Butler - Wikipedia. A butler 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. Traditionally, male servants (such as footmen) were rarer and therefore better paid and of higher status than female servants. The butler, as the senior male servant, has the highest servant status. He can also be sometimes used as a chauffeur. In older houses where the butler is the most senior worker, titles such as majordomo, butler administrator, house manager, manservant, staff manager, chief of staff, staff captain, estate manager and head of household staff are sometimes given. The precise duties of the employee will vary to some extent in line with the title given, but perhaps, more importantly in line with the requirements of the individual employer. In the grandest homes or when the employer owns more than one residence, there is sometimes an estate manager of higher rank than the butler. Background. The role of the butler, for centuries, has been that of the chief steward of a household, the attendant entrusted with the care and serving of wine and other bottled beverages which in ancient times might have represented a considerable portion of the household's assets. In Britain, the butler was originally a middle- ranking member of the staff of a grand household. In the 1. 7th and 1. However, there was sometimes a steward who ran the outside estate and financial affairs, rather than just the household, and who was senior to the butler in social status into the 1. Butlers used always to be attired in a special uniform, distinct from the livery of junior servants, but today a butler is more likely to wear a business suit or business casual clothing and appear in uniform only on special occasions. A silverman or silver butler has expertise and professional knowledge of the management, secure storage, use and cleaning of all silverware, associated tableware and other paraphernalia for use at military and other special functions. See also Silver (household). To Butler (verb): To butler, to dispense wines or liquors; to act as a butler. The care of these assets was therefore generally reserved for trusted slaves, although the job could also go to free persons because of heredity- based class lines or the inheritance of trades. The biblical book of Genesis contains a reference to a role precursive to modern butlers. The early Hebrew Joseph interpreted a dream of Pharaoh's . This is the servant staff at the Stonehouse Hill of Massachusetts, the estate of Frederick Lothrop Ames, 1. Elizabethan through Victorian eras. By this time he was in charge of the more modern wine cellar, the . The majority of gentlemen's establishments probably comprise a servant out of livery, or butler, a footman, and coachman, or coachman and groom, where the horses exceed two or three. The residence had 1. The largest stately houses could have 4. Butlers were head of a strict service hierarchy and therein held a position of power and respect. They were more managerial than . The Servant in the House est un film am Search for 'The Servant in the House' on Amazon.com. Connect with IMDb Getting Started . The Servant in the House. By Charles Rann Kennedy. The Servant in the House. By Charles Rann Kennedy. When Barrett brings his sister Vera to work and live in the house, Tony has a brief hidden affair with her. Title: The Servant (1963). The Servant House, Lewisville, TX. Email or Phone: Password: Log In: Forgot account? The Servant in the House is a 1921 American silent drama film directed by Jack Conway. For example, although the butler was at the door to greet and announce the arrival of a formal guest, the door was actually opened by a footman, who would receive the guest's hat and coat. Even though the butler helped his employer into his coat, this had been handed to him by a footman. However, even the highest- ranking butler would . The butler was in charge of the dining room, the wine cellar, pantry, and sometimes the entire main floor. Directly under the butler was the first footman (or head footman), although there could also be a deputy butler or under- butler who would fill in as butler during the butler's illness or absence. Valets themselves performed a variety of personal duties for their employer. Butlers engaged and directed all these junior staff and each reported directly to him. The housekeeper was in charge of the house as a whole and its appearance. In a household without an official head housekeeper, female servants and kitchen staff were also directly under the butler's management, while in smaller households, the butler usually doubled as valet. Employers and their children and guests addressed the butler (and under- butler, if there was one) by last name alone; fellow servants, retainers, and tradespersons as . Beeton in her manual suggested a GBP 2. Some eventually became butlers. Gary Puckrein, a social historian, argues that those used in particularly affluent homes authentically internalised the sorts of . One of the first books written and published through a commercial U. S. The book, The House Servant's Directory. The book generated such interest that a second edition was published in 1. Although not the victims of institutionalised slavery, many of them had not volunteered for domestic service, but were forced into it by indebtedness or coercion. As with African American slaves, they could rise in domestic service, and their happiness or misery depended greatly on the disposition of their masters. The modern butler. Even so, there were still around 3. Britain by World War II. As few as one hundred were estimated to remain by the mid- 1. Conversely, as a society undergoes levelling among its social classes, the number employed in domestic service declines. According to Charles Mac. Pherson, President of Charles Mac. Pherson Associates and owner of The Charles Mac. Pherson Academy for Butlers and Household Managers, the proximate cause is that the number of millionaires and billionaires has increased in recent years, and such people are finding that they desire assistance in managing their households. Mac. Pherson emphasises that the number of wealthy people in China has increased particularly, creating in that country a high demand for professional butlers who have been trained in the European butlering tradition. Butlers today may be called upon to do whatever household and personal duties their employers deem fitting, in the goal of freeing their employers to carry out their own personal and professional affairs. Professional butler and author Steven M. Ferry states that the image of tray- wielding butlers who specialise in serving tables and decanting wine is now anachronistic, and that employers may well be more interested in a butler who is capable of managing a full array of household affairs. While in truly grand houses the modern butler may still function exclusively as a top- ranked household affairs manager. Whereas butlers have traditionally worn a special uniform that separated them from junior servants, and although this is still often the case, butlers today may wear more casual clothing geared for climate, while exchanging it for formal business attire only upon special service occasions. There are cultural distinctions, as well. In the United States, butlers may frequently don a polo shirt and slacks, while in Bali they typically wear sarongs. For example, in the documentary The Authenticity of Gosford Park, retired butler Arthur Inch (born 1. Moreover, websites, as well as a news publication, Modern Butlers' Journal, help butlers to network and keep abreast of developments within their field. Gender and butlering. Probably the first mention of a female butler is in the 1. Interludes being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses by Horace Smith. In it Smith quotes a certain Sydney Smith who had apparently run into lean times: A man servant was too expensive, so I caught up a little garden girl, made like a milestone, christened her Bunch, put a napkin in her hand, and made her my butler. The girls taught her to read, Mrs. Sydney to wait, and I undertook her morals. Bunch became the best butler in the country. The school goes on to report that the labour market still has a preference for male butlers, however, the market is becoming more progressive and increasing numbers of female butlers are being hired. With the advent of the medieval era, butlering became an opportunity for social advancement. Although still based upon various antecedent roles as manifested during different eras, butlering today has frequently taken over many of the roles formerly reserved for lower- ranking domestic servants. At the same time it has become a potentially lucrative career option. A famous painting, Heads of Six of Hogarth's Servants (c. In it, the 1. 8th- century English artist William Hogarth depicted his household servants, each surrounding the butler. In showing the group in a close- knit assemblage rather than in the performance of their routine household duties, Hogarth sought to humanise and dignify them in a manner akin to wealthy- class members, who were the normal subjects of such portraits. While this was a subversive act that certainly raised many eyebrows in his day. In the series, Stock portrays the butler as sick with love, but the possibility of fulfillment is hopeless: the love is a forbidden love, perhaps felt for the lady of the house, and so it must be suffered alone in silent concealment. In addition to the ongoing mannerisms and facial expressions of the butler, a seated lady once appearing in a curtained room and a recurring lipstick- stained absinthe glass over which the butler obsesses provide the interpretive clues. In selecting a butler as his subject, Stock sought to provide a . Stock began the series in 1. One of the paintings was inspiration for a 3- D short film, . The butler of fiction, by contrast, often tends to be larger than life and has become a plot device in literature and a traditional role in the performing arts. Butlers may provide comic relief with wry comments, clues as to the perpetrators of various crimes, and are represented as at least as intelligent and moral as their . They are often portrayed as being serious and expressionless and in the case that the wealthy hero is an orphan.
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