The landed aristocrats were VERY slow to give up the expenses of an extensive household staff. We saw that “plot” being used in the final season of Downton Abbey. It is said that the sixth Duke of Portland employed some 300 servants. Even Queen Victoria kept a separate staff of Indian cooks to prepare her daily curry midday meal.
The fourth Earl of Ashburnham recorded these expenses for his household (via the East Sussex Record Office): £769 for wages and house labourers; £300 for beer for the servants’ meals; £138 on liveries and hats.
From Royal Chef by Gabriel Tschumi (1954, William Kimber Publishing) speaks of an additional 24 French chefs being employed for Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee. Forty to fifty servants was the norm for the larger landed estates. Believe it or not, the number of indoor male servants defined a man’s status in the world. This delineation was especially important in the Victorian era. At the beginning of Victoria’s reign, a house steward would earn £70 – 80 (while a good housekeeper might earn only £30 – 40).
Attingham Park attinghamparkmansion. wordpress.com
A tax on male servants was legislated in 1777 to help pay for the cost of fighting the Americans in the Revolutionary War. This practice continued during the long years of the Napoleonic conflict. If there eleven or more male servants in a household, the tax was a little over £7 for each. This tax was gradually reduced to 15 shillings by the end of 1869, but it was not abolished until 1937. Needless to say, this tax was a considerable burden on those who saw the need for male servants in their household.
The same Earl of Ashburnham mentioned above once paid £21 15s 9d male servant tax for a half year (1843). In addition, he was assessed a tax of £11 on his carriages, £1 4s for his armorial bearings, plus a 10% surcharge.
The Footman archive.laoisedcentre.ie
A duty on hair powder (1786 -1869) increased the cost of powdered footmen. The employer also provided the footmen with an allowance of £1 – 2 for the powder. It was common for the footmen to use household flour to save on the costs. Tailored livery for male servants also added to the expense of keeping the servants. Doudneys of Old Bond Street and Burlington Arcade charged 3 guineas for a footman’s livery. Two new suits of clothing were common for each male servant.
The Footman archive.laoisedcentre.ie
Victorian Fashion – Undress Liveries http://www.fotolibra.com
Some male servants were done away with by the beginning of Victoria’s reign. For example, the running footman, the male cook, and the sewer. Higher wages, taxes, and additional expenses aided the employers to be rid of these extravagances. According to Frank Huggett’s Life Below Stairs (page 23) from the 1901 Census report we learn, “Although the figures are not strictly comparable, because of changes in methods of classification, the official census of England and Wales shows that the total number was reduced from 74,323 in 1851 to 58,527 in 1891. Only the wealthiest could afford to employ the full range of house steward, footmen, usher, page and ‘tiger,’ plus coachmen, grooms and gardeners. Others, whose income at the beginning of the reign amounted to no more than £1000 or £1200 a year were advised to be content with a single male servant or, they had only £600 or £700, with a footboy.
Employment as a footboy to a clergyman, a lady, or a farmer, whose fortunes did not match their social aspirations, was one of the methods by which a lad could enter service in the first half of the nineteenth century, though it was more common, and usually more satisfactory, to obtain some less ostentatious position on a large estate instead.
‘Footboy’ was often a euphemism for ‘general dogsbody’ or ‘man-of-all-work’, as Henry White [Henry White, The Record of My Life, Cheltenham, 1889, page 59] found in 1837 when, at the age of fifteen, he started to work for Dr Sisson, the rector of Duntisborne, Gloucestershire. In addition to his more formal duties in livery, he was expected to clean the boots and the knives, to do some gardening, to act as ‘groom and coachman’ for the rector’s only conveyance – a humble donkey cart – and, in his spare time, to make himself generally useful! His livery, which had been tailored for him in the neighbouring town of Cirencester, would not have disgraced the footman of a lord. It consisted of a conventional full dress suit of ‘low shining shoes, white stockings, black plush breeches, with bright buckle and buttons at the knees, a brilliant brimstone-coloured waistcoat, covered by a bright sky-blue coat, pigeon-tailed, of course, with stand-up collar, embroidered with two rows of gold braid, and finishing with a set of yellow buttons.’ When he tried it on, he was then summoned to the drawing room where his ‘young mistress was pleased to make some the smallness of my legs, but this, as the Doctor sagely remarked, was an evil which would grow less every day.'”
Beyond their wages, many upper servants found means to line their pockets without their masters’ knowing. House stewards would secretly give tradesmen a “cash discount” for the privilege of continued business with the household. The butler, cook, and housekeeper customarily found similar compensations in the purchases made for the household over which they saw. A butler, for example, could claim his share of the wine purchased for the master’s use. A cook might claim the meat drippings to be sold. In Cooking with Jane Austen by Kirstin Owen (page 90), we find, “Emma’s father was a bit daft about one thing though, and that is the frying of anything in the Regency period ‘without the smallest of grease.’ Steaks of all kinds were fried in large quantities of butter – partly to keep them from sticking to the pan, partly for the sake of the flavor, and partly for the sake of the cook, whose perquisites included the right to sell the dripping fat. The more butter she used, the more was ‘left over’ in the pan, and the richer she got.” The groom of the chamber could claim the ends of the candles to resell. Moreover, the taking of “vails” (or tips from guests) became a common practice. 
In some households, a single servant served in the role of maid-of-all work. Generally, this servant was a girl from the age of twelve to fifteen. The conditions of the work were poor, with the girl often working from 5 A.M. to midnight for a wage of £6 to £9 per year. In James Fennimore Cooper’s Gleanings in Europe: England (Bentley, 1837, Vol.II, page 123), the author says: “These poor creatures have an air of dogged sullen misery that I have never seen equalled in any other class of human being, not even excepting the beggars in the streets.” He described one such slavey who entered a room with “a sort of drilled trot, as if she had been taught a particular movement to denote assiduity and diligence, and she never presumed to raise her eyes to mind, but stood the whole time looking meekly down. [Find a copy of the book 
Households benefited by employing those from workhouses as domestic servants Frank Huggett in Life Below Stairs [Book Club Associates, London, 1977, pages 110-111] describes an 1871-72 investigation into the practice of taking girls from the workhouses. “[The investigation] showed that only 16 per cent of the girls were given good marks by their mistresses; 30 per cent were considered ‘fair’; 38 per cent were rated ‘unsatisfactory’; and 16 per cent were described as ‘bad.’ Although the workhouses claimed that the children were already trained for service, many mistresses found that, in addition to their other manifold faults, they were often totally lacking in domestic abilities. One ‘unsatisfactory’ girl was described by her mistress as ‘a pilferer, untruthful, idle; incorrigibly dirty in habits. Can scrub a floor, but has no other accomplishments.’ A comment on another child read: ‘Girl said she had never lit a fire or cleaned a grate, but as she never spoke the truth about anything, probably she lied there.’ A number were unsound in both body and mind: one ‘half-witted’ orphan was round-backed and unhealthy, with one eye permanently dimmed by disease. No less than 8 per cent of the girls had weak or seriously defective eyesight. Another girl, who was described as ‘strong in body, but deficient in mind,’ was told to sweep the bedroom. When her mistress returned, expecting to find the room neat and tidy, she found to her amazement and annoyance that the girl had trodden all the tea leaves firmly into the carpet. 
Typically, three footmen were required for the better households. The first footman served as the mistress’s footman. He prepared her early morning and breakfast trays, walked her dogs, cleaned her shoes, brushed the mud from her riding habit and hems of her dresses, and cleaned/scrubbed the silver coins to disinfect them after tradesmen handled them. The first footman served the meals at the master’s house. He accompanied his lady when she dined at another’s home without her husband. He stood behind her chair to increase the appearance of rank and status. He was often charged with the duty of paying toll gates, hired carriages, and postage, expense reimbursed to him by the house steward. He was ironically called “James,” no matter his Christian name. 
Being neither seen nor heard would be the order of the day. It was not unusual for maids to turn and face the wall if she encountered her master or mistress in the passageways. The upper housemaids were responsible for the appearance of the rooms. They addressed the draperies, the floral arrangements, the chair covers, etc. The under housemaids did the physical duties of laying a fire, polishing, cleaning the grates, etc. In Letters from England, Elizabeth Davis Bancroft, the wife of the U.S. Minister to England (1846-49), wrote, “The division of labour, or rather ceremonies, between the butler and the footman I have now mastered, I believe in some degree, but that between the upper and under housemaid is still a profound mystery to me, though the upper has explained to me for the twentieth time that she did only ‘the top of the work.”
Servants also EXPECTED to receive a tip from the master’s guests. A guest would be leave a half-sovereign for the housemaid in honor of the condition she maintained his quarters, a sovereign for the groom of the chambers for lighting the candles each evening, likewise a sovereign for the butler for his personal advice and favors and a footman who acted as valet to a gentleman traveling without his personal servant. A guest might also tip the gamekeeper, etc. etc., etc. The list could easily grow to a tidy sum. Even visitors making tours of great estates were expected to tip the housekeepers guiding their tours.
Every Woman Dreams... 
