Free Life Below Stairs by Alison Maloney Page A

easily have
been afforded, was often not bought on the ground that unnecessary drudgery did not matter in the case of the servants.’ But in the early 1900s, The Sphere magazine came down squarely
on the side of the mistresses who wrung their unsullied hands as they despaired over the ‘servant problem’. ‘The servant who takes an interest in her work seems no longer to
exist, and inreturn for high wages we get but superficial service,’ bemoaned one editorial. ‘Where is the maid to be found who takes pride in the brilliance of
the glass to be used on the table or remembers of her own initiative to darn the damask? Every sort of contrivance now lessens labour – carpet sweepers, knife machines, bathrooms, lifts
– in spite of these the life of a housewife is one long wrestle and failure to establish order.’
    The Champion carpet sweeper was one concession which some of the progressive mistresses afforded their staff after its introduction in the 1870s. From 1905, it began to be replaced by the early
vacuum cleaner, which used bellows to suck up the dust and was so cumbersome it would often take two maids tooperate it. One London girl, whose memories are stored at the
Imperial War Museum, had to present her mistress with the dirt she had collected each time she vacuumed so that it could be weighed. She soon learned to save the old dirt to add to the collection,
in order to impress the stringent lady: ‘In the pothouse I had one or two bags of different colour with dirt in so I could make my weight up. What was the weight she wanted? About a cup and a
half of dirt for each room.’
    An advertisement from the early 1900s for a motorized vacuum cleaner, designed by Hubert Cecil Booth
    WASHDAY
    In most houses washday fell on a Monday but laundry work went on all week. The traditional song ‘Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron’ is the perfect
illustration of the work involved in the weekly wash, as the object of the singer’s affections is seen doing a different task every day of the week. Beginning on a Monday morning, when he
catches her ‘A-washing of her linen’, the ditty has her hanging out on Tuesday, starching on Wednesday, ironing on Thursday, folding on Friday, airing on Saturday and finally wearing
her finest linen on Sunday. This was no exaggeration as in a grand house there was enough work to keep a laundry maid busy all week. Below is her weekly timetable.
    Monday
    Mrs Beeton instructed that the laundry maid should begin on Monday morning by examining all the articles in her care and entering them into a log, known as the
‘washing book’. Collars and cuffs were detached from clothing and then the washing sorted into five piles, depending on fabric. They were then placed in tubs of lukewarm water and lye
soap and left to soak overnight.
    Tuesday
    The following day would find the maid with her arms immersed in a huge copper bath of hot water and soda crystals or ‘yellow soap’, rubbing and scrubbing to
get all the marks out of the clothes, sheets and tablecloths. Whites would be bleached with lemon juice or, in some cases, urine, although this practice was dying out in the twentieth century. The
items would then be rinsed and examined inch by inch for any stains that had survived the wash. These would then be tackled with a variety of traditional stain removers, including chalk for grease
and oil, alcohol for grass stains, kerosene for bloodstains and hot coals wrapped in cloth for wax. Lemon juice and onion were used to lighten stains and, in order to whiten scorched linen, Mrs
Beeton suggested a paste made from vinegar, fuller’s earth, soap, onion juice and dried fowls’ dung!
    Wednesday
    If possible sheets were hung outside to dry and bleach in the sunlight. If not, they would be hung in the drying room. More delicate items that could not be soaked, such
as coloured silks and muslins, were washed separately with widely available yellow soap. Borax was often added to the