Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [95]
After his early cleaning duties, ‘the attendance of the footman will now be required in the breakfast parlour, for which purpose, he must prepare by washing himself, and throwing off his working dress’. Wearing his livery, he set out the table, waited at breakfast and tidied up afterwards. ‘The footman now carries such messages and cards as he is charged to deliver.’ He was responsible for laying the cloth for dinner, and placing the knives, forks and glasses, while the butler arranged the silver plate and saw that the whole was done correctly.134
The Adamses described the service current in the 1820s (à la Russe), in which the roles of footman and butler must blend seamlessly: ‘when the butler takes the first dish, and [he] is followed by the under butler and footman with the remainder of the fish and soups, which the butler places on the table, and removing the covers, gives them to the footman and under butler, who convey them out of the room.’ The servants ‘then take their respective stations, the butler at the side-board, to serve the wines or beer when called for; the footman at the back of his master’s chair, and the lady’s footman, if any, behind his lady.’135
After the soup and fish have been consumed, the next course, generally ‘solid joints of meat’, was served, the plates and dishes of the previous courses being removed by the butler and carried away by the footmen. After the meat had been removed, a third course (usually pastry, pies, tarts with cheese and salads) followed. The groom of the chambers or the footmen then prepared the drawing room, ensuring ‘that lamps and candles are lighted, and the card tables set out’ and that the chairs and sofas are ‘properly arranged’. The butler and footmen finally repaired to the butler’s pantry where the footmen washed and wiped the glasses, with the under butler cleaning the plate. The footman would also carry the coffee into the drawing room, plus additional trays of toast and muffins.136
When with the coach, ‘the footman should be dressed in his best livery, his shoes and stockings being very clean, and his hat, great coat, &c. being well brushed’. He would assist the family to enter or descend from the carriage. He was also required to accompany the ladies of the family on their walks, when ‘he should preserve a modest demeanour, and protect [them], if necessary, from intrusion or insult’.137
Footmen often travelled with their employers to house parties, which added no small amount of extra luggage to the party. One nineteenth-century footman from Castle Howard in Yorkshire recalled travelling to Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire with two five-foot steel cases to take his suits of full- and half-livery, two leather portmanteaus for smaller liveries, and six hatboxes.138 At Welbeck and at Longleat special rooms were set aside as footmen’s powder rooms, fitted with long looking glasses and washbasins.139
Mrs Beeton suggested that the footman ‘while attentive to all . . . should be obtrusive to none: he should give nothing but on a waiter [tray], and always hand it with the left hand and on the left side of the person he serves, and hold it so the guest may take it with ease . . . After each meal, the footman’s place is in his pantry: here perfect order should prevail – a place for everything and everything in its place.’140
In his diary account of his tour of England made in the 1820s, Prince Pückler-Muskau was not entirely impressed by the arrangements of some country houses: ‘England is the true land of contrasts