Keeping their place

In 1851 there were over a million servants in Britain. This book reveals first-hand tales of put-upon servants, who often had to rise hours before dawn to lay fires, heat water and prepare meals for their employers, and then work into the small hours. For aristocrats, the world of the servant was often a distant realm. The Duke of Bedford, who had 300 servants, thought toothpaste arrived on the toothbrush until his valet was away one day. Yet there are also heartwarming stories of personal devotion, and reward, and of how the servants enjoyed themselves in their time off. At Christmas the Earl of Shrewsbury drew up a long list of presents for his staff, from an umbrella and crocodile bag for the lady's maid to a blanket for a more menial servant. A butler at Stamford in the 1820s recorded dances which a fellow worker's 'fancy woman' attended, and how the morris dancers attempted to steal one of the Hall's horses.

Drawing on letters, diaries, household bills and autobiographies Keeping Their Place provides a vivid insight into the day-by-day lives of country house servants between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries.