Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [90]
Naturally, Mrs Beeton stressed the key importance of hygiene and cleanliness in this process. The dairy, which, as in the previous century, was often ornamental because it was visited by the mistress and her guests, had to be sited to remain cool, requiring shelter and shade. Its walls should be thick and covered in glazed tiles, and deep slate shelves should be fitted for the milk dishes.
For the essential butter-making process, milk was first strained through a hair sieve (usually made of horsehair and designed to remove any cow hairs). This was left for a day, maybe more, then skimmed with a ‘slicer’ and poured into earthenware jars for churning, which was usually done two or three times a week, preferably in the morning: ‘the dairy maid will find it advantageous in being at work on churning mornings by five o’clock’.
Butter was produced by literally turning the jars for at least twenty to thirty minutes, although this took much longer in winter. When the butter formed, it was put into a wooden bowl with clean spring water and then washed and kneaded, and any excess liquid poured off. At the end of the process, the dairymaid must ‘scald with boiling water and scrub out every utensil she has used; brush out the churn, clean out the cream-jars, which will probably require the use of a little common soda to purify; wipe all dry, and place them in a position where the sun can catch them for a short time to sweeten them’.94
The male side of the nineteenth-century household was equally stratified and calibrated. As in the eighteenth century, at the head of the male staff of the grandest establishments was the house steward who, according to the Adamses, was the ‘most important officer’ although he featured only in the households of ‘noblemen or gentlemen of great fortunes’. Elsewhere, the most senior staff member would be the housekeeper.95 A land steward, or agent, would manage the estates, probably with a bailiff to run the home farm.
The house steward’s chief duties were ‘to hire, manage and direct, and discharge every servant of every denomination’. He must also manage the household accounts, paying all the bills and all the servants’ wages. When the household was on the move, he was further responsible for planning and arranging the packing up of the house, especially the valuables, and for transporting goods and people between houses, or between the country house and the London house.96 The steward (or the butler if there was no steward) was usually charged with overall security, such as locking up windows at night.
He usually had a junior servant reporting to him, known as ‘the steward’s room boy’. (This individual might also be known as the steward’s room footman, hall boy or foot boy, although sometimes all these titles were used.) He would run messages; wait at table in the steward’s room; maintain the below stairs’ lamps; and clean the servants’ boots and shoes.97
The steward’s job must have been the goal of all ambitious men-servants; indeed, they were trained to look upon it as such. As Mrs Beeton observed, ‘they are initiated step by step into the mysteries of the household, with the prospect of rising in the service, if it is a house admitting of promotion – to the respectable position of butler or house-steward’.98
The steward often acted as something of a companion to the family and head of household.99 One steward cum secretary seems to have been partly recruited to his role at Burton Constable Hall in Yorkshire on the strength of his musical abilities. Stephen Octavius Jay was a gifted musician and had trained at the Royal Academy of Music. He was described in the will of his master,