Servants of the Bookers

We’ve all seen the TV programmes of posh Victorian people living in their wonderful houses and the army of servants waiting upon them. But I wonder what the reality of life was for the servants of the Bookers at Velindre?

There’s not much to go on. Velindre was demolished 120 years ago, there are a few grainy OS maps, and then there are the census returns

We know that Richard Blakemore acquired Velindre in the late 18th century and that TW Booker joined his uncle Richard as a young man and later acquired the property. It appears that Velindre then underwent the first big stage of gentrification, so that TWB, his young wife Jane and growing family could move into Velindre in 1830

By 1834, TWB and Jane had 5 children and their gentrified house, so they would have required quite a few servants to run everything

The census of 1841 shows TWB aged 35 as head, with his wife and children with 8 live-in servants and a coachman living next door at Penylan

In the early census returns we see a number of young girls in the millworker families below Velindre, described as ‘servants’. Perhaps they were extra ‘understairs’ servants who carried out the heavy cleaning and fetching duties at the house?

10 years later, there were still 8 live-in servants, including Anna Evans aged 79 (house servant and nurse), Edward Morgan who was a 40-year-old widower as butler, a cook, 4 other female house servants and a 16-year-old male house servant. Within the grounds lived the gardener and his family, and next door in Penylan lived a groom (with his wife and 3 children) and 2 coachmen with their respective families

By 1861, the Booker family had changed dramatically. Both TWB and his wife had died, and his son TWB junior had become head at Velindre. He’d married Caroline and had started their own family. All of TWB’s other children had all either died or moved on, but the servants remained. There were still 8 live-in servants (including Anna Evans, now aged 89)

Anna Evans was obviously a longstanding member of the household. We know from her obituary in December 1865 in the Cardiff Times that she was ‘the favourite nurse of that late estimable lady Mrs J Booker-Blakemore, and claimed the honour of being the nurse of Messrs TW and JP Booker and of Mrs Cyril Stacey. She had lived for the previous 63 years at Melingriffith, out of which time she had resided over 30 years in Velindre’. She was approaching her centenary

As well as Anna Evans as nurse, Velindre would have needed a butler, cook/housekeeper, scullery maid, a lady’s maid, general house servants and a ‘boy’. At Greenmeadow up the road, the Lewis’s had a page and a mail boy as well!

There are no known images of the Booker servants, but the photograph below shows typical servants of the period. There is a coachman, scullery maid, a house servant and others. Which ones would you relate to?

Female servants would have been unmarried, and left service on marriage. So, a 30-year-old (or even 40) would suggest either a cook or housekeeper. Obviously, the Bookers were okay with married male servants in the outside duties

The duties of the live-in servants would have been both long and tiring. Velindre was a house heated with coal fires, lit with candles and oil lamps and relying on well water for cooking and washing. I wonder what sort of wage the servants would have received, and what kind of holiday leave? Probably, not much

Over the next 20 years, with TWB junior, Velindre underwent massive alterations and the house and gardens became a glittering pleasure palace

As part of the ‘county’ set, Velindre would be the host of numerous receptions and weekend parties, when everyone dressed up and the best china and silver was brought out. More cleaning and even more fetching for the servants

By the end of the decade however, everything changed. The Melingriffith empire had collapsed and TWB junior had moved out of Velindre to live in another grand house, in Southerndown (with his own servants)

What happened to all of the other Velindre servants I wonder?

What about your own family stories?

 

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