Glimpses of Margam Life 1830-1918
Servants of Margam
In the winter of 1836 Mrs. Meade was appointed housekeeper at Talbot’s new mansion.
Domestic servants were the mainstay of such establishments, not only ensuring efficient housekeeping, but also important as emblems of social esteem. Servants in fact came from different classes, and were divided broadly into upper and lower domestics, the function of the former being the control and supervision of the lower group. Upper servants kept themselves to themselves and did not mix socially with the rest. Census returns for 1851 and 1861 indicate the recruitment of upper domestics from various parts of the country, with lower domestics recruited locally. On average there were twenty indoor servants.
In 1851 Harriet Madigan, aged 70 and from Hertfordshire, formerly housekeeper at Penrice, now held this important position at Margam, (and retained it until 1858). She was responsible for the hiring, supervising and dismissing of female servants, apart from personal appointments such as nurse, ladies’ maid and cook. Her duties included cleaning, control of the storeroom, household linen, china and the management of household accounts. She did most of the sewing, made preserves, bottled fruit, and was assisted in the making of cakes, pastries and sweets by the still room maid, Esther Snook. With an eye to efficiency, Jane Rowlands, housekeeper in 1868, sold surplus butter, cheese and cream from the kitchen.
Housemaids were divided into two groups, the upper doing light work such as making beds and dusting, seeing that each room was maintained to the expected standards, supervising the lower housemaids and ensuring that they were fully occupied throughout the day.
Kate Berry has given the following account of her work as third housemaid at Margam in the early 1930’s:
5.00 am: Rose – Clean grate, light fires in housemaids’ and housekeeper’s room, lay breakfast table. Light fire in the smoking room and polish floors, (the second housemaid meanwhile was busy dusting). Light fires in dining room and library, clean the flower room and a number of toilets, and wash stone passage.
6.45 am: Tea. Return to dining room, clean carpets and scrub marble floor. Clean front door, scrub step, dust hall and wash marble floor.
8.00 am: Bell rings for breakfast. Polish library floor, clean billiard room grate. Lay fire, polish floor and outside passage.
10.00 am: Tea. Similar work, upstairs.
12.30 pm: Break for lunch and tea in housemaids’ room. Continue cleaning bedrooms, bathrooms and brushing carpets in long corridors. Scrub flight of stairs, clean out housemaids’ box and wash dusters.
3.30 pm: Bath and change. Downstairs to lay tea in housekeeper’s room, fetch pastries from kitchen, ring bell – tea in housemaids’ room.
6.00 pm: To boiler house, bundle and pack sticks for fire next morning. Return upstairs, placing hot water cans in bedrooms, cover with face towels for guests and see to fires. Wait until guests leave smoking room and library to dress for dinner, then tidy grates, fluff cushions and empty ashtrays, followed by break.
9.15 pm: Dinner.
10.30 pm: Draw curtains in bedrooms, turn down beds, see to fires. It was then time to retire for the night.
There was usually three or four housemaids’ in 1851, for instance, Ann Jones, Ann Snook and Elizabeth Gibbs filled these positions. Most maids were single, and the advantages of going into service were the training, lessons of neatness and the acquisition of domestic skills. At Margam the laundry was across the yard and the laundry maids were often considered as outside servants, though they took their meals in the servants’ hall with the other maids in the house. Elizabeth Gibbs was in charge of the laundry, and Mary Jenkin and Sophia Beddow prepared dairy produce in 1851 and 1861 respectively. Kitchen and scullery maids completed the female hierarchy.
When the family were away from home, a skeleton staff remained, being comprised of Jane Gittings, housekeeper, Mary Hughes, Elizabeth Griffiths, housemaids, and Mary Ann Hanson, stillroom maid, in 1881.
The mid-day meal was eaten in the servants’ hall, with the butler at the head of the table, the housekeeper, ladies’ maid, housemaids and laundry maids on one side, and the under butler, footmen, odd man and page on the other, strictly in order of precedence. Kitchen staff ate in their quarters. At tea, the butler, housekeeper and ladies’ maid ate in the housekeeper’s room.
The grandeur of the Victorian house could be estimated from the number of chefs employed in the kitchen. Margam had one cook or chef, presiding over the kitchen and scullery maids who prepared meat and vegetables, providing the cooking utensils needed for everyday use and kept their domain clean.
In the summer of 1866 there was a flurry of activity at the house and park in preparation for the wedding of Bertha Isabella Talbot to John Fletcher of Saltoun. Cellar windows were glazed, curtains and sash lines repaired, weathercocks fixed, statues washed, and paintings removed, cleaned and dusted. Wire fencing and palings in the park and round the almshouses were renewed and painted, the abbey ruins were extensively restored and Stephen Morgan was employed making a platform and screen for the newly installed organ at Margam Abbey Church. The marriage was solemnised on the 25th October, and the reception was held at the mansion; the confectioneries which had been prepared in the kitchen reflected the establishment’s superb cuisine and were greatly admired, although the wedding cake itself, a splendid example of the ‘confectioner’s art’ was especially sent from London.
Almost every domestic presented gifts to the bride and groom; the undermaids gave a pink embroidered pincushion, the kitchen maids a carved ivory penknife, and the men servants at Margam a photograph book. When the couple left, early in the afternoon, some of the domestics are recorded as keeping up the ancient and somewhat singular custom of throwing slippers after the carriage as it rolled off. Prior to leaving, Bertha Isabella presented all those engaged at the Abbey with a valuable souvenir, while the children of the parish received a hat or bonnet and were subsequently regaled with tea and cakes.
The butler was responsible for, and ruled over, the footmen and other male servants. J. Smith from Wiltshire held this position in 1851 and 1861. He had charge of the silver, glass and wine cellar and controlled the plate safe which at Margam adjoined the butler’s pantry. His duties included the ordering of provisions and dispensing funds allocated for this purpose, bottling wine, waiting at table during meals or supervising their serving by the under butler or footmen, the latter resplendent in their dress livery of fawn or navy coats, white breeches and black shoes. Footmen also did carriage duty, accompanied their master or mistress whilst out walking, cleaned the plate and performed a multitude of other tasks. The youngest male servants were the page and errand boy who were usually about 12 years old.
In January 1839 Job Townsend, Talbot’s groom, had journeyed to London to collect a carriage for Lady Charlotte who was expecting her first baby. Three months later she must have found the carriage ride to the railway at Reading somewhat exacting, although the journey of twenty five miles was completed in a mere fifty minutes, including a stop at Slough. Her son Theodore was born at the London residence on the 6th June, 1839, and was followed by Emily Charlotte (1840 – 1918), bertha Isabelle (1841 – 1911), and Olivia Emma (1842 – 1894), frequently called Olive.
Lady Charlotte died in 1846 whilst convalescing at Malta, and consequently in the Census return of 1851 ladies’ maids are not listed; the children were the charges of Charlotte Lee, governess, and were cared for by two nurses, Mary Ann Rees and Mary Ann Wright. The latter rose to the position of lady’s maid and remained in the family’s service for over forty years, receiving an annuity under the will of C.R.M. Talbot of £150. The children were tutored at home, partly for reasons of health, the tutor in 1851 being Francis Glennon. Their education was strictly supervised by their father. Elizabeth Neale, who was Governess in 1861, was chaperone to Talbot’s daughters; she was a keen and devoted Churchwoman who greatly influenced the Talbot children, and accompanied the family on many of the continental excursions. She also received an annuity in Talbot’s will.
The coachman ordered feed for the horses, was responsible for the stable accounts, and controlled the grooms and stable-helpers housed in the castle yard. Edward Eley was coachman in 1861, a position he retained for over thirty years.
When, in the early part of this century, Miss Talbot made her way to the railway station en route to her residences in London or at Penrice, she travelled in one of her broughams or laudaus, with the coachman, Mr. Odgen, and the footmen splendid in cockaded top hast, frock coats, white breeches and leather boots.
Servants benefited from the traditional perks; cooks, for instance, had the right to bones, fat and dripping which they could sell for whatever they could get for them. However, at time advantage could be taken, and in April 1839 Talbot, writing to his agent en route to London, requested him to contact David Thomas, butcher of Margam, concerning the supply of fat to the mansion. In a further letter he states “that Job Townsend’s story was that the cook insisted on the butcher regularly sending him mutton fat to be charged to me at 8d. and sold for his benefit at 5d. Beef fat is regularly used in the kitchen but mutton fat not so. In one case it amounts to wastefulness, in the other positive fraud.” The butcher’s bill was paid, with a deduction of £2.5.11d. and the fat used in the kitchen was quoted as 150lbs, a fortnight.
A tradition of the eighteenth century was that of ‘vails’, the practice of lining up at the front door for the purpose of being tipped by departing guests. In the 1830’s Griffith Llewellyn instructed the Margam servants not to accept such presents; at the time many parties were arriving to view the ‘Great House’. Ladies’ maids were assured of cast-offs from their mistresses, butlers were entitled to candle ends and empty bottles, and coachmen to the old carriage wheels. Homebrewed beer was plentiful at all meals, and in 1838 Talbot expressed concern when a laundry maid recommended by his agent’s mother made a demand for tea and sugar. Board wages were paid when the family were away from home, and the servants catered for themselves. One other source of tips was those given by tradesmen wishing to ingratiate themselves with the servants who purchased household commodities. Supplies at the turn of the century were Paxton and Whitfield, Buttermen; G. Hill, Poulterer; John Williams, Grocer; Briggs and Son, Fishmonger; Edward Orridge, Fruiterers; J. Hayward, Baker; Bethuel Heycock, Butcher; E. Parry, Baker; and E. Lazenby and Sons, Provisions. In September 1902 a minor perk for Mr. Smallridge, the butler and the servants at 3 Cavendish Square, the Talbots’ London residence, was tickets for the coronation of Edward VII.
Domestics, particularly the lower servants, had to endure long hours with very limited leisure time, which meant they were tired at the end of the day. Strict and sometimes austere rules of conduct had to be obeyed, and in no way was the life of the servant an easy existence. Servants had to be cautious with regard to movement in the house so that they did not disturb the family. A distinct social apartheid was a feature of the Great House of the Victorian era. Food was plentiful in quantity, if not quality, and meat featured prominently in the diet, which was not the case for the majority of the populace.