A butler is a domestic worker in a largehousehold. 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 housekeeperscaring for the entire house and its appearance.[1] A butler is usually male,[2] and in charge of male servants, while a housekeeper is usually a woman, and in charge of female servants. 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 achauffeur.
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
In Britain, the butler was originally a middle-ranking member of the staff of a grand household. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the butler gradually became the senior, usually male, member of a household's staff in the very grandest households. 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 19th century. 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. (simple past and past participle butlered)
Gender and butlering
Butlers have traditionally been male, and this remains the norm. Probably the first mention of a female butler is in the 1892 bookInterludes 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:
Today, female butlers are sometimes preferred,[30] especially for work within Middle and Far Eastern families where it may be religiously problematic for males to work closely with females in a household.[31]Western female celebrities may also prefer a female butler,[32] as may households where the wife is driving the decision to hire a butler.[17] In 2004, Buckingham Palaceannounced it was actively recruiting females for the position.[33] Despite these trends, the Ivor Spencer School asserts that female butlers are not easily placed, on the whole.
The Charles MacPherson Academy for Butlers and Household Managers reports that 40% of the students admitted into its program are women. 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.[34]
In ancient times, the roles precursive to butlering were reserved for chattel or those confined within heredity-based class structures. With the advent of the medieval era, butlering became an opportunity for social advancement—even more so during Victorian times. 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.[35]
In fiction
The real-life modern butler attempts to be discreet and unobtrusive, friendly but not familiar, keenly anticipative of the needs of his or her employer, and graceful and precise in execution of duty. 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 “betters,” or even more so. They are often portrayed as being serious and expressionless and in the case that the wealthy hero is an orphan—such as Batman,Chrono Crusade's Satella Harvenheit, or Tomb Raider's Lara Croft—may be a father figure to said hero. Regardless of the genre in which they are cast, butlers in fiction almost invariably follow the "British butler" model and are given an appropriate-sounding surname. The fictional butler tends to be given a typical Anglo-Celtic surname and have an English accent. The Asian, African American, or Caribbean houseboy is a variant, but even these major-domos are based on the British icon.
Today, butlers are usually portrayed as being refined and well-spoken. However, in 19th century fiction such as Dracula, butlers generally spoke with a strong Cockney or other regional accent.
"The butler" is integral to the plot of countlesspotboilers and melodramas, whether or not the character has been given a name. Butlers figure so prominently in period pieces andwhodunits that they can be considered stock characters in film and theatre, where acatchphrase is "The butler did it!"
The best-known fictional manservant, and the prototype of the quintessential British butler, is himself not a butler at all. Reginald Jeeves, the iconic creation of author P. G. Wodehouseis a "gentleman's gentleman" and generalfactotum. Probably the best-known fictional butlers are Alfred from the Batman comic and films; Hudson of Upstairs, Downstairstelevision fame; Mr Carson from the Downton Abbey television series; and Crichton from J. M. Barrie's The Admirable Crichton. Lesser-knowns include Mr. Belvedere from the novelBelvedere, which was adapted into a feature film with sequels and later a television series;Lurch, from the television series The Addams Family, based on Charles Addams' The New Yorker cartoons; Beach, from the Wodehouse series about Blandings Castle; Niles, the butler at the Sheffield house in American sitcom The Nanny, and Benson from the two series Soap and Benson.
Not all fictional butlers portray the "butler stereotype", however. Alan Bates, who played the butler Jennings in the film Gosford Park, was coached in brooding detail by Arthur Inch, a longtime real-life butler.[40] Mr. Stevens, the butler played by Anthony Hopkins in the filmRemains of the Day, was also acted with remarkable realism. A female butler, Sarah Stevens, is the principal character in Linda Howard's 2002 Dying to Please, a murder/romance novel. Howard gives detailed and generally accurate descriptions of butlering in the work.[41]
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