Thrashed before the Upper Ten

I’ve been reading a truly fascinating history of Wentworth, the largest of the English country houses. (When I spotted it on the bookshelves in the ever-so-posh new Terminal 5 at Heathrow the other day, I was interested purely in learning more of English history: that a book on the lives of the governing classes and their staff might have kinky potential wasn’t at all a factor in my purchasing decision. Honest!).The most interesting section comes when they discuss the dining arrangements:

Dinner in the Steward’s Room had been as formal an affair as the one that was about to take place upstairs. “There were six separate dining halls for the servants, depending on your place in the hierarchy,” recalled the son of the manager of the Wentworth estates. “The Steward’s Room was the top dining room, reserved for the Upper Ten. It was terribly smart. They sat on Chippendale chairs.”

The Upper Ten were the most senior servants in the hierarchy. The include the groom of the chambers, the housekeeper, the house steward, the butler, the under-butler, the head housemaid and the valets. They dined in style: a footman served them at a table laid with fine china and glass; the men wore smoking jackets or evening dress, the women, long silk gowns. Precedence was strictly observed.

As dinner concluded, coffee was served, followed by the usual digestifs – the senior staff enjoyed the same choice of port and liquers as their lordships downstairs. And then came the moment that certani of their more junior colleagues had been dreading all evening.

For a maid to misbehave in one of the great country houses was a serious offence, punishable with the utmost severity. For her to misbehave whilst accompanying her master on a visit to one of his peers was a matter of the utmost shame.

A bell would be rung; any girls who had fallen short of the highest standards, had let down their household, would enter the room. A nervous line-up, each girl wringing her hands, shifting from foot to foot, avoiding the eyes of her seniors. Her offence would be read out, discussed around the table, and the presiding servant would pronounce her sentence.

The punishment would vary according to the customs of the house in which they were staying. In some, she might find herself over the steward’s knee for the hardest of hand-spankings. In others, a strap might be fetched, in others a more junior servant would be sent to the stables to procure a riding crop from the grooms. The cane was the most common instrument of discipline, of course – with the birch reserved for the most serious offences. One servant, Mabel Ross, recalls its terrors: “They had the dining table cleared, and used rope to tie me in position. And then Lord Scarborough’s butler lifted my skirt, and parted my underwear, and laid such a thrashing on me as I will never forget. I was a good girl after that, I swear: one birching is one too many for any girl.”

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OK, I confess. I rather digressed from the original text part way through. But one can use one’s imagination, surely?