Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [56]
many of our acquaintances seem absolutely incapable of motion, till they have been wound up by their valets. They have no more use of their hands for any office about their own persons, than if they were paralytic. At night they must wait for their servants, before they can undress themselves, and go to bed: In the morning, if the valet happens to be out of the way, the master must remain helpless and sprawling in bed, like a turtle on its back upon the kitchen table of an alderman.46
Not a liveried servant, the valet would normally be dressed in the manner of a gentleman, with appropriate manners and deportment. Anthony Heasel in the Servants’ Book of Knowledge (1733) observed that ‘A valet must be master of every sort of politeness, to which he must take care to accustom himself without stiffness or affectation.’ Valets were also usually expected to speak some French.47
The butler, who had been a relatively minor figure up until the seventeenth century, becomes a grander fixture in the household of the eighteenth. In the wealthier establishment a butler reported to a steward, managed the footmen and supervised the waiting at table. As well as having control of the wine cellar, the butler usually had the immediate care of the plate (that is, silver) and fine glass, overseeing the cleaning, storage and security of these valuable items in his headquarters, or butler’s pantry. In the Servants’ Book of Knowledge Anthony Heasel warns butlers: ‘As all the plate will be committed to your care, never suffer strangers to come into the place where it is kept; nor let the place be ever left open.’48
A butler in a more modest-sized country house must have a wide variety of talents. One advertisement for a post in Suffolk in 1775 sought ‘a Butler that can shoot and shave well’.49 In 1797, Sir William Heathcote of Hursley indicated that his butler ‘Must understand Brewing & Management of the Cellar, Clean his own plate, and do all his own work, as no under Butler will be kept.’ Also, ‘he Must see all the Family [the servants] go to bed before him, & see every door and window Made fast & secure.’ He was expected to answer bells at any time during the day.50
The regulations of the household at Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire, in the same decade, describe the roles of steward and butler combined in one man:
The House Steward & Butler is ordered to see weighed, & enter in a book every morning all descriptions of provisions that are brought to the house; and all persons whatsoever, bringing meat fowls of all sorts, Game, Fish, eggs for Kitchen use . . . are to make the same known to the House Steward & Butler, that he may make his entries. In like manner, coals, Oils & Wax candles are to duly entered into his book, on the day of their arrival.51
There are phrases in Anthony Heasel’s book of advice to servants that are direct echoes of the treatise by John Russell, writing of the medieval household: ‘Take great care of your wine and other liquors, not only to keep them in good order, but likewise to prevent their being embezzled, or given away to any person besides those who have a right to them according to your instructions.’52
In medieval times the groom of the chambers was a young male assistant to the chamberlain. By the eighteenth century this ancient title had come to apply to a senior manservant, who dined with other senior servants such as the head cook and butler but, unlike them, wore livery. His principal duties were apparently to oversee the presentation and cleaning of the main reception rooms. Among other things, he had to ensure that the ornate furniture was returned to its proper place after it had been used by visitors and that tables were in order. He literally dressed the rooms.
The 2nd Earl of Nottingham at Burley had a long list of the duties of his groom of the chambers that began with: ‘You must be careful of the furniture, brushing and cleaning every morning that w[hi]ch is [in]