Up and Down Stairs (17 page)

The gentleman of the horse, in charge of the stables, had his own room where he dined in company with the gentleman usher, who looked after the main rooms in the house, the two valets, called the duke’s gentlemen, the duchess’s two gentlewomen and the pages. Everyone else, from the butler to the stable boys and odd men, but with the exception of the kitchenmaids, ate in the servants’ hall. In most households, the main division was usually between those who dined with the family, those who dined in the steward’s room or those who ate in the servants’ hall.
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In many country houses, many household servants would be recruited from the families of tenant farmers and estate workers. In 1790, John Trusler recommended recruiting country dwellers of simple tastes and manners, in order to avoid ‘persons who had aspirations to ape the status of their employers.’ Another contemporary writer opined: ‘I have often thought of the great interest a nobleman, or gentleman of large estate, might always secure by only the proper choice of his
domestics
. Such an one cannot be without a great number of tenants, who might think their children honoured in the
service
of his lord-ship, and whose tenures would be a sort of
security
for the honesty and good behaviour of the servant.’
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By the 1730s the large numbers of well-born attendants, whether gentlemen or ladies-in-waiting, who had been such a feature of the aristocratic household in the previous centuries, have dwindled almost to nothing.
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Despite their disappearance, there still remained a distinctive hierarchy of servants, which reflected the divisions expressed by the seventeenth-century household. This fell into two distinct groups. There were the skilled and responsible upper servants, including stewards, male cooks, butlers, housekeepers, male secretaries, and sometimes chaplains and tutors, all of whom certainly wore their own clothes rather than livery, and there were the lower-ranking servants,
who came under their management and control. The indoor menservants usually wore livery, while the women did the cleaning, or worked in the kitchens, looked after the laundry and worked in the dairy.

In this hierarchy, a steward was usually responsible for managing the house, the accounts and the administration. At the beginning of the century the same individual often acted as land steward, with additional responsibility for estate workers, tenants and estate rentals. Many houses also had a bailiff, who managed the home farm that supplied the needs of the house.
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Particularly in the larger houses, however, a separate house steward – in essence a house manager – remained an important fixture right up the end of the nineteenth century, reporting either directly to his master or to the land steward. John Mordant, in his
Complete Steward,
published in 1761, memorably described the house steward as ‘Domo-fac-totum, or Major Domo’. The house steward (occasionally known as a chamberlain) would have to oversee the complex operation when the family (meaning the whole household, including most of the indoor servants) decamped to London or one of the landowner’s other houses.
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In some households, the job of house steward and butler might be one and the same.

Giles Jacob’s
Country Gentleman’s Vademecum,
published in 1717, described the steward’s or house steward’s duty thus:

to take and state all Accompts, receive and pay all Monies, buy in the Provision for the Family, hire all Livery-men, buy all Liveries, pay all Wages, direct and keep in order all Livery-men (except the Coachman and the Groom) to be at His Master’s Elbow during Dinner, and receive all Orders from him relating to Government; to oversee and direct the Bailiff, Gardener, &c., in their Business; and also the Clerk of the Kitchen, Cook, & Butler, &c., to whom he delivers the Provision, Wine, Beer, &c., who give an Account of the spending [of] it.
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Some stewards were French, as their knowledge of French customs and manners was thought to give them a certain
cachet
, as well as making them useful if the family travelled on the continent.
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Under the steward, the clerk of the kitchens – a traditional role in the household – managed the needs of the kitchen, identifying what provisions were needed and ordering them, as well as drawing up
menus, setting times of meals and supervising service. Thus many of the lower servants came under his control. The instructions drawn up by the 2nd Earl of Nottingham, for his clerk of kitchens at Burley on the Hill, indicate that he not only kept the keys for important provisions, but was also the primary timekeeper. He was charged to ‘Fail not to have the dinner ready by 12 of the clock and let the bell then be rung and dinner served up, likewise supper at 7.’ At Burley he was also expected to be present at service: ‘You must wait at the lower end of the Parlour table that you may be in My Lady’s eye and be directed when to go for the second course.’
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With the arrival of more specialist foreign chefs (especially French ones) and confectioners, over the century the clerk of the kitchen’s role diminished, some of his responsibilities passing to the female housekeeper. It was a position that by 1770 seems to have largely disappeared or at least become one with the role of the male cook, as suggested by wages lists such as that for Arundel Castle, with its ‘cook & clark to the kitchen’.
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Much was expected of such a person. In 1769, Bernard Clermont wrote in
The Professed Cook
that a cook ‘should be a man of thorough knowledge in his profession, capable of forming a bill of fare, and dressing it when approved of. He should be well versed in what is a sufficiency for the support of the family which he is to provide for, be they more or less in number.’
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French chefs were popular. In the 1720s the Earl of Leicester recruited his cook, Monsieur Norreaux, directly from Paris and paid him 60 guineas per annum, together with a French under-cook, Jean-Baptiste. English male cooks might find opportunities for acquiring continental culinary arts, as did William Verral, who learnt them from the French cook of the Duke of Newcastle early in the eighteenth century. The male cook was often the highest-paid servant after the steward.
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The Duc de La Rochefoucauld wrote in the 1780s: ‘English cooks are not very clever folk, and even in the best houses one fares very ill. The height of luxury is to have a Frenchman, but few people can afford the expense.’
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On the other hand, French cooks were thought to have ideas above their station. In the
London Magazine
of 1779,
James Boswell wrote that ‘A French cook’s notion of his own consequence is prodigious,’ and went on to recount the story told him by the British ambassador to Spain, Sir Benjamin Keen. When interviewing French cooks to work for him, Keen asked one whether he had ever cooked any magnificent dishes. The reply came: ‘Monsieur, j’ai accommodé un dîner qui faisait trembler toute la France.’
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The number of French chefs increased in the final years of the eighteenth century when the French Revolution drove many across the Channel to Britain. Famously Mr Ude, former cook to Louis XVI, was hired by the Earl of Sefton with the huge annual salary of 300 guineas. In his book he argued that a cook of his fame should never be regarded merely as a servant.
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By the beginning of the nineteenth century there could well have been between 400 and 500 great families employing a French or foreign chef who would travel back and forth from London to the country alongside the family.
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It is worth noting that in the course of the eighteenth century, the time of the main meal of the day shifted from lunchtime to the evening. In the early eighteenth century, the essayist Richard Steele wrote: ‘In my memory the dinner hour has crept from 12 o’clock to 3.’ By 1800, dinner was usually served anywhere between five and seven.
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The
valet de chambre
or valet, reporting to the steward, was a key senior male servant whose chief responsibility was the appearance, dress and presentation of his master. As with John Macdonald, a valet would also need to be an accomplished barber. He would be in continual attendance on his master, accompanying him on all his travels, reflecting glory and making himself indispensable. John Moore wrote disparagingly of the Bertie Woosters of his day in 1780 that:

many of our acquaintances seem absolutely incapable of motion, till they have been wound up by their valets. They have no more use of their hands for any office about their own persons, than if they were paralytic. At night they must wait for their servants, before they can undress themselves, and go to bed: In the morning, if the valet happens to be out of the way, the master must remain helpless and sprawling in bed, like a turtle on its back upon the kitchen table of an alderman.
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Not a liveried servant, the valet would normally be dressed in the manner of a gentleman, with appropriate manners and deportment. Anthony Heasel in the
Servants’ Book of Knowledge
(1733) observed that ‘A valet must be master of every sort of politeness, to which he must take care to accustom himself without stiffness or affectation.’ Valets were also usually expected to speak some French.
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The butler, who had been a relatively minor figure up until the seventeenth century, becomes a grander fixture in the household of the eighteenth. In the wealthier establishment a butler reported to a steward, managed the footmen and supervised the waiting at table. As well as having control of the wine cellar, the butler usually had the immediate care of the plate (that is, silver) and fine glass, overseeing the cleaning, storage and security of these valuable items in his headquarters, or butler’s pantry. In the
Servants’ Book of Knowledge
Anthony Heasel warns butlers: ‘As all the plate will be committed to your care, never suffer strangers to come into the place where it is kept; nor let the place be ever left open.’
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A butler in a more modest-sized country house must have a wide variety of talents. One advertisement for a post in Suffolk in 1775 sought ‘a Butler that can shoot and shave well’.
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In 1797, Sir William Heathcote of Hursley indicated that his butler ‘Must understand Brewing & Management of the Cellar, Clean his own plate, and do all his own work, as no under Butler will be kept.’ Also, ‘he Must see all the Family [the servants] go to bed before him, & see every door and window Made fast & secure.’ He was expected to answer bells at any time during the day.
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The regulations of the household at Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire, in the same decade, describe the roles of steward and butler combined in one man:

The House Steward & Butler is ordered to see weighed, & enter in a book every morning all descriptions of provisions that are brought to the house; and all persons whatsoever, bringing meat fowls of all sorts, Game, Fish, eggs for Kitchen use . . . are to make the same known to the House Steward & Butler, that he may make his entries. In like manner, coals, Oils & Wax candles are to duly entered into his book, on the day of their arrival.
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There are phrases in Anthony Heasel’s book of advice to servants that are direct echoes of the treatise by John Russell, writing of the medieval household: ‘Take great care of your wine and other liquors, not only to keep them in good order, but likewise to prevent their being embezzled, or given away to any person besides those who have a right to them according to your instructions.’
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In medieval times the groom of the chambers was a young male assistant to the chamberlain. By the eighteenth century this ancient title had come to apply to a senior manservant, who dined with other senior servants such as the head cook and butler but, unlike them, wore livery. His principal duties were apparently to oversee the presentation and cleaning of the main reception rooms. Among other things, he had to ensure that the ornate furniture was returned to its proper place after it had been used by visitors and that tables were in order. He literally dressed the rooms.

The 2nd Earl of Nottingham at Burley had a long list of the duties of his groom of the chambers that began with: ‘You must be careful of the furniture, brushing and cleaning every morning that w[hi]ch is [in] constant use, and the rest also once in the week or oftener if need be.’ His other duties related to the maintenance of fires, the replacement of candles and closing of windows and shutters, as well as the care and presentation of the chapel.
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The groom of the chambers usually had the key role of greeting and announcing visitors, then directing them to their proper rooms, ensuring that they had everything required for their comfort.
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Some grooms of the chambers were even trained in upholstery.
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This individual was certainly among the servants who received a share of the fees when paying visitors were shown round a house. This sometimes led to rivalry with the housekeeper, as apparently happened at Cannons, the home of the Duke of Chandos.
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Below the footmen, there were clearly often additional men and boys (by the nineteenth century known as ‘odd men’) who could help with dirtier, more manual jobs, including cleaning drains and gutters, and clearing away slops. One unusually titled junior male servant is worth noting here, although he is one of a kind. ‘The Rubber’ is referred to in the early-eighteenth-century ‘General Instructions’
drawn up for the household at Boughton in Northamptonshire. ‘He is under the Direction of the Hous[e]keeper to Dry rub the Floors in the House, to fetch and carry Water for the Hous[e]maids for washing the house, to fetch and carry the Ladders and assist upon the Ladders in Washing the Wainscoat and Cornishes when ordered.’ He was also responsible for lighting the fire in the steward’s hall, waiting at table there, and helping with carrying in the food.
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