Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [48]
On the other hand, his contemporary Sir Roger North thought that the back entrance should be used by the master of the house so that he could superintend his servants at work and talk to them privately, out of earshot of any honoured guests:130 ‘It is no unseemly object to an English gentleman to se[e] his servants and business passing at ordinary times.’131 Pratt recommended a separate servants’ hall in 1660, and North did the same. North argued for a separate servants’ hall which was not too close to the parlour, because of possible noise, but not too distant: ‘that the servants may be in awe’. The upper servants he thought should have a part screened off, ‘for quality (forsooth) must be distinguisht.’132
We have reached an age when the well-dressed and well-mannered attendant–companion has been passed over in favour of the dedicated domestic servant, and when the privacy of the aristocratic family has taken on a new importance. But we should not forget that many landed families maintained their ancient traditions with some pride, responding to these new attitudes with only modest alterations. One such was Tichborne House in Hampshire, whose whole household is recorded in the 1671 painting by Gillis van Tilborch of the annual dole ceremony there, presided over by Sir Henry Tichborne, 3rd Baronet, lieutenant of the New Forest and the Royal Ordnance.133 This ritual distribution of bread to the poor continues today.
In an unusual but moving display, which has its origins in the medieval household, the immediate blood family and all the domestic servants are depicted, with many older and trusted figures shown close to the head of the household. Behind Sir Henry stands the family nurse, Constantia Atkins, while behind Lady Tichborne stands Mrs Chitty, her maid, Mrs Robinson, the housekeeper, and his Roman Catholic house chaplain, Father Robert Hill.
The local people and those about to receive the dole are to the right while the full household is shown on the left of the painting, with the lowly women servants, presumably the laundresses and kitchenmaids, back from the main group near the house. Footmen in typically distinctive, seventeenth-century livery carry the baskets of loaves to be given to the poor on Lady Day or 25 March. The men-servants here, whose more public role is clearly evident, still outnumber the women servants but the women are better represented than they would have been in the previous century.
The painting is a truly remarkable image of a country house and all who lived and worked in it, as if it was a whole community on parade. It is also an important record of the dress of the seventeenth-century servant, demonstrating the social hierarchies of a wealthy gentry household.
In contrast, the simple human experience of service, and the desire for human companionship in the workplace, are expressed in a rare letter dated 1664 in which a servant, Jane Greethurst, laments the departure of the friend and fellow servant with whom she used to share her bed: ‘I have been soe much alone since I lost your good company which have troubled me very much; I have never laught when I was in Bed since you went away ffor I have noe body to spake to, nor was I warme in my Bed till I put on my Stockings.’134
3
The Household in the Age of Conspicuous
Consumption
The Eighteenth Century
HOW GRAND TO be so grand. When we visit an eighteenth-century country house today, such as Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, or Holkham Hall in Norfolk, despite their daunting scale and obvious grandeur we cannot help feeling that such places are the product of a more rational age. This is often reflected not only in the grandest elements of design but also in the careful arrangement of the kitchen wings and related offices – the usual term given to the domestic-service