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It is just after 9.00 am. William, his son Charles and
daughter Polly are hard at work in the shop on the ground floor. Mr. Hayes
has gone to his office and Lily to school, leaving Mrs. Delafield and
Rose at home. Rose goes to the bedrooms to start work there. Her first task is to
go to the washstand and clear the slops into a covered bucket which then
has to be carried downstairs to the outside privy. The jug, bowl and
chamber pot have to be scalded, the bed made and the room tidied and
dusted. In winter, a fire may have been lit and that too must be cleared
out and re-laid.
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A Victorian washstand |
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"To poison bedbugs: Spirits of wine and spirits of
turpentine, of each four ounces; white mercury and camphor, of each half
an ounce; mix. A chemist will make it up; and it must be applied with a
brush to the bedstead infested with the insects."
from The Housekeeper 1876 |
By the time she goes up to do the bedrooms, Rose will have become
very grubby from contact with fireplaces, ranges and coal. She will have
a special apron to put on to prevent her from smudging the beds with
black lead and soot as she leans over them.
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Mrs. Delafield will now have turned her attention to the
kitchen. She will have decided on the menus for the next few days and
will be doing most of the preparation herself . Rose will be lifting
pots on and off the range, keeping the firebox stoked up and carrying
fresh coals in from the cellar.
Preparation for the mid-day meal will take all morning and they work
without stopping. At 1.00 pm, the shop is closed and everyone returns
home for the main meal of the day which they refer to as dinner.
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Economical
menus for the week*
From
a Victorian Women's Magazine
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In
between performing her tasks under her mistress's
supervision, Rose peels vegetables, cuts up meat, stirs pots and
answers the back door to the various tradesmen who call each day.
Ice was expensive to buy in and working class shops seldom used it.
As meat, fish and bread became less and less fresh, so the price was
daily reduced. Pickles and sauces were extensively used to disguise
unpleasant tastes.
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A Victorian Baker.
From
a Victorian Scrapbook by
courtesy of Steve Johnson
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| *"Two pudding" (see Saturday)
was a way of using up odds and ends at the end of the week.
Starting with rice, and an egg, you just put two ounces of anything else you had
- sugar, dried fruit, nuts, berries from the garden, apples, jam,
marmalade and so on - into a pint of milk and baked it in the oven of the range
until golden brown. |
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