Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian Servants

by Maloney, Alison

  HIGH DAYS AND HOLIDAYS

  In the Victorian household most servants were given just one afternoon off a week, on Sunday, so that they could attend church. In addition, if the mistress was a benevolent one, they might have had an extra day off a month.

  Cassell’s Household Guide suggested the generous extra day did away with the necessity for a maid’s friends to call on her at the house. ‘At the same time, a mistress should be careful not to bind herself to spare her servant on a certain day in every month, as is sometimes demanded,’ it advised. ‘“Once in a month when convenient” is a better understanding. Most servants, in addition to the monthly holiday, ask to be allowed to go to church of a Sunday once in the day. This request is reasonable; and if a servant really goes to a place of worship, some inconvenience should be borne by her employers to secure her this liberty, but if she goes instead to see her friends, it should be a matter for consideration whether she shall go out or not. At any rate, the absence ought not to extend very much beyond the time occupied in the church service.’

  With sixteen-hour days standard for a hard-working maid, an extra day was a remarkably small concession and, with so many working away from home, it could be months or even years between visits to see their families and friends ‘back home’. Frank Dawes writes of one homesick teenage maid, Harriet Brown, who wrote to her mother in 1870: ‘Dear Mother, I should of ask you over next week only we are going to have two dinner parties one on Tuesday the other on Thursday and we shall be so busy so you must come after it is over […] I should so like to see you but I cannot get away just now so you must come and see me soon.’ Although this was thirty years before the Edwardian age little changed in that time and even Harriet’s own daughter was to go into service as a child twenty years after her mother.

  By 1900, calls for fairer working conditions had led to an afternoon and an evening off each week, as well as church time on Sunday. But the free time was not enshrined in law and only began after lunchtime duties were completed, often as late as 3 p.m. There would also be a curfew, usually around 9 p.m., and anyone late back could find himself or herself locked out by the angry housekeeper. Time off could also be cruelly snatched away for the smallest misdemeanour or the overlooking of a task.

  Dorothy Green was the youngest maid in a London home in the early 1900s and often had to wait up to let her colleagues in after a night out. ‘The younger ones had to be back by 8 p.m. and the older ones at 9 p.m. If the maids were late, which they frequently were, I would be trembling with fear in the kitchen and hoping the mistress didn’t decide to check up on them because I knew there would be an almighty row if she found out.’

  Advice on the provision of a servant’s days off, from the Manual of Household Work and Management by Annie Butterworth (1913)

  As the work was relentless and exhausting, there was little time to rest or play so the afternoons or evenings off were highly treasured. But not everyone had the energy left to enjoy them to the full. Margaret Thomas reflected on one house where she was given alternate Sunday afternoons and evenings off. ‘Sometimes, when I went up to dress, I was too tired to go out so I lit the gas fire and thought I’d have a short rest. I was vexed when much later the cook coming up to bed found me there and discovered I’d “had” my day out.’

  For those who did get a monthly day off, it was a much-anticipated chance for a family reunion. Girls frequently started in service as young as twelve and would miss their parents and siblings terribly, so their monthly visit was a cause for celebration and a chance to push the boat out. A kind cook would send each girl home with treats such as preserves, cold meats and cakes and, after church, the gathered family would enjoy a tasty spread perhaps topped off with some home-grown musical entertainment.

  For those in service in a London house, with family living in the city, a journey on a tram, a bus or the ‘tuppenny tube’ would get them home. For those living further away, the journey was difficult and expensive, especially on a maid’s wage. Although the Cheap Trains Act of 1883 had removed duty from all journeys charged at less than a penny a mile, this applied mostly to ‘workmen’s trains’ in city and suburban areas. A longer journey, even in second class, would mean a lot of saving had to be done first. For example, a trip from London to Dover, would take two-and-a-half hours and cost over 6s. (30p), a great deal of money for someone earning £16 a year. The cost, and the fact that servants were often expected to return before late dinner was served, even on their one day off, made long distance visits to families impossible.

  Enlightened employers, such as one family who engaged Margaret Thomas as a housemaid, allowed an overnight stay away, to combat this problem. In Margaret’s case they also allowed her to save up her days off over a few months so she could pay a longer visit home.

  At the beginning of the twentieth century, it became standard practice to allow a week’s paid holiday, usually while the family was away itself. The lower paid staff would save up all year so that they could afford the train fare home for this precious week and a few small gifts for their parents and siblings. After the First World War, when domestic staff were demanding fairer pay and conditions, the holiday entitlement rose to two weeks.

  CHURCH OUTINGS

  Servants were expected to attend a church service on Sunday and anyone refusing would risk being branded ‘wicked’ in the pious era of Queen Victoria. Indeed, whenever they were in Balmoral, the monarch and her husband Prince Albert insisted their servants accompany them on the mile-and-a-half walk to Crathie church every Sunday, without fail.

  Under her son, Edward VII, weekends in the upper echelons tended more to parties, horse racing and the pursuit of fun but mistresses still insisted on chapel attendance for their children and servants and most middle-class families were regular members of the congregation. A God-fearing staff was an obedient one and religion was not only thought good for the servants’ souls but a convenient way of keeping them in check.

  In some churches the master’s family attended the morning service while the domestics worshipped at evening mass but in most the household attended together. However, they sat in different areas of the church, with the family settling themselves in a pew reserved each week for the residents of the ‘big house’ and servants relegated to the back or the gallery. Here, as in the servants’ dining hall, the downstairs hierarchy was regimentally observed, with each servant seated according to their rank.

  Sunday Best

  Each maid had her Sunday best for church but, unlike the ladies that she waited on, this was not an occasion for flamboyant style statements. Staff were often instructed on exactly what they should wear and, even if the guidelines were general, they were invariably pressed to wear plain dark colours, with a dark coat and black shoes. A modest hat or bonnet was also worn as women would never attend church bareheaded.

  ‘All we maidservants […] had to wear black, navy or dark grey whenever we went out, with small black hats or toques,’ recalled Margaret Thomas. ‘We had our own places in our pews at church, and I was agreeably surprised to find I ranked next to the head housemaid.’

  In addition, daily prayers were read at home and the servants’ areas were dotted with framed quotes, often embroidered, from the scriptures, extolling hard work and cleanliness and reminding them of their righteous toil.

  ENTERTAINMENT

  On the rare occasions that servants could grab a few hours off, most, if close enough, would spend the day visiting family, seeing friends or meeting boyfriends and girlfriends. Those in service far from home would have had no time to make friends outside of their own colleagues and little money to spend on entertainment. But the options varied considerably depending on the area in which you lived.

  Country Life

  In country houses, the hours might be whiled away taking a healthy walk and getting the fresh air that those confined to the basement were so deprived of. If they were lucky, servants might be able to afford to spend their pennies taking tea in a local teash
op savouring, no doubt, the experience of being waited on for once.

  City Sights

  In London, however, there were many choices for one’s day off. Cinema, although in its infancy, was becoming a popular craze in the first decade of the twentieth century and a short film, depicting a news event or just an everyday scene of factory workers, was still a marvel. While there were picture shows at a couple of theatres in the capital, makeshift cinemas were also springing up in empty shops furnished with folding seats. The novelty was still huge and the public flocked to pay a penny and see their first flick.

  An alternative was the music hall, still a hugely popular form of entertainment before the First World War. ‘I went to the Bricks Music Hall and nearly fell over the front, right up in the gallery trying to look over, because it’s very high,’ said Albert Packman in Lost Voices of the Edwardians. ‘There were acrobats on the stage and impossible things that I’d never thought of in all my life – all for tuppence.’

  Leading acts included Marie Lloyd, who popularized such tunes as ‘A Little Bit of What You Fancy Does You Good’ and ‘Where Did You Get That Hat?’ and, a little later, Florrie Ford. A seat in the ‘gods’ could come in at sixpence, a hefty price for a lowly maid but reasonable enough for a young man in employment, should he wish to woo her.

  A stroll ‘up west’ might be rewarded with a glimpse of royalty as they left Buckingham Palace and a few curiosities too. Mildred Ramson remembered an old lady who stood with her cow in St James’s Park, every day, selling milk and cakes to passers-by. ‘Another sight was Mr Leopold de Rothschild driving his tandem of zebras in the park,’ she recalled. ‘We used to admire, but not touch, the famous Piccadilly goat; we bowed as the old Queen, now deeply beloved, drove slowly by, or the Princess of Wales passed with her three daughters packed in the back of a landau. Royalty passed with a stately step then.’

  Marie Lloyd, a leading act in Music Hall

  The footmen and grooms, if not of a mind to take a lady out for the evening, were likely to be found at the local pub.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Toil and

  Technique

  DURING THE TWENTIETH century, domestic appliances became an integral part of everyday life and few modern-day homeowners could cope without their washing machine, vacuum cleaner or fridge. But the Edwardian servant had none of these luxuries to help them with their endless chores. Indeed, it was the very absence of labour-saving devices that kept so many of them in a job as even the average middle-class wife couldn’t manage all the housework without some assistance.

  Homes were beginning to be wired for electricity in the pre-war period but the expense of the wiring, and a deep-seated suspicion of any ‘newfangled’ inventions, meant that the majority of houses remained without mains power until after the First World War. Electric washing machines became available for homes in 1917 and fridges a year later but, again, only the wealthiest families could afford them. Similarly, gas cookers had been commercially available since the 1850s, but few mistresses bothered to have them installed and there was little or no access to mains gas outside of major towns or cities.

  As a consequence, everything had to be done by hand using traditional methods passed down through the generations and a lot of elbow grease. Stone floors were scrubbed with soap and water and to clean the carpets the parlourmaid would scatter damp tea leaves and then sweep them up, usually on her hands and knees.

  One of the hardest tasks was cleaning and blacking the large kitchen range first thing in the morning before setting the fire. This was done with a block of black lead that could be bought for around 4d. (1.7p). The maid broke a little off each day and mixed it with water before applying with a brush.

  An advertisement for Chivers’ Carpet Soap in 1910, a cleaning product designed to ease labour

  Mrs Beeton sets out specific instructions for this arduous task, recommending the housemaid or kitchen maid should, ‘lay a cloth (generally made of coarse wrapping) over the carpet in front of the stove, and on this should place her housemaid’s box, containing black-lead brushes, leathers, emery-paper, cloth, black lead, and all utensils necessary for cleaning a grate, with the cinder-pail on the other side.

  ‘She now sweeps up the ashes, and deposits them in her cinder-pail, which is a japanned tin pail, with a wire-sifter inside, and a closely fitting top. In this pail the cinders are sifted, and reserved for use in the kitchen or under the copper, the ashes only being thrown away. The cinders disposed of, she proceeds to black-lead the grate, producing the black lead, the soft brush for laying it on, her blacking and polishing brushes, from the box which contains her tools.’

  Brunswick Black

  The householders’ bible also includes a recipe for ‘Brunswick black’, which provided an ‘excellent varnish’ and would prove easier to clean:

  INGREDIENTS – 1 lb of common asphaltum, ½ pint of linseed oil, 1 quart of oil of turpentine.

  Mode – Melt the asphaltum, and add gradually to it the other two ingredients. Apply this with a small painter’s brush, and leave it to become perfectly dry. The grate will need no other cleaning, but will merely require dusting every day, and occasionally brushing with a dry black-lead brush. This is, of course, when no fires are used. When they are required, the bars, cheeks, and back of the grate will need black-leading in the usual manner.

  With so many mouths to feed, on such a frequent basis, cook used an array of huge metal pots that were constantly being washed up by the kitchen maid or scullery maid and the cleaning products had to be mixed together from various household substances. Margaret Thomas recalled a sideboard display of huge copper pans that had to be cleaned until they sparkled, for the mistress’s morning inspection, using a mixture of sand, salt, flour and vinegar, rubbed onto the metal by hand.

  An advertisement for Jackson’s Household Necessities from Mrs Beeton’s Family Cookery

  Beeswax and turpentine were used for polishing the floor and furniture polish could be made with equal proportions of linseed oil, turpentine, vinegar and wine.

  THE SERVANT PROBLEM

  The reluctance to provide labour-saving devices was typical of many employers’ attitude towards their servants’ toil and became a source of resentment in the early twentieth century when other job opportunities were opening up for young women and servants were becoming increasingly hard to find. A 1944 report by the National Conference of Labour Women pointed out that this lack of consideration continued well after the First World War, when fewer and fewer women were going into service: ‘Labour-saving equipment, which could easily have been afforded, was often not bought on the ground that unnecessary drudgery did not matter in the case of the servants.’ But in the early 1900s, The Sphere magazine came down squarely on the side of the mistresses who wrung their unsullied hands as they despaired over the ‘servant problem’. ‘The servant who takes an interest in her work seems no longer to exist, and in return for high wages we get but superficial service,’ bemoaned one editorial. ‘Where is the maid to be found who takes pride in the brilliance of the glass to be used on the table or remembers of her own initiative to darn the damask? Every sort of contrivance now lessens labour – carpet sweepers, knife machines, bathrooms, lifts – in spite of these the life of a housewife is one long wrestle and failure to establish order.’

  The Champion carpet sweeper was one concession which some of the progressive mistresses afforded their staff after its introduction in the 1870s. From 1905, it began to be replaced by the early vacuum cleaner, which used bellows to suck up the dust and was so cumbersome it would often take two maids to operate it. One London girl, whose memories are stored at the Imperial War Museum, had to present her mistress with the dirt she had collected each time she vacuumed so that it could be weighed. She soon learned to save the old dirt to add to the collection, in order to impress the stringent lady: ‘In the pothouse I had one or two bags of different colour with dirt in so I could make my weight up. What was the weight she wanted? About a c
up and a half of dirt for each room.’

  An advertisement from the early 1900s for a motorized vacuum cleaner, designed by Hubert Cecil Booth

  WASHDAY

  In most houses washday fell on a Monday but laundry work went on all week. The traditional song ‘Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron’ is the perfect illustration of the work involved in the weekly wash, as the object of the singer’s affections is seen doing a different task every day of the week. Beginning on a Monday morning, when he catches her ‘A-washing of her linen’, the ditty has her hanging out on Tuesday, starching on Wednesday, ironing on Thursday, folding on Friday, airing on Saturday and finally wearing her finest linen on Sunday. This was no exaggeration as in a grand house there was enough work to keep a laundry maid busy all week. Below is her weekly timetable.

  Monday

  Mrs Beeton instructed that the laundry maid should begin on Monday morning by examining all the articles in her care and entering them into a log, known as the ‘washing book’. Collars and cuffs were detached from clothing and then the washing sorted into five piles, depending on fabric. They were then placed in tubs of lukewarm water and lye soap and left to soak overnight.

  Tuesday

  The following day would find the maid with her arms immersed in a huge copper bath of hot water and soda crystals or ‘yellow soap’, rubbing and scrubbing to get all the marks out of the clothes, sheets and tablecloths. Whites would be bleached with lemon juice or, in some cases, urine, although this practice was dying out in the twentieth century. The items would then be rinsed and examined inch by inch for any stains that had survived the wash. These would then be tackled with a variety of traditional stain removers, including chalk for grease and oil, alcohol for grass stains, kerosene for bloodstains and hot coals wrapped in cloth for wax. Lemon juice and onion were used to lighten stains and, in order to whiten scorched linen, Mrs Beeton suggested a paste made from vinegar, fuller’s earth, soap, onion juice and dried fowls’ dung!