Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [106]
Of the footmen, he recalled that there were three:
first second and third. The under butler he was of course also footman. Only he had more special duties. He was responsible for keeping all dinner silver in order, laying the dinner table. See that all plates, hot and cold were ready for use . . . When there was big dinner on, Mr Ball, the groom [of the] chamber, three footmen and under butler, John Kerins and I waited. I was the only one not in full dress. The full dress livery had dark blue coat, red vest, red plush breeches, white stockings, shoes with buckles. The footmen wore white thick cotton gloves at all times for dinner.48
With a sense of awe, Mr Kilgallon summoned up the vision of a grand party at the house that took place years earlier: ‘Lissadell house on the night of a ball, when fully lit up; to me it looked like what a fairyland would be like in my imagination at the time, with all the different coloured dresses of the ladies flitting about [and] the great number of footmen in their red plush breeches and vest.’49
His recollection of the maids in his early days suggests a certain sympathy. ‘There were three housemaids and help. Their work was hard. They had to be up at 4 am. There was no hot or cold water laid on. They had to carry all upstairs. Heavy work emptying baths. A great many fires in bedrooms.’50
The kitchen staff was, as you would expect, ‘cook, pastry cook, kitchen maid scullery maid and help when required. Kitchen boys whose duties were to light all fires, clean out ashes, scour all coppers, all cooking was done in coppers. Look after two boilers one in the top scullery and one in the bottom scullery. From these boilers [came] all hot water for baths, washing up etc.’51
Typically for a larger country house in the nineteenth century, there was a foreign male chef. ‘The cook was a Frenchman called Friburg. He was fond of whiskey, and engaged George Griggs’s horse and cart to take him to Sligo one or two days a week . . . they sat in a public house in Sligo till it was time for Friburg to think about dinner. There was such a great number of servants in the house and stables and guests and callers, it took a great quantity of meat to supply all. It was more like a hotel.’52
Typically, the ritual of aristocratic life was reflected in the hierarchical arrangements below stairs, particularly for servants’ own dining arrangements, which were even more archaic than the fashions in gentry dining at the time. ‘All the servants did not sit together for all their meals, only for the principal meal, dinner.’ As often happened, the house steward took the head of the table, the under butler the other end,
as there was always two joints, one at each end . . . All the women sat on one side of the table. The men the other. The housekeeper sat on the left of the steward. The maids according to their rank next to her . . . The house steward said grace and when all room servants had finished their meat, the others laid down their knives and forks, and the steward said grace. The housekeeper rising, the lady’s maid following, the steward taking up the rear, went to the steward’s room for the next course, the under servants did not always get a second course . . . Steward room servants had the same food that was served in the dining room.53
They were served at table by the steward’s room boy, dressed in livery.
As suggested by many other accounts, most discipline was meted out by the higher servants: ‘If you did not carry out the rules, your time would not be a pleasant one, steward and housekeeper would make it very uncomfortable for you.’ But there could be compensations: ‘At night there was whiskey and wines served. Usually, there was a small dance