Rosedale’s servant’s wing stirred before the main house. The darkness of a frosty July morning was little different to the bright first light of January. If you were a servant, work awaited: every morning, every noon, every night. Rosedale’s front rooms were populated with Leake family members and their guests. Visitors ranged from neighbours to the
Governor and were predominantly male and associated with John Leake and his civic duties: the parliament, the magistracy, the church. Little record exists of visitors to other members of the family and where they are noted they are guests of less formality: friends of Leake’s children. Women rarely visited alone. Occasionally they accompanied their husbands to dinner parties or for a short stay: sometimes neighbouring women would come for a night or so. Young women were accompanied by a male guardian when they visited the bachelor sons of Rosedale.
Dust and light were the servants’ enemies. In Australian conditions, particularly the dry windy days of summer, fine grit from the paddocks and yards would settle on the highly polished furniture surfaces. The fashion for long high windows in the public rooms, often screened by curtains or shutters, would nonetheless allow light to fall and reveal to the inspecting mistress any dust missed by the cloth of the housemaid. Perfect cleanliness and order were the objects of the housemaid.1
Early criticism of female convicts failed to recognise the essential skills they brought and their contribution to the domestic economy.2 The work of women house servants was undifferentiated in a popular view that ignored the technical skills of cooking, cleaning, sewing and laundry work, particularly in households where there were expectations of variety and high standards, and the furnishing and clothing were refined. Skills were acquired by training, observation and experience. The wide range of domestic skill sets indicated in the convict indents were at odds with the notion of women convicts as unskilled. The delineation of skill sets by title (housemaid, kitchen maid, cook, nurse, needlewoman, laundrywoman) indicated different levels within a servant hierarchy where the more specialised the skill the more likely it would be highly regarded.
1 Isabella Beeton, ed., Beeton's Book of Household Management, London: S.O. Beeton, 1861. Facsimile
published New York: Farar, Straus and Giroux, 1968, p. 987.
2
Deborah Oxley, Convict Maids: The Forced Migration of Women to Australia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 102-9.
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Few convict servants were trained in domestic service to the level of sophistication required by the elite despite the trade listed on their indent. As Alexander notes, they had to be taught by their employers and then closely supervised and this reduced their immediate effectiveness.3 The lack of skills compounded by untrustworthiness due to their conviction made convict house servants a burden as much as a help. Servants being both practically useful and socially essential for the elite and middle classes alike tempered the mistresses’ attitude of resignation.4
The servants’ entrance was a revolving door. Convict women moved across
households in their servitude. Only those with misdemeanours stand out in the record.5 In the colonial setting a high turnover of servants added to the employers’ burden. This was
particularly so in the country districts. Female immigrant servants found the work too hard and preferred to remain in houses in the larger centres.6 The isolation from companionship and likely marriage partners would have compounded the dislike of service in the interior. There was little alternative for convict women. They went where the system sent them and many had no choice but to work in a country house. Nonetheless, with the shortages of servants and the gender imbalance in the population, keeping female servants was as much about negotiation as it was about management. Within the context of private life, the relationship between masters and servants was critical to the efficient and peaceful
functioning of the domestic household. There was a social gap between servant and mistress, and the mistress often lacked sympathy for the servant’s situation. Some saw servants as alien, potential thieves, disruptive of their lives and values. Irrespective of the implicit menace, servants were an indicator of gentility.
Stanley’s biography of Hannah Cullwell brings to mind the superior bodily strength, energy and endurance of working-class women compared to those in the middle and upper classes.7 Each day servants faced complex manual work and heavy lifting in order that the ‘ladies’ of the house need do neither. The expectations for housemaids were dichotomous: do dirty work but always appear presentable; carry out tasks that were difficult, dusty and grimy but be silent, tidy and invisible about it; and complete work to the mistress’s satisfaction but
3 Alison Alexander, “The Public Role of Women in Tasmania, 1803-1914,” unpublished PhD thesis, History,
University of Tasmania, 1989, p. 72.
4
BW Higman, Domestic Service in Australia, Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2002, p. 25.
5 Miranda Morris, Placing Women: A Methodology for the Identification, Interpretation and Promotion of the
Heritage of Women in Tasmania, Hobart: Government of Tasmania, 1997, p. 74.
6 Alexander, “The Public Role of Women in Tasmania, 1803-1914.” p. 74. 7
Liz Stanley, ed., The Diaries of Hannah Cullwick, Victorian Maidservant, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1984.
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do not expect the fulfillment of praise or acknowledgement. A household routine, like having one housemaid making beds and cleaning the bedrooms while another was serving breakfast to the family in the dining room, was one way of maintaining the separation between the work of the servant and the business of the family. An established schedule carried out by trained servants enabled the mistress to do little more than issue instructions and supervise.
Servants were at hand but unseen when others were present. The public rooms were the largest spaces and required constant upkeep to ensure they were suitably presented for guests and unexpected callers. The detailed work to achieve this is the key to understanding the role. It was mostly cleaning: opening rooms for the day and at the end of the day closing them by moving curtains or shutters; cleaning the grate and lighting the fire; removing all trace of cinders and dirt; sweeping, scrubbing and dusting; and preparing rooms for their various specialist uses. A multitude of brooms, brushes, dusters and concoctions, most with a single use, were hulked about by the maids as they cleaned. The floors in the public rooms could be flagstone, tiles or fine timber flooring. Rugs and carpets would be placed on the floors both to decorate and to provide a softer surface underfoot. These floor coverings would be regularly lifted and taken outside to have the dust beaten from them. In the dining room dried used tea leaves would be sprinkled on the carpet then swept up with the dust, leaving a faint pleasant aroma.
The Rosedale public rooms were the province of the convict housemaids who did the majority of the housework. Sarah Leake refers to housemaids, not to a lady’s maid, nurse or laundrywoman. The housemaid role, where there was more than one, was divided generally into upper and under and Rosedale generally functioned with two. Besides cleaning, there was other work; serving at the table, managing the linen, sewing and doing the laundry. In winter fires would be maintained in all the public rooms in use and lit in the bedrooms in time for them to be properly warmed before the occupants retired for the night. Each task required different skills and carried different status: the grubbier the task, the lower the status.
The kitchen, pantry and associated passages had to be cleaned by the time breakfast was served so as not to interfere with the organization of the balance of the day. The cook and housemaids would be at work on these tasks and with preparing the first meal of the day while the family was still in bed.8 These were not small tasks. Each morning the duties were repeated: the dining room opened and aired, the hearth and grate cleaned and a fire lit if the
8
Isabella Beeton, ed., Beeton's Book of Household Management, London: S.O. Beeton, 1861. Facsimile published New York: Farar, Straus and Giroux, 1968, p. 42.
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season, or the instruction of the mistress, required it. The table would be dusted and laid, the sideboard set with the necessary utensils, and the coffee or tea urn heated then, at the last minute, refilled with boiling water carried from the kitchen timed to coincide with the presentation of the hot dishes in their salvers. Servants carried and served the food, removed or replenished plates and cutlery as they were used, and all the while were invisible.9 All the food was expected to arrive at the table hot or cold as designated, and in the right order.
Life on a busy agricultural property meant there was much taking and providing of breakfast. Travel sometimes began at daylight, be it for pleasure or, more often, to deal with the business of moving livestock, visiting leaseholds, buying and selling produce, and maintaining supervision. Also, journeys out for help in an emergency would start at first light.10 An early start broke the routine of the entire day: servants would be about even earlier, in the dark well before dawn, to meet the requirements of the schedule.
The Leake family was not teetotal.11 The keys to the cupboards and wine cellar were held by the mistress, to reduce the opportunities offered by their contents to the servants, most of whom were tempted by liquor and had, at least once, been convicted of a
misdemeanor associated with alcohol.12 Drunkenness in servants was unacceptable but an oft occurrence in colonial households. Louisa Meredith found the tippling nursemaid and groom in her home disruptive and neglectful. She did not hesitate to be rid of them.13 Elizabeth Fenton locked her storeroom and, if required to return there from her work, would lock her trunk and workbasket before quitting the parlour. She recorded her complaints:
... when I am again in the storeroom my expert attendant puts his hand into the case or cask behind me while I am opening some box or canister, and abstracts a bottle of wine or porter or brandy and coolly departs with his prize under his coat – or her apron.14
9 At Clarendon, food was prepared in a kitchen and bakehouse separate from the house. It was carried along a
covered way, down outside stone steps, into the basement scullery where it was portioned. It was then carried up internal service stairs to the dining room to be served. At Clarendon the stairs for the family and its guests were carpeted. Service stairs at the other end of the house were bare.
10 George Gatenby, “Diary of George Gatenby of ‘Bicton’ Campbell Town, 9 November 1847 to 31 January
1858,” Hobart: Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office, 1847-58. Entry for 17 July 1854.
11 Examples of liquor purchases include casks of porter, sherry and brandy purchased James Hamilton, a
Campbell Town storekeeper in 1849 and casks of port from Mr Lewis of Hobart Town in March 1854. John Leake, “Day Book from January 1849,” in Leake Papers, Hobart: Special Collections, University of Tasmania Library, 1849, L1/B755.
12 The exception was Williams whose only misdemeanour during her period of servitude was one count of
absent without leave. Eliza Williams per Anna Maria, CON 42/1/32.
13 Louisa Anne Meredith, My Home in Tasmania During a Residence of Nine Years, 2 volumes, London: John
Murray, 1852. Facsimile published Swansea, TAS: Glamorgan Spring Bay Historical Society, 2003, pp. 154-5.
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Keeping presentable was a challenge for housemaids. In the space of the morning they could be required to wait on the table in the dining room, assist the mistress to dress, do dusty and dirty chores, answer the front door, and present visitors to the mistress in the parlour or drawing room. Neatness and cleanliness were expected whenever the maid was serving the family and it was a challenge to take the apron on and off, to keep long skirts dry when washing floors, and to maintain the expected invisibility.
The treadmill of domestic work was endless, exhausting and dull. Good work went unnoticed and it was the shortcomings in a servant, of character or output, that were remarked upon. So it was with Sarah Leake who noted the failings of servants in her journal, not their merits. Eliza drew no criticism as she moved about the house, quietly, conforming as did the other house servants to the requirement of the master for invisibility. Noise was dulled, as in the separate prison. Only the sounds of gentlemen’s boots on the tiles of Rosedale’s entrance hall disturbed the calm decorum.
The most difficult juggling was between cleaning and serving in the dining room. Meals were important points in the day for service to and inspection by the family. Manners and customs in the dining room were of great importance. Servants in this room had to learn and maintain the social rituals of the family.15 The master would be most particular when he had guests for dinner and then all traces of domestic work would be hidden. For the task of waiting on the table, the housemaid was required to be, in Beeton’s view:
… neatly and cleanly dressed... She should not wear creaking boots and should move about the room as noiselessly as possible, anticipating people’s wants by handing them things without being asked for them, and altogether being as quiet as possible.16 After the family and their guests left the dining room, the housemaid, perhaps with assistance from the cook, cleared the china, glassware, cutlery and plate away, refolded the cloth and napkins and polished the table to remove any marks made by hot dishes. Then there was the washing up and restacking the crockery in the cupboards. All the while the cook may be laying out the trays with sandwiches, cakes and other delicacies to serve with tea. In winter fires would be maintained in all the public rooms in use and lit in the bedrooms in time for them to be properly warmed before the occupants retired for the night.
The relationship between the family and the servants was not one of companionship. It was marked by the control of the bell which was rung, even in small houses, when a
15
Higman, Domestic Service in Australia, p. 141.
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servant was required. Formality structured the interchange. Devaluing servants by seeing them as functionaries had a long history.17 Servants were addressed by given name or work role and the family was addressed with formal titles. This underscored the paternalistic relationship of master and servant. A degree of informality, perhaps due to long service or particular favour, was indicated between Eliza and the sons of the house. In the presence of others, greater formality would have been observed.
Every day there were the bedrooms to do: making the bed according to the wishes of the room’s occupant including turning the mattress and fluffing the pillows; airing the room, moving the ornaments and light furniture daily for cleaning, and the heavy furniture often to clean under the bed and around the skirtings. The initial task each morning was to remove the slops and clean the toilet vessels, which generally consisted of a chamber pot, washbowl, dishes and glasses, especially in a ladies room if the occupant found using the WC distasteful. The housemaid would carry all she needed for the cleaning tasks to the room with her: the slops pail, cleaning tools, dusters, brooms, and a dustpan.18 The pail would be covered to mask its contents as she retreated down the stairs.
For the servant beds were regular solid heavy work. Bedding was immense:
mattresses, underlay and mattress overlay, sheets, blankets, coverlet, pillows and bolsters.19 If the mattresses were organic they needed to be turned each day. Feathers were preferred for the top mattress. They needed to be aired to prevent mould and odour. The multitude of feather pillows needing to be plumped and smoothed added to the chore.20 Ornaments and bed coverings were essential – an over-mantle if there was a fireplace, chair and cushion covers, curtains, and drapes for window and bed. All needed washing from time to time and shaking to remove the inevitable dust. Rosedale had bedrooms of three levels of presentation: the master bedroom and guest room were decorated and presented as if public rooms; the family bedrooms were utilitarian; the servants’ rooms were basic. Each bedroom could, and
17 Alison Light, Mrs Woolf and the Servants: The Hidden Heart of Domestic Service, London: Penguin, 2007, p.
xvii.
18 The housemaid’s box was an essential store of items in constant use and kept ready to hand. It contained
black-lead for the grate, polishing and blacking brushes, brushes for various tasks like stairs, banisters, shelves and stoves, dusters, dry leather for polishing the grate, fender and irons, furniture polish and paste, glue for on the run mending of damaged timbers or chipped china, and soap. The maid would also have larger items for use – a feather or goose-wing duster, a heavy coconut fibre broom to sweep the better carpets, furniture brushes to suit different finishes, a shaped brush for cornices, and other implements. Beeton, Beeton's Book of Household Management. pp. 989-997.
19 There was often more than one mattress: horsehair, with a straw one underneath, and a feather mattress on
top. Terence Lane and Jessie Serle, Australians at Home: A Documentary History of Australian Domestic Interiors from 1788 to 1914, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1990, p 23.
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would, be inspected by the mistress to ensure its orderliness.
Fresh linen including sheets, towels, and coverings for the occasional furniture were be kept in presses and be issued to the servant as required. Housemaids would remove the soiled clothes and linen to the laundry to be counted for the wash. Then the housemaids were expected to return to the hall and main rooms to dust and polish: stairs, banisters, ledges, windowsills, picture frames, furniture and ornaments. Each week there would also be a