What Ho! A Library!

This is a collection of links to historical resources about domestic servants. Each one is worth at least skimming, and many contain small details which will aid you in writing about almost any aspect of domestic service in the early 20th century.

Valet And Lady's Maid from A Victorian Guide. This article lays out in extremely precise detail the duties of a valet and lady's maid. Including their duties, care of clothing, demeanor toward both employer and tradespeople. It is invaluable.
 

The Duties Of A Valet From the blog Jane Austen's World, comes this lengthy, detailed article. It quotes extensively from Mrs. Beeton's Book Of Household Management (1861)! Also, in enumerating the valet's duties, the entry mentions this:

"If his master has no clothes sense, the valet will select suitable clothes, making sure they are clean, particularly the collars, and maintained in good repair."

Speaking of which, you can read The Book Of Household Management by Mrs. Beeton on Project Gutenberg!

Valet - Wikipedia

Servants: A Downstairs View of Twentieth-Century Britain by Lucy Lethbridge – review

Excerpt: Staying at an English country house, the Edwardian viceroy of India was faced with the challenge of opening his bedroom window after the servants had gone to bed. Baffled but indomitable, he picked up a log from the grate and smashed the glass. Forty years later, Winston Churchill's valet was unimpressed to find that the former prime minister was incapable of dressing himself without assistance. "He sat there like a dummy and you dressed him."

The Life Of Domestic Servants In Victorian England

Excerpt:  If you went to work for a middle-class family or an upper-class family, you would usually have to go to live in the house where you were working. If you were working for an upper working-class family, it was more likely that you would live at home and simply migrate over every day to do the work. Wherever you were a servant, the hours of labor were very long.

The Secret History Of London's Servants

Excerpt:  It's not gender stereotyping alone that ensured domestic help mainly consisted of women. From the 18th century onwards, householders wishing for a male servant had to pay for a special licence, "the same as for a dog or a carriage." Jeeves must have cost Wooster a bomb.

Beyond The Black And White: Female Domestic Servants, Dress and Identity in France and Britain, 1900-1939

Excerpt:  The bulk of the historiography on dress has focused on the clothing of the elite or items with more public symbolism such as ceremonial dresses, court clothing and military uniforms...Eileen Balderson started her career as a between-maid – i.e. a junior housemaid at the bottom of the staff hierarchy – in a country house in 1931 and later moved up to the position of housemaid. She recalled that her employer asked her to wear ‘a striped print dress, usually blue and white, but [sometimes] pink or mauve and white’ with ‘a large white apron and a cap’ and ‘black shoes and stockings’. In the afternoon, she changed into ‘a black dress with the same apron and cap as in the morning’.

Understanding Old British Money Many thanks to quaffanddoff , who used this guide in their wonderful give_satisfaction fill, Jackpot) on AO3. The fic itself is a helpful guide to prices and wages, especially Jeeves's wages!