At Tatton Hall, even aprons were color-coded, with black trim for small girls, green trim for big girls, red for small boys, blue for big boys and so on. Maids typically made their own uniforms, sometimes from cloth provided by their employers: typically pink or blue cotton dresses for housework, with parlormaids changing to black, with white aprons and caps, in the afternoon. In effect, there was no end to their working day, and one day off a month was the most they could hope for. A bell could ring at any time, calling them to provide a service or to perform routine tasks. This pause in the day’s toil provided some free time, but servants were rarely allowed to leave the house. For dessert, the senior servants retired to the housekeeper’s or butler’s parlor, where they would be waited on by one of the maids, leaving the younger servants free to chat. The butler generally served the meat, while the housekeeper filled plates with vegetables and handed them out in order of seniority so the youngest received theirs last. Everyone waited behind their chairs until the butler and housekeeper arrived and signaled they could sit. Servants typically ate dinner at around 2 p.m. Grooms and stable boys lived over the stables footmen sometimes bedded down near valuables such as silver closets. At Shugborough visitors can see the remote brick bothies where gardeners slept so they could get up on cold nights to make sure all was well with the heating in the greenhouses. They were cold in winter and hot in summer. At the back of Tatton Hall-the side that visitors would never have seen-is a brick wing off the kitchen for the maids. Some houses even had separate corridors for the servants’use. Servants had to use the back stairs and side entrances so that they wouldn’t inadvertently come across the people to whom they ministered. Junior servants would rarely if ever see their masters and mistresses. Young servants on the bottom rung of the ladder could be bossed by everyone-except their employers. Even among servants from working-class backgrounds, servants higher up the hierarchy guarded their prestige jealously. Wanting to preserve their social status, they set themselves apart from lowlier servants, condemning themselves to loneliness and sometimes resentment. As Anne Brontë made clear in her novel Agnes Grey, their position could be uncomfortable. Rochester, and both Charlotte and Anne Brontë, daughters of a clergyman, had to make their living as governesses. Fairfax, was distantly related to her employer, Mr. In Jane Eyre, for example, the housekeeper, Mrs. Occasionally, upper servants such as governesses, ladies’ maids, and housekeepers might come from an impoverished family of gentlefolk. Outside, the coachman oversaw grooms and stable boys, while the head gardener would assign some gardeners to the greenhouses, with others working on flower beds, in the kitchen garden, and in the shrubbery. The head parlormaid oversaw all the service in the family’s rooms, while the head housemaid had a bevy of under-housemaids to dust, clean and polish. A nanny or nurse looked after the children with one or more nurserymaids to help.

Under her, the cook was in charge of a brigade of kitchen maids, scullery maids, and stillroom maids. The butler, or the house steward, supervised the male servants such as the footmen and valets, while the housekeeper supervised the maids. To provide such levels of service, regimentation was necessary.

Housekeeper vs maid