The Butler Did It!

Since most of us don’t have servants, it’s sometimes tough to picture what people in service in the grand houses of the past actually did all day. If you've read my post on the housemaid’s job, you may have concluded that the upper servants had a far easier time of it. And that’s true, though it depends on how large the household actually was.

In the grandest of houses, the head of the staff would be a house steward who was in charge of hiring and firing servants and paying the tradesman’s bills, but in the merely grand houses, those duties would be split between the butler – assisted perhaps by an under-butler – and the housekeeper.

While the housekeeper is (naturally) in charge of the house, the butler is in charge of the dining room – including protecting, polishing, and counting the silver and maintaining the wine cellar – and overseeing all the male servants. If there was no valet to wait on the master of the house, the butler took care of his clothing and dressing room.

While the pattern of a butler’s day varied greatly depending on the size of the household and the activities of the family, here’s a pretty normal pattern for the butler in a medium-sized house:

It is the butler’s duty to set the breakfast table, bring up the food and drink, wait on table, and clear after the family has finished – a pattern which is repeated at luncheon, dinner, and with the evening tea tray just before bedtime. After each meal he supervises the cleaning of all the silver, china, glasses, and serving dishes and makes sure they are put away in their proper places.

Between meals, he takes up his other duties. He take care of the master's clothes, laying out what he'll need next, cleaning or brushing or mending, and straightening the dressing room. He checks the wine cellar, tending to any wines which may be off in taste or color, or bottling wines which were delivered in casks. He polishes the silver (no tarnish-proof strips in those days!), and he’s on duty to answer the door from morning till night. After the household has retired, he makes sure all the menservants have gone to bed, then locks up the doors and windows before (finally!) retiring himself.

By the Victorian era, when paying calls over tea became a standard afternoon activity, the butler had it a bit easier. The fashion for Victorian ladies was to have a very attractive parlormaid who would answer the door and wait on the ladies and their afternoon callers at tea time. Since the butler was not required, he could rest for an hour.

Pay during the Regency period? From 30 to 80 pounds sterling per year – depending on the size of the family and the household staff. But he also received his master’s cast-off clothes, as well as the leftover pieces of the wax candles, once they were too short to burn! 

Sources: The Complete Servant, by Samuel and Sarah Adams, published 1825
Etiquette, by Emily Post, published 1922

Welcome to Greystone Manor!

Welcome!


Above is the view which greets the visitor just inside the front door of Greystone Manor. That's the back door you can see; the front door would be behind you. Off to the right through the french doors is the living room. Yes, those are two tiny sets of armor perched along the stair railing -- and if you look closely, you'll see that the center of each wooden tread is worn from the traffic of the family running up and down. The intricate molding on the stairs was created with one tiny toothpick-sized piece of wood at a time, by my husband the master builder. (That's his thumb below, showing the scale of the wood, before the walnut stain and finish were applied.)  The rug is counted cross stitch on aida cloth. 

Little Things Mean a Lot

Last night I had the joy of sharing my love of miniatures with a friend. As I watched her tour through my miniature house (the equivalent of a 3,500 square foot Georgian), I remembered the fun of building and furnishing it, and going from this:

to this:

As a child, I had dolls but no dollhouse. This house -- it's called Greystone Manor -- is anything but a toy, but I can relive a bit of childhood as I play with it.

In future weeks, I'll share more views of rooms and furnishings. Or you can get a sneak peek on my website:

http://www.leighmichaels.home.mchsi.com/leigh's%20house.htm 

Scones -- A Taste of England

Now that you know how to make a perfect cup of tea (and if you don't, scroll on down the page to find out), you need something to go with it -- and the perfect "something" is a scone.

 

2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/4 cup raisins, sultanas or dates (optional)

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

1/2 pint whipping cream
Strawberry or raspberry jam

Sift flour and add baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut in margarine with a pastry cutter or two knives. Add raisins or sultanas or dates if desired, and stir to coat them with flour. Mix milk with beaten egg and stir mixture into dry ingredients. Gather dough into a ball. Knead lightly and roll to 1/2 inch thickness on floured board. Cut into circles or other shapes as desired and place on a lightly greased baking sheet so they do not touch. Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes or till golden.

While scones are baking, pour whipping cream into chilled bowl and whip with chilled beaters till the cream is very stiff and almost buttery.
Serve scones immediately after baking; they lose much of their flavor within half an hour. Let your guests split each scone horizontally and top with whipped cream and jam.
Makes 12 scones.

There's a rumor that the only reason scones were invented was to transport the weight of jam and English clotted cream (a very rich whipped cream) from one's tea plate to one's mouth. In fact, the combination of sweet biscuit, cream, and jam is so delicious that your guests will think you slaved over the scones for hours, but in fact they're as sinfully easy as they are good. I must admit, however, that sometimes I say modestly, "You wouldn't believe how much effort it takes to make these."

Day in the Life of a Housemaid

One of the many challenges in writing historicals is finding the right details to surround the characters. If, for instance, I have my heroine notice what a housemaid is doing, then I need to know what sorts of things the housemaid would likely be doing.

I recently got my hands on a copy of The Complete Servant, first published in 1825 and written by a married couple who had been in service their whole lives. They worked their way up from footboy to butler, and from maid of all work to housekeeper. It's fascinating (and exhausting) reading.

The housemaid tidies up each downstairs room and cleans the stoves, fireplaces, and hearths -- including taking out the ashes, scouring the fire-irons, rubbing the backs and sides of fireplaces with black lead, washing the marble hearths (you'll be glad to hear that the chimney pieces only need to be scoured once a week!) Then she sweeps the carpets after strewing damp tea leaves on them to catch the dust, sweeps the floors under the carpets, shakes and dusts the window curtains, brushes the dust off the windows and the ceilings, and puts all the furniture back in place. When all the downstairs rooms have been cleaned, she goes up to the bedrooms of the master and mistress of the house, empties the slops, refills the water containers, and cleans the fireplaces there.

And that's all before breakfast.

The rest of the day she spends making beds; laying fires; cleaning the landings, staircases, and passages; doing needlework; making and caring for all the household linens, and helping with the fine laundry. On Tuesdays and Saturdays she'd give the house a real cleaning, scouring each room instead of merely wiping or sweeping it, including rolling up the carpets so they could be beaten or shaken outside.

According to The Complete Servant, "If the housemaid rise in good time and employ herself busily, she will get everything done in time to clean herself for dinner." Wages? The grand sum of 12 to 16 guineas a year.

I don't know about you, but I'm going to be whining less this weekend as I swoop through my house with Swiffer and vacuum cleaner!