The Victorian Domestic Servant by Trevor May: A Review

This book from Shire Classics describes the 19th-Century servant class in Great Britain in satisfying detail. Combined with another book I purchased at the National Portrait Gallery of portraits taken of the servant class, my DVDs of Gosford Park and Upstairs/Downstairs, and my recent viewing of Edwardian House and Regency House, I think that I [...]

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Regency Servants: Maid of All Work

The general servant, or maid-of-all-work, is perhaps the only one of her class deserving of commiseration: her life is a solitary one, and in, some places, her work is never done. She is also subject to rougher treatment than either the house or kitchen-maid – Mrs. Isabella Beeton Gracie, the maid of all work in [...]

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Hiring Servants in the Regency Era and Later

Servants found jobs in the Regency Period through word of mouth, registry offices, and references.

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Regency Life: Finding a Job as a Servant

Register Office for the Hiring of Servants, Thomas Rowlandson, c. 1800-05 Contrary to the image of a faithful servant who spends the better part of his life in service to his master, the domestic trade was in reality a transitory one. Servants could be hired and asked to start within a day. They could also [...]

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Footmen in Jane Austen Movie Adaptations

“Marianne’s [letter] was finished in a very few minutes; in length it could be no more than a note; it was then folded up, sealed, and directed with eager rapidity. Elinor thought she could distinguish a large W in the direction; and no sooner was it complete than Marianne, ringing the bell, requested the footman [...]

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Footmen: Male Servants in The Regency Era

In romance novels footmen are depicted as tall, dark, and handsome men in fancy livery, preferably matched in height. Surprisingly, this description of these statuesque men, who were as much a status symbol as servant, is true. According to Daniel Pool in What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, footmen wore: “livery,” or household [...]

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Interesting Fact: Caloric Requirements of a Seamstress, Servant, and Washer Woman

Found on the Soil and Health Library website: The estimated calorie requirements of a resting man weighing 160 lbs., is 2200 calories. Sleeping twenty-four hours, this man would expend only 1680 calories. The calorie requirements of woman are estimated to be much lower–a seamstress requiring 1800 calories a servant 2800 calories and a wash-woman 3200 [...]

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The Dairy Maid and the Master of Uppark

During Jane Austen’s time, the British adhered to a strict class system, but every once in a while (and much like a fantastic plot in a romance novel), a titled gentleman would marry a servant. According to the National Trust, Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh… lived a prodigal life at Uppark entertaining lavishly and included the Prince [...]

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Every Day Chores of Laundry and Scullery Maids, and Washer Women

In reading Undressing Mr. Darcy, this phrase leaped off my computer screen: Another of Beau Brummel’s innovations was the semi-starched cravat: a neck cloth folded and arranged exquisitely carefully beneath chin and shirt front. It is reported washerwoman fainted when he introduced this. And no wonder, on top of everything they had to wash, iron, [...]

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The Scullery

In November, I wrote about the scullery maid, a young girl or woman who occupied the lowest rung of the servant class. Her domain, when she was not hauling wood or water up steep stairs, was the scullery, where she labored from dawn until dusk. The scullery, a room adjacent to the kitchen and with [...]

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