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Lady Di
Countess of the Manor Joined: 23 Jan 2007 Posts: 1829 Location: At the No. 10 Tea Shop selecting tea	Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 4:18 pm    Post subject: Pensioning/retirement of servants   I've been thinking about the servants lately. Who were the ones who earned a formal retirement from their master? I often only hear about the butler and housekeeper who received pensions. Did they have to serve so many years before they were retired and earned a small pension? _________________ ~~*Diana*~~ Spiders we've caught in the house as of 8/30/08: 121 QOTD: How come nobody mentions spiders in their romance books set in England?
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Candice
Queen of the Board Joined: 14 Sep 2006 Posts: 2731 Location: Minneapolis, MN	Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 8:24 pm    Post subject:   I doubt there were hard-and-fast rules about such things. It was likely dependent on the household, the servant, and the generosity of the family. I've asked someone more expert in this area to stop by and offer her opinion. _________________
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Lady Di
Countess of the Manor Joined: 23 Jan 2007 Posts: 1829 Location: At the No. 10 Tea Shop selecting tea	Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 11:26 pm    Post subject:   Candice wrote: I doubt there were hard-and-fast rules about such things. It was likely dependent on the household, the servant, and the generosity of the family. I've asked someone more expert in this area to stop by and offer her opinion. Oh thank you! A guest on the board is always fun. I was also wondering if they were allowed to marry and have families? It just seems sad to devote your whole life to serving one family and then not have a family or life of your own. _________________ ~~*Diana*~~ Spiders we've caught in the house as of 8/30/08: 121 QOTD: How come nobody mentions spiders in their romance books set in England?
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KalenHughes
Viscountess of the Manor Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 1100	Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 6:55 am    Post subject:   Lady Di wrote: I was also wondering if they were allowed to marry and have families? It just seems sad to devote your whole life to serving one family and then not have a family or life of your own. From what I’ve read, most servants were not allowed to marry (the "Mrs" part of a housekeeper's name was often an honorific). And any female staff member caught having sex was usually dismissed on the spot. There was also no formal “earned” pension. The hope was to rise through the ranks of the lower servants until you were in a position of trust (butler, steward, housekeeper, nurse, valet, lady’s maid) where the family would know you well enough to feel a connection to you (and thus bestow upon you some kind of pension). Servants lived at the whim of their employers. Some of them (the higher ranking ones) earned enough that they were likely able to set a little aside each year, but I imagine it was a harsh world for those who were never able to better themselves. _________________ -Kalen w/a Isobel Carr Ripe for Pleasure, May 2011 Book 1: The League of Second Sons www.isobelcarr.com
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KeiraSoleore
Moderator Princess Joined: 03 Oct 2006 Posts: 5898 Location: Seattle	Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 7:29 am    Post subject:   There have been cases, Kalen please correct me on this, where an older childless couple looks after a much smaller house as butler and housekeeper. _________________ Medieval & Regency Writer keirasoleore.blogspot.com
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KeiraSoleore
Moderator Princess Joined: 03 Oct 2006 Posts: 5898 Location: Seattle	Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 7:50 am    Post subject:   Candice wrote: I've asked someone more expert in this area to stop by and offer her opinion. Oooh! Hope it's Janet Mullany. She did an excellent session at the Beau Monde conference in Dallas on household servants. And she's very funny!! _________________ Medieval & Regency Writer keirasoleore.blogspot.com
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KalenHughes
Viscountess of the Manor Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 1100	Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:40 pm    Post subject:   KeiraSoleore wrote: There have been cases, Kalen please correct me on this, where an older childless couple looks after a much smaller house as butler and housekeeper. I've seen this in fiction, certainly. There's very little documentation out there about actual servants though. I mean, there are books telling you what they were supposed to do, and records of pensions and bequeaths in old record rooms, but I can't say that I've ever come across an actual documented case of a couple acting as butler and housekeeper. Since the butler/steward is ultimately responsible for overseeing the housekeeper, and the two of them are responsible for the expenses of the house and such, it would seem like a great way to set yourself up to get taken to me. _________________ -Kalen w/a Isobel Carr Ripe for Pleasure, May 2011 Book 1: The League of Second Sons www.isobelcarr.com
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Janet Mullany
Upstart Joined: 02 Aug 2007 Posts: 2	Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 1:05 pm    Post subject: butler/housekeeper retirement   Uh, I guess I'm the expert. The answer, of course, is it depends. It was quite common for a retiring servant to receive a cash gift from the employer, and frequently butlers left service to run inns--when you think about it, the skills would have been about the same, but with no master! That, of course, is if they retired fairly young, which they might be able to do with the little nest egg they'd accumulated as well as savings from wages (butlers were allowed to sell corks, used playing cards, and leftover wine. Since the butler was also in charge of ordering and/or making wine, this could be fairly lucrative). Depending on their closeness to the family, an upper servant might well be given an annuity and/or a cottage to live in. As I said, it depends! _________________ Janet Mullany historical romance with a twist www.janetmullany.com
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Janet Mullany
Upstart Joined: 02 Aug 2007 Posts: 2	Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 1:19 pm    Post subject: Servants marrying   again, it depends. A lot of our preconceptions on servants are based on Victorian documentation (when there was a lot more documentation, period!). I can't date the honorary "Mrs." for cook or housekeeper, Kalen, tho I know it was commonplace in the Victorian period. I think it would be quite likely that a modest household might employ a married couple--there would be the advantage of stability, for a start, although I wonder what they'd do about children? Regency/Georgian employers were a lot less interested in their servants' sex lives or religious lives than their Victorian counterparts. It was Queen Victoria who started the fashion of family prayers and insisting servants attend C of E services. Quite frequently the seduced and ruined maid had her employer to thank for her condition, but with a workforce mostly in their early 20s you'd expect some hankypanky among them. _________________ Janet Mullany historical romance with a twist www.janetmullany.com
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KalenHughes
Viscountess of the Manor Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 1100	Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 2:52 pm    Post subject: Re: Servants marrying   Janet Mullany wrote: Regency/Georgian employers were a lot less interested in their servants' sex lives or religious lives than their Victorian counterparts. It was Queen Victoria who started the fashion of family prayers and insisting servants attend C of E services. Quite frequently the seduced and ruined maid had her employer to thank for her condition, but with a workforce mostly in their early 20s you'd expect some hankypanky among them. I know I've seen period accounts of maids "stepping out" with footmen from other households, but if she fell pregnant she'd lose her position, so while there may well have been A LOT of hanky-panky going on, full blown intercourse would have been super risky. And by "caught" I basically mean if she ended up pregnant and wasn't savvy enough to get rid of it. And Janet is totally right about upper servants (butlers and valets usually) setting themselves up in the inn/club/store trade (Brooks’s, Boodle’s, Fortnum & Mason). _________________ -Kalen w/a Isobel Carr Ripe for Pleasure, May 2011 Book 1: The League of Second Sons www.isobelcarr.com
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KeiraSoleore
Moderator Princess Joined: 03 Oct 2006 Posts: 5898 Location: Seattle	Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:47 pm    Post subject:   What a motherlode of information here. Thanks, Janet and Kalen. And also Diana for bringing it up. _________________ Medieval & Regency Writer keirasoleore.blogspot.com
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Candice
Queen of the Board Joined: 14 Sep 2006 Posts: 2731 Location: Minneapolis, MN	Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 7:20 pm    Post subject:   Yay! Janet made it. Thanks for sharing your knowledge, Janet. I loved your presentation on servants in Dallas and knew you would be the one to ask. _________________
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Lady Di
Countess of the Manor Joined: 23 Jan 2007 Posts: 1829 Location: At the No. 10 Tea Shop selecting tea	Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 8:58 pm    Post subject:   Thank you Janet for coming out and sharing your knowledge with us! I would have loved to have heard your presentation on this topic. Kalen thank you also for your insights as well. Kalen, I agree, I think there had to have been a lot of hanky panky and just as much drama going on below stairs as above! I bet it was difficult for the butler to straddle both worlds and keep a tight reign on both sides. You would have wanted to stay on the good side of the butler and housekeeper at all times for fear of dismissal. And not likely rise up higher than the position you first held until someone else was fired or left. I imagine the life of a servant would have been even more difficult because he/she would have had to sent money home to her family and would have had none to spare to save for her own future retirement, so much was left to the whim of the employer. Thank you for answering my question. _________________ ~~*Diana*~~ Spiders we've caught in the house as of 8/30/08: 121 QOTD: How come nobody mentions spiders in their romance books set in England?
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KeiraSoleore
Moderator Princess Joined: 03 Oct 2006 Posts: 5898 Location: Seattle	Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 9:11 pm    Post subject:   Janet, regarding a couple managing a small household, the only ones I've seen in fiction had no children, and the authors managed to circumvent that issue of issue by making them an older couple. _________________ Medieval & Regency Writer keirasoleore.blogspot.com
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Lady Di
Countess of the Manor Joined: 23 Jan 2007 Posts: 1829 Location: At the No. 10 Tea Shop selecting tea	Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2007 4:22 am    Post subject:   KeiraSoleore wrote: Janet, regarding a couple managing a small household, the only ones I've seen in fiction had no children, and the authors managed to circumvent that issue of issue by making them an older couple. Same here. Or it seems that in Scottish books, the whole family tends to be in service to the home owner in one way or another. _________________ ~~*Diana*~~ Spiders we've caught in the house as of 8/30/08: 121 QOTD: How come nobody mentions spiders in their romance books set in England?
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