Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [126]
As with many new country houses built in the early twentieth century, as well as those owned by richer or more enthusiastically forward-looking individuals, there was a dedicated electrical plant. This was staffed by six engineers (for the house and the plant itself) and four firemen (who worked on the electrical plant and the steam-heating plant). There was also a telephone clerk and assistant, a telegrapher, and three nightwatchmen. In the early 1900s, the horse and car continued to co-exist uneasily. There was still a head coachman, a second coachman and ten grooms (including an assistant coachman) as well as twenty strappers and helpers. The garage had a head chauffeur, fifteen ordinary chauffeurs, two washers and, remarkably, fifteen footmen (two of whom were to be on the box at all times).
The estate management fell to an estate manager and the duke’s secretary. Spiritual and cultural concerns were the province of a resident chaplain and organist, a librarian (for the famous Titchfield library), a library clerk, and dedicated housemaids just for dusting the books. In the racing stable, the stud groom could command fifteen assistants. Six ‘house’ gardeners looked after the indoor plants, whilst the gardens were cared for by between thirty and forty gardeners, plus forty to fifty roadmen. The home farm was supervised by a head farmer, assisted by between fifteen and twenty men. This was not the end of it: Welbeck had its own fire station, staffed by a chief and six helpers; a gymnasium with a Japanese trainer; a golf course with a head greensman and ten helpers; a laundry, managed by a head laundress and twelve laundresses, plus a staff of three window cleaners.23 The massive size of the household gives some credence to the story that a guest who once arrived at Welbeck Abbey was picked up in a in retreat from a golden age taxi, rather than a staff car, which he thought rather strange. Later, however, it was explained that he had arrived on the day when the chauffeurs’ XI played the footmen’s XI.24
Former servant Gordon Grimmett catalogued another great household of similar dimensions, at Longleat in Wiltshire, as it was staffed in 1915. There was, he recalled, a steward, an under butler, a groom of the chambers, a valet, three footmen, two odd men, a pantry boy, a steward’s room boy, a hall boy, a lamp boy, a housekeeper, two lady’s maids, eight housemaids, two sewing maids, two still-room maids, six laundrymaids, a cook, two kitchenmaids, a vegetable maid, a scullery-maid, a dairy woman, chauffeurs and grooms (groups who were ‘sworn enemies’), a steel boy (who polished metal) and a ‘tiger’ (a small boy who rode on the coach in livery). The outdoor staff comprised forty gardeners, a home farm staff of around twenty, and a maintenance team including carpenter, bricklayer and painter.25
In 1902, the Earl Fitzwilliam at Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire employed sixty-three indoor servants, and for his funeral that same year twenty-two lady’s maids and valets, accompanying visiting mourners, also stayed in the house. The garden, stables, park, and home farm were cared for by more than three hundred staff. The house, which had not been much modernised by that date, had five miles of corridors, along which fuel for light and heating had to be carried by hand.26
Of the great country houses operating at this level, Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire is memorable especially for the large numbers of gardeners in the early twentieth century, working on what was already one of the greatest and best-staffed gardens of the time. In 1898, after the death of Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, Waddesdon was inherited by his sister, Alice de Rothschild. She set herself the task of preserving the house, collections and standards of hospitality set by her brother,