Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [88]
In larger households there would be a head housemaid, and perhaps several other housemaids, between four and seven, who would divide the duties between them.76 A typical day for the servant with the most hands-on, even ‘front-line’ role in cleaning and warming the principal rooms would, as their outline makes clear, start early. The housemaid would rise around five o’clock, open the shutters of the usual family sitting rooms, and clear away ‘all the superfluous articles that may have been left there’. She would then clean out and re-lay the fires, as well as brush, black and polish the fireplaces. ‘By this time the footman will have done all his work in the pantry, and have rubbed all the tables, chairs, cellerets, and other mahogany furniture, and cleaned the brass and other ornaments, the mirrors, looking glasses, &c., in these rooms.’ The housemaid would then clean the carpets (strewing them weekly with damp tea leaves to remove dust). Once the reception rooms were done, she should move on to the dining room ‘till all is made quite clean, and the rooms are fit for the reception of the family’.77
Then, according to the Adamses, ‘she repairs to the dressing-rooms of the master and mistresses, and others in use, empties the slops, replenishes the ewers and water-carofts [carafes] with fresh spring and soft water, and fills the kettles for warm water, cleans up the fire-places, lights the fire and cleans the rooms’, and then makes way for the lady’s maid or the valet to make their arrangements previous to the rising of their superiors. Emptying the slops did not involve carrying chamberpots long distances; instead they would be emptied into pails and cleaned on the spot, or nearby, with fresh water.78
After completing this essential task, ‘she sweeps down the principal stair-case and goes down to her breakfast.’ Then she returns to the bedrooms, airs the rooms, cleans fireplaces and relays the fires, changes her apron and with the under housemaid, makes the beds. In the afternoon, the dressing rooms had to be prepared again for the ladies and gentlemen to dress for dinner. Finally, ‘while the family is at dinner, the dressing-rooms must be again prepared; and in the evening the shutters of the bed-rooms and dressing-rooms must be fastened – the curtains let down – the beds turned down – the fires lighted, and the rooms put into proper condition for the night.’79 As if all this were not enough, senior housemaids might be called on to attend visiting ladies staying at the house without having brought their own lady’s maid with them.80
In 1838, Thomas Creevey recorded with pleasure his stay at Holkham Hall: ‘I live mostly in my charming bedroom on the ground floor . . . A maid lights my fire at seven punctually, and my water is in my room at eight.’ The maid called again almost hourly to check that his fire was well stoked.81
In some households, housemaids were under instructions to remain completely out of sight of family and guests. In Memories of Ninety Years (1924), Mrs Edward Ward, the artist, recollected her stay with the 3rd Lord Crewe, during which she never saw a housemaid except in chapel, ‘when a great number would muster, only to disappear mysteriously directly the service was ended’. One morning when needing help from a housemaid, she glimpsed one in the corridor and gave chase, but to no avail. She mentioned this to the housekeeper, who told her that Lord Crewe had given specific orders: ‘None of the servants are allowed to be seen by visitors; if they break the rules they are dismissed. Lord Crewe hates women and thinks all his guests must detest them too.’82
Housemaids were often subjected to strict conditions of employment. The Countess of Fingall’s lady’s maid, Miss Devereux, recalled that the housemaids at Mount Stewart, the Marquess of Londonderry’s house, were ‘kept somewhat like novices in a convent! They were not allowed to go out alone, and every Sunday evening they must put on their bonnets and go to Service in the Chapel.’83
In his memoirs, William Lanceley,