Butler Bell does not work as a butler alone. Behind him stand the All Japan Butler Association, of which I am head, and the three businesses it runs: the place of training, the body that certifies, the place of work and the residence of experience. Four related sites, introduced by the one who leads them.
Every one of the four grows out of the same parent body. The association sets the standard for butlers, the Japan Butler Academy trains people, THE BUTLER brings certified butlers to the field, and Queen's Butler shows butler culture on the stage of a residence. As head I designed this single flow; as a butler I test it in the field.
This page is not a copy of the sites. It is the entrance to introductions written in my own words about what each one is and why I present it. For details and current terms, please see each official site.
You may begin with any of the four. If you want the order of things in one go, though, the association is the quickest place to start. It raises butlers, awards them a grade, and those who hold that grade go out through THE BUTLER to households and places of business. The Japan Butler Academy is where they learn; Queen's Butler is where the same deportment can be met from the side that is served. The four do not stand side by side so much as at different points along one line.
My own footing differs a little in each. At the association I write the standard as its head; at the academy I stand in the classroom as principal; at THE BUTLER I go out to households as one butler among others; at Queen's Butler I hold the manners of the house. Were four different people watching over them, the standard would in time become four standards. One person watching is, for now, how it is kept single.
What is set out here is not a copy of each official site. It is the outline as seen from the side that runs them, written in my own words. Anything that changes — fees, dates, whether places remain — is authoritative on each site. If one of them catches your interest, the page will take you there, and the exact figures are waiting.
This is the desk the association keeps in its own hands for anyone who wants to engage a butler. Every butler's name, face, grade and strongest settings are published, and you may ask for one by name. Five levels run from a few hours of service through a day, a week, a monthly arrangement and a resident post, with specialists for executives and for formal occasions. Butlers go to homes, but also to places of business and to days that come only once.
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Since 1890 this body has drawn the line around who may call himself a butler, and has held it. The state issues no licence here, so unless someone keeps the yardstick the word becomes a title anyone can claim. The association raises butlers, recognises them against three grades, and has built the places where those it recognises actually work. Its corporate seminars and its exchanges with bodies abroad are part of keeping that yardstick in use.
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A school for becoming a butler, kept by the association itself. Classes run on Saturdays and Sundays at the Odaiba campus, six students at most. The courses come in three steps: Essential for those starting out, Advance for those going on from it, and Master, which reaches as far as directing other people. Each closes with a practical examination, and whoever passes is given a grade by the association. The instructors are butlers still working, the practice is done on real silver at a real table, and the timetable is built so that you need not leave your weekday post.
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A butler salon set in a single house in Odaiba, opened for women guests. Whoever draws the door is, for those hours, the mistress of the house. Take tea, sit down at the table, open a book by the fire, watch a film on a large screen — what happens is yours to decide, and the butler comes forward only when he is wanted. There are four ways to use the house: the salon, the studio, an apprenticeship of an afternoon, and the shop that trades online.
Learn more →In one line: the association writes the standard, the school trains the people, THE BUTLER brings them to the field, and the residence shows it as culture. On that line I stand in four capacities: head, principal, butler and master of the house.
Founded 1890. The body that sets the butler's standard, certifies in three grades and confers rank. As its head and Representative Director I bear responsibility for revising the standard and for its businesses. It writes the articles, awards the grades, and stands behind the grades it awards.
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The butler school the association runs: weekend classes at the Odaiba campus in three courses, with the association's certification for those who pass the practical examination. I also serve as its principal. Weekend courses only, six students at most, taught by butlers still working in the field.
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The butler service the association runs, bringing certified butlers who show their names and faces to households and businesses. I stand in the field myself as one of its butlers. Five levels run from a few hours of service to a resident post, and the butlers wait with their names and faces published.
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The butler salon for women the association runs. At the Odaiba residence, the butler's hospitality and attire can be confirmed with your own eyes. A butler salon for women that receives one party at a time. A butler is always in the house.
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Descriptions of the undertakings alone make it hard to see where the differences lie. Butlers in the same dress can look, from one place to the next, as though they were doing quite different work. Six scenes where that difference shows most clearly are set out here — each a photograph in actual use on the site it belongs to.
A butler from THE BUTLER is not only sent to Western rooms. On tatami he lowers to his knees and sets the vessel to the height of the table. Altering the movement to suit how a house is built is not breaking the form but using it.
The association's assessment begins with standing still holding a tray. If the posture is wrong before carrying, it will be wrong while carrying. What the instructor watches from the side is the second before the first step.
The academy's practical work lays real vessels on a real round table. The height of the flowers alone decides whether the face opposite can be seen. It can be written in a textbook, but it does not enter the body until you sit down.
At the Queen's Butler residence the management of light is part of a butler's craft. Bright on arrival, lowered as the hours pass. The hours spent beneath the chandelier move, unnoticed, towards dusk.
What the apprentice experience has you touch first is not a person but an object: the weight of silver, how a candelabrum sits, the slip of linen. Only once the hands know the objects can you turn towards people.
Stand to speak with someone standing; stoop to speak with someone seated. Matching the height is not a display of courtesy but a way of sparing the other person from moving their neck. In all four places, this one thing is the same.
The full account of each business is on the four introduction pages above. Articles that go a step further are listed below.
If you are unsure which desk to approach, Butler Bell will point you to the right one.