It was the duty of every mistress to manage a happy household, and misery ensued if she could not. Lord Cowper wrote to his troubled wife Mary on 5 June 1720:
As vexatious as your very naughty servants have been to you, I am glad you could so far forget their ill behaviour, as to omit it in your former letters: you find turning away one, is no example to mend another, or prevent ye like offence, as you imagined it would . . . the only way to govern them, is to make them so content with their places, yt shall fear turning away; otherwise we hav no restraint upo[n] them.
Lord Cowper went on to remind his wife of the negative impact of too-frequent criticism: ‘Their places are good, but they are often so sharply reproached for small faults, yt they grow desperate, hate their places, & so become very easy to comit great [ones].’ He noted that the servants ‘do not, as I observe, use me or anyone so very ill, as they do ye.’ However, he concluded it was up to her to ‘turn em away & take em at your pleasure, & when you have [th]em use [th]em as you think fit’.32
The Grand Tour featured largely in the lives of young aristocrats of the period, principally young men, but also women. Usually, these tours were conducted in the company of a supposedly trusted servant and tutor, which could sometimes leave the noble traveller in a vulnerable position. In 1773, Lady Coke wrote home in despair after finding herself in the hands of a dishonest servant, one Diehans: ‘Think of my distress to be at this distance from England and this Man in my service, who I am obliged in some things to trust, as I have nothing but footmen. I have reason to believe he cheats me in everything.’33
Lord Byron recorded his dissatisfaction with the English servant who travelled with him on the continent:
The perpetual lamentations after beef and beer, the stupid, bigoted contempt for everything foreign, an insurmountable incapacity for acquiring even a few words of any language, rendered him, like all other English servants, an encumbrance. I do assure you, the plague of speaking for him, the comforts he required (more than myself by far), the [dishes] he could not eat, the wines which he would not drink, the beds where he could not sleep.34
The logistics of feeding servants were a continual source of comment, although the management of households on such massive scales must have been challenging. A good picture of the daily life, and especially diet, of a large establishment is revealed in the papers of the Marquess of Kildare (created 1st Duke of Leinster in 1766). His rules for the government of his household, again still referred to as a ‘family’ just as in the seventeenth century, survive in a manuscript version at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland.35 It offers a valuable insight into the richest and grandest household in Ireland of the period – his country house at Carton. It also gives an impression of the busy life of Lady Kildare, at the centre of a whirlwind of demanding people, writing in a letter to her husband: ‘Plagued by servants, worried by the children, my dearest Lord Kildare, I have not been able to sit down and write to you till this minute.’36
The steward was charged, among other things, ‘Not to allow of Cursing and Swearing about the House &c or any riotous Behaviour but everything done in the most quite and regular Manner [and] To see that every Person do their own Business in the proper Manner and times, and if not, to inform Lord or Lady Kildare of it.’ In 1769, Lord Kildare penned a note to the steward: ‘I will not permit any dancing to be in any part of the house without my leave or the Duchess of Leinster’s, which occasions neglect, idleness, drinking.’ The duke wrote another to his English butler on the subject of his pantry, saying that ‘he must not by any means admit the pantry to be a meeting or a gossiping place for the under servants’, which presumably means that it was.37
Most interestingly, Kildare’s ‘rules for the feeding of the Family’, in the absence of Lord and Lady Kildare, set out mealtimes and fare. Good provision for servants was not only a statement of the wealth and patronage of the household but a matter of good administration, as underfed servants could hardly be expected to perform well.
The upper servants (steward, housekeeper, clerk of the kitchen, personal maids and valets) dined in the steward’s hall at 4 p.m., on ‘Mutton and Broth, Mutton Chops, Harrico or Hashed, Roast or boiled Pork with Pease Pudding and Garden things, Stakes, Roast, or boiled Veal with Garden things when veal is killed at Carton’. Once a week there would be mutton or beef pie; on Sunday, roast beef and plum pudding. ‘Particular care must be taken that all meat is well and cleanly dressed and good of the kind.’38
The servants’ hall – meaning the lower servants – dined at one o’clock on ‘boiled Beef, Cabbage and Roots, every Sunday to have a Piece of Beef Roasted and Plum Pudding, or any other kind of Pudding’. Thursdays were boiled mutton or pork, with vegetables, and for supper there would be bread and cheese. Salted fish was served once a week, on Friday, possibly in deference to the Catholicism of some of the servants.39
Each person who supped in the servants’ hall was given a pint of ale, a common practice in country houses all over the British Isles until the end of the nineteenth century. Whilst there were different regulations about the provision of ale, small beer, which was much weaker, was available to all, ‘no Person of the Family to be refused . . . as much as they shall drink’, between breakfast and 6 p.m. Beer was regarded, as in the medieval and Tudor eras, as a kind of liquid bread, as ordinary water was then unhealthy to drink.40
When the Kildares were based at Leinster House, their town house, the smaller number of servants left behind at Carton were on ‘board wages’, which meant that their salaries were adjusted to reflect the fact that they had to supply their own meals but could have as much garden produce as they wanted. Married servants were not allowed to live in the house, and the steward was instructed that they were not permitted to eat or drink within its walls ‘except now and then, [and] they and their Wives may be asked to Dinner on Sunday to live in Harmony with them so far as to carry on their mutual business to Lord Kildare’s advantage’.41
The mention of the married servants’ dining arrangements is intriguing, as household servants were more often unmarried in English houses. The English agriculturalist Arthur Young, who had worked as a land agent at Mitchelstown Castle and whose survey of the improvements in architecture and agriculture was published in 1780 as A Tour in Ireland, commented on the high incidence of married Irish servants: ‘Marriage is certainly more general in Ireland than in England. I scarce ever found an unmarried farmer or cottier; but it is seen more in other classes, which with us do not marry at all; such as servants. The generality of footmen and maids, in gentleman’s families, are married, a circumstance we very rarely see in England.’42 In England at this time, there seems to have been a widespread prejudice against employing indoor married servants in English country houses, possibly because of anxiety about divided loyalties, but also to avoid multiplying dependants for the house – and the provisioning of such dependants.
Allowances were given for livery uniforms. From 1 January 1767, footmen at Carton were given 20 shillings a year for ‘a Pair of black Worsted Shag Breeches, for a fine Felt Hat with a Silver Chain Loop and Button, and a Horse Hair Cockade’. It was a case of take it or leave it: ‘Those who do not chuse to accept of it, to let me know that I may discharge them’.43
The duchess’s sister Louisa ran a famously meticulous household at Castletown and once wrote to her sibling: ‘As to servants I think we treat them too much as if they were dependents [sic], whereas I cannot think them so much so, for I am sure they give us a great deal more than we give them, and really if we consider it, ’tis no more than a contract that we make with them.’ This was a gentle reminder to the more conservative sister of the changing nature of the family or household in the traditional sense.44
The presence of the copy of the Kildare regulations at Alnwick Castle is an intriguing little mystery in itself. The castle was much restored as the principal country seat of the Duke of Northumberland in the 1750s and 1760s, when it had been virtually derelict. During this intensi
ve building activity, there were also major attempts to monitor the activities of the servants, and the duke and duchess apparently requested a copy of all the household regulations drawn up for Lord Kildare. The archives contain a series of notes made from the late 1760s through to the 1790s, leading up to a final, all-encompassing version dated 16 August 1805.45 This document may have been modelled on the Kildare Household regulations and was perhaps inspired by the Northumberland Household Book of 1511/12, which was edited and published at about this time.
As well as illustrating the complexity of running large establishments, it reveals that the duke and duchess set great store by good household management as a reflection on themselves. It covers the duties of all the servants, the upper servants in particular, down to such obvious minutiae as who tends which fires in the house: ‘The fires, in all the Stranger’s Bed Chambers, and Dressing Rooms, are to be taken care of by the servants of those who inhabit them.’46 Guests would usually be travelling with their own servants or have servants assigned to them.
It is clear from the document’s conclusion that the duke’s household had not always been so well organised:
If any servant of any Degree whatsoever, shall presume not to pay the proper attention to these Orders, and Regulations, the Duke is to be immediately informed thereof, and he shall be highly offended with the house steward or any other of the Upper Servants, who shall connive at the Disobedience of these Orders, and not immediately report such Persons as shall make any Difficulty about obeying them; the[re] being determined to establish that Regularity which used formerly to subsist in this family, and which, he is ashamed to say, has for these few last years been scandalously neglected, to the Disgrace of everybody who had belonged to the Family.47
There is also a transcript of a memorandum to le Moine, his comptroller, relating to the provision of servants’ meals, and trying to confine them to either the steward’s room or the servants’ hall:
I am very sorry to perceive by the list sent me in today that a Custom is again this y[ea]r renewed of having more tables among my Servts than the Stewards Room & Servts Hall – I gave a positive order last year that this custom should be discontinued & that the young Ladies, maids, & People of the Kitchen should always dine in the Servts Hall as they had invariably done in my Family, but within these last two or three years.
I likewise perceive that the Place & Rank of my Secretary seems to be completely misunderstood – He is not to be looked upon as a menial servant as the Law of the Land places him above the Station of a Servt & does not include him in the Tax upon servants – He is always to be looked upon at the head of My Family, except in this Castle, where the Grieve, or Constable of the Castle, is my immediate Representative.48
There is another version in the collection, ‘Regulations and Instructions for the Future Management of the Family, Instructions for the Comptroller’, dated 1808 and equally stringent, which covers the oversight of the management of the household, the checking of accounts, the paying of bills and keeping records of expenses.49 ‘You are on no account to pay the least regard to what you may be told about custom – if the thing mentioned is proper, it ought to be adopted, whether it is a custom or not in the Family – if it is improper the sooner it is put to an end the better, & its having been a custom makes it the more necessary to abolish it and guard against it in the future.’50
Great attention is paid to entrances and exits, to ‘who is introduced by whom – or who may remain on a visit; you are to endeavour to prevent any Person being introduced into the Family who should not be so’. As in previous centuries, emphasis is placed on monitoring who is in the house at any one time, and the comptroller is asked to keep a general register ‘to include all the Establishments at my different houses with every one’s names and duties.’51
On recruiting servants, the comptroller ‘must specify their age (& Height, if under Servts) – their county – whither married or single. N.B. Single Persons are always to be preferred to married ones for servants.’ The duke was particular about uniforms: ‘When the new liveries come home from the Tailor, you will make the Servants parade with them on (the Tailor attending) to see that they are well made, agreeably to the proper pattern, & fit well.’ They are then to be ‘carefully stored & named’. The comptroller is also responsible for servants’ behaviour, ‘keeping good hours’, and is on ‘no account to suffer any gambling – Drunkenness, or other irregularity and improper conduct’.52
In a 1768 ‘Household Book’ for Alnwick, which includes many of the earlier draft notes towards these regulations, the duchess outlined her preferred management of the servants’ hall, which was ‘to be open’d every morning at 9 and to continue so till 10 & then the Usher of the Hall is to lock it up and keep it so until the dinner Bell rings when it is to be open’d for 2 hours & then lock’d up again till their supper Bell rings, when it is to be kept open till the Duke & Dutchess ring to go to Bed and no longer.’ Curiously, she adds: ‘All Servants are to find their own knives & forks.’53
Another series of drafts, dated to the 1770s and possibly in the duchess’s own handwriting, set out the rules for behaviour: ‘No swearing or cursing or indecent Language is to be suffered at any of the Tables. If in the Serv[a]nts Hall the person for the first fault to be turned out of the Servants Hall & not re-admitted but on promise of better conduct for the future & if the fault is repeated they are to be turn’d away . . . Maid servants are not to sit gossiping in Servants Hall or even to be near there but at Meal Time & to depart as soon as the Table is clear’d.’54
In the same book there is a note on ‘Rules for Conduct’, relating to her own attendance at church and daily prayers, in which she took herself to task: ‘Not to be severe with my servants for small thoughts [presumably meaning faults] and frequent chiding lessens authority. To instruct my servants as far as I am able to furnish them good Books suited to their Capacity and see they attend regularly at church.’ She further resolved: ‘If any of my Servants are vicious it is my duty to reprove them severely & to employ all sorts of means to reclaim them, but if I find no appearance of success I ought to turn them away.’55
At Alnwick and elsewhere, most servants – especially the upper and liveried servants – expected tips (or ‘vails’) to supplement their annual wages, which were usually given by guests when they came to stay, or to dine, or for other considerations. A servant would sometimes be told how much he might expect in tips before he was hired. One coachman’s place, for example, was advertised in 1760 at ‘£10 per annum with £6 in vails’. In the early eighteenth century, the Earl of Leicester disbursed substantial amounts in vails when on visits to the houses of his friends, giving 10 guineas to Lord Hobart’s staff, and 10 more to the Duke of Grafton’s. On family visits he would hand a lump sum to a senior servant to distribute to the others.56
In Eight Letters to His Grace the Duke of — on the custom of Vails-Giving in England (1760), Jonas Hanway railed against the custom of tipping. He imagined the horrors of a country parson invited to stay with a bishop, ‘obliged by the tyranny of this custom to pay more for one dinner, than will feed his large family for a week!’ He recounted the tale of a colonel staying with a duke who asked his host for the names of the servants. When his host asked him the reason, he replied: ‘Why, says he, My Lord Duke, in plain truth, I cannot afford to pay for such good dinners as your Grace gives me and at the same time support my equipage without which I cannot come here; I therefore intend to remember these gentlemen in a codicil in my will’.57 By ‘pay’, here he meant ‘tip’.
The Duke of Newcastle showed Hanway’s letters to George III, who tried to set an example to the nation by banning the acceptance of vails in his own household. This move was greeted with suppressed fury by the royal servants and the next time the king visited the theatre he was hissed by members of his own staff from the anonymity of the gallery. However, he is said to have sat through it all ‘with the greatest composure’.58
On a more modest
scale was this piece of fatherly advice on tipping from the owner of Mapledurham in Berkshire to his son. When Michael Blount went to stay with his uncle at Stonor Park in Oxfordshire in 1761, his father (also Michael) wrote to him, offering hints on what clothes he should take and telling him that
uncle Strickland will tell you the hours and rules of the house, which I dare say you will strictly comply with . . . When you leave Stonor (which will be the following Wednesday or Thursday, when I will order horses and a servant to go again for you) you must give the maid that makes your bed and fires there half a crown, the butler half a crown, the groom two shillings as you get upon your horse, and the man that dresses your hair &c four shillings. This will be handsome and sufficient.59
Some houses of the period might be little occupied for much of the year. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Lord Fitzwilliam was accustomed to leaving his house at Milton, Oxfordshire, in the care of his steward, housekeeper and chaplain for years at a time. Although he planned to visit Milton every year from 1687, he scarcely set foot there until 1709.60 As intermarriage between landed families often concentrated estates under one name, many of the wealthiest landowners had more than one country seat and like their medieval forebears would pass the seasons travelling from one to another.
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