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the needs of the kitchen, identifying what provisions were needed and ordering them, as well as drawing up menus, setting times of meals and supervising service. Thus many of the lower servants came under his control. The instructions drawn up by the 2nd Earl of Nottingham, for his clerk of kitchens at Burley on the Hill, indicate that he not only kept the keys for important provisions, but was also the primary timekeeper. He was charged to ‘Fail not to have the dinner ready by 12 of the clock and let the bell then be rung and dinner served up, likewise supper at 7.’ At Burley he was also expected to be present at service: ‘You must wait at the lower end of the Parlour table that you may be in My Lady’s eye and be directed when to go for the second course.’37

With the arrival of more specialist foreign chefs (especially French ones) and confectioners, over the century the clerk of the kitchen’s role diminished, some of his responsibilities passing to the female housekeeper. It was a position that by 1770 seems to have largely disappeared or at least become one with the role of the male cook, as suggested by wages lists such as that for Arundel Castle, with its ‘cook & clark to the kitchen’.38

Much was expected of such a person. In 1769, Bernard Clermont wrote in The Professed Cook that a cook ‘should be a man of thorough knowledge in his profession, capable of forming a bill of fare, and dressing it when approved of. He should be well versed in what is a sufficiency for the support of the family which he is to provide for, be they more or less in number.’39

French chefs were popular. In the 1720s the Earl of Leicester recruited his cook, Monsieur Norreaux, directly from Paris and paid him 60 guineas per annum, together with a French under-cook, Jean-Baptiste. English male cooks might find opportunities for acquiring continental culinary arts, as did William Verral, who learnt them from the French cook of the Duke of Newcastle early in the eighteenth century. The male cook was often the highest-paid servant after the steward.40

The Duc de La Rochefoucauld wrote in the 1780s: ‘English cooks are not very clever folk, and even in the best houses one fares very ill. The height of luxury is to have a Frenchman, but few people can afford the expense.’41 On the other hand, French cooks were thought to have ideas above their station. In the London Magazine of 1779, James Boswell wrote that ‘A French cook’s notion of his own consequence is prodigious,’ and went on to recount the story told him by the British ambassador to Spain, Sir Benjamin Keen. When interviewing French cooks to work for him, Keen asked one whether he had ever cooked any magnificent dishes. The reply came: ‘Monsieur, j’ai accommodé un dîner qui faisait trembler toute la France.’42

The number of French chefs increased in the final years of the eighteenth century when the French Revolution drove many across the Channel to Britain. Famously Mr Ude, former cook to Louis XVI, was hired by the Earl of Sefton with the huge annual salary of 300 guineas. In his book he argued that a cook of his fame should never be regarded merely as a servant.43

By the beginning of the nineteenth century there could well have been between 400 and 500 great families employing a French or foreign chef who would travel back and forth from London to the country alongside the family.44 It is worth noting that in the course of the eighteenth century, the time of the main meal of the day shifted from lunchtime to the evening. In the early eighteenth century, the essayist Richard Steele wrote: ‘In my memory the dinner hour has crept from 12 o’clock to 3.’ By 1800, dinner was usually served anywhere between five and seven.45

The valet de chambre or valet, reporting to the steward, was a key senior male servant whose chief responsibility was the appearance, dress and presentation of his master. As with John Macdonald, a valet would also need to be an accomplished barber. He would be in continual attendance on his master, accompanying him on all his travels, reflecting glory and