My current WIP is set in London, circa 1750s-1760s. I can find plenty of information on the servants that might be kept by a large aristocratic household, but I am looking for information on more modest households. I should add that while my story has an historical setting it is not an historical novel per se; I am aiming for plausibility rather than perfectly rendered historical detail.
My character is a single professional man (doctor) in his late 30s, widowed with no children. He is of a respectable middle-class rather than gentry background, and of fairly sober and solitary habits (he socialises in coffee houses or his club rather than entertaining at home). He takes care of his appearance but does not have a typical Georgian taste for fashion. I visualise him occupying a small but fairly new terrace house in one of the fashionable bits of the West End, with the ground-floor rooms converted to consulting rooms. The cost of leasing this house has left him in a tight spot financially, but he is trying to attract wealthy patients so he has to keep up appearances to some degree.
What is the minimum respectable household he could keep? My current draft features a housekeeper/cook (an older widow) plus a youngish footman, whose role includes reception duties for his patients. My plotting would be much easier if he could have just a housekeeper, but that feels a bit light.
If this is broadly plausible, would the following also stand?
* The housekeeper helping female characters to undress if required, or would she be too busy? Would wealthier women bring their lady's maid for this?
* The footman undertaking some minor valet duties such as shaving him, or would he have that done at a barber?
* The footman being black or mixed-race? I know this is historically plausible for London at this time, but I recall reading that black servants were fashionable at times and therefore potentially out of his price range (the one book I did find on servant-master relationships at this period identified that it was a good labour market for servants in the mid-18th century, with labour shortages and rapidly rising wages).
My character is a single professional man (doctor) in his late 30s, widowed with no children. He is of a respectable middle-class rather than gentry background, and of fairly sober and solitary habits (he socialises in coffee houses or his club rather than entertaining at home). He takes care of his appearance but does not have a typical Georgian taste for fashion. I visualise him occupying a small but fairly new terrace house in one of the fashionable bits of the West End, with the ground-floor rooms converted to consulting rooms. The cost of leasing this house has left him in a tight spot financially, but he is trying to attract wealthy patients so he has to keep up appearances to some degree.
What is the minimum respectable household he could keep? My current draft features a housekeeper/cook (an older widow) plus a youngish footman, whose role includes reception duties for his patients. My plotting would be much easier if he could have just a housekeeper, but that feels a bit light.
If this is broadly plausible, would the following also stand?
* The housekeeper helping female characters to undress if required, or would she be too busy? Would wealthier women bring their lady's maid for this?
* The footman undertaking some minor valet duties such as shaving him, or would he have that done at a barber?
* The footman being black or mixed-race? I know this is historically plausible for London at this time, but I recall reading that black servants were fashionable at times and therefore potentially out of his price range (the one book I did find on servant-master relationships at this period identified that it was a good labour market for servants in the mid-18th century, with labour shortages and rapidly rising wages).
