Servants: A Downstairs History of Britain from the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times [Hardcover] Author: Lucy Lethbridge | Language: English | ISBN:
0393241092 | Format: PDF, EPUB
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The vividly told lives of British servants and the upper crust they served.
From the immense staff running a lavish Edwardian estate and the lonely maid-of-all-work cooking in a cramped middle-class house to the poor child doing chores in a slightly less poor household, servants were essential to the British way of life. They were hired not only for their skills but also to demonstrate the social standing of their employers—even as they were required to tread softly and blend into the background. More than simply the laboring class serving the upper crust—as popular culture would have us believe—they were a diverse group that shaped and witnessed major changes in the modern home, family, and social order.
Spanning over a hundred years, Lucy Lethbridge?in this "best type of history" (Literary Review)?brings to life through letters and diaries the voices of countless men and women who have been largely ignored by the historical record. She also interviews former and current servants for their recollections of this waning profession.
At the fore are the experiences of young girls who slept in damp corners of basements, kitchen maids who were required to stir eggs until the yolks were perfectly centered, and cleaners who had to scrub floors on their hands and knees despite the wide availability of vacuum cleaners. We also meet a lord who solved his inability to open a window by throwing a brick through it and Winston Churchill’s butler who did not think Churchill would know how to dress on his own.
A compassionate and discerning exploration of the complex relationship between the server, the served, and the world they lived in, Servants opens a window onto British society from the Edwardian period to the present.
17 illustrations
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- Hardcover: 400 pages
- Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (November 18, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0393241092
- ISBN-13: 978-0393241099
- Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
As a fan of PBS Masterpiece Theater British series of “Downton Abbey” and “Upstairs, Downstairs”, (written by the progeny of a maid and a footman), I was intrigued by the title of this 385 pages book.
The book is well organized and flows smoothly, but it is a labored reading; meaning that the density of the material precludes reading through it in one or two sittings, unless of course one was a member of the leisure “upstairs” class without anything else to attend to.
Lethbridge covers about a century of English society, from the late 19th century through the 1960’s. It is a composite of anecdotes, vignettes and tales culled from the letters and diaries of mostly the servant population, contrasted with a few from their employers. The author deftly weaves the stories into a tapestry of an anachronistic life-style, oddly pined for today by some in Britain.
In early 20th century Britain, over one million women worked as servants, in vast country estates, city mansions, coach houses and townhomes. Having servants was a status symbol, even when the employer could not afford it.
Examples of the aristocracy’s dependence on servants to maintain their pompous lifestyle and the “symbolic pantomime” of the domestics, are described throughout in sometimes in humorous but mostly in realistic wretched images.
The Duke of Portland employed 90 in-house servants, at Welbeck, to satisfy his caprices, such as his demand that “a chicken be turning on a spit 24 hours a day, in case he felt peckish.” The ten upper servants who supervised the entire staff had their own under-servants.
The Duke of Bedford expected all his parlourmaids to be 5’10” or taller.
At Belvoir, the Duke of Rutland’s palace, one man was employed to just bang the mealtime gong.
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