Servants were people who did housework for rich families in large houses. They began their day at around five o'clock in the morning. Their first job was to clear the downstairs rooms from the night before. Next, they tidied the family's dressing rooms. They carefully dusted the clothes from the day before and put them away in wardrobes. They took the dirty clothes to wash later by hand - in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there were no washing machines to load on and empty. When the dressing rooms were ready, the servants woke the family. While the family having breakfast, the servants cleaned the bedrooms. First, they opened the windows to let in fresh air, then they swept the floors with a brush and made the beds.
The servants were clean until the bedrooms were clean. After breakfast, they cleaned rooms and folded shelves for the rest of the morning. There was always a lot going on in the house: perhaps a dinner party with friends or a visit from family. Often the family were still talking with visitors when the servants went to bed. The servants always knew that their first job the next morning was to clear the downstairs rooms from the night before and then clean the house all over again.