Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (2024)

WikiMili

Last updated
Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (1)

In great houses, scullery maids were the lowest-ranked and often the youngest of the female domestic servants [1] and acted as assistants to a kitchen maid. [2]

Contents

  • Description
  • The Book of Household Management
  • Additional duties
  • Fictional scullery maids
  • See also
  • References
  • External links

Description

The scullery maid reported (through the kitchen maid) to the cook or chef. Along with the junior kitchen-maid, the scullery maid did not eat at the communal servants' dining hall table, but in the kitchen in order to keep an eye on the food that was still cooking. [3]

Duties of the scullery maid included the most physical and demanding tasks in the kitchen [1] such as cleaning and scouring the floor, stoves, sinks, pots, and dishes. After scouring the plates in the scullery, she would leave them on racks to dry. The scullery maid also assisted in cleaning vegetables, plucking fowl, and scaling fish. [4]

The Book of Household Management

The duties of the scullery-maid are to assist the cook; to keep the scullery clean, and all the metallic as well as earthenware kitchen utensils.

The position of scullery-maid is not, of course, one of high rank, nor is the payment for her services large. But if she be fortunate enough to have over her a good kitchen-maid and clever cook, she may very soon learn to perform various little duties connected with cooking operations, which may be of considerable service in fitting her for a more responsible place. Now, it will be doubtless thought by the majority of our readers, that the fascinations connected with the position of the scullery-maid, are not so great as to induce many people to leave a comfortable home in order to work in a scullery.

Mrs. Beeton, The Book of Household Management , published 1861 [5]

Additional duties

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (2)

The scullery maid provided hot water for the scullery, kitchen tasks, and household. In addition to her other tasks, the scullery maid had to keep the scullery clean by clearing away meat and vegetable garbage, scrubbing work tables, and swilling the floors. The water was carried through a drain outside the house. [6] Scullery maids would rarely have handled fine china, stemware, crystal or plate silver; these were cleaned by housemaids and footmen. Before the advent of central heating systems, scullery maids were required to light the fires on the kitchen stove and supply hot water for tea and washing. She performed these tasks in the morning before the cook came down to the kitchens. [7]

In a household with no between maid, the scullery maid may also have waited on staff in the Servants' hall, although this may have been assigned to another maid or a junior footman. In the days before the indoor water closet she may have been required to empty and clean the servants' chamber pots as well. [8]

This work has, in modern (i.e. the nineteenth century) times, primarily been performed by women, but in medieval households female domestics were relatively rare. A male servant performing the tasks described above would be called a scullion. In 1386, when the English Parliament requested the removal of certain of Richard II's ministers, the king infamously responded that he would not dismiss so as much as a scullion from his kitchen at parliament's request. [9]

The root of the word scullery is the 1300–50 French word "escuelerie" (pronounced squillerye < equivalent to escuele -dish (< L scutella, dim. of scutra pan) + rie -ry. [10]

Fictional scullery maids

  • Becky in the 1905 children's novel A Little Princess .
  • Snow White in the 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs .
  • Katerina in the 1938 film The Girl Downstairs .
  • Cinderella in the 1950 film Cinderella .
  • Lavinia in the 1970 children's novel Thursday's Child .
  • Ruby Finch in the 1971–1975 television series Upstairs, Downstairs .
  • Annette in the 1973 novel The Princess Bride .
  • Evangeline in the 2005 film Nanny McPhee .
  • Lady Tremaine and Drizella in the 2007 film Cinderella III: A Twist in Time
  • Daisy Mason in the 2010–2015 television series Downton Abbey .
  • Bridget in the 2016 animated film Trolls .
  • Demelza in the 2015–2019 British television series Poldark .
  • Robyn in the 2020 animated film Wolfwalkers.
  • Arabella in the 2006 children's novel Rebel's Daughter: The 1837 Rebellion Diary of Arabella Stevenson
  • Bridget in the 2022 TV series, The Gilded Age
  • Elora Danan in the 2022 TV series, Willow

See also

  • Hall boy

Related Research Articles

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (3)

Isabella Mary Beeton, known as Mrs Beeton, was an English journalist, editor and writer. Her name is particularly associated with her first book, the 1861 work Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. She was born in London and, after schooling in Islington, north London, and Heidelberg, Germany, she married Samuel Orchart Beeton, an ambitious publisher and magazine editor.

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (4)

Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, also published as Mrs. Beeton's Cookery Book, is an extensive guide to running a household in Victorian Britain, edited by Isabella Beeton and first published as a book in 1861. Previously published in parts, it initially and briefly bore the title Beeton's Book of Household Management, as one of the series of guidebooks published by her husband, Samuel Beeton. The recipes were highly structured, in contrast to those in earlier cookbooks. It was illustrated with many monochrome and colour plates.

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (5)

A domestic worker is a person who works within a residence and performs a variety of household services for an individual, from providing cleaning and household maintenance, or cooking, laundry and ironing, or care for children and elderly dependents, and other household errands. The term "'domestic service" applies to the equivalent occupational category. In traditional English contexts, such a person was said to be "in service".

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (6)

A maid, housemaid, or maidservant is a female domestic worker. In the Victorian era, domestic service was the second-largest category of employment in England and Wales, after agricultural work. In developed Western nations, full-time maids are now typically only found in the wealthiest households. In other parts of the world, maids remain common in urban middle-class households.

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (7)

A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry. Some also have charge of the entire parlour floor and housekeepers caring for the entire house and its appearance. A butler is usually male and in charge of male servants while a housekeeper is usually a woman and in charge of female servants. Traditionally, male servants were better paid and of higher status than female servants. The butler, as the senior male servant, has the highest servant status. He can also sometimes function as a chauffeur.

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (8)

Upstairs, Downstairs is a British drama television series produced by London Weekend Television (LWT) for ITV. It ran for 68 episodes divided into five series on ITV from 1971 to 1975.

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (9)

The 1900 House is a historical reenactment reality television series made by Wall to Wall/Channel 4 in 1999. The programme features a modern family attempting to live in the way of the late Victorians for three months in a modified house. It was first broadcast on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom and PBS in America.

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (10)

A great house is a large house or mansion with luxurious appointments and great retinues of indoor and outdoor staff. The term is used mainly historically, especially of properties at the turn of the 20th century, i.e., the late Victorian or Edwardian era in the United Kingdom and the Gilded Age in the United States.

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (11)

A cook or private chef is a household staff member responsible for food preparation.

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (12)

A housekeeper is an individual responsible for the supervision of a house's cleaning staff. The housekeeper may also perform the cleaning duties themself.

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (13)

A scullery is a room in a house, traditionally used for washing up dishes and laundering clothes, or as an overflow kitchen. Tasks performed in the scullery include cleaning dishes and cooking utensils, occasional kitchen work, ironing, boiling water for cooking or bathing, and soaking and washing clothes. Sculleries contain hot and cold sinks, sometimes slop sinks, drain pipes, storage shelves, plate racks, a work table, various coppers for boiling water, tubs, and buckets.

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (14)

The Edwardian Country House is a British historical reenactment reality television miniseries produced by Channel 4. First aired weekly in the UK beginning in April 2002, it was later broadcast in the United States on PBS stations as Manor House in 2003, where extra footage was added. It is third in a series of historical reality shows produced by Channel 4, preceded by The 1900 House and The 1940s House.

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (15)

The Chimes of Midnight is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. This audio play was broadcast on digital radio station BBC 7 in four weekly parts, starting on 17 December 2005, and has been rebroadcast on the same channel beginning on 17 December 2006, and again on 26 and 27 September 2007.

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (16)

A kitchen utensil is a small hand-held tool used for food preparation. Common kitchen tasks include cutting food items to size, heating food on an open fire or on a stove, baking, grinding, mixing, blending, and measuring; different utensils are made for each task. A general purpose utensil such as a chef's knife may be used for a variety of foods; other kitchen utensils are highly specialized and may be used only in connection with preparation of a particular type of food, such as an egg separator or an apple corer. Some specialized utensils are used when an operation is to be repeated many times, or when the cook has limited dexterity or mobility. The number of utensils in a household kitchen varies with time and the style of cooking.

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (17)

Angus Hudson is a fictional character from the ITV drama Upstairs, Downstairs, portrayed by actor Gordon Jackson from 1971, until 1975.

"I Dies from Love" is the eighth episode of the first series of the British television series, Upstairs, Downstairs. The episode is set in the spring of 1907.

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (18)

Upstairs Downstairs is a British drama series, broadcast on BBC One from 2010 to 2012, and co-produced by BBC Wales and Masterpiece. Created and written by Heidi Thomas, it is a continuation of the London Weekend Television series of the same name, which ran from 1971 to 1975 on ITV.

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (19)

Eliza Warren née Jervis (1810–1900) was an English writer on needlework and household management, and editor of the Ladies' Treasury magazine. She was best-known professionally by the pen-name Mrs. Warren, but after a second marriage was also known as Eliza Francis and Eliza Warren Francis.

"A Voice from the Past" is the tenth episode of the first series of the British television series, Upstairs, Downstairs.

References

  1. 1 2 Valentine Low (3 April 2002). "Modern girl too 'soft' for 1900s life". Evening Standard. Retrieved 18 March 2017.
  2. Green, Mary (1 September 2003). Children Living in Victorian Britain. Folens Publishers. ISBN 978-1-84303-062-1.
  3. The Country House Kitchen: 1650-1900, Pamela Sambrook and Peter Brears,1996, ISBN 0-7509-1642-7, p. 85.
  4. The Country House Kitchen, p 85.
  5. Beeton, Isabella (1861). "Chapter 4 - Introduction to Cookery". Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management . London: S. O. Beeton Publishing. Retrieved 22 August 2011.
  6. The Country House Kitchen, p. 87
  7. "Manor House. Edwardian Life | PBS". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 4 September 2023.
  8. Dinner is Served: The Role of English Servants
  9. Saul, Nigel (1997). Richard II . New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-07003-9.
  10. Scullery reference.com

External links

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

Scullery maid - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader (2024)

References

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Article information

Author: Reed Wilderman

Last Updated:

Views: 5348

Rating: 4.1 / 5 (52 voted)

Reviews: 83% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Reed Wilderman

Birthday: 1992-06-14

Address: 998 Estell Village, Lake Oscarberg, SD 48713-6877

Phone: +21813267449721

Job: Technology Engineer

Hobby: Swimming, Do it yourself, Beekeeping, Lapidary, Cosplaying, Hiking, Graffiti

Introduction: My name is Reed Wilderman, I am a faithful, bright, lucky, adventurous, lively, rich, vast person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.