Read The Real Life Downton Abbey Online
Authors: Jacky Hyams
What sometimes makes country-house service a bit more attractive for some are the perks (perquisites), unofficial extras which come with the job. Here are a few examples:
A lady’s maid with a generous or kind mistress might be able to sell the odd item of clothing handed to her, if the maid has no use for it herself. Or she can use the material – always a really good quality fabric like wool, silk or cotton, man-made fabrics are never used – to make something else, perhaps a small dress for an impoverished young sister or relative. Good sewing skills are an important and valued attribute in a lady’s maid.
A butler or housekeeper might forge a relationship with certain tradesman making regular deliveries to the house where they might agree a discount for continued orders. Or they might be able to sell any unwanted goods that are handed down from the household.
This is another hidden extra in a world where there is much at-home entertaining of wealthy guests. Though it is primarily the personal servants like the butlers or valets who are more likely to be handed tips by a guest than, say, a housemaid.
Socially, since marriage means the end of working in service for women, a good looking young lady’s maid hoping to find a husband views working in an elite household as a bit of a plus in the social stakes. There’s more chance of meeting other male servants if you have a very social boss who moves around. And, of course, moving around means the chance to network and meet staff members from other households, also useful for those who hope to move from job to job.
While certainly a continuation of normal servant duties, without any real break in the non-stop, round-the-clock nature of their allotted role, travel gives a lady’s maid, butler or valet the opportunity to broaden their horizons. The toffs are often on the move, travelling to other parts of the country for shooting parties, visiting their other homes (if they own several properties) and, of course, travelling abroad, sometimes within Europe (usually France or Italy), sometimes across the Atlantic to the US but also within the British Empire: a sea voyage to Africa, India or Australia is not unknown. And where the families also own town houses, the ‘uppers’ (meaning the servants with higher status) chance to socialise (on their half day off) is much greater in places like London, with its many entertainments, than it is in a more remote country area.
When the family do go away, it is customary to take just a few servants with them, leaving the rest of the staff in the country house. At such times, some families might give the remaining staff in the house cash as payment, in lieu of providing their meals. Other toffs stop providing any food at all while they’re away – and just pay their servants’ board wages.
Long-term upper servants can fare slightly better if their employer dies and the household is broken up. In some cases, they might receive a small gift as a legacy before they start to search for a new position. Or even a small pension.
Amazingly, given how tiny their pay packets are, many live-in servants do their best to save; when working really long hours (on average, 16–17 hours a day) with food and board provided, there is not much free time available to do anything but sleep. So it is not impossible to set aside a tiny sum of money.
The cash saved is frequently sent or handed out to support their own family, a household where there are often many very hungry mouths to feed. Even a very small amount of money from a very small pay packet can make a real difference to a family with one adult wage coming in.
Many poverty-stricken parents living in shockingly cramped and impoverished conditions actively welcome the idea of a teenage daughter going into service for this reason alone – and if she doesn’t make the grade in service, there’s no fulsome welcome home. Once you can earn, no matter how small a pittance your contribution, losing that meagre sum can put the survival of others on the line.
Long-term live-in servants also save whatever they can because they worry about their old age. State pensions do not exist until 1909 and, without savings, many servants face a very tough time indeed if they grow too feeble to work. There are country-house employers who treat their older servants kindly by giving them a small pension. But there are no guarantees of anything.
In the Edwardian era, London is the world’s financial capital. In the years between 1890 and l914, nearly half the international flow of capital is controlled by the City, or the Square Mile as we now know it. Millionaires from all over the world settle in London, buying grand houses in places like Park Lane or Grosvenor Square; they too become part of the wealthy coterie of Edward VII’s smart set. Yet the servants they employ to do their bidding are, in many cases, virtual slaves, trapped by a rigid, harsh social hierarchy in a world where one false move or mistake can mean unemployment and ruin. The only way to survive is to work hard, focus on keeping the employer happy and accept the role you’ve landed; you could, after all, win a promotion in time. Even if you did, however, the roles of master and servant, as we will see, are very clearly defined…
Churchill’s American mother
One very successful early merger of American money and aristocratic class is the wedding of stunningly beautiful New York heiress Jennie Jerome to Lord Randolph Churchill, 2nd son of the Duke of Marlborough, in 1873. Their first-born son becomes British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill.
Jennie’s two sisters, Clara and Leonie, also marry into the English aristocracy, Leonie to one of the sons of Ireland’s biggest landowning families; Clara marries an English aristocrat for love. Her husband, Morton Frewen, a financially incompetent son of English landed gentry has a nickname: ‘mortal ruin’.
Throughout her twenty-year marriage to Lord Randolph, Jennie Churchill is reputed to have many lovers, young and old – among them King Edward VII – yet she becomes well respected and greatly admired as an unofficial ‘ambassador’ for American society in the influential, high-born circles of the time. Following Lord Randolph’s death in 1895, she remarries – twice. She dies in 1921, following a fall down a flight of stairs – in a new pair of high-heeled shoes.
The status hunter’s bible
Rich American mothers on the lookout for a titled spouse for their daughters subscribe to their own quarterly listings magazine called
Titled Americans: A list of American ladies who have married foreigners of rank.
The magazine lists all the American women who have already married aristocratic foreigners. And it carries a handy list of all the eligible titled bachelors, where they live, their incomes, the size of their estates and, in some cases, a listing of their debts.
The dancing marquess
Some of the cash-strapped British aristocrats of the time just blow their money for the hell of it. Take the antics of Henry Paget, the 5th Marquess of Anglesey, the ‘dancing marquess’. On inheriting 30,000 acres in Staffordshire, Dorset, Anglesey and Derbyshire on the death of his father, plus an income of £110,000 a year – around £10 million in today’s terms – Henry manages to blow the lot in six years.
Where does the money go? Lavish parties, yachts, extravagant theatrical productions – which frequently involve priceless costumes studded with expensive jewels – and Henry’s own elaborate outfits. These include a diamond and sapphire tiara, a turquoise dog collar, ropes of pearls, and slippers studied with rubies. At one point he modifies his car so that the exhaust sprays out perfume. And it is rumoured that he likes to make his wife lie naked while he prances around, covering her body with jewels. Very soon he is mortgaging his estates to cover his mounting debts and, after finally being forced to sell off his jewels, dogs, cars and carriages he is declared bankrupt. He moves to the South of France, where he dies, age 30, in 1905.
The matchmaker
New York society snobs shun wealthy financier’s daughter Mary ‘Minnie’ Stevens because there is a rumour that she was once a chambermaid. But she still manages to up her social ante by marrying into the British aristocracy and becoming the wife of Sir Arthur Henry Fitzroy Paget. Once established as an aristocratic wife, she becomes a top-end marriage broker, introducing American heiresses to British aristocrats looking for wealthy brides. Yet the English toffs claim she has made society ‘more shallow and vulgar’ than before.
Send him the bill
THE HAVE NOTSBecause male and female roles in the aristos’ world are so rigidly cast, paying the bills is always the man’s responsibility. The mistress of the house never carries any money at all. An English aristocratic wife is never involved in the financial planning of their estates. Yet she can spend – things like expensive clothing and décor are considered part and parcel of the massive effort in maintaining appearances at all times, and, of course, keeping up with the other wealthy women in their set.
What servants earn in 1910:
Chapter 3
E
veryone living in or around the grand country estate has a set role to play in the hierarchy of the house. And this strict adherence to the pecking order, the set tasks or duties allotted to each person, isn’t merely a template for the servants.
Even the owners of the estate, the master and mistress of the house, are locked into rigid, firmly set behaviour patterns, a ‘job description’ if you like, of how they must conform to what society expects of them. The pecking order runs from the very top of the tree to the lowliest person in the house. ‘Everyone in their place’ describes it perfectly.
The father of the aristocratic family heads up the whole enterprise. He’s the indisputable lord and master of the household. In Edwardian Britain, rich or poor, the family is the most important aspect of everyday life – so the father, or man of the house, is always very much the focal point.
The father’s authority is absolute: family members, whatever their feelings, cannot challenge or question his authority. He makes the decisions on everything: money, the estate, their social circle, the children’s education, the family’s religious and political affiliations and the path any sons and heirs might pursue, such as politics. (Daughters are only expected to marry someone equally grand and wealthy.)
No matter how rich they are or how ancient the family lineage, it is the patriarch of the grand country estate who controls the purse strings – and the family’s fortunes. Certainly, he will give out the rewards and the praise to his offspring. But he can also be the one to dish out the punishment. So the penalties for stepping out of line or disagreeing with him are harsh: adult children who fail to obey his wishes risk being ‘cut off’ financially or, in some cases, being packed off out of sight to a foreign country. (Since only the toffs and the wealthy middle classes travel at these times, such banishment abroad is not some kind of treat as we might see it – it means ‘get out of my sight’.)
Yet the wealthier the family and the bigger the estate, the bigger the headache when it comes to running the family fortunes. Inheritance, of course, is always a major problem for aristocrats without a male heir. But even in families with one or more sons and daughters, there needs to be sufficient cash in the kitty to provide a good cash legacy for all the children and dowries for the girls when they marry. And if they don’t marry, there still needs to be a legacy. So this close eye on the financial affairs and the running of the estate is the aristocratic father’s preoccupation: with thousands of acres and hundreds of rooms to consider, let alone a payroll of many servants, indoor and out, it’s a huge responsibility.
He has a battalion of people to help him with this, of course: an estate manager or steward (an educated person with financial skills who lives, with his family, on the estate) plus city-based solicitors and accountants with whom he corresponds or visits regularly. This all takes up a considerable amount of time, particularly if there is more than one estate to run. But this not his only big responsibility. He may sit in the House of Lords, for instance (by tradition, he’s a Conservative). And, of course, his neighbourhood duties, also by tradition, may involve acting locally as a Justice of the Peace or a Lord Lieutenant.
All of this means that as a father he can be a very distant authority figure, a hands-off dad, especially in the case of his daughters; sons are much more important because they are seen as the future of the family’s wealth and prestige.