Upstairs Downstairs – An Overview

Where would m’lord and m’lady be without their servants? Lost, most likely, as Lord Grantham says in Downton Abbey. Without the footmen, housemaids, cooks, and butler; throwing lavish parties and maintaining their two hundred room house, would be impossible.

Staff in the Regency, Victorian, and Edwardian eras were gigantic and it wasn’t uncommon for large houses such as Blenheim Palace and Highclere Castle to keep over fifty indoor servants, and another forty, outdoors. The Marchioness of Bath details her indoor staff in this lengthy and mind-boggling list:

One House Steward
One Butler
One Under Butler
One Groom of the Chambers
One Valet
Three Footmen
One Steward’s Room Footman
Two Odd Job Men
Two Pantry Boys
One Lamp Boy
One Housekeeper
Two Lady’s Maids
One Nursery Maid
Eight Housemaids
Two Sewing Maids
Two Still Room Maids
Six Laundry Maids
One Chef
Two Kitchen Maids
One Vegetable Maid
One Scullery Maid

And we thought they had a lot at Downton. J

This was rather large, even for a country mansion, and the typical staff was usually more representative of what we see on Downton. Typically  twenty to twenty five servants. The butler would often take on the role of steward, and groom of the chambers was a post rarely occupied.

The staff was hired and sacked (fired) by the housekeeper and butler, except the valet and the lady’s maid, which were engaged by the master and mistress of the house.
Most servants began at the bottom of the hierarchy, starting as kitchen maid or hallboy, and hoped to rise in the ranks. Many of them aspired to eventually become butler or housekeeper, the two highest ranking positions among domestics. Yet, as this was not always possible, servants often moved on to another place, rising in the ranks by acquiring a new job. Good references were a must and a bad one could ruin a servant’s entire career. In the case of a bad reference some servants forged their own, or when they went to hand in their notice, devised some excuse about how sorry they were to leave, but as their mother broke their leg, they were afraid they must. 

The staff had a very strict schedule and were only given one half day off a week, one full day a month, and a few hours on Sundays. Their lives were never truly their own, which was why, as the century wore on, it became harder and harder to staff a large house as young people preferred to find jobs as a secretary or shop worker.
The first servant to rise in the morning was the scullery maid or tweeny, the lowest ranking female servant. She would light the kitchen fires and draw and boil water. If there was no scullery maid, this task was assigned to the kitchen maid. She would then begin work on the servants’ breakfast after making sure everyone had been woken.

Housemaids and footmen were up a half an hour after the scullery maid, and after donning uniforms and livery, would go upstairs and light fires, empty chamber pots, and put out clean water for washing. They would then move on to the main living quarters and tidy the drawing rooms and Saloons; plumping pillows, dusting, sweeping, opening the curtains, etc. They would then eat their own breakfast and go about their designated tasks for the day. (During a later post, I’ll go in depth as to what the tasks were for each servant.)
Bells were the pagers of the Victorian era (we see a glimpse of them in the opening credits of Downton) and in the servants’ hall a long row of them was in plain view, so at a moment’s notice, the servants could be summoned to wherever the family was in need of them. I’d love a set in my house. J

Check out the following books if you would like more Information on domestic service:

1 - Up and Down Stairs: The History of the Country House Servant by Jeremy Musson
2- Life Below Stairs in the 20th Century by Pamela Horn
3- The Rise & Fall of the Victorian Servant by Pamela Horn
4- Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor by Rosina Harrison
5- Life Below Stairs: In the Victorian & Edwardian Country House by Sîan Evans
6- Below Stairs: The Classic Kitchen Maid’s Memoir That Inspired “Upstairs, Downstairs” and “Downton Abbey” by Margaret Powell
7- Manor House: The Companion Guide to the PBS Television Series

Since starting this new blogging schedule, with writers posts alternating with historical posts about the era’s in which I write, I’ve decided to title the historicals, “Carriages, Costumes, and Customs – Life in the Regency and Victorian Eras”, and the writing related posts “Writer’s Workshops” Hope you all are enjoying the new schedule!

I also hope you’ve enjoyed this peek into life Below Stairs. I hope to do more about this aspect in detail, as we approach the release date of Season 3 of Downton Abbey. If there are any posts you’d like me to cover either in Carriages, Costumes, and Customs, or Writer’s Workshop, I’d love to hear!

Giveaway!!!

To celebrate my return to blogging regularly after a several week hiatus due moving recently, and to get you all in the mood for Season 3 of Downton Abbey, I am giving away one of the recommended books above, “Below Stairs: The Classic Kitchen Maid’s Memoir That Inspired “Upstairs, Downstairs” and “Downton Abbey” by Margaret Powell. This book is a hilarious, fact filled, true to life rendition of what it was like to be a servant in early 20^th century London. I enjoyed reading this book very much and know you will too. So leave a comment with your email to be entered into a drawing to win this book.

Happy Writing,

Amanda

Dinner Parties – Downton Abbey Style

We see them sitting around their long circular table in that gorgeous dining room, watch as the footmen discreetly bring round course after course, then the ladies retire to the drawing room and the men have their brandy and cigars. But just what went on during these evenings, commonplace from the Regency era onward? Although the style of dining changed, going from a la francaise to a la russe, the progression of the evening remained almost unaltered.

I’ll focus on the way the evening would go in late Victorian/early Edwardian Britain (this is Downton Abbey after all)

We’ll start about three weeks ahead of the event, when the lady of the house, in this case Lady Grantham, would decide who will be in attendance. This could become an enormous ordeal, because not only did one have to make sure there was an equal number of gentlemen and ladies who were both single and married, there was also the matter of precedence, that is, making sure you didn’t invite someone who would make the rest of the guests uncomfortable. A duke and the village doctor, probably wouldn’t mix well, and the hostesses’ main job was making sure her guests were comfortable. The amount of guests at a dinner party could range anywhere from ten to forty, sometimes even more. Then the hostess would wait for a response of some sort, always sent by letter.

About a week, to a day or two before the event, the hostess would go over the menu with the cook or chef, deciding how many courses would be served. Among the Edwardian elite, up to twelve courses wouldn’t be uncommon and the hostess would often orchestrate the menu according to the guest of honor’s favorites. Bertie, the Prince of Wales at the time, would often polish off several dozen oysters, plus bread and butter, caviar, plovers’ eggs, ortolans (a type of songbird), sole poached in Chablis garnished with oysters and prawns, chicken and turkey in aspic, quails and pigeon pie, grouse, snipe, partridge, pheasant and woodcock. This doesn’t even go into the desert and sorbet courses. The hostess would also decide which plate and dinner services would be used and make sure the appropriate wines were served. Sometimes the host did this too.  

At last the evening arrived and at the designated time (usually around 7 to 9 P.M.), guests would begin to arrive and would be shown to the drawing room (at Downton) or in the case of Blenheim Palace, the Long Library. Everyone would stand or sit, admiring each other’s gowns and waiting for the late arrivals. Cocktails was a strictly American custom until after WWI and the shilly shallying didn’t last long, as everyone wanted to get to the main event - dinner.

While everyone was mingling, the hostess would make any necessary introductions before beginning the most nerve wracking part of her evening, precedence or “Who Will Sit With Whom”. This could become quite a task, as titles were so intermingled and intricate. If you had two dukes at your party who ranked higher? The one with the oldest title. But what about the elder son of a duke vs. an earl? Who then? You can easily see how a hostess, especially a young bride, could become easily muddled. Also, one had to make sure that they didn’t allow people who loathed each other to go into dinner together as they had to spend a large part of the evening in conversation with that person. If Lady Anne had been once engaged to Lord Percy, and they had broken the engagement, it would be a terrible social blunder for the hostess to have them go in together. Consuelo Vanderbilt, a young American who married an English duke, received many set-downs for committing such errors and often a guest would take her aside and express their displeasure about who they had been seated beside.   

The host always took the lady of the highest rank in to dinner and, the gentleman of the highest rank, took in the hostess. This rule was absolute, unless the highest ranking male and female were related to the host or hostess. Then it was the next ranking. Husbands and wives, fathers and daughters, and mothers and sons never went into dinner together. The hostess always tried to invite an equal number of men and women to the party, although if possible, it was always best to have more gentlemen, so married women were not obligated to go in to dinner with each others’ husbands only. In the case of there being more ladies than men, the highest ranking ladies would be taken into dinner by the gentlemen present, and the remaining ladies would go in by themselves.

Once in the dining room, the host remained standing, until everyone had been seated. The seating depended on precedence and the host and the hostess sat at opposite ends of the table, the host at the bottom of the table, the highest ranking lady at his right hand. The hostess at the top and the gentleman who took her, sat at her left. Then the lady second in rank, sat at the host’s left hand and the other female guests at the right of the gentleman who had brought them in to dinner. Sometimes, place-cards with the names of the guests were placed on the table, thus making things easier for everyone. Thank goodness! The hostess of course, would have had to instruct the butler to lay these out ahead of time, a copy of Burke’s or Debrett’s Peerage in hand. The menus were always written in French and were placed between each place setting, often shared by two persons.

The table could be decorated a number of different ways. Flowers, elaborate silver centerpieces or epergnes, and fruit arrangements could all be part of the display. Silver candlesticks were a must and, even when electric lighting became popular, it was still common to dine by candlelight. Then of course there were those elaborate place settings with a zillion different forks. Generally these were comprised of a soup spoon, fish knife and fork, two knives, two large forks, and goblets and wine flutes for the wine, along with the various dinner and dessert plates. All this was known as the “cover.”

Dinner etiquette was very rigorous and went beyond just using proper table manners. This was another reason why the hostess only invited those of her own social class. They were generally the only ones who knew what they were doing and wouldn’t make such blunders as eating off a knife or tucking a napkin into their shirt collar (although earlier in the century, the napkin tucking wasn’t as offensive as it became later on) When a lady sat down at the table she would always remove her gloves, placing them either in her lap or beside her plate.

Now for the eating. Generally, they began with hors d’oeuvres and went on to soup, fish, entree, meat, salad, savory, sorbet, dessert. What each of these courses consisted of is a whole different blog post.

While all this food was being consumed, everyone engaged in conversation with the person seated next to them, until halfway into the meal they would “turn.” This meant they would turn and talk to the person on the other side of them. To engage in conversation with someone other than those you had been seated beside, wasn’t really the “done thing” although occasionally it did happen. Polite meant no discussion of health, politics (even if the person beside you was a politician) or anything especially deep. It also meant no arguing at the table or no conversation that involved personal or family matters.

After dinner, which usually went on for an hour to an hour and a half, the hostess would nod to the lady of the highest rank present, thus signaling it was time for the ladies to retire to the drawing room. The gentlemen rose when the women did and the ladies exited in order of their rank, hostess following last. The chaps were then left to their port, claret, cigars and talk of subjects perhaps not always suitable for the delicate ears of a well-bred duchess. The ladies meanwhile were in the drawing room having coffee and gossiping about the latest on dits or perhaps playing the piano.

The gentlemen rejoined the ladies in half an hour to an hour, and usually cards or some sort of game was proposed. There was no set time for leave-taking and some dinner parties could last well into the night. Pity the poor servants who had to wait on them. Although Carson wouldn’t dream of yawning!

After the last guest was seen into their carriage, the host and hostess were free to congratulate each other on how well the evening went (assuming it did) and then collapse. For tomorrow night, there would be yet another party to attend and the whole process would repeat all over again. Whew!

-Amanda

P.S. I am taking a two week hiatus from blogging (one of the reasons why the post was so long), due to moving to a new house. I plan to be back around July 15, with more writing and Victorian era themed posts! So stayed tuned.

Winner of Chameleon

Congratulations to karenk, the winner of Jillian Kent’s novel Chameleon. She has been notified and will receive her novel shortly.

Thank you so much to all who entered!!!

Happy Writing,

Amanda