Welbeck Abbey, principal residence of the Dukes of Portland

King Edward VII conferred the title of Master of the Horse on the 6th Duke of Portland which honor allowed the Duke to use the state carriages and have four matched Royal footmen in his household.  Frederick John Gorst, author of Of Carriages and Kings, was one of those four in 1904.

Once upon a time I worked in that madcap business called television, in a position ambiguously referred to as "development," which meant periodically being engaged in something referred to as "staffing."   Staffing meant you were at that stage in the development of a television series when you were looking for writers to write a new show that had been picked up for the coming season or else looking for fresh recruits for a show coming back for another season, and depending upon the nature of the show and the temperment of the creator and executive producers and the amount of interference from the network and studio, staffing could be an interesting process of reading scripts and meeting writers and having lunches with their agents.  Or it could be a crap shoot.  Or an empty ritual in a court society filled with intrigue, duplicity, and nepotism.  I was lucky, though.  I worked for a very nice man who was the talented creator of a great show.  "Ever work on a really awful show?" someone asked me once, as if I would have had a very different attitude toward television and the industry euphemistically called entertainment if I had.  But I had not.  Plus, I didn't stick around long enough to get disillusioned and bitter.  Like I said, I was lucky. 

So was young Frederick Gorst, royal footman to the 6th Duke of Portland, according to his delightful memoirs which I have just finished.  The Duke and Duchess of Portland certainly sound like very good and interesting people to have worked for.  But talk about staffing -- consider just a portion of the numbers it took to run a place like Welbeck Abbey, at the turn of the last century:

Steward
Wine butler
Under butler
Groom of the chambers
Four Royal footmen
Two steward's room footmen
Master of the Servants' Hall
Two page boys
Head chef, Second chef
Head baker, Second baker
Head kitchen maid, Two under kitchen maids
Vegetable maid
Three scullery maids
Head still room maid, Three still room maids
Hall porter, Two hall boys, Kitchen porter and six odd (handy) men
Head housekeeper
Duke's valet
Duchess's personal maid
Lady Victoria's personal maid
Head nursery governess, Tutor, French governess, Schoolroom footman, Nursery footman, fourteen housemaids

And that was just the kitchen and household staff, which doesn't include those who worked in the stables and garages, estate management, gardens, home farm, laundry cottage (12 full-time laundresses), fire station, gymnasium, golf course, library, chapel, mechanical help (telegrapher, night watchmen, engineers, telephone clerk) and the window cleaners.

It takes a small army, of course, to make a television show.  More than a few writers, obviously.  But it's all fairly temporary, relatively speaking.  Transient.  100 episodes, five or six seasons, it doesn't last forever.  Plus you go on hiatus every once in a while too. 

Running a stately home would be, on the other hand, a very serious business.