Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [45]
‘Dairy-Maids in great Houses’ were exhorted to scald their vessels well and milk ‘your Cattel in due times’. They must also see that ‘Hogs have the whey, and that it be not given away to idle or gossiping people, who live merely upon what they can get from Servants.’ If pigs or chicken are in their care, they must ‘look to them that it may be your credit and not your shame when they come to the Table’.107 Laundrymaids in great houses were advised that their duty ‘will be to take care of the Linnen in the house, except Points and Laces; whatever you wash, do it up quickly, that it may not stink and grow yellow, and be forced to the washing again before it be used’.108
Housemaids were not left in ignorance of their duty either: ‘Your principal Office is to make clean the greatest part of the house; and so that you suffer no room to lie foul; that you look well to all the stuff, and see that they be often brushed, and all the Beds frequently turned.’ At this point the housemaid is expected to ‘be careful for, and diligent to all Strangers, and see that they lack nothing in their Chambers, which your Mistress or Lady will allow; and that your Close-stools and Chamber-pots be duly emptied and kept clean’. A housemaid might also be expected to assist in the laundry on a washing day and to help the housekeeper or waiting woman ‘in their Preserving and Distilling’.109
The lowest in the ranks of female servants was the scullery-maid, who had some of the hardest work of all: ‘There are several Rooms that you must keep sweet and clean, as the Kitchen, Pantry, Wash-house, &c. That you wash and scowre all the Plates and Dishes which are used in the Kitchen, also Kettles, Pots, Pans, Chamber-pots, with all other Iron, Brass, and Pewter materials that belong to the Chambers or Kitchen; and lastly you must wash your own linnen.’ This could still serve as the job description of a scullery-maid until the early twentieth century, when advances in technology could take over some of its most physically demanding aspects.110
In The Gentlewomans Companion (1675), the emphasis is also laid on good management of servants and the mistress of the house is urged to keep good hours for her repose, ‘that your servants may be the better disposed for the next day’s labour’. And later she is told: ‘rather be silent if you cannot speak good.’111
Also, mistresses are exhorted to give ‘kind acknowledgment’ of servants’ loyalty, and to ‘Be not too passionate with your servants.’ It was the mistress’s responsibility to oversee and set the standard for good time-keeping for her servants, and also to be generous with them, but not to a superfluity: ‘as that may entertain a sort [set?] of loose Gossips in corners, the very bane and spoil of servants.’112
Some men were suspicious of female power in the household, as can be seen from Advice to His Son, written by Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, and published in 1609: ‘Grip into your hands what power soever you will of government, yet will there be certain persons about your wife that you will never reduce – an usher, her tailor, and her women.’ According to the earl, they ‘will ever talk and ever be unreasonable; all which your [household] officers will rather endeavour to please then [i.e. than] your self . . . In a house thus governed, factions will be rife, as well amongst your own servants as amongst your friends and hers; for her friends will ever be the welcomest and best used, the train of women friends being ever the longest and most troublesome.’113
Some adults wanted to separate their children from the influence of servants of either sex. The Duchess of Newcastle (d. 1673) recorded how her parents tried to keep her away from the domestic