THIS IS FINDON — www.findonvillage.com  created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

DAISY MINNS — BELOW STAIRS

Copyright Valerie Martin 2003

First published in Along the Furlong, June 2003.

Daisy Minns the kitchen maid would have been very surprised to know that in the 21st century she would have her own page on my website.  

She lived in the days when the kitchen maid knew her place and the only person beneath her below stairs was the scullery maid at Findon Place, the Manor of Findon.

In April 2003, Ron Ragsdale of Cambridge wrote to me concerning his grandmother, Daisy Minns —

 Daisy was born in Buxted in 1893 and her family moved first to Chailey and then to Handcross in West Sussex.

Ron told me that her father was a dairyman and carter on various estates and that Daisy left full time education in 1909 and was employed as a kitchen maid. 

For the first two years of her career she was at Nymans — a property at Handcross in West Sussex.  Daisy worked in the kitchens of the house later rebuilt by Ludwig Messel in the 1920s as a pastiche 14th century manor house.  (In 1947 the house was gutted by fire and it is now a picturesque ruin of walls, mullions and Tudor chimneys.  It stands shaded by cedars and provides a rather romantic backcloth to the lawns fringed with topiary animals).

Later, Daisy set her sights on Findon.  When Colonel William Margesson, the Lord of the Manor of Findon, died in 1911, his son, Colonel Evelyn W. Margesson (1865-1944) inherited the mansion of Findon Place.  Daisy was taken on as a kitchen maid at Findon Place, where in 1914, Edwin John Spencer and his wife rented the mansion, grounds and stables from Colonel Evelyn Margesson.  She arrived in Findon and made her way to the manor, surrounded by fields as far as she could see — set half a mile from the village and the shops, next to St. John the Baptist Church.  Behind the manor, Church Hill rose steeply and away in the distance Chanctonbury Ring could be just seen on the horizon.  

In those days the household at the Manor of Findon also most likely comprised a butler, footman, cook/housekeeper, lady's maid, housemaid, under housemaid, sewing maid and a scullery maid.

I cannot be sure of the exact tasks Daisy performed at the manor but I will endeavour to give a little insight into her job generally.  I guess that the young woman's routine as kitchen maid meant that she really only had one place of work — in the kitchen.  She was perhaps allowed upstairs once each day, to attend any morning prayers that were held.  Otherwise she spent all her time between her bedroom high in the attic and the kitchen — and on occasions she could be seen trudging up the hillside to the ice house to collect any provisions the cook required.  She would have been assisted in her daily tasks by the scullery maid and would have seen that the younger girl kept the dishes washed and the kitchen clean at all times.

Daisy would have most likely arisen at half-past six and washed and dressed, with her hair neatly tied back beneath her cap.  In the winter, it was bitterly cold and her fingers would fumble.  Her room was cold and dark as well as dismal, but in the summer the birds would be singing and the grounds of the old manor looked lovely from her high window.  She would make her bed and be promptly downstairs at work within half an hour of waking up.  

The next hour would perhaps be spent in preparing the servants' breakfasts, the early morning tea trays for the Spencer family and breakfast for the children.  If anyone of importance walked passed her doing her chores, she would have curtsied and said "Good morning".

There was no time for idle chit-chat or morning coffee.  Daisy's next job involved the preparing of all the ingredients for the family's lunch and the servants' dinner.   This included commodities such as bread, sauces and vegetable dishes.

Just prior to 1 p.m. the cook may have required her to make any final touches to the family's lunch — before the footman and butler collected the prepared dishes for serving in the dining room on the hour!   She would then be expected to help the cook to store away any left-overs.  Providing her work was finished, she may have been given permission to take time off between 2.30 p.m. and 4 p.m.

Duties would have been resumed again in the kitchen at 4.30 p.m. and from 5 p.m. onwards her time would have been taken in preparing children's meals and assisting the cook with the Spencer family's dinner and the servants' supper.  It was all go in those days in the large manor house.   

The cook would have required Daisy to assist with any final preparation for the family's dinner at 8 p.m., which was served by the footman and butler in the dining room.

Supper would have been served to the servants at 9.30 p.m.  The rest of the evening, Daisy (by now exhausted) would be able to spend at her leisure — but she always had to keep an eye on the clock because she was expected to be up early the following morning to start her chores all over again.

In the spring of 1917, Ron told me that Daisy sat down and wrote a letter —

Her subsequent application form for the Army lists her employer's reference as “Mrs. Spencer, Findon Place, Findon, Sussex”. 

It was to be the start of a whole new way of life for the ex-kitchen maid as she said goodbye for the last time to the grand mansion and to the village of Findon and was recruited into the WAACs.  She served as a cook in Boulogne until March 1919. 

Below is a photograph of Daisy in her army uniform with some of her mates (she's the one on the far left) —

After the First World War the intrepid Daisy set sail for Montreal where she worked for the wealthy Stewart family for several years.  In 1924 she made the arduous journey across Canada to British Columbia to visit a friend.  When she arrived in Vancouver, she fell in love with the man who picked her up from the station.

It must have been love at first sight because they were married the next day!  Her husband was Charles Ragsdale — Ron's Grandfather and the above photograph was taken just after they got married.  The couple lived the rest of their lives in the north west of the United States.  Daisy did not return to England to visit until 1973 when she was 79 years old. 

Her influence led her grandson, Ron, to later settle in England.

Continue if you would like to rad The Great War and the Margesson Family

This is Findon Village — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon.