The Real Life Downton Abbey Read Online Free PDF

estate at Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire, owned by the Duke of Portland, employs 320 servants.
1900: 25 per cent of the population live in poverty; 10 per cent live below subsistence level and cannot afford an adequate diet. Many women can only feed the family by taking in washing or sewing at home – or pawning their own boots for food.
1900: average working week is 54 hours.
1901: census lists 100,000 servants whose ages are between 10 and l5.
1901: 2 million people work as domestic servants – 5 per cent of the total population.
1901: life expectancy for men: 45 years, for women: 49 years.
     
THE MARCH OF PROGRESS…
     
1902: Education Act raises school leaving age to 14.
1906: a Liberal Government is elected in a landslide victory after 10 years of Tory rule.
1907: free school meals are introduced for Britain’s children.
1908: the first State pension: over 70s are entitled to a maximum of 5 shillings (25p) a week; Labour Exchanges are set up to help people find work.
1911: 48,000 drivers of motorcars or vans on the road.
1911: 2,000 cinema venues operating in Britain.
1918: Servants win the right to vote for the first time; women over 30 are also given the right to vote.
     
WHAT IT COST THEN – TYPICAL PRICES IN 1900:
     
Pint of beer in a London public bar: 2d
Pint of fresh milk: 2d
Newspaper ( The Times ): 3d
Inland letter postage: 1d
     
WAGES AND COST OF LIVING IN 1900:
     
Manchester house servant: 18 pounds, l5 shillings a year
Bank manager: £400 per annum
1903: Cost of brand new Napier seven-seater motorcar (Edwardian equivalent to a Rolls-Royce) is £520
1910: Average London property price is £14,000
     
     

    A guest’s chauffeur leaves Welbeck Abbey in 1911.
     

Chapter 2
     

Money
     
     
    T here is an enormous disparity in the spending habits and incomes of the two classes. Financially, they inhabit different planets.

T HE T OFFS: H OW TO S PEND I T
    It starts from the top. In many ways, King Edward VII, Queen Victoria’s son who takes the throne following her death in January 1901, is what we’d today probably call a ‘king of bling’, a party animal who loves to indulge himself with huge displays of extravagance and luxury.
    In the long years before he is handed the regal crown, Edward, Prince of Wales, or ‘Bertie’, is a high-spending, gourmandizing, womanising king-in-waiting at the head of a ‘smart set’ of wealthy, highly influential socialites whose social calendar frequently revolves around following his lead. Their pursuits are many. And they usually involve huge expenditure: shooting parties, balls, theatre trips, grand dinners with rich French cuisine, gambling sessions, cards, horse racing – if it’s expensive and exclusive, they’re doing it.
    This is a highly social world. Yet to us it would seem incredibly public. With servants around all the time, taking care of your every need, how can it be otherwise? Yet despite this, within this set some are sexually promiscuous and unfaithful to their spouses – who might be aware of this but look away. Maintaining the status quo matters much more.
    As King, Edward VII has half a million pounds a year (think around £8 million a year in today’s money) in his pocket – and his coterie of super-rich friends and acquaintances, include many ‘new’ money millionaires and entrepreneurs whose fortunes frequently dwarf his own, as well as the fortunes of the ‘old’ money aristocrats.
    Someone like the 6th Duke of Portland, William Cavendish-Bentinck (The King’s Master of the Horse), for example, is much richer than his king. The Duke’s vast estate, Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire, plus his coal-mining interests, give him ‘many millions per annum’.
    So playing host to Edward and his chums for a big entertainment, a country-house weekend (called a ‘Saturday to Monday’ by the toffs because the expression ‘weekend’ is considered vulgar) or a shooting party, or a trip to the South of France, involves a fantastic