When we read novels of life among the nobility or watch tv and film on a similar topic, we are rarely given details of life as a servant. The great houses were the major employers of the day right up until the Industrial Revolution. A lord, and certainly a duke, would own several properties and each would have a resident staff. Mining, tree felling, forestry and a home farm would all be done within the estate by estate workers. In the 1820s entertainment was done on a grand scale, and since guests often brought their own staff, it is difficult to pin down the exact number of staff in a house at any one time.
One way of obtaining a reasonable estimate is by checking lists of salaries and other payments held in archives of houses like Dunham Massey. The old rule of payment once a year had changed to twice a year by 1820. Servants were either resident at one house all year or listed as "travelling" staff, in which case they moved from house to house with the family.
A typical number of resident servants would be twenty-one, broken down as six women ie housekeeper, housemaid, two still-room maids, a kitchen maid and a dairy maid. Of the men, only four were indoor servants ie the house steward, the porter, the brewer and usher. Outdoor servants included the land steward, head gardener, two gamekeepers and five out-gamekeepers, one groom and a stable-boy.
The travelling indoor servants were listed as the cook, the valet. the butler. two under butlers and three footmen, first housemaid, and two lower housemaids, four laundry maids and two ladies maids. Outside there would also be the coachman, under coachman, a postilion and two grooms.
Across the whole estate, the typical number of servants might number seventy-eight. When the obnoxious school teacher in Downton accuses Lord Grantham of not knowing his kitchen maid's name, she might actually have had a point!
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