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Lucy Lethbridge

Servants: A Downstairs History of Britain from the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times Hardcover – November 18, 2013

by Lucy Lethbridge (Author)

4.2 395 ratings

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The vividly told lives of British servants and the upper crust they served.

From the immense staff running a lavish Edwardian estate and the lonely maid-of-all-work cooking in a cramped middle-class house to the poor child doing chores in a slightly less poor household, servants were essential to the British way of life. They were hired not only for their skills but also to demonstrate the social standing of their employers―even as they were required to tread softly and blend into the background. More than simply the laboring class serving the upper crust―as popular culture would have us believe―they were a diverse group that shaped and witnessed major changes in the modern home, family, and social order.

Spanning over a hundred years, Lucy Lethbridge?in this "best type of history" (Literary Review)?brings to life through letters and diaries the voices of countless men and women who have been largely ignored by the historical record. She also interviews former and current servants for their recollections of this waning profession.

At the fore are the experiences of young girls who slept in damp corners of basements, kitchen maids who were required to stir eggs until the yolks were perfectly centered, and cleaners who had to scrub floors on their hands and knees despite the wide availability of vacuum cleaners. We also meet a lord who solved his inability to open a window by throwing a brick through it and Winston Churchill’s butler who did not think Churchill would know how to dress on his own.

A compassionate and discerning exploration of the complex relationship between the server, the served, and the world they lived in, Servants opens a window onto British society from the Edwardian period to the present.

17 illustrations

Print length

400 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

November 18, 2013
Dimensions

6.6 x 1.4 x 9.6 inches
ISBN-10

0393241092
ISBN-13

978-0393241099
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lethbridge explores the culture of 20th-century British domestic service workers, the families that employed them, and the practice's sudden collapse after WWII. She discusses the implications of the upstairs vs. downstairs arrangement in which servants were expected to be invisible and inaudible, and bizarre customs dictating everything from calling cards to the ironing of newspapers and shoelaces. Lethbridge also outlines the specific nature of many positions, including the footmen, regarded as effeminate embodiments of mincing servitude; butlers, among whom the Astors' Edwin Lee is most famous; lady's maids; chauffeurs; and charwomen. In a moment of historical reenactment, she relives Alice Osbourne's experience as a nursery governess and housekeeper through her diaries, and journalist Elizabeth Banks's account of going into service undercover. Service work in the British colonies, where employers were desperate to maintain the rituals of home, receives attention, as do the trials of refugees adapting to the British service lifestyle. By WWI many houses either closed or used women in the traditional manservant roles as domestic workers left for factories. Though many returned to service after the war, political and social changes following WWII dealt the final blow. Lethbridge comprehensively details an old convention that continues to fascinate the public. (Nov.)

From Booklist

The popularity of Downton Abbey has rekindled interest in all things British, especially the parallel lives of the privileged and those who served them. Lethbridge capitalizes on the trend by providing a comprehensive overview of domestic service from the late nineteenth century through modern times. As the twentieth century evolved, so did practical and social attitudes toward the entire upstairs/downstairs dynamic. In addition to relating a treasure trove of fascinating—and often dismaying—stories about the haves and have-nots who occupied the same households, she also analyzes how the disruption of archaic social, political, and economic systems by two world wars led to a seismic shift in values and practical realities, dealing a long-overdue deathblow to a moribund profession . --Margaret Flanagan

Review

"Absorbing history, much of it in the words of servants…[Lethbridge’s] subject is many-branched and full of pressing issues."
― Economist

"Thorough and vastly entertaining…[Lethbridge’s] style is elegant, detached and slyly witty…Richly complex and enjoyable."
― Sue Gaisford, Financial Times

"Beautifully written, sparkling with insight, and a pleasure to read, Servants is social history at its most humane and perceptive."
― Paul Addison, Times Literary Supplement

"In this excellent addition to the history of domestic service in the 20th century, Lucy Lethbridge has swept the existing archive and added new sources of her own. The result is a richly textured account of what it felt like to spend the decades of high modernity on your knees with a dustpan and brush."
― Guardian (UK)

"As a panorama, Servants is a great success. Enthusiasts of bonnets and waistcoasts will find Upstairs Downstairs or Downton Abbey all the more enjoyable after reading this nuanced and elegantly written account of the wider context. And in tracing the history of servants throughout the whole of the 20th century, Lethbridge offers a new vantage point from which to reassess British social history."
― Observer (UK)

"Move over Downton Abbey, Lucy Lethbridge portrays life below stairs as it really was. Absorbing, highly entertaining, and impeccably researched, Servants is so much fun to read that it’s practically a guilty pleasure."
― Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana and A World on Fire

"Unlike the cozy downstairs world of Downton Abbey, most of those for whom the bell-pulls tolled in great British houses led existences of ceaseless drudgery and petty humiliation. Yet here Lucy Lethbridge re-creates the lives of everyone from butlers and housekeepers to 'tweenies' and 'skivvies' in a way that never fails to fascinate. With meticulous research and engaging prose she evokes a world that the plutocrats of America’s Gilded Age tried hard to emulate."
― Hugh Brewster, author of Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage

"Lucy Lethbridge turns servants into stars, offering a colorful and compelling social history about the men, women, and children whose occupation rendered them invisible. Buoyed by substantial research, engaging anecdotes, and a lively narrative, the book places generations of overlooked domestics center stage, where, finally, they receive the attention they have always deserved."
― Deborah Davis, author of Strapless and Gilded

"The panoramic view of the subject and Lethbridge’s engaging style and sharp observations make this book a valuable addition."
― Kathleen McCallister, Library Journal

"A lively and complicating account of British social history seen through the eyes of the workers who made it possible."
― Andrea DenHoed, The New Yorker

"Vivid …. Household service provides Lethbridge with a window into almost every corner of social history."
― New York Times Book Review

"Lethbridge captures the revolution with both sweep and intimacy, and never loses sight of the workers at its heart."
― The New Yorker

"Lethbridge writes with sympathy about her subject…. Evenhanded to the end, [she] stresses the inherent dignity of domestic service."
― Matthew Price, Newsday

About the Author

Lucy Lethbridge is the author of the highly praised Servants: A Downstairs History of Britain from the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times and Mind Your Manors: Tried-and-True British Household Cleaning Tips. She lives in London.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition (November 18, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393241092
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393241099
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.6 x 1.4 x 9.6 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #887,650 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #903 in Sociology of Class
- #4,355 in Great Britain History (Books)
- #6,704 in Historical Study (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.2 395 ratings

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Lucy Lethbridge

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A writer and journalist, Lucy has written for a number of publications and is also the author of several children's books, one of which, Who Was Ada Lovelace?, won the 2002 Blue Peter award for non-fiction. She is the author of Servants: A Downstairs View of Twentieth Century Britain, published to critical acclaim in 2013, Spit and Polish (2016) and Tourists: How the British Went Abroad to Find Themselves (2022).

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4.2 out of 5

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At Your Mercy, M'Lord

Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2016

Verified Purchase

If you're a fan of DOWNTON ABBEY or English manor house mysteries or even go back to UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS (which, this book reveals, was supposed to be chiefly about the latter), you will probably enjoy Lethbridge's examination of the British system of servants which came into its peak in the late 1800s and then coasted after the first World War and completely died after the Second. Lethbridge uses the real diaries and books of servants to detail the relationship: the backbreaking work of the "skivvies," the precise formality of the upper-servants, the eccentricities of the wealthy that were served (one master insisted on the yolks exactly in the center of the egg, another must have his potatoes all the same size, a couple insist on full-course Edwardian dinners even though there are only two of them, one household of two is supported by sixty-plus servants who are expected to be "unseen and unheard."

Interesting nuggets of information abound: about the parsimony of some employers, to the lost feeling that some lifetime servants felt when they weren't needed any longer in sharp opposition to the young women and men of the latter half of the 20th century who would rather work at any job (even in a noisy, dirty factory) than be "help," of the bland food eaten, of servants who worked for other nationalities who found American children overfed and rude, of the wealthy helpless when their servants deserted them because they could not even boil an egg or dress themselves. We also hear about servants' employment agencies, the new Au Pair, the Doctor Barnado homes which took starving orphans off the street to train them up for domestic work, and even the rise of the English kitchen from a bleak room in the basement to the heart of the home. In fact, a good deal of this book is the downfall of the servant class system, which is not oft talked about in books about servants. Food for thought and much info if you've wondered about life "below stairs."

7 people found this helpful

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James B. Moon

I would highly recommend this book to students of history and sociology

Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2016

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After wading through the entire Poldark series by Winston Garham and watching the pre-season Downton Abbey shows, I decided it was time to learn a little more about British history as it relates to the early 20th century and the Edwardian era. In scanning through the Amazon offerings for history of this period I came up "Servants: A Downsstairs History of Britain." The book is a well researched accounting of life as a domestic servant during the late 19th and 20th centuries in Britain. The author provides a fairly unbiased analytical study of the lives of those who worked in domestic service. It delves into the sociological backgrounds of many people involved in domestic service. The book contrasts service to country estates versus urban service.

The book actually has a somewhat surprise ending for a North American reader in that domestic service is still very much a part of early 21st century London via the use of substantial immigrants from third world countries filling the traditional role of household domestic servants to modern Londeners.

As the reviews published at the end of the book note, move over Downton Abbey, the real world of the downstairs help is found in this book. I would highly recommend this book to students of history and sociology. While somewhat depressing in its detail of servitude, the book seems to really portray the life of those who strove to provide truly seamless service to the priviledged.

2 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

An Interesting Examination of British Social History

Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2014

Verified Purchase

This book does more than describe the history and use of servants. It provides a in-depth study of the British class structure through a detailed study of one of major segments of the lower class. The author draws on interviews, correspondence as well as population analyses. The impact of two World Wars resulted in a reduction of the servant class. On the other hand, the British reluctance to make use of new technologies slowed this shift in the workforce. The growth of a British middle class and their demand for "household help" shaped the numbers of what were once called servants as well as an attitude shift toward the type of work previously done by servants.
Lethbridge's work will be useful to American students of British history, The television series Downton Abbey carefully portrays the societal shift as the story moves further into the 20th century.
The marriage of Prince William to a young woman from the middle class is indicative of the major changes to the British class structure. The Duchess of Cambridge recently took her six month old son and heir to the British throne on holiday without a nanny. This would have been unthinkable two generations ago. While the Brits have yet to achieve meaningful social equality, society does seem headed in that direction.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

David Ebdon

A Very Interesting Read

Reviewed in Canada on May 16, 2014

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A very, very interesting book. Well worth the read. I was disappointed to come to the end. My only negative, and it is minor, is that the author has an extensive vocabulary and many words were not familiar to me. I found myself checking the Kindle dictionary every few pages and would sometimes be frustrated to find that the definition had no bearing on the context of the book. Still, I would highly recommend this book.

FC

Anyone with servants on their family tree might find this interesting.

Reviewed in Australia on May 19, 2014

Verified Purchase

Most of my ancestors were servants so I was interested in reading this book as a way of learning what the conditions of their daily lives were in Britain.

The book contains many quotes from servants and excerpts from books that were written by servants, both of which illustrate the sometimes appalling conditions and long, long hours that they worked, for instance: Scullery maids sleeping in a cupboard in the kitchen, as well as the sheer extravagance of some of the aristocracy.

The book starts with the Victorian period in the 19th Century and moves through the Edwardian period to the first world war which began the gradual decline in the employer / servant relationship. It covers the period between the wars and the post WW11 period to the present and the quite dramatic changes that have taken place and have totally changed the world of the servant.

The first half was the most interesting, but it tends to drag somewhat as years progress (I suspect the later years are harder to define), I still found it extremely readable and would recommend it for anyone like me who has ancestors who were servants.

One person found this helpful

DC

Well written and researched

Reviewed in Canada on February 17, 2014

Verified Purchase

Great insight into real life of society during this time period . Downton abbey peaked my curiosity
And this book has a wealth of knowledge!!

One person found this helpful

meshop

Four Stars

Reviewed in Canada on December 19, 2015