0:00:07 > 0:00:11In 1902, London Zoo held one of a series of extraordinary events
0:00:11 > 0:00:14organised by Queen Alexandra,
0:00:14 > 0:00:16the wife of the newly-crowned King, Edward VII.
0:00:16 > 0:00:20Called the Queen's Teas, across the capital Britain's servants
0:00:20 > 0:00:24were given a rare day off, with a twist.
0:00:24 > 0:00:2710,000 maids-of-all-work were given the day off, they were given
0:00:27 > 0:00:30a box of chocolates with a portrait of the Queen on the lid.
0:00:30 > 0:00:32Most extraordinary of all,
0:00:32 > 0:00:37they were treated to high tea served by upper-class London ladies.
0:00:38 > 0:00:41Now even though they were promptly dispatched home at 6.00
0:00:41 > 0:00:45to get the dinner table on the table, something was changing,
0:00:45 > 0:00:47service was coming out of the shadows.
0:00:52 > 0:00:56Like thousands of us in Britain today,
0:00:56 > 0:00:58I come from a long line of servants.
0:00:58 > 0:01:03Both my great-grandmothers were housemaids in the 1900s.
0:01:03 > 0:01:06I've long been fascinated by the hidden history of their lives,
0:01:06 > 0:01:09not just because it's the story of my family,
0:01:09 > 0:01:13but because it's the story of all our families.
0:01:13 > 0:01:17In this series I want to dispel the fantasies and nostalgia
0:01:17 > 0:01:22that we have around domestic service and reveal a more complex world,
0:01:22 > 0:01:26one of tension, deference and an obsession with status and class.
0:01:26 > 0:01:28What do you think?
0:01:28 > 0:01:32We've already seen that the domestic service we've come to know
0:01:32 > 0:01:36in film and fiction was a Victorian invention,
0:01:36 > 0:01:39a way of ordering society into its proper place.
0:01:39 > 0:01:44But from the 1880s, new ideas for a new generation,
0:01:44 > 0:01:47from workers' rights to the Women's Movement would shake
0:01:47 > 0:01:50the Victorian ideal of service to its very core,
0:01:50 > 0:01:54putting the old order under increasing scrutiny and strain.
0:01:54 > 0:01:57This is the story of wayward laundry maids,
0:01:57 > 0:01:59butlers selling their stories to the press,
0:01:59 > 0:02:03servants taking their employers to court, even Suffragette maids.
0:02:03 > 0:02:07But, most of all, it's the story of how the Victorian ideal of service
0:02:07 > 0:02:10came to be questioned, not by masters and mistresses,
0:02:10 > 0:02:12but by servants themselves.
0:02:32 > 0:02:34This is Lanhydrock House in Cornwall.
0:02:34 > 0:02:38It was once the ancestral seat of the Agar-Robartes family,
0:02:38 > 0:02:42landowners, industrialists and, by the mid-19th century,
0:02:42 > 0:02:45one of the wealthiest families in the county.
0:02:46 > 0:02:51In 1881, the house was gutted by a vast fire,
0:02:51 > 0:02:53which allowed it to be rebuilt
0:02:53 > 0:02:55according to the ideals of the high Victorian age,
0:02:55 > 0:02:58where although everyone lived under the same roof,
0:02:58 > 0:03:00they lived separate lives.
0:03:01 > 0:03:05Here, separate staircases and endless corridors
0:03:05 > 0:03:09divided male zones from female, children from parents
0:03:09 > 0:03:13and, most importantly of all, masters from servants.
0:03:14 > 0:03:20This carpet separates upstairs life from downstairs life.
0:03:20 > 0:03:23The corridor back here leads down to the kitchen.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26The one across here leads over to the dining room.
0:03:26 > 0:03:31This is a threshold between two separate realms.
0:03:31 > 0:03:35For late Victorian elites, this is moral architecture,
0:03:35 > 0:03:37it reflects an ideal class structure,
0:03:37 > 0:03:41and it's a structure they'll cling to through thick and thin,
0:03:41 > 0:03:43right up to the First World War.
0:03:44 > 0:03:48Today, Lanhydrock's vast servant quarters
0:03:48 > 0:03:51are as preserved in aspic as the food they once served.
0:03:54 > 0:03:56At the house's prime,
0:03:56 > 0:03:59they would have been home to over 30 live-in staff,
0:03:59 > 0:04:04with a further 50 working on the estate, all of whom served
0:04:04 > 0:04:07Lord and Lady Robartes and their nine children,
0:04:07 > 0:04:10a core family of just 11.
0:04:12 > 0:04:15In many ways, Lanhydrock is a model late Victorian house,
0:04:15 > 0:04:20built at a time when the Victorian ideal of service was at its height.
0:04:20 > 0:04:24But from the moment the new house was inaugurated in 1885,
0:04:24 > 0:04:26that ideal was already crumbling.
0:04:39 > 0:04:41Deep in the basement of the British Library,
0:04:41 > 0:04:45amongst reams of national reports, are a set of records that show
0:04:45 > 0:04:49that the golden age of service was actually coming to an end.
0:04:49 > 0:04:53These are the Census reports from the late 19th century
0:04:53 > 0:04:57and early 20th century, and their job is to make sense of the Census.
0:04:57 > 0:05:00They pull out the big trends and patterns
0:05:00 > 0:05:03and all that massive data around household and occupation.
0:05:03 > 0:05:06But if we look at the 1891 and the 1911 Census
0:05:06 > 0:05:10you see a really interesting fact emerging.
0:05:10 > 0:05:16In 1891 the number of indoor domestic servants, 1.38 million,
0:05:16 > 0:05:18which is a pretty high number.
0:05:18 > 0:05:22Jump to 1911, it's gone down, still high,
0:05:22 > 0:05:24but it's gone down to 1.27 million.
0:05:26 > 0:05:28So why does it matter?
0:05:28 > 0:05:31It matters hugely because the population is expanding,
0:05:31 > 0:05:33the middle class is expanding,
0:05:33 > 0:05:35therefore the demand for service is expanding.
0:05:35 > 0:05:39But the problem is that the supply of servants is shrinking.
0:05:39 > 0:05:43Domestic service was still Britain's largest employer,
0:05:43 > 0:05:47out-numbering agriculture, coalmining and cotton weaving
0:05:47 > 0:05:49by hundreds of thousands.
0:05:49 > 0:05:51But as the booming industrial economy
0:05:51 > 0:05:56offered Britain's young workers other opportunities,
0:05:56 > 0:05:59the number of people going in to service
0:05:59 > 0:06:00was dropping by 5,000 a year.
0:06:03 > 0:06:07Whereas in the past finding good servants was the problem,
0:06:07 > 0:06:09now the problem was finding any servant at all,
0:06:09 > 0:06:12when so many of Britain's young were opting out.
0:06:12 > 0:06:16One of the answers to the servant problem was Christian charity.
0:06:16 > 0:06:20Church-going philanthropists set up hundreds of schemes to rescue
0:06:20 > 0:06:23the rootless working class and train them to work as servants.
0:06:23 > 0:06:29It seemed a simple solution to the problem of what to do
0:06:29 > 0:06:32with those left behind in these boom times, for, by now,
0:06:32 > 0:06:35extremes of wealth and poverty were at their height.
0:06:35 > 0:06:37In inner city areas across the country
0:06:37 > 0:06:40intense overcrowding and soaring unemployment
0:06:40 > 0:06:44spread fears that a population of work-shy slum dwellers
0:06:44 > 0:06:46was draining the moral fibre of the nation.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50Many of these fears were created by what was called slum fiction
0:06:50 > 0:06:51or slum journalism.
0:06:51 > 0:06:54At the turn of the century there was a flood of newspaper articles
0:06:54 > 0:06:57and sensationalist novels that shone a spotlight
0:06:57 > 0:06:59on life in Britain's slums.
0:06:59 > 0:07:00They had lurid titles like
0:07:00 > 0:07:03Tales Of The Mean Streets, The Netherworld.
0:07:03 > 0:07:07This one was called The People Of The Abyss,
0:07:07 > 0:07:11and it was by an American called Jack London, who disguised himself
0:07:11 > 0:07:14as a down-and-out sailor to live among the London poor.
0:07:18 > 0:07:21Their readership was largely upper and middle class,
0:07:21 > 0:07:26and for them using the urban poor to make up the servant shortfall
0:07:26 > 0:07:29was a charitable, moral and practical solution.
0:07:30 > 0:07:34Behind all this Christian charity there were two big thoughts,
0:07:34 > 0:07:38the first was that those at the bottom of society should
0:07:38 > 0:07:40get themselves out of the gutter by working.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43The second, was that for many of them the best kind of work
0:07:43 > 0:07:45was domestic service.
0:07:45 > 0:07:48It offered them bed and board, practical skills,
0:07:48 > 0:07:52all within the safety of the moral middle class home.
0:07:57 > 0:08:00And it wasn't just the streets where the urban poor could be found,
0:08:00 > 0:08:03there was also the workhouse.
0:08:07 > 0:08:11An age-old institution dating back to the 17th century,
0:08:11 > 0:08:14the workhouse was a way of ensuring Britain's able-bodied poor
0:08:14 > 0:08:17worked in return for their keep.
0:08:18 > 0:08:22But now it was given extra value, as a ready-made servant factory.
0:08:24 > 0:08:26Here, as they entered,
0:08:26 > 0:08:29inmates were separated in to seven different categories,
0:08:29 > 0:08:31from able-bodied men and women,
0:08:31 > 0:08:34down to children under seven years of age.
0:08:34 > 0:08:36Women, for the most part, did domestic work.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42Men worked the fields or picked oakum for shipbuilding.
0:08:43 > 0:08:45And children would spend their days
0:08:45 > 0:08:48behind the frosted windows of the schoolroom,
0:08:48 > 0:08:50where they would be taught to read and write
0:08:50 > 0:08:53before being trained for a trade or for service.
0:08:55 > 0:08:58For the girls it would be teaching them, you know,
0:08:58 > 0:09:02the skills of cookery, laundry work, dressmaking, you know,
0:09:02 > 0:09:04cleaning and so on.
0:09:04 > 0:09:08With the boys it would be craft trades, like shoe-making, tailoring,
0:09:08 > 0:09:10carpentry, plumbing and so on.
0:09:10 > 0:09:14But the problem they had was that life in the workhouse
0:09:14 > 0:09:18is not always a very good preparation for the outside world,
0:09:18 > 0:09:20so if you were in the kitchen, for example,
0:09:20 > 0:09:25you might see potatoes being boiled in a big copper for 100 people.
0:09:25 > 0:09:27It's not the same as peeling them for a family.
0:09:27 > 0:09:29It's not peeling potatoes for three or four people.
0:09:29 > 0:09:31You might not even know what a saucepan was,
0:09:31 > 0:09:33in some workhouses, they didn't use saucepans,
0:09:33 > 0:09:35everything was on a large scale.
0:09:35 > 0:09:37Well, how did they get over that problem then?
0:09:37 > 0:09:40Well, by the end of the 19th century a lot of workhouse children
0:09:40 > 0:09:43were living in separate homes of various sorts.
0:09:43 > 0:09:46It was believed that the workhouse had a kind of taint
0:09:46 > 0:09:48associated with it.
0:09:48 > 0:09:50If you mixed children and adult paupers
0:09:50 > 0:09:53the children would learn bad habits.
0:09:53 > 0:09:57So in the 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, various sorts of separate homes
0:09:57 > 0:10:00were set up, with things called cottage homes,
0:10:00 > 0:10:04like mini villages of houses for children away from the workhouse.
0:10:07 > 0:10:08By the late 19th century,
0:10:08 > 0:10:12thousands of these charitable homes had sprung up across the country,
0:10:12 > 0:10:17run by organisations like the Girls' Friendly Society, Barnardos
0:10:17 > 0:10:21and MABYS, the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants.
0:10:22 > 0:10:26Here, reformers would train street kids to clean grates
0:10:26 > 0:10:30and change beds, rewarding some of them with diplomas in housework.
0:10:33 > 0:10:38How to make a bed. Before commencing to make the bed
0:10:38 > 0:10:42the servant should put on a large bed apron kept for this purpose only,
0:10:42 > 0:10:47it should be made very wide to tie around the waist and behind.
0:10:47 > 0:10:50By adopting this plan, the dirt on servants' dresses,
0:10:50 > 0:10:52which at all times it is impossible to help,
0:10:52 > 0:10:55will not rub off on to the bed clothes,
0:10:55 > 0:10:57mattresses and bed furniture.
0:10:57 > 0:11:00And I suppose the idea was that you would spend some time
0:11:00 > 0:11:03training here, in an institution like this,
0:11:03 > 0:11:05but then be placed in a proper domestic service job.
0:11:05 > 0:11:06That's right.
0:11:06 > 0:11:10I mean, in fact, in some places people came to the home
0:11:10 > 0:11:14or the workhouse, you know, the demand exceeded supply in many cases.
0:11:14 > 0:11:16Workhouse children were very popular.
0:11:16 > 0:11:18Why do you think that was?
0:11:18 > 0:11:19Well, a number of reasons.
0:11:19 > 0:11:22First of all, they were used to discipline, you'd probably say.
0:11:22 > 0:11:26A lot of them had no families, so they wouldn't be running off
0:11:26 > 0:11:29to their families at the first sign of any trouble.
0:11:29 > 0:11:32There's one lovely story in 1912,
0:11:32 > 0:11:35an ex-workhouse girl in Sedgefield who'd gone in to domestic service,
0:11:35 > 0:11:39wrote to the workhouse saying could she come back for her summer holidays,
0:11:39 > 0:11:41because that was the only place she knew as home.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44- Oh, I've seen some letters like that, yes.- Really...
0:11:44 > 0:11:47Well, they had nowhere to go, so on your time off, they often went back.
0:11:47 > 0:11:48Yeah, yeah.
0:11:48 > 0:11:51What's really striking about this is you get a really different sense
0:11:51 > 0:11:54of the workhouse as an institution.
0:11:54 > 0:11:56It's much more part of a network, national,
0:11:56 > 0:11:58local networks of training homes,
0:11:58 > 0:12:01different kinds of poor relief, different kinds of charities.
0:12:01 > 0:12:05And, essentially, they're all mopping up working class girls
0:12:05 > 0:12:08and putting mops in their hand.
0:12:08 > 0:12:09That's exactly true.
0:12:09 > 0:12:11Documents from cottage homes in London show
0:12:11 > 0:12:14that many of the boys were sent in to trades, hairdressing,
0:12:14 > 0:12:17shoe-making or tailoring,
0:12:17 > 0:12:19or sent into the Army or Navy.
0:12:19 > 0:12:21But if you look at the figures for the girls,
0:12:21 > 0:12:25a very different picture emerges.
0:12:25 > 0:12:30In that year there 469 girls placed from workhouses.
0:12:30 > 0:12:35Of 469, 450 went into domestic service.
0:12:35 > 0:12:39- That just, you know, really that was the only place to go.- Yes.
0:12:39 > 0:12:41In fact, they've only got two columns, domestic service
0:12:41 > 0:12:43and other occupations.
0:12:43 > 0:12:45And if you look at the detail, again,
0:12:45 > 0:12:47the ones who didn't go into domestic service typically had
0:12:47 > 0:12:51some other sort of problem, a health problem or eye problems or whatever.
0:12:51 > 0:12:56Look at this, "Weak intellect, epileptic, dirty habits, opthalmia.
0:12:56 > 0:12:58"Dull and epileptic."
0:12:58 > 0:13:00- Yes. Quite a depressing list.- Mm.
0:13:00 > 0:13:03But really it's just striking, you know, the only destination
0:13:03 > 0:13:07for workhouse girls, certainly in London, was domestic service.
0:13:10 > 0:13:13One charity with a strong record of rescuing children from streets
0:13:13 > 0:13:18and workhouses across the country and putting them into service
0:13:18 > 0:13:21was the Church of England Waifs and Stray Society.
0:13:22 > 0:13:26Amazingly, buried in the boxes of its archives in south London,
0:13:26 > 0:13:29actual stories of children sent into service
0:13:29 > 0:13:32at the turn of the century still survive,
0:13:32 > 0:13:36as the Society kept track of every child that passed through its doors.
0:13:36 > 0:13:40I first came to this archive 15 or 16 years ago,
0:13:40 > 0:13:43and it's what made me want to be a historian.
0:13:43 > 0:13:46There are some deeply shocking things in here,
0:13:46 > 0:13:49there's some deeply moving things in here.
0:13:49 > 0:13:54It's very emotional, actually, to see it all again. It's lovely.
0:14:02 > 0:14:06Alongside photos of the slums in which these children were found,
0:14:06 > 0:14:09are pictures of them before and after their training.
0:14:09 > 0:14:13Even case files stuffed with progress reports and letters
0:14:13 > 0:14:17sent back to the society from their families and employers.
0:14:17 > 0:14:20Peggy wasn't a very good servant, and this is
0:14:20 > 0:14:24a kind of reference letter from her employer when she was about 14.
0:14:24 > 0:14:28"Peggy is quite a good worker in certain branches of housework.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31"She can polish floors beautifully, can wash nicely
0:14:31 > 0:14:35"and is a good scrubber, but is no good for parlour work
0:14:35 > 0:14:38"or any kind of work that requires a dainty touch."
0:14:38 > 0:14:41I'm not sure what happened to her next.
0:14:41 > 0:14:44Harold had rather a worse time.
0:14:44 > 0:14:47He actually ran away from his employer.
0:14:47 > 0:14:51There's a letter here that sets out why he did that.
0:14:51 > 0:14:54And this is a vicar who's writing on his behalf
0:14:54 > 0:14:56to give his side of the story.
0:14:56 > 0:14:59"He tells me that the reason he ran away from this place in London
0:14:59 > 0:15:02"was that the head-butler, or steward, as I think he called him,
0:15:02 > 0:15:05"treated him very badly and was always swearing at him.
0:15:05 > 0:15:07"He says that two of the maids also ran away,
0:15:07 > 0:15:10"and he apparently sacrificed his wages to do so.
0:15:10 > 0:15:11"Of course, I do not know,
0:15:11 > 0:15:14"but he seemed to me to be speaking the truth."
0:15:14 > 0:15:16This is poor Caroline.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19Caroline was reprimanded by her employers
0:15:19 > 0:15:22and you can sort of see why.
0:15:22 > 0:15:27She says, "She is disobedient, she cannot be left in the kitchen.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30"Today she hit the cook over the head
0:15:30 > 0:15:32"just for asking her not to use a spoon."
0:15:32 > 0:15:33Oh, dear.
0:15:33 > 0:15:37Finally, there's the moving case of Amelia,
0:15:37 > 0:15:39who gives us a very different side to the story.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42Amelia had a really difficult start in life.
0:15:42 > 0:15:47She was abused by her step-father and sent in to care,
0:15:47 > 0:15:50even though her siblings, half-siblings weren't.
0:15:50 > 0:15:54She was neglected so much that her growth was stunted,
0:15:54 > 0:15:56so she's described here as a dwarf.
0:15:56 > 0:15:59And she was sent to train as a servant
0:15:59 > 0:16:03in Connaught Home for Girls in Hampshire,
0:16:03 > 0:16:06but it actually turned out pretty well for her.
0:16:06 > 0:16:09She got a series of service positions,
0:16:09 > 0:16:12the last of which lasted for 40 years.
0:16:12 > 0:16:16And there's a letter here from her employer's daughter.
0:16:16 > 0:16:18"Sir" again, writing to the society,
0:16:18 > 0:16:21"I am writing on behalf of Amelia who entered the service
0:16:21 > 0:16:24"of my father and mother 40 years ago today.
0:16:24 > 0:16:27"When they died she remained on with me.
0:16:27 > 0:16:29"So it's 40 years in the family.
0:16:29 > 0:16:32"I think this is almost a record of some sort, is it not?"
0:16:32 > 0:16:34And what all this says to me
0:16:34 > 0:16:37is that this kind of child-saving work and rescue work
0:16:37 > 0:16:39was incredibly well meant.
0:16:39 > 0:16:43It was hand-on-heart reform and it did change lives.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46For the children involved it was probably better in many,
0:16:46 > 0:16:49many cases to be a servant in a private family home,
0:16:49 > 0:16:51rather than staying on the street.
0:16:51 > 0:16:55But it was also a way of solving the servant problem,
0:16:55 > 0:16:59and in a way it was a bit like being able to keep a servant
0:16:59 > 0:17:01and keep a clear conscience.
0:17:03 > 0:17:07While most of these children were sent to middle class homes,
0:17:07 > 0:17:09many also ended up in the big house.
0:17:10 > 0:17:12At Lanhydrock, Lady Robartes founded
0:17:12 > 0:17:17the Trevian School for the Training of Orphan or Friendless Girls for domestic service,
0:17:17 > 0:17:20some of whom had been brought to Cornwall directly
0:17:20 > 0:17:23from the slums of east London.
0:17:23 > 0:17:27They were then sent into the lowest-paid jobs, under housemaids,
0:17:27 > 0:17:32kitchen maids and tweenys, which meant a between stairs maid,
0:17:32 > 0:17:36who split her duties between upstairs and downstairs.
0:17:36 > 0:17:41The route from the workhouse to the scullery was now a well trodden one.
0:17:41 > 0:17:47The between-stairs maid, wage £13 a year.
0:17:47 > 0:17:51Hours of work - 5.00am to 10.00pm, seven days a week.
0:17:51 > 0:17:56Duties - wash the dishes, scour the pots and pans with lemon and salt.
0:17:56 > 0:17:58Peel the vegetables, scrub the floors.
0:17:58 > 0:17:59Set and clear servants' meals.
0:17:59 > 0:18:01Destroy pests. Carry the coal. Recycle the scraps.
0:18:01 > 0:18:03Fetch the water from the pump.
0:18:09 > 0:18:11It's certainly clear why stairs figure prominently
0:18:11 > 0:18:13in the mythology of service.
0:18:13 > 0:18:16Many former tweenys still remember the exact number of steps
0:18:16 > 0:18:19they had to climb in every house in which they worked.
0:18:19 > 0:18:24The worst job of all was slop duty, emptying the slops of every
0:18:24 > 0:18:28member of the household, both masters and fellow servants.
0:18:28 > 0:18:31This is what was called the sluice room,
0:18:31 > 0:18:35and really it's a kind of small indoor sewage farm.
0:18:35 > 0:18:39The tweenys or junior housemaids in the big house
0:18:39 > 0:18:41would go around in the mornings,
0:18:41 > 0:18:43collect the full chamberpots and the bedpans,
0:18:43 > 0:18:48empty them in to slop buckets, bring those buckets back here,
0:18:48 > 0:18:51pour the contents down here in the sluice sink,
0:18:51 > 0:18:53flush them away like that.
0:18:55 > 0:18:59So really servants were being used as a form of human plumbing,
0:18:59 > 0:19:00and all without rubber gloves.
0:19:02 > 0:19:07It's also always struck me how heavy these girls' daily rounds were,
0:19:07 > 0:19:09not just in terms of the hours worked,
0:19:09 > 0:19:12but also the actual physical weight of the equipment.
0:19:13 > 0:19:15They're quite heavy even when they're empty.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20What you've got to remember here is that working class kids
0:19:20 > 0:19:22were much less well fed, less well nourished.
0:19:22 > 0:19:26They had smaller frames than middle class/upper class children.
0:19:26 > 0:19:28Some of them were as young as 11, 12, 13
0:19:28 > 0:19:31working in places like this doing these kinds of jobs.
0:19:31 > 0:19:35They were legally employed, but this was child labour.
0:19:35 > 0:19:41One tweeny, Laura Halton, entered service in the big house in 1912.
0:19:41 > 0:19:44I've come to find out more about her from her granddaughter,
0:19:44 > 0:19:46Linda Huckle.
0:19:47 > 0:19:51My grandmother is that lady just there. Yeah.
0:19:51 > 0:19:52And how old would she have been there?
0:19:52 > 0:19:55I think she looks about 17 there.
0:19:55 > 0:19:57She might have been younger or older,
0:19:57 > 0:19:59but she certainly looks about 17.
0:19:59 > 0:20:02And she's sitting there with all the other housemaids,
0:20:02 > 0:20:04parlour maids, and this maybe the housekeeper.
0:20:04 > 0:20:07That's right. That's the older sort of larger lady.
0:20:07 > 0:20:08Yes.
0:20:08 > 0:20:11And this rather grumpy looking lady over here,
0:20:11 > 0:20:14I think she might have been probably the cook.
0:20:14 > 0:20:17Could be. Yes.
0:20:17 > 0:20:19So do you know much about what she actually did?
0:20:19 > 0:20:23She was the lowest of the low and started as the lowest of the low,
0:20:23 > 0:20:26scrubbing floors and, in fact, scrubbing so much
0:20:26 > 0:20:29that her fingers bled and she wasn't allowed to stop
0:20:29 > 0:20:30until she'd done a good job.
0:20:30 > 0:20:34And apparently suffered from chilblains terribly
0:20:34 > 0:20:38all through her life, and my mother thinks it's because
0:20:38 > 0:20:39of her early life in service.
0:20:39 > 0:20:42- I think they did earn their corn, didn't they?- Absolutely.
0:20:42 > 0:20:44And what's this?
0:20:44 > 0:20:47Linda has brought one of Laura's most treasured possessions,
0:20:47 > 0:20:50an autograph book full of poems and messages of support
0:20:50 > 0:20:52written by her fellow maids while in service.
0:20:52 > 0:20:55One poem is particularly touching.
0:20:55 > 0:20:58"Never despair, keep smiling
0:20:58 > 0:21:00"Better than wealth with its carriage and pair
0:21:00 > 0:21:03"Better than rank, on a face wondrous fair
0:21:03 > 0:21:05"Is a heart that life's burdens can cheerfully bear
0:21:05 > 0:21:08"Just a brave loving heart that never despairs."
0:21:08 > 0:21:11- Oh.- It's lovely, isn't it? - Yeah, it is.
0:21:14 > 0:21:18Given how tough the job was, it's no surprise that given the choice
0:21:18 > 0:21:22this new generation of women were no longer choosing to go into service.
0:21:22 > 0:21:27But the drop in number was also down to other significant social changes.
0:21:27 > 0:21:31The Balfour Education Act of 1902 raised the school leaving age
0:21:31 > 0:21:34from 10 to 12, opening up secondary education
0:21:34 > 0:21:38to many more children and raising literacy throughout Britain.
0:21:38 > 0:21:40This generation of children
0:21:40 > 0:21:42didn't want to follow their parents into service.
0:21:42 > 0:21:46They wanted better for themselves, they wanted to work in shops,
0:21:46 > 0:21:48offices, factories and hotels.
0:21:48 > 0:21:52Those jobs weren't brilliantly paid, but there was a crucial difference,
0:21:52 > 0:21:55they came with freedom, evenings and weekends off.
0:21:59 > 0:22:01To cater for this new world,
0:22:01 > 0:22:04a distinct Edwardian, working class culture
0:22:04 > 0:22:05was beginning to emerge,
0:22:05 > 0:22:08one based around leisure and pleasure.
0:22:10 > 0:22:14This was the era of seaside resorts, like Morecambe Bay, Southport
0:22:14 > 0:22:18and Blackpool, where funfairs, music halls and brass bands on the pier
0:22:18 > 0:22:21entertained workers on their days off.
0:22:36 > 0:22:39Unlike other workers, servants still had very little free time,
0:22:39 > 0:22:42for most just Sunday afternoons.
0:22:42 > 0:22:45But now, rather than going to church,
0:22:45 > 0:22:48they would head out to join the throngs.
0:22:48 > 0:22:52And it was the park that was the place to be, for it was here
0:22:52 > 0:22:54that servant girls could meet and make eyes at
0:22:54 > 0:22:56boys from the Army and Navy,
0:22:56 > 0:22:59some of whom had come from the same cottage homes.
0:22:59 > 0:23:03Servant girls' infatuation with soldiers was such an age-old story
0:23:03 > 0:23:05it even had a nickname - "scarlet fever" -
0:23:05 > 0:23:08because of the soldiers' bright red uniforms.
0:23:17 > 0:23:22One young servant, Lillian Westall, went into service in 1907,
0:23:22 > 0:23:24aged just 14.
0:23:24 > 0:23:27Later, she wrote in her memoirs about getting into trouble
0:23:27 > 0:23:30after meeting a young sailor in the park.
0:23:30 > 0:23:33"I got back about 11.00, I should have been in by 10.00.
0:23:33 > 0:23:36"I went to the under-house maid's room and slept with her.
0:23:36 > 0:23:39"But the head steward was up early, found my bed hadn't been slept in.
0:23:39 > 0:23:42"That was enough for him, he sent for me.
0:23:42 > 0:23:46"'Go at once,' he said sternly, 'we don't want your sort here.'"
0:23:46 > 0:23:48"I made no protest.
0:23:48 > 0:23:51"After all, I was in the wrong, I should have been in by 10.00.
0:23:51 > 0:23:55"I packed my little basket once more and left."
0:23:55 > 0:23:58What I love about Lillian is the fact that she stands for
0:23:58 > 0:24:00so many servant girls of the time.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04She wasn't phased by this episode, she didn't hang her head in shame,
0:24:04 > 0:24:06she just went out and got another job.
0:24:06 > 0:24:09In fact, she had nine jobs in seven years.
0:24:09 > 0:24:12For girls like Lillian, service was something that fitted in
0:24:12 > 0:24:16around their lives as well as around the whims of their employers.
0:24:18 > 0:24:20Lillian ended up marrying her sailor,
0:24:20 > 0:24:23but it didn't always end so happily.
0:24:23 > 0:24:26New-found freedoms often led many servant girls
0:24:26 > 0:24:27down a far more dangerous path.
0:24:30 > 0:24:34Just three miles from Lanhydrock in Cornwall,
0:24:34 > 0:24:38in the small town of Loswithiel was a home run by nuns for fallen women,
0:24:38 > 0:24:42women who had literally fallen down the moral order,
0:24:42 > 0:24:44mostly by losing their virginity.
0:24:44 > 0:24:48The home wanted to try to give them a fresh start in life,
0:24:48 > 0:24:51and one way it did that was by training them to be laundry maids.
0:24:57 > 0:25:01Called St Faith's House of Mercy, it was built on land
0:25:01 > 0:25:06donated by Lady Robartes, a considerable philanthropic gesture.
0:25:06 > 0:25:08But it was also a way of out-sourcing Lanhydrock's
0:25:08 > 0:25:10most labour-intensive job, the laundry.
0:25:14 > 0:25:16Delivered by horse and cart every Monday,
0:25:16 > 0:25:201.5 tons of washing were processed every week,
0:25:20 > 0:25:22overseen by a group of Anglican nuns
0:25:22 > 0:25:25from a middle-class Order from Oxfordshire.
0:25:25 > 0:25:30By 1900, St Faith's was just one of more than 200
0:25:30 > 0:25:33of these Anglican institutions across Britain,
0:25:33 > 0:25:36which in their time rescued over 100,000 girls.
0:25:37 > 0:25:39Called penitentiaries,
0:25:39 > 0:25:43historian Susan Munn has been studying them for over ten years.
0:25:43 > 0:25:46Because when a penitent asked for admission she would be
0:25:46 > 0:25:49interviewed by the Mother Superior, and the Mother Superior would
0:25:49 > 0:25:54make some extremely brief notes about her story.
0:25:54 > 0:25:57And these follow a very classic pattern.
0:25:57 > 0:26:01And they get pushed out into service very young or they run away.
0:26:01 > 0:26:06- Yes.- And sooner or later, something happens, she's on the street,
0:26:06 > 0:26:10she's had an affair, she's been raped by her master's son,
0:26:10 > 0:26:12any number of things could happen.
0:26:12 > 0:26:15One way or another they end up at the door of the penitentiary
0:26:15 > 0:26:16telling their story.
0:26:16 > 0:26:20The idea was that once you were inside the penitentiary
0:26:20 > 0:26:22that life was gone, it was behind you.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25They were asked to never refer to it again.
0:26:25 > 0:26:28So telling that story at the time of entrance
0:26:28 > 0:26:31- was a transformative moment.- Like a confession, almost.- Yeah, yeah.
0:26:31 > 0:26:33It wasn't allowed to use your own name,
0:26:33 > 0:26:35they were all given a new name when they entered.
0:26:35 > 0:26:39They did not wear their own clothes, they wore a uniform dress.
0:26:39 > 0:26:42And it all sounds terribly repressive until you realise
0:26:42 > 0:26:45that the Sisters did precisely the same things themselves.
0:26:45 > 0:26:46Of course.
0:26:46 > 0:26:50They wore habits, they were given a new name when they joined the Order
0:26:50 > 0:26:54and it was strictly forbidden to talk about their past lives.
0:26:54 > 0:26:58Do we see a lot of servants in here, these kinds of places?
0:26:58 > 0:27:02The great majority of women who enter penitentiaries
0:27:02 > 0:27:05are servants, and of domestic servants they tend to be,
0:27:05 > 0:27:11no surprises here, maids-of-all-work, the very bottom of the servant tier,
0:27:11 > 0:27:14both in terms of status, wages and skill levels.
0:27:15 > 0:27:20St Faith's was a laundry penitentiary. Why laundries?
0:27:20 > 0:27:26Laundry work was noisy, messy, hot, exhausting, but it was a skill.
0:27:26 > 0:27:28Yes.
0:27:28 > 0:27:32And in addition to that you can see it as symbolic of what
0:27:32 > 0:27:35the Sisterhoods were trying to do in the penitentiaries themselves.
0:27:35 > 0:27:37Why was it symbolic?
0:27:37 > 0:27:40It's symbolic because they're standing over their wash tub
0:27:40 > 0:27:43scrubbing clothes and steaming the stains out
0:27:43 > 0:27:45and ironing everything till it's smooth again,
0:27:45 > 0:27:50while the same process is happening internally to their soul.
0:27:51 > 0:27:54How to remove stains from a dress -
0:27:54 > 0:28:00special items with more than one type of fabric should be unpicked,
0:28:00 > 0:28:02washing each part separately.
0:28:02 > 0:28:07Grease from candles is removed by turpentine. Ink with lemon juice.
0:28:07 > 0:28:09Fruit stains with hot milk.
0:28:09 > 0:28:13And wax by a hot coal wrapped in linen or brown paper.
0:28:13 > 0:28:15When finished, sew the dress back together.
0:28:19 > 0:28:22Although St Faith's hasn't been a penitentiary for over 60 years,
0:28:22 > 0:28:25I've come to have a look around with Chrissie Knight,
0:28:25 > 0:28:28whose Great Aunt Amelia was here in 1901.
0:28:31 > 0:28:34It was converted in to a holiday home in the 1950s.
0:28:34 > 0:28:37This takes you in to the laundry room.
0:28:37 > 0:28:40But traces of its old life can still be found.
0:28:40 > 0:28:42- Not much of it survives now. - No, no.
0:28:42 > 0:28:43This is a billiard room.
0:28:43 > 0:28:48But that was the vent here, for the steam.
0:28:48 > 0:28:49A busy place then it was going to be, wasn't it?
0:28:49 > 0:28:53- Yeah, it was quite a little business, really.- It was, yeah.
0:28:53 > 0:28:55There's even an old pump from which all the water
0:28:55 > 0:28:58would be brought in by hand.
0:28:58 > 0:29:01- Oh, my word. - And it's got a date on there. 1879.
0:29:02 > 0:29:05I wouldn't like to... I wouldn't liked to have done that!
0:29:05 > 0:29:09Drag water from here in to there. Buckets and buckets of water.
0:29:09 > 0:29:11Yeah. Day in, day out, wasn't it?
0:29:11 > 0:29:14- Yeah. All that washing to do. - Yeah.
0:29:16 > 0:29:19Up at the very top of the building you can still see traces
0:29:19 > 0:29:23of the dormitory where the girls would have collapsed into bed.
0:29:26 > 0:29:31- You can see the hooks up here, the original hooks.- Yeah.
0:29:31 > 0:29:33And another one there.
0:29:34 > 0:29:38The only photograph Chrissie has of her Great Aunt Amelia
0:29:38 > 0:29:41was taken at Amelia's third wedding when she was in her 80s.
0:29:41 > 0:29:43She was a bit of naughty girl.
0:29:43 > 0:29:45We were told that she was actually sent
0:29:45 > 0:29:46to Bodmin Jail for prostitution.
0:29:46 > 0:29:49Apparently, in Devonport there was a bit of an argument, tussle,
0:29:49 > 0:29:52girls fighting.
0:29:52 > 0:29:55Obviously, she was on their patch.
0:29:55 > 0:29:59My belief is that the Sisters of Mercy rescued her
0:29:59 > 0:30:01and brought her here to serve out her penance.
0:30:01 > 0:30:06And she worked in the laundry here. From the 1901 Census here.
0:30:06 > 0:30:08Oh, right, and she's here at St Faith's.
0:30:08 > 0:30:10It's here at St Faith's, yeah. And there she is there.
0:30:10 > 0:30:13- Oh, yes, Amelia Jane Harding. - Amelia Jane, aged 19.
0:30:13 > 0:30:16- And she's an inmate?- Yeah. - There's a 12-year-old girl here.
0:30:16 > 0:30:20- Yeah.- Annie Hickman. There's a 15-year-old, Elizabeth French.
0:30:20 > 0:30:22- 15. Yeah.- A 33-year-old.
0:30:22 > 0:30:25So at 19, she's around the middle, isn't she?
0:30:25 > 0:30:27Yeah, she is, yeah. Yeah.
0:30:27 > 0:30:29Yeah. What do you know about her early life?
0:30:29 > 0:30:32Only that her father died when she was about 11 years old.
0:30:32 > 0:30:36And she was then sent over to Plymouth to
0:30:36 > 0:30:38the Royal Female Open Orphanage.
0:30:38 > 0:30:42And it's where they used to train young girls for domestic service.
0:30:42 > 0:30:44Then we've got a lapse of a few years,
0:30:44 > 0:30:48which we don't know much about, until she turned up in Bodmin.
0:30:48 > 0:30:50So, you know, she's had it pretty tough.
0:30:50 > 0:30:53- Yeah. Yeah. - She really has had it tough.
0:30:53 > 0:30:55When you think of the other options.
0:30:55 > 0:30:58Well, yeah, when you think of the alternatives, she could have
0:30:58 > 0:31:00ended up and stayed in Bodmin Jail, or else the workhouse.
0:31:00 > 0:31:02- But she didn't. - Or gone back to the streets.
0:31:02 > 0:31:04Or gone back to the streets, yeah.
0:31:04 > 0:31:07But she came here, which I think for Amelia was probably the best thing,
0:31:07 > 0:31:10because it certainly improved her life, because when she left here
0:31:10 > 0:31:14she went home, got married, had children and lived a normal life.
0:31:14 > 0:31:17And became a good girl. SHE LAUGHS
0:31:24 > 0:31:27Not everyone was as charitable towards the girls.
0:31:27 > 0:31:30Many of them recalled the walk to church on Sunday as
0:31:30 > 0:31:34a day of terror, with crowds of leering men shouting, whistling
0:31:34 > 0:31:36and climbing over the walls to reach them.
0:31:36 > 0:31:39On occasions, the police even convoyed the nuns
0:31:39 > 0:31:41and their charges to church.
0:31:50 > 0:31:54It's easy to see the darker side of institutions like St Faith's,
0:31:54 > 0:31:58but I also think we've got to see them as progressive places
0:31:58 > 0:32:01which took in women the rest of society had abandoned.
0:32:07 > 0:32:11It says, "In Memory of St Faith's maidens".
0:32:11 > 0:32:13There's a list of names there,
0:32:13 > 0:32:17Mercy Hooper, Jane Semple, Daisy Jewel, Grace-May Wilson.
0:32:20 > 0:32:24They didn't leave the home to start a new life, their life ended there.
0:32:39 > 0:32:44What places like St Faith's tell us is that many female servants
0:32:44 > 0:32:48got stuck in a strange cycle of service and life on the streets,
0:32:48 > 0:32:53with traditional jobs in farming or mining no longer deemed feminine,
0:32:53 > 0:32:57for women near the bottom of society there weren't many options.
0:32:59 > 0:33:03Male servants faced difficulties of their own,
0:33:03 > 0:33:04albeit of a very different kind.
0:33:04 > 0:33:08By 1901, they were now outnumbered by female servants
0:33:08 > 0:33:10by more than twenty to one..
0:33:13 > 0:33:17The footman - salary £20 a year plus tips.
0:33:17 > 0:33:21Duties - run alongside the master's carriage to look for potholes
0:33:21 > 0:33:23and ward off intruders.
0:33:23 > 0:33:25Deliver the master and mistress's private messages.
0:33:25 > 0:33:27Welcome visitors and announce guests.
0:33:27 > 0:33:30Clean the best knives and forks and polish the silver.
0:33:30 > 0:33:33Lay the table. Pour the wine and serve at dinner parties.
0:33:33 > 0:33:35Reserve seats at the theatre and opera.
0:33:36 > 0:33:39The footman was once the gilded peacock of service,
0:33:39 > 0:33:43employed for their good looks and shapely legs, they wore the finest
0:33:43 > 0:33:48livery to show their distinction from dirty and productive labour.
0:33:48 > 0:33:51Once the hallmark of gentility and class,
0:33:51 > 0:33:53they were now few and far between.
0:33:53 > 0:33:56There are two reasons for that.
0:33:56 > 0:33:58The first was that indoor service had simply become associated
0:33:58 > 0:34:01with women and women's work no longer appealed to men.
0:34:01 > 0:34:05The second reason is more intriguing, it's to do with tax.
0:34:05 > 0:34:08A tax was first introduced on male servants in the 1770s
0:34:08 > 0:34:12to help pay for the American War of Independence,
0:34:12 > 0:34:15but it remained in place right up to until the 1930s.
0:34:15 > 0:34:21And I've got a tax licence here, licensed for one male servant,
0:34:21 > 0:34:26which allows Lady Amy to employ one male servant for one year,
0:34:26 > 0:34:29having paid the sum of 15 shillings for the licence.
0:34:29 > 0:34:32So this licence and the tax behind it
0:34:32 > 0:34:37defined male servants as a luxury that only the rich could afford.
0:34:38 > 0:34:41To add insult to injury, as the motorcar replaced
0:34:41 > 0:34:44the horse and carriage in the homes of the super-rich,
0:34:44 > 0:34:47the footman became little more than an ornamental throwback,
0:34:47 > 0:34:51left to wait at table, clean the cutlery and open the door.
0:34:54 > 0:34:58One of the best places to track the decline in the male service
0:34:58 > 0:35:01is Polesden Lacey in Surrey.
0:35:02 > 0:35:05This was the home of Mrs Ronald Greville,
0:35:05 > 0:35:08society hostess and close friend of Edward VII,
0:35:08 > 0:35:11a venue for endless glittering parties,
0:35:11 > 0:35:13serviced by a small army of staff.
0:35:15 > 0:35:18No doubt inspired by one of her visits here,
0:35:18 > 0:35:21journalist and snooty mother-in-law, Lady Violet Greville,
0:35:21 > 0:35:24wrote a witty article about the problems with the modern man servant
0:35:24 > 0:35:27in the society magazine The National Review.
0:35:28 > 0:35:31Lady Violet writes this as a caricature piece
0:35:31 > 0:35:34for the amusement of her upper class readers,
0:35:34 > 0:35:37but her comments about men servants are quite stinging.
0:35:37 > 0:35:41She says that, "although our servants belong to our climate
0:35:41 > 0:35:44"like our Christmas fogs, our roast beef and our cricket,
0:35:44 > 0:35:47"they have become flunkies and lackeys,
0:35:47 > 0:35:50"the very worst type of species."
0:35:50 > 0:35:53For Lady Violet, things are not what they used to be.
0:35:53 > 0:35:56Her list of complaints is rather long.
0:35:56 > 0:36:00She says, "They are generally married men who have
0:36:00 > 0:36:04"drifted down from a higher estate through drink or other misfortunes.
0:36:04 > 0:36:07"They are slovenly and lazy and lord it over the widow
0:36:07 > 0:36:11"and the orphan with whom it is their lots to be cast."
0:36:11 > 0:36:18And worst still, "He remains a unique specimen of high civilisation
0:36:18 > 0:36:22"acting upon a naturally uneducated nature.
0:36:22 > 0:36:26"There is veneer, but no real value underneath."
0:36:27 > 0:36:31What does Lady Violet think might be done about all of this?
0:36:31 > 0:36:33Well, actually, not very much.
0:36:33 > 0:36:35"There is nothing to be done, but for us,
0:36:35 > 0:36:39"the employers, to be very kind and indulgent to them
0:36:39 > 0:36:43"and blandly to hope that they will return the compliment."
0:36:44 > 0:36:48At Polesden Lacey such complaints weren't unfounded.
0:36:48 > 0:36:51The under-butler, a man called Mr Bacon,
0:36:51 > 0:36:53was notorious for being drunk on the job,
0:36:53 > 0:36:56passing inappropriate messages to lady guests
0:36:56 > 0:36:58and eating the food before it got to the table.
0:36:58 > 0:37:03But what Lady Violent didn't reckon on was being answered in print
0:37:03 > 0:37:06in the same paper by an actual servant,
0:37:06 > 0:37:08a butler called John Robinson.
0:37:08 > 0:37:14John Robinson's reply is called A Butler's View Of Men Service.
0:37:14 > 0:37:17He castigates Lady Greville,
0:37:17 > 0:37:20he calls her attitudes to this question
0:37:20 > 0:37:24"A Belgravian version of the imperial Roman elite's attitudes
0:37:24 > 0:37:25"to their slaves."
0:37:25 > 0:37:31The problem he says, "Is not with servants but with employers."
0:37:31 > 0:37:36And it's on these employers that John Robinson really lets rip.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39Their upper class "indolence" he says sets a bad example.
0:37:39 > 0:37:42"Their supercilious scorn strips the servant
0:37:42 > 0:37:44"of any sense of responsibility."
0:37:44 > 0:37:48And worst of all, "Forced to be for ever at their beck and call,
0:37:48 > 0:37:52"opportunities for servants' self-improvement are impossible."
0:37:52 > 0:37:55And this is how he ends, this is his conclusion.
0:37:55 > 0:37:59"Society is too much taken up with its balls and millinery, its dinners
0:37:59 > 0:38:04"and matchmaking ever to think of its duties towards dependence.
0:38:04 > 0:38:07"Put service on the level with a trade,
0:38:07 > 0:38:10"let better service be required,
0:38:10 > 0:38:12"but let the servant be treated as a man,
0:38:12 > 0:38:16"in this way the existing corruption will be abolished
0:38:16 > 0:38:20"and the abuses servants now complain of be a thing of the past."
0:38:20 > 0:38:24You can feel the scorn scorching the page.
0:38:25 > 0:38:29Servants like John Robinson were keenly aware of the sharp contrasts
0:38:29 > 0:38:32between those parts of national life that were changing
0:38:32 > 0:38:34and those that were not.
0:38:34 > 0:38:37And, what's more, they were no longer afraid to voice it.
0:38:38 > 0:38:43Outside the home, a rising labour movement organised from within
0:38:43 > 0:38:46the working class was transforming life in Britain's shops
0:38:46 > 0:38:49and factories, fighting for everything from safety laws
0:38:49 > 0:38:53and the inspection of conditions, to strict limits on working hours.
0:38:53 > 0:38:58But Britain's 1.3 million servants were being ignored.
0:38:58 > 0:39:01Labour reform was beginning to gather pace,
0:39:01 > 0:39:04but for many people labour in the home wasn't considered proper work,
0:39:04 > 0:39:07it didn't need reform, it was a private arrangement.
0:39:08 > 0:39:11Alongside John Robinson, female servants also started to
0:39:11 > 0:39:17make their voices heard, albeit with more modest calls for change.
0:39:17 > 0:39:19Here's one cook.
0:39:20 > 0:39:22"I've been in service 20 years
0:39:22 > 0:39:24"and feel sure I could make a few suggestions.
0:39:24 > 0:39:29"I'm in a hard place now, I rise early and am at work all day long.
0:39:29 > 0:39:31"I get out but for a few hours once a week.
0:39:31 > 0:39:35"I think servants hours of labour much too long,
0:39:35 > 0:39:38"and I wish with all my heart the Factory Act limiting
0:39:38 > 0:39:41"the hours of labour could be applied to domestic service.
0:39:41 > 0:39:45"Good sorts of people, I feel sure, would not mind."
0:39:46 > 0:39:50The problem was that most employers did mind and, as yet,
0:39:50 > 0:39:54not enough servants were willing to risk challenging them head-on.
0:39:57 > 0:40:00One place where the ground started to shift was Glasgow in Scotland.
0:40:00 > 0:40:04Built on heavy industry, by 1900 Glasgow was the fourth largest
0:40:04 > 0:40:08city in Europe, home to some of the wealthiest shipbuilders,
0:40:08 > 0:40:10steel magnates and bankers in Britain.
0:40:12 > 0:40:16But it was also the city with the strongest workers' unions,
0:40:16 > 0:40:19where the battle for workers' rights was most violently waged.
0:40:22 > 0:40:27Surprisingly, one such worker was a 17-year-old tweeny
0:40:27 > 0:40:32called Jessie Steven, who worked here at number 20 Belhaven Terrace
0:40:32 > 0:40:34for one of Glasgow's grandest couples,
0:40:34 > 0:40:36Sir Samuel and Lady Chisholm.
0:40:38 > 0:40:40From the basement of this grand house
0:40:40 > 0:40:43emerged a great story of servant power.
0:40:43 > 0:40:47Historian Laura Schwartz has come to tell Jessie's tale.
0:40:47 > 0:40:52Jessie tells a story about working here for almost a year and then
0:40:52 > 0:40:57falling on the stairs when she was cleaning them and hurting her ankle.
0:40:57 > 0:41:02So she continued to work on this painful ankle for two days before
0:41:02 > 0:41:05it became almost impossible for her to walk, and the doctor was called.
0:41:05 > 0:41:07And the doctor was horrified to find that, actually,
0:41:07 > 0:41:10she'd been working on a dislocated ankle.
0:41:10 > 0:41:13So he advised her to rest until it was better,
0:41:13 > 0:41:16but this was not something that was acceptable to Lady Chisholm.
0:41:16 > 0:41:19So this was around Christmas time when there were lots of guests.
0:41:19 > 0:41:21- A busy time, yeah. - Very busy, lots of celebrations.
0:41:21 > 0:41:25So Jessie was put to work doing the washing-up,
0:41:25 > 0:41:28and the only way that she could manage to stand at the sink
0:41:28 > 0:41:31was to stand on one leg with her dislocated ankle propped on a chair,
0:41:31 > 0:41:34and there she stayed from 7.00 in the evening
0:41:34 > 0:41:38until the early hours of the morning doing non-stop washing-up.
0:41:38 > 0:41:43To add insult to the injury, after Christmas Lady Chisholm fired her
0:41:43 > 0:41:46for not being able to work fast enough.
0:41:46 > 0:41:48But that wasn't the end of the story.
0:41:50 > 0:41:54Like many working class kids after Balfour's Education Act of 1902,
0:41:54 > 0:41:58Jessie had won a scholarship to one of Glasgow's best secondary schools,
0:41:58 > 0:42:00but forced into service at 15
0:42:00 > 0:42:04when her father lost his job, she refused to become a deferent tweeny.
0:42:05 > 0:42:09She wasn't so disappointed when she was fired because she had
0:42:09 > 0:42:12already been doing some very useful work while she was here.
0:42:12 > 0:42:14And what was that?
0:42:14 > 0:42:16And that work was walking up and down the houses,
0:42:16 > 0:42:18getting to know the other maids,
0:42:18 > 0:42:21chatting to them in the backyards or in the basement kitchens
0:42:21 > 0:42:25and discussing with them what they disliked about their jobs,
0:42:25 > 0:42:28what kind of change they wanted to happen
0:42:28 > 0:42:29and how they might achieve that.
0:42:29 > 0:42:32- She starts to mobilise the maids? - Yes. She starts to organise them.
0:42:32 > 0:42:36And she talks specifically to them about joining a union.
0:42:36 > 0:42:37Well, you can just imagine it, can't you?
0:42:37 > 0:42:40You can see her down here in these basement yards
0:42:40 > 0:42:43and she probably would have been leaning over the walls or
0:42:43 > 0:42:46stealing a quick moment in between her tasks to go and have a chat.
0:42:46 > 0:42:49Do you think that's actually another reason why she gets fired?
0:42:49 > 0:42:52I think it could have been quite possibly been so.
0:42:52 > 0:42:55It couldn't have escaped the notice of her employers
0:42:55 > 0:42:58that Jessie Steven wasn't quite your ordinary maid.
0:43:07 > 0:43:09In London,
0:43:09 > 0:43:12servants had organised themselves in to a Domestic Workers' Union.
0:43:15 > 0:43:21In 1913, aged just 17, Jessie became the Secretary of the Glasgow branch,
0:43:21 > 0:43:26organising its first mass meeting in a tea-room here in Bothwell Street.
0:43:26 > 0:43:29And what were the demands of the maids at this point?
0:43:29 > 0:43:31The most important thing for them was more time off.
0:43:31 > 0:43:36Maids during this period, it wasn't unusual to work 17-hour days
0:43:36 > 0:43:40with maybe a Sunday afternoon off once a fortnight.
0:43:40 > 0:43:43And so what these maids were demanding was a 12-hour-day,
0:43:43 > 0:43:46and that was seen as a kind of utopian fantasy.
0:43:46 > 0:43:49And they also specifically wanted a half-day holiday,
0:43:49 > 0:43:52an afternoon off every week, and they argued for this because
0:43:52 > 0:43:56they saw this being something that was achieved by other workers.
0:43:56 > 0:44:01So shop workers during this time had been granted a weekly half holiday.
0:44:01 > 0:44:02Right.
0:44:02 > 0:44:05And factory workers also were having their hours limited.
0:44:05 > 0:44:07The servants wanted a piece of this action too?
0:44:07 > 0:44:10They're very aware of what's going on in the wider world, and they're
0:44:10 > 0:44:13aware of these bigger working class struggles that are absolutely
0:44:13 > 0:44:16at fever pitch during this period, and beginning to win stuff.
0:44:16 > 0:44:18- And especially in Glasgow. - Especially in Glasgow.
0:44:18 > 0:44:21And it's picked up in the Glasgow Herald, isn't it,
0:44:21 > 0:44:24- they report the meeting.- Yes.
0:44:24 > 0:44:28And at it Jessie reports that she was out to preach
0:44:28 > 0:44:29the doctrine of divine discontent.
0:44:29 > 0:44:31It's a great phrase, divine discontent.
0:44:33 > 0:44:38In the doctrine of discontent, Jessie wrote up 13 demands,
0:44:38 > 0:44:40including specified meal hours,
0:44:40 > 0:44:43uniforms to be paid for by the employer, not the servant.
0:44:43 > 0:44:46And, above all, recognition of the union.
0:44:46 > 0:44:49The meeting was so successful that branches of the union soon
0:44:49 > 0:44:52sprung up in Edinburgh and Aberdeen.
0:44:53 > 0:44:56But ultimately, its success was short-lived.
0:44:56 > 0:44:59There was a lot of ambiguity towards it,
0:44:59 > 0:45:03from both the Organised Labour Movement, which is still very much
0:45:03 > 0:45:07about organising white men in factory jobs and saw,
0:45:07 > 0:45:09often those men saw domestic servants
0:45:09 > 0:45:12as somehow outside of a wider working...
0:45:12 > 0:45:14It wasn't proper work, not a proper trade.
0:45:14 > 0:45:16And it was too difficult to organise servants.
0:45:16 > 0:45:17Right, right, right.
0:45:17 > 0:45:19Servants work two to a house, three to a house,
0:45:19 > 0:45:22they work very long hours, it's difficult for them
0:45:22 > 0:45:26to get to meetings like the one that Jessie Steven organised here.
0:45:26 > 0:45:30And so some people argue that it's a waste of time and resources
0:45:30 > 0:45:32to put energy in to trying to organise servants
0:45:32 > 0:45:35because it's such a complicated thing to try and do.
0:45:35 > 0:45:36What happens to Jessie in the end?
0:45:36 > 0:45:41She describes how after about six months of organising in Glasgow
0:45:41 > 0:45:44things get too hot for her, is what she called it.
0:45:44 > 0:45:45What does she mean by that?
0:45:45 > 0:45:47It means that she's blacklisted, that she's now..
0:45:47 > 0:45:50I mean, she's being interviewed in the local paper,
0:45:50 > 0:45:53and she doesn't shy away from the kind of class antagonism
0:45:53 > 0:45:55that's inherent in that moment.
0:45:55 > 0:45:58- And she's stirring up the other maids to do the same thing.- She is.
0:45:58 > 0:46:01So who would want to employ that kind of servant?
0:46:01 > 0:46:04So she leaves the city and goes and finds work in London instead.
0:46:08 > 0:46:11Perhaps the most surprising reaction to the servant unions
0:46:11 > 0:46:13wasn't from the male-dominated Labour Movement
0:46:13 > 0:46:15but from the Suffragettes.
0:46:17 > 0:46:21In 1911, Jessie became one of many militant Suffragettes,
0:46:21 > 0:46:24even acid bombing letterboxes disguised in her maid's outfit
0:46:24 > 0:46:26in pursuit of women's votes.
0:46:28 > 0:46:31Yet even though domestic servants were the third largest group
0:46:31 > 0:46:34of all the women who signed petitions for women's votes,
0:46:34 > 0:46:38the Suffragettes found it difficult to support servants' rights.
0:46:38 > 0:46:41I think domestic servants were very active in the movement.
0:46:41 > 0:46:44They made up probably the bulk of the women
0:46:44 > 0:46:47who would have clustered around Suffrage speakers at street corners.
0:46:47 > 0:46:54But they're always duly recognised as members of the Women's Movement.
0:46:54 > 0:46:55How do you explain that?
0:46:55 > 0:47:00I think that there are many Suffragettes in the Women's Movement
0:47:00 > 0:47:03during this period who are middle class women,
0:47:03 > 0:47:07who are professional women and who, of course, employ servants.
0:47:07 > 0:47:11And they themselves often have a very ambiguous response
0:47:11 > 0:47:14to their militant maids.
0:47:15 > 0:47:19So there's a letter here in the Woman Worker
0:47:19 > 0:47:23from a Suffragette mistress, who signs herself "a working wife".
0:47:23 > 0:47:26"I pay them good wages, they have the same food,
0:47:26 > 0:47:28"the same beds as ourselves.
0:47:28 > 0:47:30"I have nursed the maids when they were ill,
0:47:30 > 0:47:32"and sent them away for holidays.
0:47:32 > 0:47:36"I have interested myself in their affairs, helped their friends,
0:47:36 > 0:47:40"sent them to places of amusement and to Suffrage meetings."
0:47:40 > 0:47:43So she feels that she's doing all she can
0:47:43 > 0:47:45as a progressive, feminist mistress
0:47:45 > 0:47:48to help the women who work in her own home.
0:47:48 > 0:47:51And she expects good performance in return.
0:47:51 > 0:47:53She does. And she expects them to be grateful, which they're not.
0:47:53 > 0:47:57So the rest of the letter is her complaining about how they,
0:47:57 > 0:47:59nevertheless, continue to shirk their work,
0:47:59 > 0:48:06how in fact this mistress who works as a doctor's wife works much harder
0:48:06 > 0:48:09than her servants, who she often finds, when she comes home for work,
0:48:09 > 0:48:13lounging about, sitting in front of the fire having a nice time.
0:48:13 > 0:48:17So the letter shifts in tone towards the end,
0:48:17 > 0:48:19and a sort of note of desperation creeps in
0:48:19 > 0:48:23when this working wife asks, "Please tell me whose fault it all is,
0:48:23 > 0:48:27"only, it's no use saying I ought to take a flat
0:48:27 > 0:48:29"and do all the work myself,
0:48:29 > 0:48:32"as well as my other work and my mothering work.
0:48:32 > 0:48:35"My husband's practice would disappear for one thing,
0:48:35 > 0:48:37"and then we could not live at all."
0:48:37 > 0:48:40- It sounds like a very modern dilemma.- It is.
0:48:40 > 0:48:42Even when middle-class women go out to work
0:48:42 > 0:48:45someone still needs to do the work of the home,
0:48:45 > 0:48:49and it's unclear if it's not servants who will do that work.
0:48:49 > 0:48:53There's one thing for sure, it's not going to be men.
0:48:53 > 0:48:56Almost throughout these debates no-one suggests
0:48:56 > 0:49:00that this domestic labour should be shared by men.
0:49:04 > 0:49:06What's clear is that despite
0:49:06 > 0:49:08an increasingly vocal servant community,
0:49:08 > 0:49:12the reforms that had been so successfully bargained for
0:49:12 > 0:49:14in the outside world, of industries, factories and shops,
0:49:14 > 0:49:16had hit a brick wall inside the home.
0:49:18 > 0:49:21Both workers' and women's rights might have failed servants
0:49:21 > 0:49:25but, eventually, change came from an unexpected source,
0:49:25 > 0:49:28from health reformers inspired by Florence Nightingale.
0:49:30 > 0:49:35Spending their lives in damp, dark basements, dens of foul air,
0:49:35 > 0:49:38as Florence called them, it was not their pay and working hours
0:49:38 > 0:49:42that now came under attack, but their places of work.
0:49:42 > 0:49:44If new laws had ushered government inspectors
0:49:44 > 0:49:47in to Britain's factories and hospitals,
0:49:47 > 0:49:49then why not the home too?
0:49:51 > 0:49:54It was a question put to servants themselves in a government report
0:49:54 > 0:49:57by the Women's Industrial Council.
0:49:59 > 0:50:02"Not on any account should a girl go to service
0:50:02 > 0:50:03"under the present conditions.
0:50:03 > 0:50:06"Private houses should come under government
0:50:06 > 0:50:08"and sanitary inspectors should visit these houses
0:50:08 > 0:50:11"the same as the poorer ones, as I know several
0:50:11 > 0:50:13"where the maids sleep in the basement,
0:50:13 > 0:50:15"where there's no means of fresh air.
0:50:15 > 0:50:17"Is it any wonder then that there are so many
0:50:17 > 0:50:20"delicate and pale-faced girls to be met always.
0:50:20 > 0:50:23"It's quite time this is looked in to."
0:50:23 > 0:50:28"I've been where four or five servants had to sleep in one room.
0:50:28 > 0:50:29"Is that healthy?"
0:50:31 > 0:50:34"I would advocate for the entire abolition
0:50:34 > 0:50:37"of underground kitchens and servant sitting rooms.
0:50:37 > 0:50:39"They are an abomination to civilisation
0:50:39 > 0:50:41"and the ruin of many girls' health."
0:50:48 > 0:50:51In the end, inspectors never made it below stairs, but
0:50:51 > 0:50:56many of the sanitary measures that had transformed health care did.
0:50:56 > 0:50:59Unhygienic wooden beds were replaced by iron ones,
0:50:59 > 0:51:01carpets were ripped up and replaced with lino.
0:51:01 > 0:51:06And windows were thrown open to provide lashings of fresh air.
0:51:07 > 0:51:10Although it didn't necessarily please the old guard.
0:51:10 > 0:51:14One Edwardian man servant was quite unhappy about this,
0:51:14 > 0:51:18and he wrote in his memoir, "When I first came to my place of work
0:51:18 > 0:51:21"the servants all had feather beds, one could flop down and rest.
0:51:21 > 0:51:24"Then a new housekeeper came and had them all taken away
0:51:24 > 0:51:26"and we had to lie on hard mattresses.
0:51:26 > 0:51:30"She was one of those fresh air hygiene fanatics."
0:51:35 > 0:51:37Eventually, the government did manage
0:51:37 > 0:51:41to introduce employment reform into the privacy of the home.
0:51:41 > 0:51:44And it was largely down to one ground-breaking politician,
0:51:44 > 0:51:45David Lloyd George.
0:51:47 > 0:51:48A Liberal MP and son of a teacher,
0:51:48 > 0:51:53he had become Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1908, introducing
0:51:53 > 0:51:58the largest sweep of working class reforms ever to hit British society.
0:51:59 > 0:52:03And central to them was the National Insurance Bill of 1911,
0:52:03 > 0:52:07which provided medical insurance for workers across British industry,
0:52:07 > 0:52:10and which included domestic servants among these trades
0:52:10 > 0:52:12for the very first time.
0:52:13 > 0:52:17It was an historic moment, perhaps the first time the home was
0:52:17 > 0:52:20officially recognised as a place of work.
0:52:20 > 0:52:22For many politicians today it's still seen
0:52:22 > 0:52:24as a benchmark of social reform.
0:52:24 > 0:52:26There had been problems enough in including
0:52:26 > 0:52:30agricultural labourers in reform, to include domestic servants,
0:52:30 > 0:52:33who were really a second-class group of citizens was regarded
0:52:33 > 0:52:36as positively revolutionary, because their employers would be
0:52:36 > 0:52:39the last line of resistance against doing those things.
0:52:39 > 0:52:41And what does the Act actually do?
0:52:41 > 0:52:46It provides medical assistance for two categories of people.
0:52:46 > 0:52:50The temporarily sick, who have ten shillings a week,
0:52:50 > 0:52:52the person who's sick five shillings a week,
0:52:52 > 0:52:54on the payment of a contribution.
0:52:54 > 0:52:57And, of course, the great argument was about the contribution,
0:52:57 > 0:53:00because part of the contribution was paid for by the employer,
0:53:00 > 0:53:03and the employer didn't want to do that.
0:53:03 > 0:53:06And I think very many servants would regard it as rather improper
0:53:06 > 0:53:09that the state imposes restrictions on their employers.
0:53:09 > 0:53:12They were rather deferential by nature, perhaps not by nature,
0:53:12 > 0:53:14but by environment.
0:53:14 > 0:53:16The deferential nature was imposed upon them.
0:53:16 > 0:53:19And I think if you think of well, what we all think about
0:53:19 > 0:53:22when we think of servants, Upstairs Downstairs,
0:53:22 > 0:53:25you can imagine the butler in Upstairs Downstairs saying,
0:53:25 > 0:53:28"If the ladyship doesn't want to buy a stamp
0:53:28 > 0:53:31"then who am I to insist on buying a stamp?"
0:53:31 > 0:53:34I think the deferential natural, the obsequious nature of some servants
0:53:34 > 0:53:36in the end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century
0:53:36 > 0:53:40probably complicated it as much as the opposition of the employers.
0:53:41 > 0:53:44There was also much resistance and humour in the popular press
0:53:44 > 0:53:48and music halls around the process of getting insurance,
0:53:48 > 0:53:52where employers and servants had to lick and stick stamps
0:53:52 > 0:53:54to an insurance card once a week.
0:53:54 > 0:53:58# Now I went looking for work one day and wherever I take a look
0:53:58 > 0:54:02# The first thing that they asked me for was my insurance book... #
0:54:02 > 0:54:06The lady of the house, a very well-endowed lady, I must say,
0:54:06 > 0:54:09is washing one of the servants.
0:54:09 > 0:54:13I'm afraid I have to say it, she isn't licking the stamps,
0:54:13 > 0:54:15she's licking the soldier.
0:54:15 > 0:54:19# I started sticking me stamp on, when I put out me tongue
0:54:19 > 0:54:21HE LAUGHS
0:54:21 > 0:54:23THEY LAUGH
0:54:23 > 0:54:25# Her husband came with an hobbling stick
0:54:25 > 0:54:27# He said I was a scamp
0:54:27 > 0:54:28# He landed me one on my tum-pa-dum-tum
0:54:28 > 0:54:32# While I was licking me stamp. #
0:54:33 > 0:54:36In the end, the Daily Mail received so many letters of complaint
0:54:36 > 0:54:39from mistresses that a mass rally was organised
0:54:39 > 0:54:42by the Dowager Countess Dysart at the Royal Albert Hall.
0:54:42 > 0:54:4522,000 women, the Grand Protest,
0:54:45 > 0:54:49vast Assembly in the Albert Hall, "Kill the Tax".
0:54:49 > 0:54:54Well, the great moment of this was when Countess Dysart addressed
0:54:54 > 0:54:59the Assembly sitting next to, or standing next to her lady's maid.
0:54:59 > 0:55:02And the Countess said, "She's too shy to speak,
0:55:02 > 0:55:04"so I'm going to give the speech she would have spoken."
0:55:04 > 0:55:08And having said that this lady didn't want to stick her stamp
0:55:08 > 0:55:11on the card, she didn't want any sort of insurance,
0:55:11 > 0:55:14she then said what my maid would end up by saying was,
0:55:14 > 0:55:17"Come the four corners the world in arms, and nought shall shock us.
0:55:17 > 0:55:20"Nought shall make us rue if England to yourself be true."
0:55:20 > 0:55:23And the maid sat there nodding wildly about this.
0:55:23 > 0:55:25It's superb, isn't it?
0:55:25 > 0:55:27Before the Bill,
0:55:27 > 0:55:31servants who were sick or too old to work received no medical insurance,
0:55:31 > 0:55:35no pensions and no formal means of financial support.
0:55:35 > 0:55:39Many of those with no homes to go had to return to the workhouse
0:55:39 > 0:55:42where, ironically, so many had begun their lives.
0:55:42 > 0:55:45My great-grandfather was a gardener at a great house in Nottingham,
0:55:45 > 0:55:48when he retired he was cut off without a penny.
0:55:48 > 0:55:51They didn't give him £50 to go away with, and certainly not a pension.
0:55:51 > 0:55:55The idea that the benevolent employers looked after their servants
0:55:55 > 0:55:57is a ridiculous myth.
0:55:57 > 0:55:59They didn't care a damn about them
0:55:59 > 0:56:02when they were too old to work and too sick to work.
0:56:02 > 0:56:05Do you think there's something peculiarly English about all this?
0:56:05 > 0:56:10I think the servant phenomenon is a strange English feature,
0:56:10 > 0:56:13and it's all to do with our strange class structure.
0:56:13 > 0:56:16We're much more class conscious, much more class divided than Europe.
0:56:16 > 0:56:20We're much more opposed to what we regard as degrading,
0:56:20 > 0:56:24menial domestic work, that also involves the idea that
0:56:24 > 0:56:27the middle class lady doesn't dirty her hands.
0:56:31 > 0:56:35Of course, that idea had trickled down from the big house,
0:56:35 > 0:56:39with 30 indoor servants to look after just one family,
0:56:39 > 0:56:41places like Lanhydrock were built on the premise that
0:56:41 > 0:56:44the dirty work would always be done by unseen hands.
0:56:44 > 0:56:49And for many they stand as symbols of a lost golden age
0:56:49 > 0:56:52of upper class Edwardian life.
0:56:52 > 0:56:55But they were also places that were acutely aware
0:56:55 > 0:56:58that their world was already fast disappearing.
0:56:58 > 0:57:01Here, philanthropy, however well meant,
0:57:01 > 0:57:05saw orphans and fallen women making up the servant shortfall.
0:57:05 > 0:57:10And the heir, Tommy Robartes, like his father, becoming a Liberal MP,
0:57:10 > 0:57:14interested in trade unionism and the rights of domestic servants.
0:57:14 > 0:57:19Soon, however, a much bigger history would transform the house for ever.
0:57:19 > 0:57:22Lanhydrock was deeply affected by the First World War,
0:57:22 > 0:57:24it would never be the same again.
0:57:24 > 0:57:27Below stairs, almost all the men enlist
0:57:27 > 0:57:30and most of the women go off to work in munitions factories.
0:57:30 > 0:57:32Above stairs, the new chauffeur, Henry Baker,
0:57:32 > 0:57:35drives the son and heir, Tommy Robartes,
0:57:35 > 0:57:37off to war in a Rolls Royce,
0:57:37 > 0:57:39taking him to his death in the trenches.
0:57:39 > 0:57:42The trauma of war brought a temporary truce
0:57:42 > 0:57:44in master/servant relations,
0:57:44 > 0:57:48but after it the servant problem became a servant crisis.
0:57:50 > 0:57:54Next time - in the face of 20th century upheavals
0:57:54 > 0:57:56we witness the complete collapse of the old order,
0:57:56 > 0:58:00putting an end to life below stairs for ever.
0:58:14 > 0:58:17Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd