Hidden lives: domestic servants in the European country house, c.1700-1850

Servants were central to the functioning of country houses across Europe and beyond: from the kitchens to the stables; from emptying bedpans to managing the estate. Their working lives have attracted the attention of both historians and heritage professionals, however, country house servants as people remain surprisingly neglected. We lack detailed, scholarly and comparative research on their accommodation, social and familial networks, and experiences, particularly for the period before c.1850. Whilst recent years have seen something of an upturn in interest in these "hidden" lives in various parts of Europe, research remains localised and lacks a broader comparative framework.
The proposed network seeks to provide such a framework and nurture further research by building a sustainable community of researchers with a shared interest in country house servants and a common conviction that comparative perspectives can offer important new insights. It is inter-disciplinary, inter-sectoral and international, drawing together scholars from history, art history and literary studies; linking academics with heritage professionals, and involving network members from eight countries across northern and western Europe. It is also an open network: 21 core members will participate throughout, but open calls for participants will be issued for each of the four workshops.
These workshops will deepen membership of the network by engaging the same core group cross a series of discussions; encourage novel interactions between different disciplines and sectors; highlight commonalities and differences in the experiences and lives of country house servants across Europe, and nurture ECRs and PhD students by helping them to create robust and sustainable networks of their own. They will cover four broad themes: the first links to research on consumption and the material culture of the country house, exploring how the accommodation and possessions of servants varied across time and between countries; the second focuses servants' social and familial networks, bringing together big data projects with research on the lived experiences of servants to nuance our understanding of the geographical and social mobility of servants, and their responsibilities within their own households and families; the third explores servants' lives through their representation in literary and visual media, asking what these tell us about how servants were perceived and how about their life experiences. The final workshops will showcase and critically assess the ways in which servants' lives are interpreted and presented in houses open to the public.
The research discussed at each workshop will feed into a virtual exhibition on the hidden lives of servants in country houses across northern and western Europe, based around key objects, individuals and archival sources. This provides a showcase for research and a important mechanism for engaging with the broader research community and the public, tapping into and nourishing a widespread interest in country houses and the lives of servants seen in he popularity of TV shows such as Downton Abbey. A collection of essays drawn from the workshops will be published open access to facilitate further dissemination of the research to a geographically and sectorally broad audience.