The Real Life Downton Abbey. Jacky Hyams

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СКАЧАТЬ that in exceptional cases, live-in servants slept in feather beds – on wool mattresses. But usually the sleeping facilities are very spartan and the dormitory accommodation has very little furnishing, bare wooden floors and not much more. Washing facilities in the dormitory are usually limited to a basin and a jug of water on a stand and, of course, toilets are shared with many others – and are not always close to the chilly dormitories. A zinc or copper hip bath might also be located separately in a servants’ bathroom for their use or, in a few cases, in the communal sleeping quarters – but usually, on rising, it’s just a case of a quick splash from the water jug.

      In the newer, more recently built big country houses, the layout is more thoughtfully planned: many rooms are allocated to specific household tasks in order to make the management of the house easier. (This follows a general trend of grand and wealthy households where the rooms they use often have one function only.) These areas of the household, let’s call them task rooms, might be allocated to side courts in the house, rather than the more traditional basement areas for kitchens, for instance.

      There could even be a second kitchen (sometimes called a still room) as well as separate spacious larders for dry stores, meat, game, milk and butter, plus storerooms or cleaning rooms for lamps and boots. All this means that a twentieth-century country-house servant’s life might be a fraction easier, less smelly – even slightly healthier than it was in the previous century. Throw in the distant prospect of more privacy, like your own bedroom, if you eventually make it to the upper servant ranks, and though the incentive itself of more space may seem small to us, it still counts for something for the young and impoverished.

      Food is another important reason why a country-house servant’s job is desirable. Three – or even two – meals a day is unheard of in very poor homes, where a tiny amount of money has to stretch to several young hungry mouths. Meals in poverty-stricken homes are meagre, even sparse, mainly consisting of bread and jam or dripping, potatoes and a tiny amount of meat or fish, if they’re lucky. As a servant, you get to eat regularly – one big main meal a day – and even though the food itself might consist of your employers’ leftovers or badly prepared dishes, it is usually more substantial, with a bit more variety than at home. Think fairly bland nursery food, basic meat ’n’ potatoes meals and you won’t be far off. And the upper servants sometimes get a really good deal when it comes to food: much depends on how the house is run – and, of course, how considerate the employers are.

      Finally, there’s the proximity to wealth and influence, even if you are an ‘invisible’ helper, with gruelling working hours which start around 6am or earlier and often don’t end until 10 or 11pm. No matter how strict the house rules are – country-house owners issue their own set of rules – and how mean-minded and spiteful the behaviour of your colleagues, being in a beautiful setting, around priceless possessions and sumptuous displays of wealth all the time or even, in a few cases, living in an up-to-date house where electricity, telephones and motorcars are already being used (though it’s more likely to be a house where the old, less labour-saving ways are still in operation) is one more reason to understand why a life in country-house service is still regarded as a good option.

      Though, of course, as part of all the rules and restrictions, even the upper servant will still have to address their employer as ‘master’ or ‘mistress’. Wealthy house guests from across the Atlantic retain servants too – but they tell their hosts they never hear such servile phrases or terms from the mouths of their servants any more – in the US even servants are starting to be more upwardly mobile.

      Yet the English servant, imbued with centuries of disciplined, subservient behaviour, discretion and an awesome level of deference to their betters, still, for now, remains a breed apart. Their expectations are so much lower.

       Some interesting facts about the late nineteenth and early twentieth century:

      THE WAY WE WERE…

       1870: first water closet invented in England (a room with a flush toilet).

       1876: invention of first telephone.

       1896: Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, owned by the wealthy Rothschild family, is completed – with its own internal phone system comprising handsets (for the family) and earpieces (for the servants).

       1900: the 17,000 acre estate at Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire, owned by the Duke of Portland, employs 320 servants.

       1900: 25 per cent of the population live in poverty; 10 per cent live below subsistence level and cannot afford an adequate diet. Many women can only feed the family by taking in washing or sewing at home – or pawning their own boots for food.

       1900: average working week is 54 hours.

       1901: census lists 100,000 servants whose ages are between 10 and l5.

       1901: 2 million people work as domestic servants – 5 per cent of the total population.

       1901: life expectancy for men: 45 years, for women: 49 years.

      THE MARCH OF PROGRESS…

       1902: Education Act raises school leaving age to 14.

       1906: a Liberal Government is elected in a landslide victory after 10 years of Tory rule.

       1907: free school meals are introduced for Britain’s children.

       1908: the first State pension: over 70s are entitled to a maximum of 5 shillings (25p) a week; Labour Exchanges are set up to help people find work.

       1911: 48,000 drivers of motorcars or vans on the road.

       1911: 2,000 cinema venues operating in Britain.

       1918: Servants win the right to vote for the first time; women over 30 are also given the right to vote.

      WHAT IT COST THEN – TYPICAL PRICES IN 1900:

       Pint of beer in a London public bar: 2d

       Pint of fresh milk: 2d

       Newspaper (The Times): 3d

       Inland letter postage: 1d

      WAGES AND COST OF LIVING IN 1900:

       Manchester house servant: 18 pounds, l5 shillings a year

       Bank manager: £400 per annum

       1903: Cost of brand new Napier seven-seater motorcar (Edwardian equivalent to a Rolls-Royce) is £520

       1910: Average London property price is £14,000

      A guest’s chauffeur leaves Welbeck Abbey in 1911.

       Chapter 2

       Money СКАЧАТЬ