Country House Breakfast Etiquette

It is not so necessary to try and make conversation at breakfast as at other meals, as so early in the day people are less inclined to conversation,—more occupied with their letters and newspapers than they are later on. Letters are either placed on the sideboard, so that each person on entering can appropriate those that belong to them, or the host opens the post-bag and distributes the contents to his guests.
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In some country houses breakfast is a meal which may be enjoyed any time between nine forty-five and eleven o'clock. Where ‘family prayers’ are held, it usually follows immediately after they are over.

Etiquette demands that either host or hostess should be present at breakfast, certainly both when the party comprises any Royal or celebrated personage, or where those assembled are of very high rank. When the guests are only relations or very intimate friends, then it would be permissible for the hostess to breakfast in her own room if she wished. When breakfast becomes the most agreeable meal, is when people drop in just when it pleases them, and can talk or be silent just as the humour takes them.

Tea and coffee are both necessities at breakfast, and often chocolate and cocoa, brown and white bread, cream, milk (hot and cold), butter, jam, honey, marmalade, fancy bread and cakes, with muffins in the winter, are the usual viands provided in large country houses.

Where the means of the host are more limited, a more simple style of entertainment would be correct. A few flowers carefully disposed upon the table always look well.

Tea and coffee are either dispensed by the host at one end of the table and the hostess at the other, or else by the butler at a side table, and handed to the guests on a silver salver, the servant saying,— ‘Tea or coffee, ma’am?’

In some houses the tables are arranged for two people only, and then each have a small teapot and one of coffee, and people help themselves. This is an excellent plan.

On the other hand, in some houses breakfast is laid upon a large table, as dinner or luncheon would be served, and then it becomes a very stiff proceeding. A side table, well laden with cold meat, game (when in season), potted fish, ham, tongue, etc., should always be provided, and plenty of hot dishes, such as kedgeree, devilled-chicken, kidneys, eggs and bacon, broiled ham, cutlets, sausages, etc...

The most agreeable way is for the gentlemen present to wait upon the rest of the guests, but sometimes a row of powdered footmen, marshalled by butler, groom of the chambers, etc..., form an imposing phalanx, who quite destroy, by their well-trained solemnity, all freedom and comfort as far as breakfast is concerned.

There is less etiquette observed at breakfast than at any other meal. Everyone sits wherever they like, without reference to rank or precedence. The gentlemen do not give their arm to the ladies to conduct them to breakfast; each person as they arrive takes the seat they prefer.

It is not so necessary to try and make conversation at breakfast as at other meals, as so early in the day people are less inclined to conversation,—more occupied with their letters and newspapers than they are later on.

Letters are either placed on the sideboard, so that each person on entering can appropriate those that belong to them, or the host opens the post-bag and distributes the contents to his guests. When all have finished, one of the gentlemen would open the door for the ladies, who would leave the room without any order of precedence; or etiquette allows that each person, when they have finished breakfast, may leave the room without reference to the rest—whether they are still eating or not.

At breakfast the hostess would inquire of her guests in what manner they would like to pass the morning until luncheon time, as a country house, to fulfill its mission, should emphatically be ‘Liberty Hall.’ When such is not the case, the hosts are seldom favoured with a second visit from those who have once been their guests.

At breakfast most of the good things are placed upon the table, which enables those present to help themselves, and then pass the dishes on to the rest of the company. — From “Etiquette: What to Do, and How to Do It,” By Lady Constance Eleanora C. Howard, 1885

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia©️ Etiquette Encyclopedia