Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [42]
There appear to have been only seven or eight women in the household, reporting to the housekeeper, Ann Upton, who certainly came under the steward, but was clearly an important figure. In the sixteenth century her duties would have been the responsibility of men but by the end of the seventeenth century the female housekeeper, almost as a proxy for the lady of the household, is well established pivotal in the administration of a country house. Even so, none of the women under Ann Upton worked in the kitchen.82
That was still run by a man, the clerk of the kitchen, who was responsible for the supplies of butcher’s meat, game, fruit and vegetables and dairy produce, purchases that were recorded in a kitchen book that was signed weekly by the earl; the steward would be advanced money each week for the following week’s purchase. There appears to have been no home farm and the only major source of meat from the earl’s own demesne was his deer park, whilst most of the fish consumed came from the Woburn ponds.
What is surprising is that the more frugal earl’s household of the early Commonwealth era of the 1650s, which then numbered only about fifty, became larger and more splendid from 1658 onwards, with relatives visiting the abbey for prolonged periods, often with their own retinues of staff, with the result that annual household expenditure in the 1660s averaged £900–£1,000.83
Below the clerk of the kitchen came the cook, who was in turn supported by various boy scullions and turnspits. There were also porters and nightwatchmen, paid between £3 and £4 a year; in the records for 1684, ‘to John Bradnock, being his lordship’s gift yearly to see all candles out every night £2 And to him for killing rats and mice, etc £1.’ The porters received livery uniforms, whilst the nightwatchmen did not, but, like the women in the household, they seem to have been made gifts of new clothes from time to time.
With certain exceptions, the staff at Woburn Abbey were also the staff for Bedford House in London, and they moved back and forth with the family. In the London house the only permanent employees appear to have been a housekeeper, a nightwatchman and a gardener.84 The whole household continued to migrate to London once a year, but after 1660 the annual pilgrimage was larger in terms of numbers and lasted for a much longer period.85
The wages of servants in gentry houses appear to have increased somewhat after the Restoration, but still varied considerably. An estate steward who had considerable economic responsibilities in managing the estate would earn the most, £40 or more, whilst in the years between 1660 and 1700 a cook could earn between £4 and £25, a butler from £3 to £10, a gardener anything from £4 to £20, and a coachman between £3 and £10. Of female servants, a housekeeper could earn £6 to £10 and a cook-maid £3 to £9.86 In July 1699, Alexander Popham of Littlecote in Wiltshire was prepared to pay an exorbitant £40 a year for a new cook to come down from London.87
It is interesting to note that whilst stewards were powerful figures (sometimes minor landowners or clerics) who effectively had overall control of their masters’ property, they might be required to undertake surprisingly menial tasks. Lord Cholmondley’s chief steward William Adams received a request in May 1690 to order a housemaid ‘to brush my lord’s embroidered waistcoat that is in your custody and take care that the worms doth not get into it’.88
Servants expected to have their income topped up with tips or ‘vails’. Sir John Pelham, in 1658, recorded his tips to servants at the houses he