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Archive for the ‘Servants’ Category

The Housekeeper As Guide to a Great Country Estate

Posted in jane austen, Servants on September 10, 2007| 5 Comments »


At the top of the servant hierarchy stood the butler and the housekeeper, who ruled their domains belowstairs.

Jane Austen gave Mr. Darcy’s housekeeper a prominent role as she escorted Lizzie and the Gardiners through the great rooms of Pemberley, talking fondly and familiarly about her master. Her kind recollections were so opposite Lizzie’s, whose confused mind and bewildered emotions were unable to take in all that conflicted with her prejudiced opinions of Mr. Darcy, that it set up the scene in which she unexpectedly encounters him in the gardens.

In reality, the role of tour guide was not uncommon for the housekeeper of a great country estate. In this portrait painted by Thomas Barber of Mrs. Garnett, the housekeeper of Keddleston Hall, and which hangs in front of the house to this day, she holds a guidebook. Ever since Keddleston Hall was built in the 18th century, it has been open to visitors. In fact, Samuel Johnson described his encounter with Mrs. Garnett (click linked post above) as he visited that great house.

In Regency Manor, the role of the upper servant as guide is described as thus:

…upper servants, in particular the housekeeper, served as tour guide on days when the houses were open to the public that “The fees derived from this source (the charge for seeing the house), by upper servants in some principal show-houses in the kingdom must amount to a handsome income; and I am told on good authority, that a late housekeeper in this castle, left by will, to a younger son of the family, at the close of a long service, a fortune of many thousand pounds, chiefly accumulated this way.” The castle in this instance was Warwick castle.

View Kedleston Hall here

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Maid of All Work

Posted in Servants on September 5, 2007| 1 Comment »

On December 1, 1798, Jane Austen wrote her sister Cassandra:

We are very much disposed to like our new maid; she knows nothing of a dairy, to be sure, which, in our family, is rather against her, but she is to be taught it all. In short, we have felt the inconvenience of being without a maid so long, that we are determined to like her, and she will find it a hard matter to displease us.

In days of yore even the lowliest families that could afford it would hire a maid of all work, usually a young girl from an impoverished family. If you recall in Mansfield Park, Fanny Price’s real mother and father employed such a maid. To go without one meant hauling one’s own water, laying the fire, sweeping (which must have been endless), and accomplishing the myriad tasks needing to be done in an age that lacked electricity and internal plumbing.
Next to the scullery maid (who in a large household with many servants, was relegated to perform the meanest duties), the maid-of-all-work had one of the least desirable jobs in the servant hierarchy. Because she was the only servant or one of only a few, all the hard, backbreaking household tasks fell to her. Even Mrs. Beeton, whose expectations of servants was strict, commiserated with this maid’s lot, saying: Her life is a solitary one, and in, some places, her work is never done. She is also subject to rougher treatment than either the house or kitchen-maid, especially in her earlier career.

Learn more about the maid of all work here:

The Cock of Cotton Walk and Maid of All Work, 1820: A Satiric Verse

Illustrations from Pyne’s Microcosm

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The Dairy Maid and the Master of Uppark

Posted in jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency style, Regency World, Servants, tagged , , , , on August 26, 2007| 2 Comments »

During Jane Austen’s time, the British adhered to a strict class system, but every once in a while (and much like a fantastic plot in a romance novel), a titled gentleman would marry a servant. According to the National Trust,

Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh… lived a prodigal life at Uppark entertaining lavishly and included the Prince Regent among his frequent guests. In 1810, however, he withdrew from society and devoted his attentions to discussing improvements to the house and grounds with Humphry Repton. At the age of over 70 he took the extraordinary step of marrying his dairy maid, and left the entire estate to her on his death in 1846. She, in turn, left it to her unmarried sister and together they made provision for the estate to pass, after the life tenancy of a neighbour, to the second surviving son of another friend and neighbour, the fourth Earl of Clanwilliam, on the condition that he should assume the name of Fetherstonhaugh.

The dairy at Uppark, Sussex (above) designed by Humphry Repton. When Sir Harry passed by one day... he heard the dairymaid’s assistant, Mary Ann Bullock, singing. Sir Harry presented himself and asked for her hand in marriage. Mary Ann Bullock, aged twenty-one, was sent to Paris to be educated before being married to Sir Harry in September 1825. (Household Management, National Trust, p 30. ISBN 0-7078-0241-5)

How is this tale connected to Jane Austen and her world? By the merest thread. In Mansfield Park, Mr. Rushworth discusses changes for Sotherton Court after he had toured Compton, where he had viewed the improvements of the grounds by Humphry Repton. This short scene illustrates “the popular and expensive trend of improving one’s grounds to give the appearance of wealth both outside and inside the country home.” (Kerrie Savage, JASNA)

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Every Day Chores of Laundry and Scullery Maids, and Washer Women

Posted in 18th Century England, 19th Century England, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency World, Servants, tagged , , , , , on July 24, 2007| 2 Comments »

In reading Undressing Mr. Darcy, this phrase leaped off my computer screen:

Another of Beau Brummel’s innovations was the semi-starched cravat: a neck cloth folded and arranged exquisitely carefully beneath chin and shirt front. It is reported washerwoman fainted when he introduced this. And no wonder, on top of everything they had to wash, iron, and mend they now had this semi-starched neck cloth: not full starch so it could be done with all the others, no, it had to be semi starched.

Until recently I would not have singled out this phrase, but as I have been reading about scullery maids (click on link), the enormity of their tasks (and those of washer women and the lowly house maids) have begun to hit me in a real sense. Imagine cleaning dishes or doing laundry in an era when there was no running water piped into the house. The very rich might have a private cistern or well nearby, but for the majority of households during the 19th century and before, water had to be carried into the house from a distance. The town pump or well, while centrally situated in a village or city square, might not be conveniently located near one’s house. In addition to the village well, households in the country could also rely on local streams, rivers, or lakes for their source of water, but again, these bodies of water were probably located some distance away.

Whatever the chore, water had to be carried back to the house by the servants of an upper class house or by the mistress or a maid of all work of a modest household. According to Digital History, Washing, boiling and rinsing a single load of laundry used about 50 gallons of water. Over the course of a year she walked 148 miles toting water and carried over 36 tons of water. Homes without running water also lacked the simplest way to dispose garbage: sinks with drains. This meant that women had to remove dirty dishwater, kitchen slops, and, worst of all, the contents of chamberpots from their house by hand.

One can just imagine how many buckets of water were required for one hot steaming bath. It is no wonder, then, that people of that era took infrequent baths.

It is also documented that the women of those bygone days universally dreaded laundry days. In fact, because of the sheer enormity of the task, people had a habit of changing their shirts and underwear only once a week. A chemise, which was worn next to the body, was washed more frequently than a gown. These shapeless undergarments were made of white linen, muslin, or cotton so that they could take the frequent harsh treatment of boiling and pounding in lye without losing shape or color. According to Reflections on Early Modern Laundry, “undergarments were not permanently gathered at the neckline and sleeves, but made with casings and drawstrings so the garment could be laid out flat for drying and ironing.”

In the absence of electric dryers, laundry had to dry naturally. This could be a problem during cold dank winters when clothes took forever to dry. One can now understand why Beau Brummel’s penchant for wearing white, lightly starched cravats (and he often went through a bundle before being satisfied of the results) would make a laundress faint.

Here are two more descriptions of washing and doing laundry before modern conveniences took over. The first one is from Digital History:

On Sunday evenings, a housewife soaked clothing in tubs of warm water. When she woke up the next morning, she had to scrub the laundry on a rough washboard and rub it with soap made from lye, which severely irritated her hands. Next, she placed the laundry in big vats of boiling water and stirred the clothes about with a long pole to prevent the clothes from developing yellow spots. Then she lifted the clothes out of the vats with a washstick, rinsed the clothes twice, once in plain water and once with bluing, wrung the clothes out and hung them out to dry. At this point, clothes would be pressed with heavy flatirons and collars would be stiffened with starch.
The most interesting bit of information about laundering in the 19th century and before was the following excerpt from Reflections on Early Modern Laundry:

First, remember that many of the fabrics that they used, especially the wools, are things that we now usually dry-clean because they are difficult to wash. Woolen garments had to be washed separately in cold water to avoid shrinkage and pilling. I will not even address the issue of trying to clean silks, brocades, and other luxury fabrics …

Dyes were not color-fast, and fabrics shrank at different rates. If you read the descriptions of how to wash a “good” dress, the laundress started by removing the trimming and the buttons. Then she separated the lining from the garment itself (picking the seams). If the skirt was full enough that the weight of the wet fabric would cause it to stretch unevenly, she took the skirt off the bodice and took the gores apart at the seams. Then she washed it, dried it, checked to see if the lining and the garment still matched up in size, made any necessary adjustments, and sewed it back together.

Laundry: Reflections on Early Modern Laundry: This online article explains how laundry techniques hardly changed at all between the 16th and 19th centuries.

Digital History: Housework in late 19th Century America:Find a detailed description of the 19th century American housewife’s duties on this site. They are not so vastly different than those of the ordinary housewife in England.

Victorian Baths: Addresses how cleanliness and hygiene were tackled during the late 19th century.

Click on the English Heritage Site for a view of a laundry room.

Paintings of laundry maids by Henry Robert Morland, circa 1785

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The Scullery

Posted in 18th Century England, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency Period, Regency World, Servants, tagged , , on June 29, 2007| 2 Comments »


In November, I wrote about the scullery maid, a young girl or woman who occupied the lowest rung of the servant class. Her domain, when she was not hauling wood or water up steep stairs, was the scullery, where she labored from dawn until dusk.

The scullery, a room adjacent to the kitchen and with a door that led outside, was typically used for washing laundry, cleaning dishes and utensils, scrubbing pots and pans, preparing vegetables, and performing simple cooking tasks that aided the cook and kitchen maids. Herbs hung from the rafters, and big open sinks made of stone stood against the walls, such as in the photo above of the scullery at Harewood House.

The scullery floor was tiled and had a drain to drain water. Because of the heat and steam of cooking and washing, the room itself was cut off from the larder or pantry, or any other parts of the house that stored food. The scullery also needed to be near the kitchen yard, coal cellar, wood house, and ash bin, as these were the rooms that the scullery maid was most apt to use in performance of her duties.
You can find a description of a scullery and kitchen of Fota House, a Regency Style house in Ireland, here. And see the basement annex to the Regency Townhouse in Hove, East Sussex here. One can view the kitchen in a virtual tour, but not the scullery, which I suspect sits adjacent to the kitchen and coal bin.

A scullery maid held no rank in the servant hierarchy. She was at the absolute bottom. Mrs. Beeton, in her excellent Book of Household Management, writes in 1861:

The cook takes charge of the fish, soups, and poultry; and the kitchen-maid of the vegetables, sauces, and gravies. These she puts into their appropriate dishes, whilst the scullery-maid waits on and assists the cook. Everything must be timed so as to prevent its getting cold, whilst great care should be taken, that, between the first and second courses, no more time is allowed to elapse than is necessary, for fear that the company in the dining-room lose all relish for what has yet to come of the dinner.

Indeed, not all was hopeless for the scullery maid, as depicted above by Giuseppe Crespi in 1710. Mrs. Beeton continues:

The position of scullery-maid is not, of course, one of high rank, nor is the payment for her services large. But if she be fortunate enough to have over her a good kitchen-maid and clever cook, she may very soon learn to perform various little duties connected with cooking operations, which may be of considerable service in fitting her for a more responsible place. Now, it will be doubtless thought by the majority of our readers, that the fascinations connected with the position of the scullery-maid, are not so great as to induce many people to leave a comfortable home in order to work in a scullery. But we are acquainted with one instance in which the desire, on the part of a young girl, was so strong to become connected with the kitchen and cookery, that she absolutely left her parents, and engaged herself as a scullery-maid in a gentleman’s house. Here she showed herself so active and intelligent, that she very quickly rose to the rank of kitchen-maid; and from this, so great was her gastronomical genius, she became, in a short space of time, one of the best women-cooks in England.


Sculleries and the duties of the scullery maid remained essentially unchanged for centuries, as these 1910 images of the scullery at the White Lion Inn attest.

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