iii—
Relations with Servants

The employment of domestic servants was virtually universal amongst the middle class and indeed went right down into fairly lowly strata of the artisan population of Augustan London.^[24] Some households employed huge numbers of servants, especially in the West End, but the typical staff was modest, as can be seen in Table 8.4 opposite, where the servants in two wealthy City parishes are analysed. The table shows the dominance of female servants, who represent four out of every five domestics and were the only domestics in over three-quarters of the households. It can also be seen that over half the households had only one servant, nearly always female, and that nearly 80 per cent had only one or two. One or two servants, usually female, was therefore the normal domestic staff, this being all that most households had space for or could afford. A staff of three or more, ideally with at least one man or boy, was, however, something to which most middling people aspired, since a larger staff freed wives from virtually all menial tasks and a male servant gave the household distinction in the neighbourhood. Such aspirations ensured that London's servant

population grew faster than the city as a whole, as more Londoners employed at least one servant and as those who already had one began to think in terms of a staff rather than a single maid. 'I believe nobody will deny', wrote Defoe in 1724, 'that people live more profusely, keep greater equipages and more servants than ever was done before.'^[25]

There was always a steady flow of country boys and girls coming into London to seek a place, but this was not sufficient to satisfy demand and our period sees an increase in servants' wages, Defoe claiming that the wages of female domestics had risen from 30s. or 40s. a year to £6–8 during his lifetime. A few pounds more a year does not seem very much for employers to pay, though they certainly grumbled about it, but there were other ways in which servants could enhance their incomes. Many writers thought that servants could double their wages by what they got as vails, or tips, from guests. It was also claimed that servants took commissions from shopkeepers for the family business and helped themselves to some of the money given them to go shopping. Further income might be earned, with or without the employer's permission, by selling worn-out clothing, left-overs from the table and other things which might

be considered perquisites and not downright thieving, though there was said to be much of that as well.^[26]

Defoe also suggested that domestics were becoming much more sophisticated about job specification and the definition of what might be considered a proper work-load. The main point here was how much work might be expected from a single maid-servant working on her own, 'the useful housewifery servant, commonly called maids of all work', as Sir John Fielding described them. Defoe claimed in the 1720s that it took two servants to do the work done by one in the past. He illustrated the growth of job-specification by describing a girl who, while being interviewed for a job as a house-maid, laid down the law in no uncertain way. 'If you wash at home, you should have a laundry-maid; if you give entertainments, you must have a cook-maid; if you have any needlework, you should have a chamber-maid; for such a house as this is enough for a house-maid in all conscience.'^[27]

It seems then that our period was generally a good one for servants, who were becoming better paid and more independent. Servants made the best of the good times. They dressed well, enjoyed themselves in the myriad ways offered by London and regularly changed jobs to make the best of their excellent bargaining position. It need hardly be said that such behaviour made the employers think that the 'servant problem' was more than usually intractable. They moaned and wrote pamphlets complaining about servants or manuals directed to potential servants which were designed to improve their characters by telling them that they should be pious, faithful, diligent, submissive, humble, honest, modest, early-rising, neat, clean, housewifely and a large number of other things which it seems clear that many girls were not.^[28]

Such didactic literature gives very little idea of just what servants actually did or of the nature of their relations with their employers. For these subjects, one can turn to the diary of Samuel Pepys, which provides a marvellous running commentary on domestic servants in the household of an upwardly mobile public servant.^[29] When he started his diary in 1660, Pepys had just one female servant, but he was soon to learn 'the inconvenience that doth attend the increase of a man's fortune, by being forced to keep more servants, which brings

trouble'. The first addition to his family was a footboy, engaged in June 1660, whose main duties were to wait on him as he went about the city, sometimes lighting him home with a link, go on miscellaneous errands and do odd jobs about the house. In 1661, Pepys took on a second maid, one girl now being cookmaid and the other chambermaid. In 1663, a third maid was engaged as a 'little girl' or under-cookmaid and in the same year his household reached its maximum size during the diary period with the appointment of a waiting-woman or companion for his wife. Although there was sometimes no companion or only two maids, this establishment of four women or girls and a boy was the normal arrangement till 1669, when the diary closes. Pepys was a man in a hurry, with no children to drain his purse, but his pattern of household building was typical of the more successful of middling Londoners.

In order to maintain their household at the requisite level, Samuel and Elizabeth Pepys had to engage at least thirty-eight servants in just over nine years, and the service of thirty-one of these can be analysed. The longest service was given by Jane Birch, 'our old little Jane', the only servant when the diary starts, who stayed in all for seven years in three separate periods. The next longest service was that of Tom Edwards, who doubled as a junior clerk in the Navy Office and a footboy in the household, his wages being paid by the government.^[30] He stayed four and a half years, eventually leaving to marry his fellow-servant Jane Birch, much to the delight of the Pepys, who gave them £40 each as a marriage portion. Long service was also given by Jane's younger brother Wayneman, as footboy, and 'our little girl Susan', under-cookmaid, both of whom stayed nearly three years, and Mary Mercer, the longest lasting of Elizabeth Pepys's five companions, who stayed for two years.

There was much greater turnover among the other twentysix servants. Six stayed between a year and eighteen months, seven between six months and a year, five between three and six months, and eight did not even last a quarter. Such lack of continuity in a household was by no means unusual. Six former servants of a scrivener who gave evidence in 1698 had lived in the household for thirty-six, twenty-one, twelve, ten, six and four months, and their service with other employers showed the

same pattern with periods of from three to eighteen months with each.^[31] Turnover of servants caused continuous disruption in middling households as new girls had to be found, trained and hopefully moulded into becoming members of a happy and well-ordered family. Most of Pepys's servants were acquired through personal recommendation, though agencies already existed, a service to householders which became more important in the eighteenth century. Nell, for instance, who was taken on in October 1661, was chosen from several maids who arrived to be interviewed. She insisted on being hired for six months, though the normal arrangement was for a month's notice by either side, servants who were dismissed or discontented being given time off to find a new place.

Houses were kept to a high standard and the work of servants was accordingly arduous. César de Saussure reported that wellkept houses were washed twice a week 'and that from top to bottom; and even every morning most kitchens, staircases and entrances are scrubbed. All furniture, and especially kitchen utensils, are kept with the greatest cleanliness.' Our sources provide much evidence of the effort that went into such work. Floors and stairs were sprinkled or scrubbed with sand to soak up grease and droppings before sweeping and saucepans and kettles were regularly scoured with sand. Wainscots had to be washed down, walls white-washed, hangings, mats and carpets brushed and beaten, and the house searched regularly for bugs, one of the curses of the age. Then there was the washing of clothes and household linen, a task done once a month 'in good citizens' houses'. Wash-day was a terrible day for servants, who, in Pepys's house, were got up at two in the morning and might still be at it when he returned home late in the evening.^[32]

The work of the kitchen was equally arduous—boiling, baking and spit-roasting on an open coal fire, making pies and pasties, salting and preserving, maybe brewing and baking, and then serving the food 'neatly' to the master and mistress. When there were guests, the work-load was appalling. Hannah, the best cook ever employed by the Pepys, once prepared a feast of nine different dishes, served it to eleven diners and then cleared the whole lot up whilst the Pepys and their guests were taking the air in the park, returning to 'find the house as clean as if nothing had been done there today from top to bottom'. It is

gratifying to learn that Hannah's efforts were appreciated and she was well rewarded, receiving a shilling from 'each of us'.

Nearly all work in middle-class homes was made more difficult and tiring by their lay-out. Fire and water were needed in every room, but the coal and wood were kept in the cellar and water was only piped to the yard. The kitchen was often at ground level but the dining-room on the first floor, so all food had to be carried up one pair of stairs. Close-stools and commodes were kept in bedrooms but the house of office or privy where they had to be emptied was in the yard. And when the privy itself was emptied, it was not only the nightmen who had to work. Pepys got home at eleven one evening to find the nightmen at work and, when he got up the next morning at six, he found 'the people to have just done; and Hannah not gone to bed yet, but was making clean of the yard and kitchen'.^[33]

Such dirty, nasty work was interspersed with work involving cleanliness, neatness and very close and personal attendance on the master and mistress. Much time was spent ironing, mending and altering clothes, making night-caps and shirts, cutting out and hemming sheets, pillow-cases and towels from rolls of linen. Chambermaids had to keep the clothes of the master and mistress in order, help them dress and undress, and be clean enough and sufficiently well dressed themselves to escort their mistress around the town—to shops, to friends, to the theatre, even to her adulterous liaisons, as one can learn from the records of the Consistory Court.^[34] Any servant of Pepys might have to cut or comb her master's hair, search it for lice or wash his feet or ears. Most middle-class households would have one or two, possibly more, small children, who created more work. Sometimes girls were hired specifically as nursemaids but, in most households, minding children, washing and feeding them, making and mending their clothes and similar jobs were part of the duties of the maids or the single maid-of-all-work. On top of all this, many girls had to help out in the shop or other business premises of their employers. The range of duties obviously varied, but there is little doubt that a servant's life was not quite as easy as contemporary commentators often made out.

Samuel Pepys took all this work for granted, as would any member of the middle class. Servants were not hired, paid, fed

and clothed in order for them to be idle. The childless Pepys seems to have been genuinely fond of many, indeed most, of the servants who made up his 'family' over the years, and evidence can be found of kindness and affection from many other employers. Pepys was amused by the antics of his adolescent footboys, enjoyed a chat with servants in the kitchen, took servants on outings, was interested in their problems and normally genuinely upset when they were ill, so long as he was sure that they were not malingering, and was nearly always sorry and often very sad when they left. He was probably not unusual in preferring attractive servants and in grumbling when his wife hired girls like Doll or Luce, both of whom were 'very ugly'. Pepys, of course, is notorious for his loose ways with women and two of his wife's companions and three of the maids had to put up with his groping hands on their 'mamelles', their belly or even their 'thing'. Just how common such behaviour was one cannot tell, but the opportunities were certainly manifold. Judging from the diary, most of the girls seemed to regard Pepys's exploration of their person as just part of the job, though some were certainly more willing than others. And, just for the record, one might perhaps note that Pepys employed twenty-four female servants who do not seem to have been subjected to such indignities and not all of them were ugly.^[35]

Pepys certainly liked a pretty face or a well-shaped bosom, but he also appreciated good service and was generous in his diary and no doubt in person when he thought he was receiving it. Such comments enable us to determine what was expected. The first quality to look for in a servant was that she should 'do what she is bid', be modest, humble, well-meaning and faithful. She should be ready to take criticism without argument and be duly remorseful if she did something wrong, such as the servant who fell on her knees and asked pardon for running away after being struck by Elizabeth Pepys. Willingness to work hard was obviously an important asset and a servant who was 'a drudging, working wench' would receive due praise, as did Susan, who was described as 'a most admirable slut', not at all an opprobrious term, when she did 'more service than both the others' on a wash-day.

Another great bonus in a servant was that she should be good-natured, quiet and not liable to burst into tears, tantrums

or arguments either with her employers or her fellow-servants. In the whole of the diary period, the best time was August 1664: 'Never since I was housekeeper I ever lived so quietly, without any noise or one angry word almost, as I have done since my present maids, Besse, Jane and Susan came and were together.'^[36] Finally, it was of course useful if a servant was particularly skilled at her job. The ability of a chambermaid to dress the mistress's hair really well, of a cook to 'dress meat' and serve meals with some style or, in the case of the companions, to talk, sing and play musical instruments with unusual talent, were all valuable assets. However, a servant was never dismissed for a lack of innate skills and Pepys was always ready to put up with less quality if a servant was willing and well-disposed. Harmony and quiet were the keys to a happy household, just as they were to happy relations between husband and wife.

A bad servant was likely to be proud and would not show that proper humility, respect and gratitude which her employers expected. She would be lazy, sleepy and forgetful, with 'no care nor memory of her business at all'. She might be dirty and was almost certain not to do things 'as they should be'. She would lie, answer back, speak boldly and be 'apt to scold'. She was likely to go out visiting without permission and, worse still, gossip about the household when she was out, a terrible crime in the small world of London. Pepys expected his servants to be silent when they were 'abroad', but to keep their ears open and report back any criticism of his household which they heard. One can understand his paranoia, since the servants of a household knew everything that was going on within it and indeed everything that their employers did elsewhere, as is made abundantly clear from depositions in the Consistory Court. High turnover made such silence impossible, however, and one can appreciate Pepys's annoyance when his maid Sarah left and almost immediately got a place with his bête noire, Sir William Penn, where inevitably 'all our affairs of my family are made known of and discussed of there, and theirs by my people'.^[37]

Just as bad as gossiping abroad was asking people into the house without permission, such visitors being liable to gossip in their turn, steal or provide thieves with useful information.

Susan felt the full weight of Pepys's anger when she let in 'a rogueing Scotch woman . . . to help them to wash and scour'. Pepys made his wife 'beat our little girle, and then we shut her down into the cellar and there she lay all night'. This was a savage punishment and out of character, for the maids were rarely beaten, a cuff or a box on the ear or a serious and angry talking to being the normal method of maintaining discipline. Boys were beaten more, especially the incorrigible Wayneman, who was beaten at least eight times with a cane, a whip or with rods, and sometimes very savagely. A master or mistress could, if necessary, call in the law to punish troublesome servants. In a defamation case of 1697, for instance, we learn that the nursemaid Mary Fawden was taken up by the constable 'for abusing and calling her then mistress . . . ill names'. She was brought before a magistrate who sent her to Bridewell 'and she was there whipt and lashed', her mistress adding insult to injury by kissing her at the whipping-post and saying, 'Mary, God forgive you, I do.' The only time that Pepys sought assistance was in the case of the parish-child Jinny, who arrived in August 1663, was deloused and dressed in 'good new clothes' and then immediately ran away. She was captured by the parish beadle, stripped of Pepys's clothes and then sent away to be whipped. Employers were no doubt glad to have the force of law behind them, but the usual final sanction was dismissal, the eventual fate of the naughty Wayneman.^[38]

Pepys saw his household as a family, but it was a family where nobody was equal to anybody else and Pepys was often troubled lest the strict hierarchy be disturbed. This was most obvious amongst the five female members of his family, a hierarchy headed by his wife Elizabeth and then, in descending order, her waiting-woman or companion, the chambermaid, cookmaid and under-cookmaid. The companions, who were usually poor members of respectable families, were treated as gentlewomen and sat down to table with their employers and spent their evenings with them. They were, however, still expected to show a due respect and this was a difficult relationship to maintain. Pepys's fears that Winifred Gosnell 'hath been bred up with too much liberty for my family' proved to be correct, while the problem with Barker was

exactly the opposite, 'because she will be raised from so mean a condition to so high, all of a sudden'. Mary Ashwell was 'not proud, but will do what she is bid; but for want of being abroad, knows not how to give that respect to her mistress as she will do when she is told it'. On the other hand, she also had to be told 'not to make herself equall with the ordinary servants of the house'. Barker's problem was that she really wanted to be an ordinary servant and 'did always declare that she would rather be put to drudgery and to wash the house than to live as she did, like a gentlewoman', an attitude which Pepys found incomprehensible.^[39]

Chambermaids also gave trouble. They might be upset at the appointment of a waiting-woman above them, thus effectively pushing them down one rank in the domestic hierarchy. They might think that they were too 'high' for the job, like Pepys's sister Pall, whom he introduced into the household as a chambermaid, not thinking her 'worthy of being Elizabeth's waiting-woman'. Pall had to stand in Elizabeth's presence and was not allowed to dine with her brother and sister-in-law and, not surprisingly, turned out to be too proud and idle to retain for long. Pall was Pepys's first chambermaid and she had a bad effect on Jane Birch, who had previously been the only maidservant, but who now became 'lazy and spoiled'. Chambermaids might be proud because they thought themselves of good birth or because they had previously served in a higher class household. However, the very condition could make a girl 'high', since the chambermaid's personal service to her employers was considered superior to service in the kitchen and was rewarded by higher wages. This made promotion a tricky problem since the glory involved might turn a girl's head. Should Bess be raised to chambermaid? 'We have both a mind to it, but know not whether we should venture the makeing her proud and so make a bad chambermaid of a very good-natured and sufficient cook-maid.' Even in the kitchen itself there were problems of hierarchy and status. Pepys was worried about a new cookmaid who had formerly been a chambermaid and 'holds up her head'. He also worried about hiring a new 'little girl' under the longserving Susan. 'I am a little disatisfied that the girl, though young, is taller and bigger then Su, and will not I fear be under her command.'^[40]

Why did servants leave the Pepys's household? Some were dismissed, like the rogue Wayneman, whose crimes included lying, fighting, stealing and dawdling on errands. Two other servants were dismissed for theft, two cooks for drunkenness and one servant for telling stories about the household in the neighbourhood. Most dismissals were, however, for less obvious reasons. What tended to happen was for there to be a honeymoon period in which a new servant received praise or at least was given the benefit of the doubt and then, slowly, the relationship began to deteriorate. Sometimes this was clearly the result of the servant's own personality but, very often, it was the product of Elizabeth Pepys's awkward character, which caused her to turn against her servants and begin to dislike or even hate them. She obviously had some justification for jealousy of her husband, but her contrariness went far beyond this and time after time one finds her picking quarrels with servants and accusing them, usually falsely, of lying and stealing. The end product of such relationships was that the servant was either dismissed, being described as proud, negligent, quarrelsome or some other opprobrious epithet, or she could stand it no longer and handed in her notice.

However, there did not have to be any unpleasantness for a servant to leave. Some girls left to get married or because they were sick. Many left simply because they wanted a change or because they wanted a different sort of job. Mary, a cookmaid, for instance, left after a month's trial because she wanted 'to live in a tradesman's house where there was but one maid', a situation in which she might have to work even harder than in Pepys's household but in which she would be the boss below stairs. Servants who left, even those who were dismissed, do not seem to have borne any grudge. Nor did they necessarily vanish. Many came back to visit, to chat with their fellow-servants or to call upon their former employers. The household had after all been their home, almost their universe, for several months and sometimes for several years.

All these reasons for leaving are, of course, a matter of Pepys's own interpretation of events and do not necessarily reflect how the servants themselves saw the situation. Nevertheless, when servants did give reasons for leaving their places, as

they often did when giving evidence to the Consistory Court, one can see that Pepys's household is not atypical. Nearly all the servants whom he employed had been, or were to be, employed in other London households and they simply reflect the range of servant personalities and experiences which could be found in the metropolis. Even Elizabeth Pepys is by no means unusual as an employer; indeed, she could almost be taken as a prototype of the idle, spoiled and discontented wife of contemporary literature. Give a woman like her a servant or servants and she will quarrel with them for no particularly good reason. Deborah Coleman, for instance, left the service of a scrivener's wife 'because of some difference betwixt this respondent and . . . her mistress', and such a vague reason for leaving was common enough. Another common scenario, likely to be interpreted differently by mistress and servant, is illustrated by a servant in the household of Elizabeth Nowes, the wife of a barrister. She left because her mistress 'and shee could not agree in their bills and reckonings about money laid out', a constant source of disagreement when innumerate but not necessarily dishonest servants went out shopping. Other servants in these depositions left because they were sick or wanted to get married or had found a better place or wanted to visit their relations in the country. Service in London was not exile and many girls spent long periods at home, interspersed by periods of service in London or elsewhere, before eventually getting married.^[41]

Samuel Pepys's diary has been used as the main source for this section because nowhere else can one get the same detail on the relations between master, mistress and servants in a London household. His became a large household by middleclass standards and one must expect that, in the typical single servant household, relations would have been rather different, with the mistress doing far more work in the house, as indeed Elizabeth Pepys did in the early months of the diary. However, the general impression is that Pepys's household was not untypical of his day and it seems legitimate to use examples from his diary to make general points about the life of servants. Where Pepys's diary is of no use is in discussing relations with children, the subject of the next section, for which different sources will have to be found.