The Real Life Downton Abbey by Jacky Hyams Page A

cover virtually everything to do with daily life – communication, cleaning, eating and drinking; only sleeping is a rule-free zone – and for the servants, there’s precious little of that, anyway. Rules vary from house to house, but they are very much fixed conditions of service and there isn’t much flexibility.
    Family members, of course, have different rules involving their own world – but they also have a specific set of rules around their treatment of their servants.
    Here’s a summary of the kind of rules they were expected to follow:

T HE M ASTER- S ERVANT R ELATIONSHIP R ULES
     
All family members must maintain appropriate relationships with the staff. As upper servants work directly to the family, a trusting and respectful relationship should be established.
Footmen are a proclamation of wealth and prestige. They are representatives of the household and family and, as such, it is advantageous that a good relationship is developed. However, as lower servants they do not expect to be addressed outside the receipt of instructions.
While the housemaids will clean the house during the day, they should make every care and attention never to be observed doing their duties. If, by chance they do meet their employer, they ‘give way’ to the employer by standing still and averting their gaze, whilst the employer walks past, leaving them unnoticed. By not acknowledging them, the employer spares them the shame of explaining their presence.
The mode of address to the staff has to be correct and proper. There is no ‘Hey, you’ or ‘Excuse me’. It has to be precisely the right title, according to the status of the servant. Or, in some cases, nothing at all because the employer does not wish, at any time, to be reminded of the physical presence of the lower servants.
     

H OW TO ADDRESS A SERVANT
     
The Butler should be addressed courteously by his surname.
The Housekeeper should be given the title of ‘Mrs’ (or Missus).
The Chef de Cuisine should be addressed as such – or by the title ‘Monsieur’.
The Lady’s Maid should be given the title of ‘Miss’ regardless of whether she is single or married. It is acceptable for the Mistress to address her by her Christian name.
A Tutor should be addressed by the title of ‘Mister’.
A Governess should be addressed by the title of ‘Miss’.
It is the custom in old houses that, when entering into new service, lower servants adopt new names given them by their masters. With this tradition certain members of staff are renamed. Common names for matching footmen are James and John. Emma is popular for housemaids.
It is not expected that the employer takes the trouble to remember the names of all staff. Indeed, to avoid conversation with them, lower servants will endeavour to make themselves invisible. As such, they should not be acknowledged.
     

S ERVANT R ULES
    Written rules for the servants are equally draconian. Each country house has their own set of written rules for the servants, organised by the butler and housekeeper. Curiously enough, while the penalties for breaking these rules are often harsh, there are times when the master or mistress of the house might be a tad more sympathetic or forgiving of a breach of the rules than the butler and/or housekeeper. This is probably because they’ve slogged their way up the servant hierarchy over a period of many years and stick to the old ‘I came up the hard way, so must you’ maxim, while the employer, waited on at all times, has no real sense of the reality of the servant’s lot and can, depending on their personality, give in to a kinder, more sympathetic gesture.
    Here’s a sample of Servant Rules (taken from the archives of Hinchingbrooke House, a country house in Cambridgeshire):
     
Your voice must never be heard by the ladies and gentlemen of the household, unless they have spoken directly to you a question or statement which requires a response. At which time, speak as little as possible.
Always