Washing & cleaning for a duke

Scrubbing floors and laundry at Bedford House

Mrs. Bruce was housekeeper at the Duke of Bedford's London home in the late 17th century. It was a responsible job overseeing domestic arrangements in a large mansion*, but she didn't know how to write. She dictated her part of the household accounts, and these lists of expenses give us some idea of the flurry of scrubbing and laundering that happened before and after the family's annual visit to London. (There were sometimes lesser visits too, when the duke travelled without his wife.)

Casual domestic labour in London cost the household one shilling (1s) or eighteenpence (1s 6d) a day. These wages went to un-named women who worked for a few days cleaning floors and windows, scouring pewter, and laundering linen. Their counterparts at the family's country home, Woburn Abbey, lived in estate cottages and were known by name: Goodwife Goffe, Widow Whitbread.

In 1675 Mrs. Bruce's housekeeping expenses included: 

	For washing sheets and napkins before the great wash when the two masters was in town	2s
	For four pounds of soap	1s
	For six pounds of candles	2s 6d
	For three women one day to wash	4s 6d
	A woman two days to help dry up the linen	3s
	For oil, ashes, and sand to scour	1s 8d
	A woman to scour two days	3s
	For washing of twelve pair of sheets at 4d per pair	4s
	For two pounds of soap to scour the great room	6d
	For nine pounds of soap	2s 3d
	For four mops	4s
	For Fuller's earth and sand to scour the rooms	1s 8d
	A woman six days to help to wash all the rooms after the workmen left the house	6s
	A woman six days for scouring and washing the rooms and cleaning the irons against the family's coming to town	6s
	A woman to help air the bedding when the family came to town	2s

When the family returned to Buckinghamshire there were more bills, including:

	For soap for the great wash when the family left London	4s 6d
	For two women to wash after his lordship's being in town	3s
	A woman four days to help make clean the house when the family went out of town	4s

Were any of the well-scoured pewter plates and mugs used by the duke and his family, or were they just for the retinue of footmen, stable boys, pages, maids etc.? Silver for the dining table along with other fine household goods - luxurious bedding, for instance - travelled to London just ahead of the family.

Some maids travelled with this convoy of carriers' carts and wagons, while menservants rode, so there were extra housemaids to work for Mrs. Bruce during last-minute preparations for the great arrival. In 1685 two housemaids were sent by coach at a cost of 14s 6d. A more senior helper was Mrs. Dawson, wife of the accounts assistant at Woburn.

*Bedford House was in the Strand. A late-Tudor building, it was demolished in 1700 as the Covent Garden fruit and vegetable market, its new neighbour, started to expand.

The Country House Servant from Amazon.com
or Amazon.UK

24 October 2007

For more on old washing methods see:
History of Laundry: washing and drying before 1800
Lye and chamber lye
Wash days and bucking
Laundry blue
See also:
History of ironing

   

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