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    Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian Servants
    Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian Servants
    Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian Servants
    Ebook179 pages2 hours

    Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian Servants

    By Alison Maloney

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    UPSTAIRS, an Edwardian home would have been a picture of elegance and calm, adorned with social gatherings and extravagantly envisioned dinner parties.
    DOWNSTAIRS, it was a hive of domestic activity, supported by a body of staff painstakingly devoted to ensuring the smooth running of the household.
    Brimming with family secrets, society scandal, and of course elaborate parties, dresses, and social customs, the world of an aristocratic Edwardian household as depicted on the hit show Downton Abbey has captivated millions. But what was life really like for the people who kept such a household running: the servants? In Life Below Stairs, international bestselling author Alison Maloney takes readers behind the scenes to reveal a lively and colorful picture of what went on "downstairs," describing servants' daily life in this now-vanished world.
    Detailing everything from household structure, pay and conditions, special duties, and rules and regulations, to perks, entertainment, and even romance, Maloney examines the drudgery and hardships below stairs, as well as the rewards and pleasures. Thoroughly researched and reliably informed, this charmingly illustrated volume also contains first-hand stories from the staff of the time, making it a must-read for anyone interested in the lifestyle and conduct of a bygone era.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateDec 24, 2012
    ISBN9781250023124
    Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian Servants
    Author

    Alison Maloney

    Alison Maloney is a journalist and author whose books include The Grannies' Book, Things to Do With Mum and Strictly Come Dancing: The Official Annual 2008. As well as a long stint on The Sunday Post newspaper, she worked as a children's book editor for two years. Alison lives in Kent with her husband and two children.

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    Reviews for Life Below Stairs

    3.5/5

    33 ratings12 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A delightful brief on the lives of the men and women in the Service during the late Victorian and Edwardian eras in England, “Life Below Stairs” satiates those still hungry for a taste of Downton Abbey while still leaving room for a dessert course. Filled by the true accounts of maids and cooks, footmen and butlers, this book leads the reader through arguably the toughest respectable career a person could enter into. The grueling hours spanning from before sunrise until well after sunset combined with meager pay, subpar living conditions, rigid manners and etiquette make me glad to be living in this era, despite its many shortcomings. The perfect book for an afternoon at the beach or a long commute, I implore you to pick up a copy of “Life Below Stairs.” Though for readers looking for further information, I would recommend searching the bibliography for the primary and secondary sources to gain a more in-depth knowledge on the subject.
    • 2/5
      Below Stairs was better, although this did have some interesting historical details about wages and whatnot.
    • 2/5
      Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian Servants by Alison Maloney
      192 pages

      ★★

      This sounded like such a fascinating book to me when I checked it out at the library, at least for a history geek like myself. But I was highly disappointed. It reads so much like a text book, a poorly formatted one at that. Everything is put into subcategories such as “How a butler dresses”, “How a house maid dresses” “Hiring of servants”, etc…some being only a paragraph or so and it just ended up feeling repetitive. There is some good information within but the writing lacked any personality and came off as quite dry. Some good pictures as well but not enough to save this book. She uses long quotes and paraphrasing from other history and memoir books (where is seems she mostly copied her info from) that seemed way more interesting so I may give one of those a try. An okay book for quick information but there are definitely better reads with better information in them.


    • 3/5
      This is a thin little book that, if a servant class still existed, would be a great manual for how to hire, house, train, pay and discipline one's servants. A great companion for people addicted to BBC TV shows like Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey.
    • 4/5
      This book is an enjoyable primer into the lives of English domestic servants in the early 20th century. In it, Alison Maloney covers the basics of their existence, from the experience of hiring and the background of the servants through their daily routines to the aspects of their lives outside of their work. As one might expect Downton Abbey is a clear inspiration behind the book, which is reflected in the occasional quotes about domestic service during that era from various people involved with the show. Yet Maloney’s book stands on its own as a short overview to the people “downstairs,” and is an excellent book for anyone seeking an introduction to the world in which they lived.
    • 4/5
      Not bad, but a fairly light read on the topic.
    • 3/5
      A good overview of a servant's life in Edwardian England. I shall sum up: sucked. Many servants were people desperate to escape terrible poverty; they were subjected to frightful working conditions, smugly condescending employers, and astonishingly few hours of sleep. I'd last less than a day.
    • 4/5
      An excellent, informative read for those history buffs among us :)
    • 3/5
      An historically informative account that refers to the popular 'Downtown Abbey', a shocking expose of what life was truly like 'downstairs'. How the Upper Classes did not view their underlings as being like unto themselves.
      Off the cuff review.
    • 4/5
      A very engaging, easy to read book, sure to please fans of Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs. I was particularly struck by the timeline outlining a typical day from the crack of dawn to late at night, outlining the duties of the staff. There are recipes for various housecleaning solvents, a comparison of wages for each position in today’s money, and discussion of the effect WWI had on both the Employers and those in service. Although they were given ‘room and board’ and had very little time of in which to enjoy anything they earned, the wages paid to the servants was shockingly low. Add in the fact they had to provide much of their own outfits, and could be ‘docked’ for the slightest transgression. Maloney includes plenty of pictures and quotes from many firsthand accounts. One also finds an excellent bibliography and index. This was a library book, but I ended up buying a copy for my mother, knowing she would enjoy it as well.
    • 2/5
      Alison Maloney's Life Below Stairs has one goal: to capitalize on the popularity of "Downton Abbey." Not only does Highclere Castle grace the cover of the book, but she frequently cites the show as a source. For anyone who has neither seen the show nor read anything related to Victorian and Edwardian servitude, this book may hold some new insight. However, the book is neither "full" nor "complete" as the back cover suggests, and one would likely find greater research from a tertiary encyclopedia. Not recommended.
    • 4/5
      A quick reference history of domestic servants in nineteenth/early twentieth century Britain, jumping on the Downton Abbey bandwagon. Maloney combines chapters on household structure, pay and conditions, daily schedules, fine dining and 'the servant problem' with excerpts from published memoirs by servants. Informative, clearly written and appealing to both fans of the television series and history buffs alike, Maloney's guide is a great introduction to learning about the hard work and restricted social lives of those 'below stairs'. I'm also tempted to read some of the firsthand accounts referenced in this book, like Margaret Powell's Life Below Stairs, footman Eric Horne's What the Butler Winked At, and Frank Victor Dawes' Not In Front of the Servants.

    Book preview

    Life Below Stairs - Alison Maloney

    Introduction

    IN THE TWENTY-FIRST century, domestic service is the domain of the few butlers, housekeepers and nannies who keep the richest homes in the country ticking over and usually command a high wage. But just one hundred years ago, service was the largest form of employment in the UK. The 1911 census showed that 1.3 million people in England and Wales worked ‘below stairs’ and many of those would have been in average middle-class homes, employed by doctors, lawyers and office clerks, rather than dukes and princes.

    With millions of families living in stifling poverty in the Edwardian era, going into service was a sought-after alternative to near starvation but it was no easy option. From scullery maid to housekeeper and butler, the domestic servant was at the beck and call of their master and mistress every hour of the day. Up with the lark and toiling well into the night, they were rewarded with meagre wages and sparse, comfort-free accommodation in the attic or basement. While their employers dined on nine-course meals, costing up to six times a maid’s annual wage, employees were treated to the leftover cold cuts in the basement kitchen. As the Edwardian upper classes organized their busy social calendars around the London season, the shooting season and weekend parties, the staff was lucky to get one day off a month.

    But even as the more fortunate Edwardians basked in the lap of luxury, the winds of change were beginning to blow. Opportunities in shops, manufacturing and offices were offering young girls higher wages and more free time, the suffragette movement was filling the newspapers, and the lower classes, who once ‘knew their place’, were beginning to demand more from their middle- and upper-class employers. ‘The servant problem’ was a frequent topic of conversation in society drawing rooms and politicians anxiously discussed what could be done to encourage more workers to choose domestic service. In 1914, the First World War saw the end of the golden age of domestic service. Life Below Stairs was soon to become a thing of the past.

    Domestic service was not the only option for young women

    Chapter One

    Social Background

    DURING THE CLASS-RIDDEN Victorian era, the social divide between rich and poor had become a chasm. By the turn of the century, poverty had reached shocking levels, especially in cities, and in his 1901 report on the slums of York the Quaker philanthropist Seebohm Rowntree concluded that 28 per cent of the population of the city was living in intolerable hardship. At the same time he concluded that ‘the keeping of or not keeping of servants’ was the defining line between the working classes and those of a superior social standing.

    Domestic service, while arduous and all-consuming, provided a reasonable alternative to the slums and a certain amount of social status, and was taken up by a significant number of both sexes in Britain. A large percentage of women who worked were in service. The 1901 census showed that they numbered 1,690,686 women, or 40.5 per cent of the adult female working population.

    Children, particularly girls, also made up a significant proportion of the lower posts in a large household and the higher up the social scale the employer, the more cachet was awarded to the positions in the house. Young girls would be looking for a post in a good home from the age of twelve or thirteen, and in some cases they started as young as ten. And while many of these came from the city slums, employers often preferred to take the children of rural families, who were considered to be more conscientious and hard-working than those from the cities.

    Work was hard but maids were an essential addition to all homes from the lower middle classes upwards. In an age of few labour-saving appliances, the mistress of the house would struggle to run even an average-sized household on her own. An aristocratic seat or country house would require a large staff in order to run from day to day, while even a modest middle-class home would employ one or two servants.

    At the turn of the century, however, things were beginning to change, at least for the professional classes. In his 1904 publication The English House, German architect Hermann Muthesius said that many middle-class families complained that, with new opportunities for working women in shops and offices, ‘£20 maids’, those who earned around £20 annually, were hard to come by. That, along with the introduction of household appliances over the coming years, led to a decline in domestic staff and a rethink of the architecture of middle-income homes. Houses became smaller, cosier and more manageable for a housewife and, after the First World War, staff were to be found in the wealthier households alone.

    In the years leading up to the war, a family’s social standing was heavily dependent on the number of staff it could afford to employ, as this was an obvious indication of wealth. Many of the richer families would employ up to twenty staff and, in the larger aristocratic homes, it often increased to thirty or forty. At the Duke of Westminster’s country seat, Eaton Hall in Cheshire, there were over three hundred servants, although this was an exceptionally large number, even amongst the aristocracy.

    Eaton Hall in Cheshire

    The 6th Marquess of Bath was born in 1905 at Longleat, a vast rolling estate in Wiltshire, and died in 1992. As a child he had his own valet and his parents employed a total of forty-three indoor staff. In 1973, when he and his wife were making do with two servants, a resident married couple who performed the duties of butler, cook, housekeeper and maid, he looked back on the servant age with some nostalgia.

    ‘I think the more servants one had the better,’ he recalled in Not in Front of the Servants: A True Portrait of Upstairs, Downstairs Life. ‘We had two lampboys, two steward boys and about five footmen. You were looked after in the lap of luxury. If you ask me whether I’d like to go back to those days, of course I would. Obviously one would, because it was all so much more for us, but I’m not complaining, because times have changed. It’s so different from the old days when people were brought up to be in domestic service.’

    Lady Lindsay of Dowhill, otherwise known as Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, was born in 1902 and recalled in her 1961 memoirs, Grace and Favour, how they were considered ‘dreadfully badly off’, despite her father being a respected courtier to Edward VII. The main reason for this ‘shame’ was that the Palace pay only stretched to five maids, a manservant, a boy and two gardeners. This led to embarrassment in their social circle who were ‘mostly people who had too many servants to count and who owned stately homes’.

    So intense was the pressure to keep up with the Joneses in late Victorian and early Edwardian households that many middle-class mistresses deprived themselves of expensive food and basic needs in order to maintain the illusion of wealth through the number of servants employed. The Victorian author William Makepeace Thackeray described this phenomenon in his satirical novel The Book of Snobs. The character Lady Susan Scraper feeds herself and her two daughters such meagre rations that they fill up on buns.

    For the fact is, that when the footmen, and the ladies’ maids, and the fat coach-horses, which are jobbed [rented], and the six dinner-parties in the season, and the two great solemn evening-parties, and the rent of the big house, and the journey to an English or foreign watering-place for the autumn, are paid, my lady’s income has dwindled away to a very small sum, and she is as poor as you or I.

    Of course, very few mistresses would go as far as starving themselves for the privilege of keeping more servants but Thackeray’s thrifty character illustrates the importance of staff when it came to keeping up appearances and boosting status.

    Equally, in the early 1900s, the more staff you had, the easier it was to employ more as the dwindling number of young men and women willing to go into domestic work preferred the more well-to-do households. An elevated social position for an employer meant their servants automatically gained respect from the local population, including the tradesmen and shop workers. More staff also meant companionship below stairs, whereas a lone housemaid, moving away from her family for the first time, would feel isolated and lonely in her new home.

    Mrs G. Edwards recalled in Lost Voices of the Edwardians leaving her Brixton home at fifteen to become an under-nurse at a house in Wetherby Gardens in London’s Kensington. ‘I only went back to my home in Brixton about once a fortnight, for an afternoon off. I used to get very homesick. I missed my home but my mother said I must stay for a year so I could get a character reference.’

    In Life Below Stairs in the Twentieth Century by Pamela Horn another teenager, who travelled from Norwich to Beckenham to become a maid, recalled writing to her mother to say, ‘I wouldn’t mind what I done at home, if only she’d let me come. She wrote back and said be thankful you’ve got a bed to lie on and a good meal.’

    Even the more aristocratic homes were beginning to cut back by the turn of the century. Wages were getting higher and taxation on the wealthy, especially the death duties introduced in 1894, were diminishing the upper-class pot. Education had become free to all from 1890 and the 1902 Balfour Act extended the school leaving age from ten to twelve, leading to a sharp decline in young children going into service. The suffragette movement was turning the heads of young women, who were choosing secretarial courses or shop positions over a lifetime of servitude, and the First World War, followed by the Depression, was to change the social order for ever. The Edwardian era was about to see the sun set on the last golden age of the upstairs-downstairs

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