AGM & Talk – TO SERVE THEM ALL OUR DAYS.

After our AGM our popular speaker Brian Jones talked to us about the working lives of servants, domestic & otherwise.
The employment of servants appears in all census from farm workers, grooms, gardeners & indoor cooks, maids, dressers, butlers, boot boys & general skivvies.
Their work covered 24 hours seven days a week with perhaps a half day off a week.
Family members often filled these posts & we saw that a daughter could be sent to a relative as a maid or nanny. References were always required so it is supposed that relatives could be trusted. Going into service was legally binding for at least a year.
Men & women, boys & girls would also go to Mop Fairs to make themselves available for hiring.
According to census the number of servants increased over the years until the wars, when men went to fight & women filled in the men’s jobs in factories etc, which the women liked as the hours although long were regular & they had more time off with better pay than when in service. This led to a shortage of domestic staff to the extent that people moved into smaller more easily run houses which needed fewer servants & we were shown examples of how one servant’s day was planned to cover all house hold duties plus that of the cook & laundress (thought – surely this is today’s working housewife!)
When the men returned from war they needed the employment, which left the women not wanting to go back to domestic service. Many decided to set up their own little businesses, such as door step cleaners, laundresses & the sort of jobs that the hard pressed domestic servant did not have time for- or would not do! As this type of service was cheaper than employing more full time staff the household would employ these ‘specialist workers’ & as a consequence these women flourished.
Some employers did value their servants & we were shown a Will in which a gentleman is supposed to have left everything he owned to his servants, each to receive what the servant had worked with as part of his job, eg. the cook got all the pots & pans etc. the groom, the horses & tack, the gardener, his tools & vegetables in the garden etc.
We also heard that at one time butlers were paid according to their height & we saw a picture of three tall upstanding butlers & what each was paid annually. A tall dignified butler apparently enhanced the employer’s standing in society!
Brian gave us a very interesting talk & he answered questions whilst we enjoyed our refreshments.
[Barbara Holmes]