Servants on the Grand Tour
An army of help accompanied wealthy British sightseers on their 18th-century sojourns across the Continent. What was it like to travel as a servant on the Grand Tour?
Wherever ladies and gentlemen went in 18th-century Britain, they took servants with them. That extended to trips to other parts of Europe too, funded by the proceeds from empire, slavery, and rising agricultural rents in the English countryside. The 18th century was the golden age of the ‘Grand Tour’, in which young, upper-class gentlemen are said to have enjoyed extended gap years among Roman ruins, Florentine galleries, and the carnal pleasures of Venice. The Seven Years War (1756-63) disrupted travel, especially to France, but strengthened Britain imperially, yielding more wealth with which to finance European tours. After the war, young men increasingly found themselves outnumbered by older men, women, and families, including some from the middle class, as British spending power began to produce something that resembles modern tourism. Italy was an important draw, but travellers also took shorter journeys to Paris or Spa (the health resort in Wallonia), or embarked on more ambitious itineraries through Portugal, Spain, and Ottoman Greece and Turkey.
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