life Below Stairs (7 page)

‘“Oldham Street is much the best place to shop,” I announced didactically.

‘Now only those who know the social nuances of Manchester in the first decade of the century can understand
the enormity of this remark. For Oldham Street was where
the maids made their purchases and you did not invade their preserves. It was like going to church on Sunday evening or visiting your doctor during his consulting hours instead of having him attend
you. There was a chilly silence and I felt that perhaps I had gone too far.’

By the Edwardian era it had become standard practice for mistresses to give their maids a Christmas present of a length of cloth which would have to be made into a new uniform at the
girl’s own expense. If the maid was not able to sew the costume herself, either through lack of ability or time, it might cost her three or four precious shillings to have ‘made
up’, an expense many resented.

Underneath all the starched uniforms the maids, even in the Edwardian era, were expected to wear corsets, which would have made their domestic work much more difficult. It can’t have been
easy scrubbing floors in such restricting undergarments. The rest of their underwear was calico or flannelette, as silk underwear, a favourite of the debutantes, was widely regarded as sinful among
the servant classes. The maids also had to provide their own stockings, which cost around 4
d
. and would be darned until they could no longer be worn.

Cassell’s Household Guide
commented, ‘Dress in these days is a very disputed point between mistress and maid. Any attempt to restrict young women in the choice of their
garments will be found fruitless. Certain fashions, however, which are likely to
be destructive to the employer’s property, or unfitted for the performance of a
servant’s duties, a lady has a right to prohibit […] If ladies would be at a little pains to mention their wishes on this subject, young women in service would supply themselves with
suitable wardrobes. Whatever clothing a servant chooses to wear when out for a holiday is beyond a mistress’s rule.’

In the nursery, the nanny wore a white or grey cotton print dress and apron and, when out walking with the children, was permitted a black, navy or dark plum coat and a black straw bonnet.

Senior Staff

The lady’s maid, like the housekeeper, was allowed to wear her own clothes but, while the latter was likely to opt for a sober black or grey dress, which would
emphasize the required no-nonsense approach and give an air of gravitas, the former was likely to be inclined towards ‘fripperies’. Although it was her job to be interested in the
latest styles and fabrics, it would not do for the maid to get ideas above her station. She might have been given her mistress’s unwanted dresses but a late Victorian publication was
scandalized by these ‘abigails disguised as their betters’. For example, if a lady’s maid indulged in black silk stockings, instead of the usual grey, she may well have incurred
the wrath of her mistress.

The lady’s maid rarely wore the starched apron and cap considered the badge of servitude by the lower servants, but she occasionally wore a tiny, decorative apron when washing her
mistress’s hair. Being an expert needlewoman was an essential qualification, which also proved helpful when she was altering her employer’s cast-offs in order to wear them herself.

The Butler

This distinguished figure wore a black suit styled to the fashion of the day, with a waistcoat and watchchain and a black tie.
In the evening, when
serving in the dining room, he changed to tails, worn with a black tie as opposed to the white tie customarily worn by the master and his male guests.

‘I’ve always found it interesting that when the butler serves food to the family and guests at night he puts on his tails, and is actually wearing the same outfit as the
guests,’ commented
Downton Abbey
creator Julian Fellowes.

The Footmen

As they were the living representation of a family’s wealth, the fine livery of these ornamental workers made them the peacocks of the domestic world. They were
presented with tailored jackets, waistcoats, knee breeches and smart white shirts. They were expected to look dapper at all times and particular attention was paid to their hair, which had to be
neatly combed and powdered with flour of violet powder, which then had to be washed out in the evening.

Margaret Thomas first saw a footman in full livery when she went for an interview for a job in a Yorkshire household in the early 1900s: ‘I remember a powdered footman was taking an airing
on the area steps next door,’ she said. ‘He looked very grand with his scarlet breeches but he was the only one I ever saw, they were disappearing then.’

It was a bone of contention among the female staff that, while the lowliest maid had to scrimp and save to buy her own
uniform, the footman, who earned a higher annual wage
than the majority of the female staff, was provided with his.

Mrs Beeton advised mistresses that ‘The footman only finds himself in stockings, shoes, and washing. Where silk stockings, or other extra articles of linen are worn, they are found by the
family, as well as his livery, a working dress, consisting of a pair of overalls, a waistcoat, a fustian jacket, with a white or jean one for times when he is liable to be called to answer the door
or wait at breakfast; and, on quitting his service, he is expected to leave behind him any livery had within six months.’

In the most well-to-do households the footman would have a daytime livery and an evening livery, and a great deal of time was spent changing uniforms and seeing to his elaborate hairstyle with
soap and powder.

Young boys taken on as footmen were referred to as ‘tigers’ due to the striped outfit. Their job was often to ride on the coaches and jump down to hold the horse’s head when
the master wished to stop, although they were put to work in many other ways. The Victorian Prime Minister Lord Salisbury, for example, used to enjoy whizzing down the steep slopes of Hatfield
House on a tricycle. He would take a ‘tiger’ with him to push it up who would then be obliged to jump on the back as his eminent master set off downhill.

The vast cost of the livery, along with the popularity of cars and the rising cost of employing male staff, was one of the reasons that the position of footman became increasingly rare in
Edwardian Britain. The few footmen that remained in the grander houses became even more impressive as a badge of wealth.

CHAPTER FOUR

A Day in the
Life of a
Country House

T
HE WORKING DAY
was an incredibly long one for Edwardian servants; they were on the go from dawn until bedtime. The house
needed to be cleaned and the fires lit before the family rose and most were unable to retire until the master and mistress were in bed, or had instructed them they were no longer needed.

‘These people
worked
from the moment they got up in the morning until they went to bed at night,’ explains
Downton Abbey
consultant Alastair Bruce. ‘Underlining
that there wasn’t really time off in the way that we expect today. There is constant activity. It’s quite a juxtaposition, the frantic activity downstairs, delivering the calm, peace,
serenity of the family who are living in the house.’

Each house ran to a different timetable and Margaret Thomas remembered one Yorkshire home where the second housemaid ‘had to be downstairs at 4 a.m. every morning to get
the sitting room done before breakfast. The second housemaid had a medal room to keep clean, where the medals were set out in steel cases, and had to be polished with emery paper every
day.’

Cynthia Asquith recalled life from the other side of the green baize door. ‘In some really well ordered households it was even the rule that no maid should ever be seen broom or duster in
hand. Except for the bedrooms all the housework had to be done before any of the family or their guests came downstairs, a refinement that meant very early rising for the maids.’

Although the length of the day varied, most larger houses were up and running by 6 a.m. The busiest part of the day for the maids was the morning, while the footmen came into their own in the
afternoon and the cooks were kept busy right up until dinner. Even when the maids were supposed to be having a short break in the afternoon, they were constantly at the mercy of the servant bells.
These common devices were operated by a pull or switch in each room, which triggered a bell that sounded in the basement. Downstairs, the bells were mounted on a panel signalling which room it had
been rung from, thereby indicating the location of the family member or guest requiring some assistance. The resting footman or maid would then leap to his or her feet and rush up the stairs to
find out what was needed. In her memoirs
Below Stairs
Margaret Powell remembered the servants’ bells in the passage outside the kitchen in her first job as a maid, when she was
fourteen.

A TYPICAL DAY