A Primer on Regency Era Servants

During the Regency, anyone who wanted to portray themselves as having an air of middle-class respectability employed domestic help. To our modern thinking, live-in servants seem an extravagant luxury. However, prior to the advent of electricity and indoor plumbing, the amount of manpower to maintain a modest home — keeping it lit, heated and clean — could be a full-time job. The running of a grand home in an elegant style, such as Duke of Westminster’s household at Eaton Hall, might require up to fifty servants.

And just as the members of the ton or high society were stratified by rank and precedence, so were the servants hired to maintain, clean and run their homes. The rankings observed by Regency Era servants could even be said to be stricter than those they worked for.

Household Staff Hierarchy

Generally, servants fell into two broad categories: upper servants and lower servants. The more responsibilities overseen and the closer the servant worked with the master or mistress of the household, the higher their standing. Typically, in most fiction, we see a butler and a housekeeper as the heads of the male and female staff in a household. A steward would work more closely with the master of the house and, in the master’s absence, perform day to day tasks in his stead. Therefore, butlers deferred to stewards.

Likewise, butlers and housekeepers kept an eye on their staff and required employees mind the proprieties much more closely than their employers. In fiction, we often see servants who have served the household since the main character’s childhood. This was more an exception than the norm. Turn over for most household positions averaged every two or three years, and even more frequently for lower staff.

Prominence of the person served was far more important than length of service to the family. Servants of equal job title under the same roof were ranked by the standing, in the family line as well as society, of whom they served. A death in the family caused upheavals as servants’ ranks reshuffled, especially when the heir assumed the title.

This strict adherence to precedence even dictated who ate first. The upper servants dined apart from and before the lower servants. This stratification of rank also extended to the servants of visitors.

The Upper Regency Era Servants

Steward

In large households, the master and mistress of the house did not directly supervise the help. Gentlemen of great wealth and importance often had a steward, a sort of personal assistant, whose duties included management of the domestic staff. Beneath the steward, or at the top of the hierarchy in large households that did not employ a steward, came the butler and housekeeper. Jane Austen’s World has a great post describing the hiring of Regency Era servants.

Butler

The butler was the head of the male servants. He was in charge of the wine cellar and the household’s silver and china. The butler also dealt with visitors and so had to be aware of social distinctions and proper etiquette. Unlike lower servants, the butler was always called by his surname.

Housekeeper

The housekeeper supervised the female staff. She kept the household accounts, managed the linens and carried a large keyring with all the household keys on it. She also prepared coffee, tea, and preserves. Even if she was unmarried, everyone called her “Mrs.” as a sign of respect.

Lady’s Maids

A very desirable position, the lady’s maid served the lady or ladies of the house directly and were not under the housekeeper’s control. A lady’s maid styled hair, helped her mistress dress and undress and maintained her wardrobe. She might also read aloud or massage her mistress’s temples when she had a headache. A lady’s maid was expected to be pretty and personable, and preferably French. With the Napoleonic Wars, few suitable French girls were available. Thus, some ladies of fashion employed English maids and simply called them by French names.

Valets

A gentleman’s valet acted as the gentleman of the house’s personal barber, assisted him to dress and undress, and maintained his wardrobe. A common alternative term for a valet is a gentleman’s gentleman. In England, the word valet rhymes with the word, “ballot”.

Cooks and Chefs

Ladies of the Regency Era did not cook for their own families. The cook (or male chef in a great house) was usually employed directly by the master or mistress of the house. They often received a higher salary than the steward and as such regarded as separate from the rest of the domestic staff.

The Lower Regency Era Servants

Footmen

Footmen announced visitors, served at meals, and attended the family when they went out (often to carry packages while shopping on Bond Street in much fiction). As their duties also included elements of the bodyguard or bouncer, footmen tended to be tall and imposing. Since they dealt with visitors, employers also preferred footmen to be good-looking.

Chamber Maids or House Maids

The duties of other maids were considerably more taxing. Housemaids were the standard kind of maid. They were responsible for carrying coal, lighting the fires, heating water for washing and bathing and carrying it upstairs to the bedrooms. The also cleaned chamber pots, changed bed linens, drew the curtains, and scrubbed the floors.

Large households divided the housemaids into upper and lower maids. The upper housemaids performed the duties that required direct interaction with the family and visitors. Like footmen, they were therefore expected to be more presentable in terms of appearance and manners. They might also be in charge of decorating. Lower housemaids were responsible for heavier and dirtier work.

Kitchen Maids

Kitchen maids, in turn, served the Cook or chef. The kitchen maids lit the stoves and helped with meal preparation. Clean up fell to the scullery maids.

Scullery Maids and Laundry Maids

Considered the lowest in the hierarchy, scullery maid and laundry maids did the most difficult and painful work. The only cleansing agents at the time were harsh abrasives like sand and lye. With lavish multi-course dinner parties all the fashion during the Regency, scullery maids often worked long hours cleaning the hundreds of dirty dishes generated during such an affair.

Maid Of All Work

In less wealthy households, a single woman, a maid-of-all-work, might perform all of the above tasks. Her workdays might last from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., for about two shillings per week. These maids were not merely the hardest working; they were also the most common. By Victorian times, three-fifths of all maids were maids-of-all-work.

Specialty Maids

Some households employed specialty maids for specific tasks. Dairymaids or milkmaids milked cows and churned butter on country estates. Nursemaids cared for small children. Nursemaids were usually under twenty years of age and were the only female servants who spent much time out of the house, as they took the children for daily walks, which made them very popular with young soldiers.

Outdoor Staff

These jobs would have included the coachmen, who both cared for and drove the coaches, and grooms for the horses. There was often a gardener, with assistants beneath him for homes with extensive grounds. Country estates often employed a gamekeeper to breed and feed game. The gamekeeper’s remote cottage often serves as an oh-so-convenient haven for the hero and heroine when caught out during storms.

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