Etiquette of Serving Water

A mid-20th century place setting, with plates and flatware from the 1940’s. The plates are in the highly popular, 1941 “Desert Rose” pattern by Franciscan, and the grille-sized flatware by Wm. Rogers, is in the 1940, “Treasure” pattern.
Grille-sized flatware was designed with longer handles for the knives, dinner forks and salad forks. It enjoyed brief popularity and was also called “Vogue” or “Viande” flatware. Designers felt that the longer handles made the flatware easier to use.
The “water glass”, or “water goblet”, is properly placed above the dinner knife. Water specific glasses weren’t made for the dining table until 1851, when the Corning Glass company catalog first offered a “water glass” in their glassware line.

The customs attached to the serving of water are widely different from those of other drinks. Water is the only drink which, whether at the dining-room table or in the living room, can always be poured before it is served. As we have said in the chapter “Setting the Table,” under the most elaborate system of service, water is not poured until the guests are seated at the dining-room table. But, as a matter of widely accepted practice, the water glasses are usually filled before the guests come into the room, and refilled from a pitcher as soon as any considerable quantity has been drunk.

Water served in the living room is brought in filled tumblers on a small tray; stemmed water goblets belong only on the dining-room table. It is perfectly cor rect, of course, to leave a pitcher of water in the living room or hall, on a tray with empty glasses, but whenever a guest asks for water, except in the dining room, it may always be brought already poured in a tumbler on a small tray.— From “Vogue’s Book of Etiquette,” 1948

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