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.
There is an enormous disparity in the spending habits and incomes of the two classes. Financially, they inhabit different planets.
THE TOFFS: HOW TO SPEND IT
It starts from the top. In many ways, King Edward VII, Queen Victoria’s son who takes the throne following her death in January 1901, is what we’d today probably call a ‘king of bling’, a party animal who loves to indulge himself with huge displays of extravagance and luxury.
In the long years before he is handed the regal crown, Edward, Prince of Wales, or ‘Bertie’, is a high-spending, gourmandizing, womanising king-in-waiting at the head of a ‘smart set’ of wealthy, highly influential socialites whose social calendar frequently revolves around following his lead. Their pursuits are many. And they usually involve huge expenditure: shooting parties, balls, theatre trips, grand dinners with rich French cuisine, gambling sessions, cards, horse racing – if it’s expensive and exclusive, they’re doing it.
This is a highly social world. Yet to us it would seem incredibly public. With servants around all the time, taking care of your every need, how can it be otherwise? Yet despite this, within this set some are sexually promiscuous and unfaithful to their spouses – who might be aware of this but look away. Maintaining the status quo matters much more.
As King, Edward VII has half a million pounds a year (think around £8 million a year in today’s money) in his pocket – and his coterie of super-rich friends and acquaintances, include many ‘new’ money millionaires and entrepreneurs whose fortunes frequently dwarf his own, as well as the fortunes of the ‘old’ money aristocrats.
Someone like the 6th Duke of Portland, William Cavendish-Bentinck (The King’s Master of the Horse), for example, is much richer than his king. The Duke’s vast estate, Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire, plus his coal-mining interests, give him ‘many millions per annum’.
So playing host to Edward and his chums for a big entertainment, a country-house weekend (called a ‘Saturday to Monday’ by the toffs because the expression ‘weekend’ is considered vulgar) or a shooting party, or a trip to the South of France, involves a fantastic amount of spending.
It’s difficult to be a freeloader. Any player in this exclusive world is required to spend just as freely as the next person in their group when it’s their turn – and the extravagances are huge. As King, Edward prefers the self-made entrepreneurs to the old-fashioned aristocrats, for the self-made ‘showing off’ – essentially for its own sake – is part and parcel of the super-toffs’ way of life. Appearances count for everything.
Yet in some grand aristocratic houses, an announcement that the King plans a visit can sometimes be greeted with consternation: so enormous is the cost of entertaining him and his cronies for just a few days it might involve a year’s worth of economising for the host family – or even tip them into debt.
It