Servants of the Lord

Reviews / Votes

If you're into history books and enjoy countryside pursuits and lifestyle, this book is definitely for you. Thanks to David Jones' meticulous research, you can almost experience walking in the servant's shoes. You can read all about fascinating lives of hermits, warreners, gamekeepers and more. The book is extremely well structured. The chapters cover the different departments of the country estate, which was, in effect, a self contained unit. The sheer number of different occupations is striking, from grooms, gardeners, land agents and hunt servants to lodge keepers, carpenters and ploughmen, and everything in between... A major strength of this book is the wonderful rare photographs, mostly taken from the author's photographic collections, including the Gamekeeping Photographic Archive. If you have outdoor servants in your family tree, this book will help you to understand their roles on the country estate and their place within the servant hierarchy. It's a welcome addition to the family history bookshelf. * Who Do You Think You Are * This is a magical book, one that details a world that is rarely shown in the media, yet one that was a vital part of the captivating world of the 'Big House'. This is a book which will find a very permanent home on my bookshelf and which will undoubtedly be dipped into on many occasions. -- Louise Broderick * Horse and Pony Ireland * ...with rich tales and a treasure trove of photographs that obviously took meticulous effort to find and collate, this book is patently the work of a true countryman, and all the better for it. I, like many here in Britain, and for that matter, around the world, have a great interest (bordering on voyeuristic curiosity) for life in the Great Country Estates of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. Jones has extensively researched every facet of Estate outdoor life in those times and provides his readers with almost encyclopaedic detail of the type of people who filled these jobs, their extraordinarily difficult working conditions and their spartan living situations etched out on meagre wages. To support Jones's in-depth, dare I say almost all-encompassing text, the book is full of fascinating black and white period photos - many never published before. -- Gary Creighton In this beautifully illustrated book, historical author and regular Fieldsports contributor David S D Jones looks into the roles, responsibilities and lives of outdoor staff working for prestigious country houses during the Victorian era before the First World War. Included are rare and previously unseen period photographs, estate records, biographies and diaries from the author's personal collection that make for an insightful and fascinating read. * Fieldsports * The unsung heroes of the British countryside are the rural workers. Author David S Jones' new book charts their efforts through the ages. Philip Bowern reports... Using estate records, biographies, private diaries and other sources, David Jones explores a world that has all but disappeared in the years since the end of the First World War. High taxation and demographic changes which saw better jobs created in the towns and cities, creating rural staff shortages, fundamentally changed the face of the rural workforce... As valuable history and fascinating entertainment it nicely fills a gap in the library shelf. -- Philip Bowern * Western Morning News *