85. Christie, p. 116.
86. Turner, p. 63.
87. G.F. Berkeley, My Life and Recollections (1865), pp. 30–1.
88. Horn, Flunkeys, p. 242.
89. Turner, p. 64.
90. Horn, Flunkeys, p. 155.
91. Christie, p. 188.
92. Horn, Flunkeys, p. 175.
93. Horn, Flunkeys, pp. 176–7.
94. Waterfield et al. (eds), p. 155.
95. Mortlock, p. 203.
96. Horn, Flunkeys, p. 176.
97. Horn, Flunkeys, pp. 164–73.
98. E.I. Carlyle (revised by Anne Pimlott-Baker), ‘William Speechly (1723–1819)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004–9).
99. George Clutton, ‘The Gardeners of the eighth Lord Petre’, Essex Naturalist, vol. 32 (1967–71), pp. 201–210 (afterwards Clutton).
100. Clutton, pp. 201–210.
101. Hecht, p. 49.
102. John Abercrombie, Abercrombie’s Practical gardener, 2nd edn (1817). I am very grateful to Brent Elliot of the RHS library for pointing out this story.
103. John Phibbs, ‘Lancelot Brown (baptised 1716–d. 1783)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004–9); and see Dorothy Stroud, Capability Brown (1950).
104. Hecht, p. 50.
105. Horn, Flunkeys, p. 179.
106. Horn, Flunkeys, pp. 179–80.
107. Horn, Flunkeys, p. 181.
108. Horn, Flunkeys, p. 182.
109. Horn, Flunkeys, p. 184.
110. Merlin Waterson, The Servants’ Hall: A Domestic History of A Country House (1990), p. 141.
Chapter 4: Behind the Green Baize Door
1. L.G. Mitchell (ed.), The Purefoy Letters (1973), pp. 137–9, (afterwards Purefoy).
2. Purefoy, pp. 137–9.
3. Wynn papers, from Nostell Priory, now in the West Yorkshire Archives Service, Wakefield (WYW), 1352, A1.5A.4; my thanks to Jane Troughton for her transcription of these letters between Jane, Countess of Dundonald and Sabine, Lady Wynn.
4. Asa Briggs, How They Lived, vol. III (1969), p. 142.
5. Wynn papers, WYW 1352, A1.5A.4; my thanks to Jane Troughton.
6. Pamela Sambrook, Keeping their Place, p. 35.
7. Horn, Flunkeys, pp. 87–90.
8. Horn, Flunkeys, p. 89; Kenneth Little, Negroes in Britain, 2nd edn (1972), p. 195 (afterwards Little).
9. Horn, Flunkeys, p. 90.
10. Richard Hewlings, ‘Who was Burlington’s Black Servant’, Country Life (2004), vol. 198, pp. 64–5; and Little p. 189.
11. Horn, Flunkeys, p. 83.
12. Little, p. 196.
13. Information from Lydia Lebus; the headstone and the verse are still extant.
14. Horn, Flunkeys, p. 82, Little, p. 189, and Christie, pp. 120–1.
15. Little, pp. 221–2.
16. Horn, Flunkeys, pp. 84–5.
17. Horn, Flunkeys, pp. 84–5.
18. Little, p. 192; this is the number of people of African extraction in London in the 1790s.
19. Christie, p. 120.
20. Horn Flunkeys, pp. 95–7.
21. Information from Lord Sackville; Robert Sackville-West, Knole (1994), p. 34.
22. The Spectator (1711), no. 88, Monday, 11 June, pp. 36–8.
23. Jonathan Swift, Directions to Servants (1745, republished by Hesperus Press, 2005), (afterwards Swift).
24. Swift, p. 3.
25. Swift, p. 5.
26. Swift, pp. 5–6.
27. Irish Wit and Humour: Anecdote and Biography of Swift, Curran, O’Leary and O’Connell (1872), pp. 24–30.
28. Swift, p. vii.
29. Purefoy, p. 142.
30. Purefoy, p. 144.
31. Purefoy, p. 147.
32. Hertfordshire County Archives, ref MS DE/P/F 193, letter of Lord Cowper to his wife, date 5 June 1720, f. 78 with especial thanks to Lucy Worsley for drawing my attention to this letter and sharing her transcript.
33. Brian Dolan, Ladies of the Grand Tour (2001), p. 138.
34. Dolan, pp. 138–9.
35. Stella Tillyard, Aristocrats (1994), pp. 217–9 gives a full account of the Kildares’ household; and Patricia McCarthy in Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies, vol. IV, 2003, pp. 120–139 (afterwards McCarthy); the original manuscript is in the Duke of Northumberland Estates, the relevant material in fols 15–23.
36. Notes made by the late John Cornforth.
37. Tillyard, pp. 217–9.
38. McCarthy, pp. 120–5.
39. McCarthy, pp. 120–5.
40. Tillyard, pp. 218–9.
41. McCarthy, pp. 218–9.
42. Arthur Young, A Tour of Ireland, first published 1780 (1925), p. 200.
43. McCarthy, pp. 120–5.
44. Tillyard, p. 218.
45. Archives of the Duke of Northumberland Estates at Alnwick Castle, DNP MS 164 and 121, with thanks to archivist Chris Hunwick for his generous assistance in guiding me to this important material.
46. Alnwick Castle, DNP MS 164(e), p. 30.
47. Alnwick Castle, DNP MS 164(e), p. 44.
48. Alnwick Castle, DNP MS 164(e), p. 44.
49. Alnwick Castle, DNP MS 164(d), p. 1.
50. Alnwick Castle, DNP MS 164(d), p. 2.
51. Alnwick Castle, DNP MS 164(d), p. 4.
52. Alnwick Castle, DNP MS 164(d), pp. 23–5.
53. Alnwick Castle, DNP MS 121(92), p. 43.
54. Alnwick Castle, DNP MS 121(63), p. 239.
55. Alnwick Castle, DNP MS 121(63), p. 231.
56. Mortlock, p. 206.
57. Jonas Hanway, Eight Letters to His Grace the Duke of — on the custom of Vails-Giving in England (1760), pp. 1–9.
58. Turner, pp. 51–3.
59. Michael Blount II to his son, 1 February 1761, Blount MSS, of Mapledurham House, Berkshire, with especial thanks to archivist Dr R.G. Williams for generously allowing me access to his extensive transcripts.
60. Hainsworth, p. 15.
61. Christie, p. 179; Adrian Tinniswood, The Polite Tourist: Four Centuries of Country House Visiting (1998).
62. Isaac Ware, A Complete Body of Architecture (1756–7), reprinted 1971, Book III.
63. Ware, Book III, p. 406.
64. Ware, Book III, p. 411.
65. Ware, Book III, p. 412.
66. Ware, Book III, p. 413.
67. Information from Mr Rodney Melville.
68. Girouard, Life in the Country House, p. 219; Hardyment, p. 43.
69. Christine Hiskey, ‘Downstairs – the Servants and their Life’, in Leo Schmidt (ed.), Holkham (2006), pp. 181–5 (afterwards Hiskey).
70. Hiskey, p. 181.
71. Hiskey, p. 185.
72. Hiskey, p. 181.
73. Hiskey, p. 185.
74. Hiskey pp. 181–6.
75. Tessa Murdoch (ed.), Noble Households: Eighteenth-Century Inventories of Great English Houses: A Tribute to John Cornforth (2006), pp. 56–7.
76. Murdoch, p. 57.
77. Murdoch, p. 255.
78. Murdoch, pp. 58 and 255.
79. Murdoch, pp. 280–1.
Chapter 5: The Apogee
1. Servant’s Practical Guide (1880), quoted in Horne, Rise and Fall, p. 17.
2. Nathaniel Parker Willis, Pencillings by the Way (1844), pp. 444–5.
3. Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery (1901), p. 286.
4. F.M.L. Thompson, English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century (1964), pp. 122–4 and 186–97.
5. Jessica Gerard, Country House Life: Family and Servants 1815–1914 (1994) pp. 190–91 (afterwards Gerard).
6. H.G. Wells, An Experiment in Autobiography (1934), p. 110.
7. Sambrook, Keeping Their Place, pp. 201–4.
8. Wells, Experiment in Autobiography, p. 110.
9. Wells, Experiment in Autobiography, p. 110.
10. Eric Horne, What the Butler Winked at (1923), p. 65.
11. Wells, Experiment in Autobiography, pp. 136–8.
12. H.G. Wells, Tono-B
ungay (first published 1909) (1964) Pan edition, p. 14.
13. Wells, Tono-Bungay, p. 18.
14. Sambrook, Keeping Their Place, p. 203.
15. Sambrook, Keeping Their Place, p. 204.
16. Samuel and Sarah Adams, The Complete Servant (1825) (afterwards cited as Adams); see also the modern reprint by Southover Press, 1989, edited by Anne Haly with an introduction by Pamela Horn.
17. Isabella Beeton, The Book of Household Management (1861) (afterwards Beeton), reprinted in facsimile in 1985; it also can be seen at www.mrsbeeton.com.
18. Adams, p. ii.
19. Adams, p. iii.
20. Wilton Household Regulations, typescript, p. 1, 2053 Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office; my thanks to John Martin Robinson for drawing my attention to the Wilton papers.
21. Wilton Household Regulations, typescript, p. 1.
22. Hartcup, p. 128.
23. Hartcup, p. 128.
24. Christopher Simon Sykes, Country House Camera (1980), pp. 56–61.
25. Hartcup, pp. 132–5.
26. Petworth Guidebook; and conversation with the curator, Dai Evans.
27. Adams, p. 7.
28. Adams, p. 7 and M.K. Ashley, Joseph Ashley of Tysoe 1859–1919: a study of village life (1961), pp. 146–7.
29. Adams, p. 52.
30. Pamela Horn, The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant (1995), p. 62.
31. Horn, Rise and Fall, p. 65.
32. Elizabeth Mavor, ‘Lady Eleanor Butler (1739–1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755–1831)’, in Oxford Dictionary of Biography (2004–9).
33. Information from Lydia Lebus.
34. Horn, Rise and Fall, pp. 50–2; Waterson, The Servants’ Hall (1990), pp. 81–2.
35. Duchess of Devonshire, The House: A Portrait of Chatsworth (1982), p. 172.
36. Horn, Rise and Fall, p. 63.
37. Hardyment, p. 50.
38. Horn, Rise and Fall, p. 64.
39. Waterfield, p. 18.
40. Information from Christopher Ridgway, curator of Castle Howard.
41. Hartcup, p. 45.
42. Adams, p. 51.
43. Beeton, para 55.
44. Beeton, paras 55–62.
45. Hartcup, pp. 57–8.
46. Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy, The Rise and Fall of the British Nanny (1972), pp. 68–9 (afterwards Gathorne-Hardy).
47. Adams, p. 254.
48. Beeton, para 2397.
49. Gathorne-Hardy, p. 17.
50. Gathorne-Hardy, p. 303.
51. Horn, Rise and Fall, p. 79.
52. Gathorne-Hardy, p. 26.
53. Hartcup, p. 111.
54. Thanks to Lydia Lebus for identifying this.
55. Maria Edgeworth, letter of 1 January 1820, published in Augustus Hare (ed.), Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth (1894).
56. Hartcup, p. 111.
57. Adams, pp. 272–3.
58. Elizabeth Smith, Memoirs of a Highland Lady (1911), pp. 172–4.
59. Kathryn Hughes, The Victorian Governess (1983), p. 91; Alice Renton, Tyrant or Victim: A History of the British Governess (1991), pp. 74–5.
60. Hughes, Victorian Governess, p. 59.
61. G. Berkeley, My Life and Recollections (1865), pp. 99–101.
62. Adams, p. 194.
63. Beeton, para 84.
64. Horn, Rise and Fall, p. 71.
65. Beeton, para 85.
66. Adams, pp. 233–4.
67. Andrew Hann, ‘The Service Wing at Audley End House’ report (2007), p. 13 with thanks to Dr Hann and his English Heritage colleagues for sharing their research so readily; this research informs the current presentation of the servants’ areas at Audley End.
68. Hartcup, p. 58.
69. Horn, Rise and Fall, p. 67; Hartcup, p. 50.
70. Adams, pp. 236–7.
71. Beeton, paras 2243–63.
72. Horn, Rise and Fall, p. 68.
73. Hartcup, pp. 33–4.
74. Horn, p. 167.
75. Adams, pp. 276–7.
76. Adams, p. 235; Hartcup, p. 57.
77. Adams, p. 277.
78. Adams, p. 280; Hardyment, pp. 62–7.
79. Adams, p. 281.
80. Hartcup, p. 57.
81. Hartcup, p. 83.
82. Gerard, p. 245; Turner, p. 263.
83. Countess of Fingall, Seventy Years Young (1937), p. 208.
84. William Lanceley, From Hall-Boy to House-Steward (1925), p. 16 (afterwards Lanceley).
85. Adams, p. 294.
86. Dorothy Howell-Thomas, Goodwood: Letters from Below Stairs (1976), p. 7, with many thanks to Rosemary Baird of Goodwood House for drawing my attention to this.
87. Beeton, para 2373.
88. Beeton, paras 2374–87.
89. Beeton, para 2387
90. Beeton, paras 2387.
91. Hann, p. 40.
92. Beeton, para 2357ff.
93. Adams, p. 295.
94. Beeton, paras 2364–8.
95. Adams, p. 336.
96. Horn, Rise and Fall, p. 90.
97. Adams, p. 338.
98. Beeton, para 2155.
99. This is also evident from earlier periods, as in D.R. Hainsworth, Stewards, Lords and People (1992).
100. Caroline Wood, ‘Music-Making in a Yorkshire Country House’, in Nineteenth Century British Music Studies’, ed. Zon Bennet (1999), p. 222, thanks to Jane Troughton for drawing my attention to this.
101. Hartcup, p. 26.
102. Horn, Rise and Fall, p. 91.
103. Lanceley, p. 41.
104. Adams, pp. 339–40.
105. Beeton, para 2164.
106. Adams, pp. 340–1.
107. Glanville (ed.), Elegant Eating, pp. 50–1 and Beeton, para 2188.
108. Wilton Household Regulations, typescript, p. 13.
109. Information from Sara Rodger, the archivist at Arundel Castle.
110. Hartcup, pp. 45–6.
111. Pamela Sambrook, The Country House Servant (2002), p. 93.
112. Hartcup, Below Stairs, p. 46.
113. See Hatfield Household Regulations, reproduced in Hartcup, p. 97.
114. Adams, pp. 361–2.
115. Adams, p. 363.
116. Turner, p. 167.
117. Turner, pp. 167–9.
118. Turner, p. 168.
119. Horn, Rise and Fall, pp. 100–1.
120. Adams, pp. 368–9.
121. Gerard, p. 203. The modern-day value of wages was calculated using the ‘Measuring Worth’ site at ‘Economic History’, Ethnet.ac.uk, of the University of Illinois at Chicago www.measuringworth.com.
122. Adams, p. 369.
123. Hartcup, p. 52.
124. Waterfield, pp. 74–5.
125. Advice from the Duke of Buccleuch; and Waterfield, pp. 74–5.
126. Duke of Devonshire, A Handbook of Chatsworth and Hardwick (1845), p. 150.
127. Adams, pp. 372–3.
128. Turner, p. 175.
129. Adams, p. 373.
130. Turner, p. 176; Pamela Sambrook, A Country House at Work (2003), p. 59.
131. Sambrook, A Country House at Work, p. 99.
132. Adams, p. 376.
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