IT was an unassuming place: a small office above a jeweller's shop. But in these modest surroundings, business was done with royalty and dukes, the great and the good.

For decades, Stroud's Registry For Servants in Coney Street, York, was called upon to supply domestic staff to the greatest houses in Yorkshire and beyond.

We can now tell the Stroud's story thanks to help from many readers who responded to our appeals for information. To begin with, all we had to work with was an uncaptioned picture discovered by the City of York Archive, showing the office sign.

One of the first to help was Nigel Morgan, of Easingwold, who scoured the census records on our behalf. These show a James Stroud working as a butler in Gillygate in 1861 with his wife Jane and family, including son Fewster. By 1871 James was listed as a "register office keeper".

Nigel then found the record of Fewster Stroud's marriage to Mary Jane Clark, in York in 1888. Two years later they had a son, James Lionel Stroud.

But joy was to turn to tragedy when, in spring 1891, Fewster died.

That year's census found single mum Mary Stroud and her son in Coney Street, her occupation: "Register Office For Servants".

This information led us to track down a cutting from our sister paper, the Gazette and Herald, from April 1959. It told how the famous sign for Stroud's was being taken down from Coney Street, although the report said the agency "is to continue its life elsewhere".

Mary's son, known to everyone as Lionel Stroud, told the paper that he had been born in the building, which dates from 1683.

"He remembers the by no means unusual sight of a carriage with two or four horses clattering to a stop on the cobbles of Coney Street outside the agency door," the article reveals.

"Two flunkeys stood at the back of the carriage and the little cockades in their hats were fashioned according to the rank of their employer.

"One flunkey would jump down and pull down the carriage door steps so that 'my lady' could alight. Women of fashion in those days wore long gowns which trailed behind them in the dust."

In those days, a grand house would employ at least 16 domestic servants, and perhaps an army of 30 - cooks, parlour maids, footmen, hall boys, gardeners, butlers, coachmen. Wages were low - a cook got £20 a year - and the hours long. But service offered much needed work.

"Letters would come from the owners of houses temporarily abroad asking the Stroud Agency to supply them with a complete staff for a large household," the 1959 report continues.

"This was a great responsibility, but so well was Mr Stroud's mother able to judge the servants who came to her that persons recommended by her were accepted without question by the families abroad."

One of those who found work through the agency was Ann Slater's mum Mary Hartley.

"Her mother took her when she was 15 to the agency, and that would be 1933. They got mum a job at Welham Hall, outside of Malton. She was a scullery maid," said Mrs Slater, of Acomb, York.

Mary went on to work for Blake Street dentist Frank Wright, who was to become Lord Mayor of York in 1954. There she qualified as a dental nurse.

Dick Stanley, who was a solicitor at Harrowell Shaftoe in York for most of his professional life, also remembers Mrs Stroud's servants registry.

"They ran it like a secretarial agency and serviced the big houses around here in the days when they had a domestic staff.

"If you wanted a butler, or a housemaid, or a cook, you got in touch with Mrs Stroud. She would say 'I have got an excellent girl - I'm sure she's exactly what you want'.

"As far as I know she was the only servants registry. Clearly there was business to be made out of finding and placing domestic servants."

He remembers visiting the agency towards the end of its life. "As you can imagine, it was dwindling in the Fifties and at the beginning of the Sixties, as domestic life changed and you no longer needed servants."

Margaret Storey rang to say the agency was located above the Darling, Wood & Anfield jewellery shop. Her grandfather Frederick Anfield was followed into that business by her father Walter and brother Alfred, and she worked there too in the Fifties. Stroud's would have been at the back of the old building, she said.

Retired manager Ken Hilton, 77, of Huntington knew Lionel Stroud and was one of the executors of his will. He said the Stroud's sign was donated to the Castle Museum.

The agency must have done well because the Strouds bought a number of properties, including garages in Shaws Terrace and a house in Fulford Road. They intended to live there, said Mr Hilton, but "his mother died before they got the chance to go there".

It is clear Mary played a dominant role in his life. "I understand from people that he was his mother's boy.

"Even when he was a grown man and went into the GPO in Lendal he was kept in order by his mum. If he did anything wrong she used to turn him around and slap him."

Mr Stroud moved to a house in Huntington Road, said Mr Hilton. "He lived on his own and never married. My aunt used to take his dinner in. When she died I carried on doing it, and saw to a lot of his administration."

A shrewd investor, Mr Stroud had shares in multifarious companies. He was also a talented organist, playing at churches and the Fulford barracks, and enjoyed going to the Conservative Club in the De Grey Rooms.

But he was a shy man, and generally reclusive. He died in March 1976.

"We went in to sort his house out and he lived in abject poverty, and there was no need for it because he had plenty of money," said Mr Hilton.

"He was the sort of man who never threw anything away."

His legal affairs were overseen by Mr Stanley who remembered he left £62,000, mostly to charity, "quite a tidy sum".

There was clearly more money in finding servants than in being one.

Updated: 09:23 Monday, July 18, 2005