Read Online Life Below Stairs by Alison Maloney - Free Book Online
Authors: Alison Maloney
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Room
5.00
Dinner
7.00
Servants’ supper
8.15
Night Prayers
9.15
Tea in Drawing Room
9.30
Lock up and Bed
1.00
His instructions detailed the areas he had to lock up as ‘two outside passage doors downstairs, Servants’ hall, Shoe place and Pantries. Lock door and window of
Centre Room, Dining Room, Front Hall and Morning Room if occupied by the family who keep the keys at night.’
HIGH DAYS AND HOLIDAYS
In the Victorian household most servants were given just one afternoon off a week, on Sunday, so that they could attend church. In addition, if the mistress was a
benevolent one, they might have had an extra day off a month.
Cassell’s Household Guide suggested the generous extra day did away with the necessity for a maid’s friends to call on her at the house. ‘At the same time, a mistress
should be careful not to bind herself to spare her servant on a certain day in every month, as is sometimes demanded,’ it advised. ‘“Once in a month when convenient” is a
better understanding. Most servants, in addition to the monthly holiday, ask to be allowed to go to church of a Sunday once in the day. This request is reasonable; and if a servant really goes to a
place of worship, some inconvenience should be borne by her employers to secure her this liberty, but if she goes instead to see her friends, it should be a matter for consideration whether she
shall go out or not. At any rate, the absence ought notto extend very much beyond the time occupied in the church service.’
With sixteen-hour days standard for a hard-working maid, an extra day was a remarkably small concession and, with so many working away from home, it could be months or even years between visits
to see their families and friends ‘back home’. Frank Dawes writes of one homesick teenage maid, Harriet Brown, who wrote to her mother in 1870: ‘Dear Mother, I should of ask you
over next week only we are going to have two dinner parties one on Tuesday the other on Thursday and we shall be so busy so you must come after it is over […] I should so like to see you but
I cannot get away just now so you must come and see me soon.’ Although this was thirty years before the Edwardian age little changed in that time and even Harriet’s own daughter was to
go into service as a child twenty years after her mother.
By 1900, calls for fairer working conditions had led to an afternoon and an evening off each week, as well as church time on Sunday. But the free time was not enshrined in law and only began
after lunchtime duties were completed, often as late as 3 p.m. There would also be a curfew, usually around 9 p.m., and anyone late back could find himself or herself locked out by the angry
housekeeper. Time off could also be cruelly snatched away for the smallest misdemeanour or the overlooking of a task.
Dorothy Green was the youngest maid in a London home in the early 1900s and often had to wait up to let her colleagues in after a night out. ‘The younger ones had to be back by 8 p.m. and the older ones at 9 p.m. If the maids were late, which they frequently were, I would be trembling with fear in the kitchen and hoping the mistress didn’t decide
to check up on them because I knew there would be an almighty row if she found out.’
Advice on the provision of a servant’s days off, from the Manual of Household Work and Management by Annie Butterworth (1913)
As the work was relentless and exhausting, there was little time to rest or play so the afternoons or evenings off were highly treasured. But not everyone had the energy left to enjoy them to
the full. Margaret Thomas reflected on one house where she was given alternate Sunday afternoons and evenings off. ‘Sometimes, when I went up to dress, I was too tired to go out so I lit the
gas fire and thought I’d have a short rest. I was vexed when much later the cook coming up to bed found me there and discovered I’d “had” my day out.’
For
5.00
Dinner
7.00
Servants’ supper
8.15
Night Prayers
9.15
Tea in Drawing Room
9.30
Lock up and Bed
1.00
His instructions detailed the areas he had to lock up as ‘two outside passage doors downstairs, Servants’ hall, Shoe place and Pantries. Lock door and window of
Centre Room, Dining Room, Front Hall and Morning Room if occupied by the family who keep the keys at night.’
HIGH DAYS AND HOLIDAYS
In the Victorian household most servants were given just one afternoon off a week, on Sunday, so that they could attend church. In addition, if the mistress was a
benevolent one, they might have had an extra day off a month.
Cassell’s Household Guide suggested the generous extra day did away with the necessity for a maid’s friends to call on her at the house. ‘At the same time, a mistress
should be careful not to bind herself to spare her servant on a certain day in every month, as is sometimes demanded,’ it advised. ‘“Once in a month when convenient” is a
better understanding. Most servants, in addition to the monthly holiday, ask to be allowed to go to church of a Sunday once in the day. This request is reasonable; and if a servant really goes to a
place of worship, some inconvenience should be borne by her employers to secure her this liberty, but if she goes instead to see her friends, it should be a matter for consideration whether she
shall go out or not. At any rate, the absence ought notto extend very much beyond the time occupied in the church service.’
With sixteen-hour days standard for a hard-working maid, an extra day was a remarkably small concession and, with so many working away from home, it could be months or even years between visits
to see their families and friends ‘back home’. Frank Dawes writes of one homesick teenage maid, Harriet Brown, who wrote to her mother in 1870: ‘Dear Mother, I should of ask you
over next week only we are going to have two dinner parties one on Tuesday the other on Thursday and we shall be so busy so you must come after it is over […] I should so like to see you but
I cannot get away just now so you must come and see me soon.’ Although this was thirty years before the Edwardian age little changed in that time and even Harriet’s own daughter was to
go into service as a child twenty years after her mother.
By 1900, calls for fairer working conditions had led to an afternoon and an evening off each week, as well as church time on Sunday. But the free time was not enshrined in law and only began
after lunchtime duties were completed, often as late as 3 p.m. There would also be a curfew, usually around 9 p.m., and anyone late back could find himself or herself locked out by the angry
housekeeper. Time off could also be cruelly snatched away for the smallest misdemeanour or the overlooking of a task.
Dorothy Green was the youngest maid in a London home in the early 1900s and often had to wait up to let her colleagues in after a night out. ‘The younger ones had to be back by 8 p.m. and the older ones at 9 p.m. If the maids were late, which they frequently were, I would be trembling with fear in the kitchen and hoping the mistress didn’t decide
to check up on them because I knew there would be an almighty row if she found out.’
Advice on the provision of a servant’s days off, from the Manual of Household Work and Management by Annie Butterworth (1913)
As the work was relentless and exhausting, there was little time to rest or play so the afternoons or evenings off were highly treasured. But not everyone had the energy left to enjoy them to
the full. Margaret Thomas reflected on one house where she was given alternate Sunday afternoons and evenings off. ‘Sometimes, when I went up to dress, I was too tired to go out so I lit the
gas fire and thought I’d have a short rest. I was vexed when much later the cook coming up to bed found me there and discovered I’d “had” my day out.’
For
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