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Domestic Life

Each of the Leveson-Gower family’s houses, from Trentham Hall to Stafford House, functioned as a private family home and venue for social receptions. Correspondence in the Sutherland Papers tells us that Stafford House played host to political committees and private parties throughout the nineteenth century.

Each of the family’s households required efficient management by teams of domestic staff, from housekeepers to garden labourers. Correspondence, wage books and inventories in the Sutherland Papers tell us about the life and work of servants during the nineteenth century. Letters reveal the variety of responsibilities involved in managing a household, whilst inventories of the furniture in rooms occupied by servants tell us about the hierarchy of domestic staff employed in different roles within each household.

The documents featured in the Domestic Life section have been selected with the assistance of historian Dr. Pamela Sambrook. Dr. Sambrook has written extensively on various aspects of domestic service, publishing five books including The Country House Servant (Sutton: 1999).

Click here to see documents relating to Domestic Life in the Sutherland Papers