Up and Down Stairs (37 page)

To remain for the moment in the early twentieth century, among these shocks were changing social attitudes and expectations. After the 1870s there was more widespread state education and more widespread literacy. People had access to the popular press, and then to radio and cinema. Those who had had little choice in their professions were presented with immeasurably wider horizons than the previous generation, and young girls became more reluctant to go into service, when they could work in shops, factories and offices.
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The deference of traditional service was possibly becoming more difficult to bear in an era of febrile political activity, as the country moved slowly towards universal suffrage. The two significant dates are 1918 and 1928; before the first, no male or female domestic servant, however responsible, had the vote; after 1918, the only women who could vote had to be over thirty; it was not until 1928 that all female servants were enfranchised. Various attempts to set up a trades union for domestic service were unsuccessful, compared to those of industrial labour movements. Until the passage of the National Insurance Act in 1911, there was actually no legislation that legally protected the servant in sickness or old age.
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The constant refinement of technology during the nineteenth century meant that light and heat no longer needed so much manual labour. Even the carrying of messages by trusted hands was made obsolete by the successive invention of the telegraph in the 1830s and the telephone in the 1870s. Most significantly perhaps, increased taxation had an immense impact on the economy of the country house. Large staffs began to shrink in the 1930s – some houses dispensing entirely with senior menservants and opting instead for parlourmaids who were paid less. After the seismic shifts of the Second World War, few establishments could return to the complex and stratified staff hierarchies that until then had been so much a part of the cultural prestige and demography of the British country house.

But up until that point, and especially between 1900 and 1914, most of the great country houses of the early twentieth century remained lavishly staffed and complex organisations. The principal jobs were much the same as in the previous century, although with subtle variations reflecting new technologies, such as technicians for private electricity generators, and chauffeurs for cars. (Some services such as laundry were also beginning to be put out to private companies.) However, in the early 1900s the demarcations, refined over a century or more, were drawn more carefully yet than in the preceding hundred years.

This peak of specialisation was underlined by the slow process of training country-house domestic servants from their youth, with upper servants coaching the younger ones in the strict disciplines of
their duties, giving them the necessary experience to move on eventually to the more responsible roles of steward, butler, valet, housekeeper, lady’s maid and so on. As Ernest King recalled when he started as a hall boy early in the century: ‘I suppose I first learnt to be a servant by being a servant to the servants: the table in the servants’ hall to lay, the staff cutlery to clean and staff meals to put on the table.’
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That these complete and seemingly self-contained communities still existed is clear from so many personal histories, one of the most vivid of the Edwardian period being Frederick Gorst’s memoir of life as a footman to the Duke of Portland. The duke’s large estate in Nottinghamshire, as well as his other coal mining interests, brought him in ‘many millions a year’. He also had a court appointment, as he was Master of the Horse to King Edward VII. At that time, ‘the estate of Welbeck Abbey was more like a principality than anything else . . . It was, in a sense, like working for the reigning prince of a small state within a kingdom.’
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He was one of the four ‘Royal footmen’ who worked at Welbeck Abbey, unless they were required for ceremonial duties in the Royal Household in London. Mr Gorst recalled arriving at the former along a private tunnel, ‘electrically lighted and wide enough to accommodate a horse and carriage or one motor car’. He was shown to the steward’s office by a pageboy who also carried his luggage to his room on the top floor of the abbey, which he would share with another footman.

Although they sound like some of the most comfortable servants’ rooms of the day, they were nevertheless shared, a custom that continued until the interwar period: ‘I was delighted to see we had an open fireplace, which would be cosy in the winter. The rooms were kept spotlessly clean by a housemaid assigned to the footman’s quarters,’ a comment that reminds us that in a great household a number of servants were still employed essentially to look after other servants. ‘There was a large bathroom which we all shared. Because we powdered our hair before the wide mirror and shelves, it was called the Powder Room.’ That evening he explored the house and played in the menservants’ billiards hall, in one of the many underground rooms below the lawn.
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As well as serving at meals (breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner, in rotation, with every fourth day off duty), Mr Gorst had to ‘attend’ the duke: ‘I sat in a comfortable leather chair behind a twelve foot screen which blocked off a corner of the room. I could not see the Duke nor could he see me.’ Despite bells being a part of domestic technology at least since the eighteenth century, ‘his Grace disliked ringing a bell for a footman when he wanted something, so the man on duty always sat ready within earshot to answer his “hello,” which was his way of summoning us.’
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Poor Mr Gorst found this pretty dull, but a touch of humanity enters the story at this point: ‘I must say I thought this was a boring assignment, but suddenly the Duchess appeared from behind the screen and handed me several newspapers and magazines. “Gorst,” she said, “move a lamp over to the chair and read if you like. There is no reason not be at ease. However, be sure not to fall asleep in case his Grace needs you.”’ The duchess was clearly considerate to her footmen, not least because at Welbeck they were rather well fed and she wanted them to keep in trim. To this end, as well as giving them each a bicycle and a bag of golf clubs, she decided that all four had to be instructed in ‘callisthenetics in the gymnasium at the specified hours and she engaged a Japanese ju-jitsu expert to train us.’
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Mr Gorst wore the royal livery, rather than the Portland livery of the footmen who served only at the house and not at royal functions. Breakfast and luncheon were served in an ordinary or off-duty livery: black trousers, a waistcoat of livery cut, knee-length boots, a white shirt and a white bow tie. For tea and dinner, they wore the small scarlet livery and powdered hair; ‘This consisted of a short scarlet coat, a scarlet waistcoat, purple knee breeches, white stockings, black pumps with bows, and a square, white bow tie.’
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Typically, liveries were matched to specific grades of occasion: ‘We wore formal luncheon and dinner liveries only when there were guests, and the full-state uniform was used only for state occasions.’ Unsurprisingly, ‘I soon found that I spent a good part of my time dressing, and undressing, and changing my uniforms,’ as many footmen serving in great aristocratic houses must have found.
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During a shooting-party, lunch was taken in the dining room: ‘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 eggs Rochambeau, fish, a garnished entrée of chicken en gelee, and salad. The sweet was often rice pudding.’ In the evening, at seven-thirty the dressing gong sounded, and at eight-fifteen the guests assembled for dinner. No cocktails or sherry were offered because the duke thought they dulled the palate.
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For Mr Gorst, the perfection and attention to detail that characterised the great Edwardian country house were summed up in the menu card: ‘on the table before each place was a silver holder with a menu card of the dinner bearing the crest of the Duke of Portland. When the chef, Monsieur David, had made up the menus, Mr Spedding had them written out in old fashioned script. Then they were placed on the table by the groom of the chambers.’ Mr Gorst remembered these holders and menu cards with nostalgia, ‘because they, more than any other . . . represented the perfect detail dispensed at Welbeck. I am sure there are few houses today which are still run as Welbeck was then. Time has altered many things: most of the great homes have changed hands, and in this restless world of ours there is neither the wealth nor the patience for such exquisite details.’
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He vividly evokes the strict social division below stairs, which had increased in intensity in the nineteenth century:

Position and rank also took precedence in the hierarchy of the servants. They were divided into the ‘upper servants’ – also called the ‘Upper Ten’, and the ‘lower servants – referred to as the ‘Lower Five’. [The royal footmen] belonged to the Lower Five. The two groups did not mix socially, the lines were drawn more strictly perhaps than those whom we served. Moreover, we ate separately. The Upper Ten took their meals in the steward’s dining room and they were waited upon by two steward’s room footmen.
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The Upper Ten had white wine, claret, and beer for lunch and dinner. He added proudly: ‘The china, silver, and glass which was
used to serve them, and which was taken care of exclusively by the steward’s room footmen, was much finer than the gentry had in some of the smaller houses in England.’
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Servant hierarchies had their own dress code:

Mr Spedding [the steward], the wine butler, the under butler, the groom of the chambers, the Duke’s valet, the housekeeper, head housemaid, and ladies’ maids – and any visiting ladies’ maids and valets – were designated the Upper Ten. At Welbeck, visiting ladies’ maids were expected to wear a dress blouse for dinner, and the visiting valets were required to wear smoking jackets for late supper.
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For Gorst, looking on the scene from a junior position, the social divide could clearly be quite galling: ‘The Upper Ten came to the table similarly dressed and full of their own importance. Their evening meal was in the nature of an intimate dinner party except when there were visiting maids and valets, often as many as forty at one time.’ It was a different story for the others:

We, the Lower Five, ate our meals in the Servants’ Hall, the old refectory of the Abbey. We Royal footmen ate at the same time with the housemaids and stillroom maids. The two footmen on duty always carved and the hall porter and the hall boys served the meals. We had two or three fresh vegetables served with the meat and potatoes – all good, solid food which came to the table piping hot and nicely served. We had delicious bread that came directly from the bakery and freshly churned, country butter.
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The ritual echoes of the table, observed in Welbeck’s servants’ hall, still had echoes of the medieval and Tudor worlds: ‘After the main course, the maidservants left the table. The sweet was served to the menservants and maidservants separately. The maids had theirs in their own departments, in the stillroom or the housemaid’s sitting room, where they had a table laid in readiness. Traditionally the men and woman servants were always separated before the end of the meal.’
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Snobbery was rife: ‘At Welbeck the upper servants adopted an arrogant attitude towards the under servants. Mr Clancy, the wine butler, was the haughtiest and most pompous of all.’
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On the other hand, Mr Gorst recognised the greater responsibilities and the hard work put in by those he served under, the chief steward Mr Spedding and others. He expressed particular admiration for the under butler, Mr Owens, who was in charge of all the silver and gold service. He alone was in control of the plate closet, which contained enough silver to serve hundreds of people. ‘There was also a complete gold service to serve fifty people; in which every conceivable utensil was included.’
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Work even left time for romance, and Mr Gorst fell in love with one of the still-room maids, walking and cycling with her away from the house. She lived in the maids’ corridor, which was referred to by the servants as the ‘Virgin’s Wing’, while the prim head housemaid, who was in charge, was known as the ‘Head Virgin’.

Mr Gorst professed genuine interest in the great house he served, still occupied today by descendants of the duke; describing it as ‘a castle of unparalleled magnificence and solidity’. Among the extraordinary additions made by the eccentric 5th Duke of Portland in the nineteenth century were many tunnels and underground rooms, including the vast ballroom, 160 feet long and 63 feet wide.

The principal tunnel, connecting the kitchen wing to the main portion of the house, was laid with trolley lines so that large wagons, all fitted with rubber wheels, could move noiselessly along the tracks and carry the food as quickly as possible to the main dining room. The wagons were fitted with plates heated by hot water on one side to keep the dishes hot, and on the other there were cold steel plates for chilled food.
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The pinnacle of staff entertainment at Welbeck was the annual servants’ ball, held in the underground ballroom and adjoining reception rooms, which ‘were beautifully decorated just as though the Duke and Duchess were giving a ball for themselves’. Staff and estate tenants were invited and no expense was spared: ‘An orchestra from London had been engaged and a swarm of fifty waiters.’ Mr Gorst
attended in livery, feeling free when the duke and duchess left to change into his own dress clothes. Seeing the staff out of uniform had a profound impact on him: