LONDON LETTER:Life at ' Downton Abbey', now a home at war, may have become harder, but it is still a far cry from what domestic service was really like, writes MARK HENNESSY
NEARLY 10 million people watched Downton Abbeyin the UK last Sunday night – living proof, if such were needed, that Britain still remains entranced by a well-written story of the lives and loves of upstairs, downstairs.
However, the reality was more prosaic. In the 1911 Census in England and Wales, 1.3 million people worked "below stairs" – not just in palatial homes for the ascendancy, such as Highclere, the home used in the filming of ITV's runaway success Downton Abbey, but also for the middle-classes.
In a new book, Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian Servants, Alison Maloney relates how, despite its drudgery, it was "a much sought-after alternative" to near-starvation, but one rewarded with "meagre wages and sparse, comfort-free accommodation".
The Rules For The Manners of Servants in Good Familiesguide written in 1901 was prescriptive: servants should not walk in the gardens "unless you are permitted or unless you know that all the family is out".
Noisy behaviour was forbidden. “Always move quietly about the house and do not let your voice be heard by the family unless necessary,” it instructed, adding also that a good servant should “keep out of sight as much as possible”.
If asked to walk with “a lady or gentleman, in order to carry a parcel or otherwise, always keep a few paces behind”, while they were also reminded that they should not under any circumstances smile at “droll stories” told in their presence.
While the families were prepared to eat food cooked by the servants and sleep in beds made up by them, they were not prepared to have physical contact with them, even at the most basic of levels, Maloney writes.
One kitchen maid, Margaret Langley, tells of her time working for a Mrs Clydesdale in Hove in Sussex, when she offered her mistress the morning papers.
“She looked at me as if I were something sub-human, then at last she spoke.
“She said, ‘Langley, never, never on any occasion ever hand anything to me in your bare hands, always use a silver salver. Surely you know better than that’,” recounted Langley, who was left in tears.
Height and age decided pay. A lady's maid, unlike Mrs O'Brien in Downton Abbey, was expected to be little more than a teenager. If she was still in the same job by her mid-20s, then her pay was decreased.
Footmen “increased in value” with every inch of height as the liveried uniform was considered to look better on the taller man. One of 5ft 6in in height could expect to earn £30 a year; a six-footer received between £32 and £40. A pair of six-footers was considered quite a catch.
With just one evening off a week, plus time for church on Sundays, a social life was strictly limited; finding a spouse was even harder, with servants found “fraternising” with the opposite sex in danger of instant dismissal.
Given the harshness of life outside, however, many found the food inside some higher-class homes an irresistible draw. “The beauty of that job as far as I was concerned was that I had a jolly good breakfast,” Frank Honey, once a houseboy, remembered.
“Prior to that I might have taken a piece of bread and butter to school with me when I went out, but I used to get eggs and bacon there – something I never got at home.”
The days of servitude, though, had begun to go into decline even before the first World War, due to the introduction of national insurance by David Lloyd George, which required a 3d weekly contribution from both servant and master.
However, the opening of the war in September 1914 marked the death-knell – 400,000 people left service, many to die in the trenches, but others to take better-paid work in the factories needed by Britain’s war machine.
In January 1915, Country Lifemagazine was one of many periodicals to put the matter bluntly to its well-to-do readers.
“Have you a man preserving your game who should be preserving your country?”
The rich quickly grumbled, with Col James Stevenson complaining in his diary: “The lower orders have a great deal of money – more than they ever had before. The landowners are those who suffer as their rents remain the same.
“Taxes [are] enormously increased and very much higher wages have to be paid to servants on account of competition of public bodies, county councils, parish councils etc, who are most extravagant in the wages they give – not having to pay them themselves,” he wrote.
The end of the war brought little relief for those who had been waited on. Factory workers had “been spoilt for service” through good wages and short hours. “It made those who returned to service unsettled,” said former servant William Lanceley.
In 1919, the Women’s Advisory Council reported to parliament on “the domestic service problem”, complaining that there “is a growing distaste” for it, with parents even reluctant to let their children embark on a life below stairs.
The council, to the horror of Conservative members, even suggested a servants’ trade union, which led the Marchioness of Londonderry to harrumph that such a course was “liable to react in a disastrous manner on the whole foundation of home life”.
By 1920, the British government even proposed setting up home-craft courses for young women, offering to buy them their first uniforms for service. The world though had changed utterly – few took up the offer.