In my books, I strive for good historical accuracy (allowing
for a little artistic license here and there), and one of the challenges at the
start was making sure that I got the names of things right--things that don’t really exist today. One of the
things is the plethora of servant roles.
What were all those servants called????
Any story set in the Regency period will, of necessity,
feature lots of servants – because the nobility / aristocracy of the time had
huge numbers of servants. Having
servants was not simply ostentation – it was actually a requirement of having a
title or a lot of wealth – all of those servant roles were the main employment
of the era – it was a wealthy person’s responsibility to keeping the economy of
the country afloat, to employ as many people as possible.
But from our point of view toady, it seems a bit
overwhelming, and confusing – who did what? What were the names of each of
those roles? (and note – names of things back then did not have to be
politically correct – they were gendered, and to the point.)
So – here is a glossary of servant roles in the Regency
period.
In the house
Butler
The senior servant in the house, responsible for oversight
of all other male servants (except in some cases, where a Lord might have a
steward who was responsible for all of their estates, in which case the Butler
also answered to the Steward, as the Butler was only for a single house). Butlers
also were not necessarily responsible for managing tutors, who might come in
each day just to teach. Responsible for
making everything run smoothly, for the security of the silverware and other
valuables, and for the quality of service.
Housekeeper
The senior female servant in the House, responsible for
oversight of all other female staff (except for the Companion or Governess, if
there is one). Responsible for ensuring that the linens, draperies etc are
maintained in good order, that the rooms are cleaned as needed, that the items
needed for the kitchens (as specified by the Cook) are available, and that the
female servants are cared for and protected from abuse.
Cook / Chef
Responsible for the kitchen for that establishment. Manages
the scullery maids and any kitchen boys. Responsible for food ordering, and for
planning menus, in consultation with the mistress of the house and the
housekeeper. Also manages the storage of food and avoids waste. In a big house, there may be second cooks,
who answer to the senior cook.
Scullery maids
Work in the kitchen, under the Cook’s direction. Scrub
benches, tables, pots and keep things clean, also may be called upon to cut up
food and help with other prep work.
Kitchen Boys
Do the dirty work in the kitchens – keep the fires going,
cart coal or wood, cart away the rubbish, take the food scraps out to the
compost heap. Turn the spit if there is a spit to cook whole animals, carry
water where there is no running water.
House maids
Responsible for keeping the house clean and tidy. Each maid
will be allocated certain rooms to keep clean – dust and mess free, with
everything in its place, and making sure that there is always coal in the coal
scuttle beside each fire place, ready to go. The larger the house, and the
wealthier the owner, the smaller number of rooms that each maid will likely
have to look after, and the more maids there will be.
Ladies maids
Generally, each lady living in the house would have a
dedicated Lady’s maid, to help her dress, to do her hair, and generally to look
after her in any way that was needed. Sometimes,
two sisters might share a maid. The maid was expected to have sewing / clothing
repair skills, cleaning skills, hairdressing skills, skill with cosmetics and
more.
The Lady’s maid was the top of the hierarchy of maids, with
greater privileges, including often receiving her mistresses cast off dresses –
which, even when they were ‘too old and unfashionable’ for the Lady, could
easily be reworked into higher quality dresses than the maid might ever have
otherwise.
Footmen
Footmen were the ubiquitous method of getting anything
done. They might be tasked with staying
in the foyer, ready to open the door, or might each have a section of the house
where they simply waited in the halls, ready to run errands or do whatever was
needed. There was a hierarchy here as
well – some tasks were more desirable than others. Footmen might also accompany
a lady when she went shopping, ready to carry her parcels. Pretty much any time
that someone pulled the bell rope to summon a servant to get something done,
the one who answered was a footman, even if the task then required action by
someone else.
Nanny
If the household had young children, there was usually a
nanny. The Nanny was the senior childcare servant and might have nursery maids
to help her – the more children, the more nursery maids. The nanny was also
usually responsible for the children’s first, very basic, education – in
manners, and in simple reading and numbers.
Nursery maid
Nursery maids did the tedious bits of childcare – from
changing nappies, to being the one up at all hours of the night, to providing
entertainment for teething children. They took children out for walks in the
park (note, early baby carriages barely existed yet, so often they carried the
children), and amused the children. They also had to deal with washing all of
those nappies….
Valet
The Valet, like the Lady’s maid, was a role with
status. The valet was the gentleman’s
personal servant, responsible for helping him dress, caring for his clothes,
shaving him, polishing his boots and more.
A good valet could tie a perfect cravat in multiple styles and could
dress a man’s hair in the fashion of the day. He was also likely to receive the
gentleman’s cast off clothes, and was expected to be very discreet about the
gentleman’s day to day affairs, which he was almost always aware of.
Governess
A Governess was employed to teach younger children – usually
girls, but sometimes also very young boys. A Governess was an odd position,
hallway between a normal servant, and a gently born lady. Often, women of the
upper classes, whose families had fallen on hard times, would take employment
as a governess. It was regarded as one of the only acceptable roles for a well
born lady, if she had to work. The governess taught young girls manners, ladylike
skills (painting, music, singing, dancing, languages and more) and prepared
them for their role in society.
Companion
A Companion was employed to keep an older woman, or a single
woman, company – this provided a layer of propriety, as well as giving an older
widow (for example) someone to talk to, in their daily life. Companions, like
governesses, were in that grey area between servant and the nobly born. They
were often from good families fallen on hard times, or they were distant
cousins from the poor side of the family.
Tutor
A Tutor was employed to teach boys, before they reached the
age where they were sent off to boarding schools. The Tutor taught languages,
maths, science and potentially other subjects which were regarded as suitable
for boys. Like governesses, tutors might be of gentle birth, but from a poorer
family, but they might also be from a commoner family, but be a man who had done well for himself and
become learned. They might live with the family, or come in each day to teach,
and live elsewhere.
In the stables / outside the house
Stable master
The Stable master was responsible for all staff based in the
stable area. He was also responsible for ensuring that the horses, carriages and
equipment were maintained in excellent condition. He was responsible for
ordering feed supplies and making certain that the quality received was good.
Groom
A groom looks after horses.
That means ensuring that they are fed and watered correctly, that they
are groomed (brushed, washed if needed etc), that they are shod (the groom
takes them to the farrier, who, in a small town, may also be the blacksmith),
that their feet are cleaned out and kept in good condition, that they are
brought to wherever the owner needs them, that they are walked to cool down
after working and more. Each groom may
be responsible for one or more horses, depending on the scale of the
establishment. Grooms also rode and were
responsible for keeping the horses exercised if the owner did not use them
often. (A horse not exercise becomes bored, and often then fractious when next
ridden). When ladies went out for a ride, a groom would accompany them – for
propriety, and to help them if needed. Many
women could not mount up onto a sidesaddle without a mounting bloc or a hand up
from a groom.
Stablehands
Stablehands did the dirty work of the stables (although the
worst of it was often left to the stableboys, if there were any working
there.). This includes cleaning out the
stalls, carting the manure away to the manure pile, laying fresh straw, hauling
large amounts of hay in and out of the hayloft, lugging bags of grain about,
cleaning harness, saddles etc, washing saddlecloths and horse rugs, cleaning
and polishing carriages and generally helping to get everything done. They
rarely, if ever, rode.
Stableboys
Stableboys were the bottom of the pecking order in the
stables. They were usually young, and
hoping to move up over time (a bit like an apprenticeship). They got the worst
jobs of the lots – whatever the grooms and stablehands didn’t want to do. They
were the ones who got to stand out in the cold, waiting for the master to come
home, so that they could be there to take his horse, they got to shovel the
manure pile onto the waste cart when it came to collect it, and to be up first
in the cold winter mornings, to break the ice on water troughs etc.
Tiger
A Tiger was a young boy, fairly small, who went with the Lord
when he was using a carriage which he drove himself. The boy travelled on a small step or seat on
the rear of the carriage and was therefore available when the Lord stopped
somewhere to jump down and hold the horses. Tigers often learnt to drive the
carriages, so that they could move them if needed while the owner was off doing
whatever he had come to do.
Coachman
The coachman drove the carriages. This was a well respected
position, requiring considerable skill, especially for the larger
vehicles. If a family was wealthy, they
might have many carriages, and a number of coachmen, one of whom would be the
senior one and who would manage the others. The coachman was responsible for
ensuring that the coaches were well maintained and that the carriage horses
were well cared for by the other stable staff.
Studmaster
If the Lord chose to breed horses, he would have a
Studmaster, who was responsible for all breeding related activities on the
Lord’s estates. This included choosing horses to buy, choosing which mares to
breed to which stallion, overseeing the breaking to saddle of the horses,
overseeing the choice of which foals to sell and which to keep and more.
Farrier
A farrier specialises in making horse shoes and fitting them
to horses, as well as in the science of trimming and shaping the horses hoof so
that the horse is comfortable, and his stride is also smoother for the rider.
Farriers also often dealt with the necessary horse dentistry. In small towns,
the blacksmith might also be the farrier. In a larger town they would be
separate. A lord with a very large estate
and lots of horses might employ his own farrier.
Estate manager
A Lord might have an estate manager, who managed a single
country estate for him. Occasionally, the estate manager might manage more than
one property, but generally the steward did that, overseeing estate managers on
each location. The estate manager was responsible for ensuring that the
property was well run, the tenants cottages well cared for, the farms well run,
and the harvests profitable.
Gardener
Every estate or house (even London townhouses which had
smallish gardens) had at least one gardener, usually more. The gardeners not
only cared for the formal gardens of ‘pretty flowers’ but they cared for the
kitchen gardens, which provided much of the fresh produce used by each
household, and for the herb and scent gardens, which provided the herbs for
cooking, healing and providing pleasant scents (like lavender to put in a lady’s
dressing room, to keep her clothes smelling good). There was a hierarchy of
gardeners – a head gardener, and others that he managed.
Groundsman
A Groundsman had a wider remit than a gardener. He might
also be responsible (mainly on country estates) for the state of the gravel on
the driveway, the state of fences, of gates and of other structures, as well as
coordinating any forestry activity required.
Gatekeeper
On large country estates, the driveway might be long –
often, a small cottage was built near the gate, and a gatekeeper employed to
live there, and open and close the gates as required.
Elsewhere
Jarvey
Jarvey was a term for a man who drove a hackney cab. It was
also sometimes used to indicate any coachman who drove a hired coach.
Doorman
A Doorman was a servant employed at establishments such as
gentleman’s clubs, to mind the door, welcome approved guests, and turn away
those not welcome.
Usher
An Usher was a role performed at large functions, where
there were many guests (such as at a large Ball). There might be a person
employed just for that, but it was more likely that a footman was appointed to
the task for the event. The Usher announced the guests to the people already
present, as they entered the room.
Messenger boy
Messengers were everywhere. With no telephones, and no way
to communicate other then in writing, huge numbers of short letters were sent every
day. Within cities, there were children who earned their living delivering
messages for people of all stations.
Whilst an aristocratic family might send one of their own footmen with a
message, others had no choice but to use whatever messenger boy they could
find, lurking about in hope of work.
Crossing sweeper
Because of the literally hundreds of thousands of horses in
London (carriages, ridden, pulling delivery carts etc etc), the streets were
perpetually littered with manure, among other rubbish. In areas where the
wealthy went to shop, or go to the theatre etc, there were enterprising urchins
who made brooms out of straw and sticks, and who swept the road in front of the
pedestrians, in exchange for a coin. This allowed the wealthy to keep their shoes
and hems clean. In winter, when there was snow, the snow rapidly became filthy,
and crossing sweepers did a good trade.
Steward
The Steward was a very high ranking man within the Lord’s
employ. He managed all of the Lord’s estates as an entity, making sure that the
Lord’s holdings were profitable overall, and that resources were used where
needed, to balance out any issues that might occur in a single location. He
generally worked closely with the Lord’s man of business.
Man of Business
The Lord’s man of business was similar to your family
Solicitor or Lawyer today. He kept legal records for the Lord, assisted with
investment and banking, drew up contracts, dealt with any legal issues and
more. He was usually very trusted and had the deepest knowledge of the actual
state of the Lord’s accounts.
Modiste
Modistes were the highly expensive upper-class version of a
seamstress – the equivalent of French haute couture brands today. Generally,
they ran a business, and created gowns for multiple clients (gentleman’s
outfitters were a separate thing). Occasionally, a wealthy lady might employ a
modiste exclusively, but that was rare.
Names never to be used
Groomsman
This is not a job title from the era! It is a male attendant
at a twentieth century or later wedding, but has nothing to do with Regency (or
horses).
Attendant
This is a modern, gender neutral term that we use for people
performing service roles at events etc now. It is not a term that was ever used
in that way in the Regency era. Job roles then were very gendered, and this was
not a term used in that way.
Servant
This is not a specific job role. Servant is a generic term
for anyone in service. So using it to describe a person in a Lord’s household
tells you nothing about what they do – use the specific terms instead.
I hope that you found that interesting (and useful). If you’d like to try my books, my latest
release is ‘Betting on a Lady’s Heart’, Book 14 in the His Majesty’s Hounds
Series (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GJMLBM8/
) and you can find out about all of my books on my amazon author page (https://www.amazon.com/Arietta-Richmond/e/B016GG1KJ6/
) and on my website (https://www.ariettarichmond.com
)
A Viscount who gambles, a wealthy merchant’s daughter, an Earl in need of funds, an unhappy stepmother, betrayals and deceptions, a love that overcomes all.
***** FREE ON KIND:E UNLIMITED*****
***** FREE ON KIND:E UNLIMITED*****
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