Real-life stories of the country house servants

In the Tudor period larger households would have accounted for ­several thousand people, from high-ranking gentlemen attendants down to the boy turning the spit in the kitchen. There were probably around 1,500 great households with staffs of between 100 and 200, says Jeremy Musson, author of Up And Down Stairs, a new history of the country house servant.

In Victorian times the Duke of Westminster employed more than 300 servants at Eaton Hall in Cheshire, while the Duke of Bridgewater kept some 500 staff at Ashridge in Hertfordshire and was said never to refuse a request for work from a local man.

And in the early 20th century the Duke of Portland’s butler described his employer’s Nottinghamshire estate as “more like a principality than anything else – it was like ­working for the reigning prince of a small estate within a kingdom”.

The duke’s staff included: a wine butler; an under-butler; a groom of the chamber; four royal footmen; two steward’s room footmen; two pageboys; a head chef; a second chef; a head baker; a second baker; a head kitchen maid; two under-kitchen maids; a vegetable maid; three ­scullery maids; a hall porter; a kitchen porter and 14 housemaids.

There were also six engineers for the house’s electrical plant; four firemen; a telephone clerk and assistant; a telegrapher; three nightwatchmen – and that doesn’t include the scores of gardeners; road men; farmers and stable staff.

Although it’s now almost entirely gone we believe ourselves familiar with the country house world thanks to such films as The Remains Of The Day and Gosford Park, which showed the life of a great house from a ­servant’s-eye view. But as Musson’s book shows the history of domestic service is full of surprises.

For example, one of the key ­features of servant life is the notion that domestic staff must be invisible to the grand personages of the house ex cept when strictly necessary to ­discharge their duties. Architects of country houses devoted a great deal of energy to devising the best ways of keeping the servants out of sight.

But it was not always like that. In medieval and Tudor times the life of the entire household was centred on the great hall, where there might be multiple meal settings to feed everyone. This household was referred to as a “family” and that included ­servants as well as nobles. Its most important members would eat on a raised dais known as the high end, a tradition that endures with the “high table” in the dining halls of ­Cambridge and Oxford colleges.

And while domestic service came in time to be dominated by women, in the early days of the great houses the vast majority of the servants were men. The Earl of Derby’s household in the mid-16th century, for example, numbered between 115 and 140, of whom only six were women. This was partly because of a need for physical security: the servants of a noble household could in theory be called on to act almost as a private army.

By the 17th century the barrier between employer and servant was drawn more vividly with separate servants’ halls and sleeping quarters in the attics.

In this period a good-looking young black servant, often a slave, was a sign of wealth and status.

In turbulent political times such as the Civil War the fortunes of a whole household could rest on the fate of a master or mistress imprisoned for treason. One peer who fell out of political favour, the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven, was tried and executed for sodomy with his footman and ­assisting in the rape of his wife by another manservant. The earl and his two servants were dispatched together in May 1631.

In the 18th century some of the richest landowners were beginning to benefit from the start of the ­industrial revolution. A sign of their ­opulence was the number of servants they kept. On a visit from France, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld was ­staggered by the scale of it all. “The English have many more servants than we have but more than half of them are never seen – kitchen maids, stable men, maid ­servants in large numbers – all of them being required in view of the high standard of ­cleanliness,” he wrote.

T he high standard of living of the servants was a familiar theme among their employers’ class. Horace ­Walpole, the son of ­Britain’s first prime minister, recalled staying with the Duke of Bedford at Woburn. When a fellow guest dropped a silver coin on the floor he said he might as well leave it for the groom of the chambers – whereupon the ­Duchess of Bedford promptly retorted: “Let the carpet-sweeper have it, the groom of the chambers never takes anything but gold.”

The aristocrats might have thought the servant life less cushy if they had tried rising before dawn to light fires or sweep stairs, with scarcely a moment to themselves all day, no room for a private life and no more than two nights off a week.

But domestic servants were provided with good food and clothing – especially the gorgeously liveried manservants who decorated entrance halls and dining rooms in the ­Georgian era – and they had enviable opportunities to travel if the household moved around the country.

They could also expect handsome tips from guests coming to dine or stay, some of whom reeled from the expense of half a crown each for the maid and butler, two shillings for the groom and four shillings for the valet, which was regarded as the done thing in the 1760s.

The pinnacle of country house life was the 19th century when the industrial revolution concentrated new wealth into the world of the stately home. The vast expansion of ­domestic servants employed in professional and middle-class homes increased the kudos of working for the real thing: a traditional landed family.

William Lanceley, a butler and ­steward who served a royal duke among others, was able to save his entire annual salary when he started as a footboy in his local squire’s house, thanks to tips and the board and lodging he received. He worked a 16-hour day but wrote in his ­memoirs: “I seldom felt tired as the work was so varied and the food was of the best and we generally got a little leisure in the afternoons.”

After four years’ service in his ­second position he was offered a ­holiday while the family went ­visiting. He took three days, which was more than enough: “Our ­cottage homes and food were no comparison to what we left behind.”

Not every service career was so happy. In 1840 a Swiss valet called François Courvoisier murdered Lord William Russell. In his defence he said his elderly master was always finding fault. At midnight on the fateful day the master rang the bell and Courvoisier went up ­holding a warming pan at the ready. Lord William was furious that his servant had prejudged his request and sent him away. He rang the bell a little later and when the valet arrived asked for a warming pan. Later Lord William found Courvoisier in the dining room and sacked him. At that point the valet snapped and killed him. He was hanged.

After the turmoil of the First World War country house life was never the same again. Young girls became reluctant to go into service when they could work in shops, ­factories and offices, while the men who had gone to war ended up “spoiled for service” after the ­novelty of military pay and short hours. One member of the landed class complained: “The lower orders have a great deal of money – more than they ever had before. The landowners are those who suffer as their rents remain the same.”

By 1950 the government had commissioned an official report on the collapse of the country house and all but the most senior posts were disappearing, with butlers finding they were required to clean the ­silver, lay the table and tidy the reception rooms – formerly the job of the first footman. The way of life that so many of our forebears knew intimately was gone for good.

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