The Housekeeper's Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English

The Housekeeper's Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House

Working as a housekeeper was one of the most prestigious jobs a nineteenth and early twentieth century woman could want â€“ and also one of the toughest. A far cry from the Downton Abbey fiction, the real life Mrs Hughes was up against capricious mistresses, low pay, no job security and gruelling physical labour. Until now, her story has never been told. The Housekeeperâ€™s Tale reveals the personal sacrifices, bitter disputes and driving ambition that shaped these womenâ€™s careers. Delving into secret diaries, unpublished letters and the neglected service archives of our stately homes, Tessa Boase tells the extraordinary stories of five working women who ran some of Britainâ€™s most prominent households.

There is Dorothy Doar, Regency housekeeper for the obscenely wealthy 1st Duke and Duchess of Sutherland at Trentham Hall, Staffordshire. There is Sarah Wells, a deaf and elderly Victorian in charge of Uppark, West Sussex. Ellen Penketh is Edwardian cook-housekeeper at the sociable but impecunious Erddig Hall in the Welsh borders. Hannah Mackenzie runs Wrest Park in Bedfordshire â€“ Britainâ€™s first country-house war hospital, bankrolled by playwright J. M. Barrie. And there is Grace Higgens, cook-housekeeper to the Bloomsbury set at Charleston farmhouse in East Sussex for half a century â€“ an era defined by the Second World War.

Revelatory, gripping and unexpectedly poignant, The Housekeeperâ€™s Tale champions the invisible women who ran the English country house.
Country USA
Manufacturer Aurum
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2014-05-19
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Aurum
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2014-05-19
Format	Kindle eBook

The Housekeeper's Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House

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