Daily AncestorFootman
A footman was a male household servant who answered the door, waited at table and rode with the family's carriage, below the butler.
Footmen worked under the butler, and a large house might have a head footman. They attended the door, the table and the carriage; a footman riding with the coach handled anything the coachman could not leave his horses to do. Male servants such as footmen were traditionally better paid than women servants.
In older English the word also meant a foot soldier, or a servant who ran ahead of his master's carriage.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1850 to 1920 census
Arthur Price, 24, Footman, England
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Daily Ancestor. "Footman." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/footman. Last checked 2026-10-10.