"Chief Cook and Bottle Washer" meaning and etymology

Question

In my experience, referring to someone in an organization as "chief cook and bottle washer" has multiple possible meanings:

1. person has a wide variety of duties in the organization
2. person is very, perhaps uniquely, important to the organization in a non-obvious way
3. person is almost useless to the organization

#1 seems to be the most common usage, and I'm not sure whether the others are misusages, and, if not, if #3 is ironic or just one of those weird "has two opposite meanings" things.

Also, it's unclear how to parse it. Are "chief cook" and "bottle washer" two distinct professions? If they are, is he chief cook and chief bottle washer, or is he a subordinate bottle washer? Or is "cook and bottle washer" a single profession, of which he is the organization's chief member? Each of these interpretations could imply different ultimate meanings.

And lastly, if anyone knows of an etymology, that would be great. From my failed research, it seems that it might be military in origin.

Answer 1

The main sense of the phrase I'm familiar with is: someone who is in charge of most all matters in an organization, both the important and menial.

I found a reference to the phrase in Early American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases by Bartlett Jere Whiting which lists two citations:

1. 1809 Linsley Love 40: I acts cook, steward, cabin boy, sailor, mate, and bottle washer.

2. 1844 Hone Diary 2.705: Gen. Jackson’s chief cook and bottle washer, Col. Polk.

I also found an interesting reference from 1835 which referred to the Devil as being the "chief cook and bottle-washer of the slave-trade."

The earliest citation refers to "cook" and "bottle washer" as being just two of the many tasks the narrator needs to perform on board a ship.

Since the earliest citation refers to life at sea, I have a strong suspicion that the phrase originated in the sailing/naval sense. I haven't done any research in 18-19th century naval life, but I imagine that "bottle washing" was a task often performed on sailing vessels. I have to presume that bottles of rum, messages in a bottle, ships in a bottle — all these bottle-related naval tropes have some basis in history. Certainly a bottle-shaped receptacle for drinking is more practical on rough seas than water/grog/rum sloshing over the rim of a mug or cup.

Answer 2

The way my Dad, a Navy vet, used to say it, it was "Chief, Cook, & Bottlewasher" (3 professions, not 2) and the meaning was that not only were you in charge, but you had to do all the middle management and menial responsibilities too...you did it all. Its not so much a derogatory term but it usually implies that everything is your responsibility, but you don't get paid/credit for all the job titles you perform.

Answer 3

I can't share much of my own experience, but Wiktionary notes it as holding all of of the jobs, which fits with how I've usually heard "and bottle washer" appended to a list of duties, implying that the company is small enough, or cheap enough, that no matter how high your position, you also do the menial tasks.

Answer 4

"I'm chief cook and bottle washer"

meaning:

I do everything from A-Z; one man show; especially self employed. Chief cook is the top job in a kitchen; bottle washing is endless, mindless work that anyone can do. If you're doing both, it implies you're also doing everything in between.

can also be used sarcastically:

"He's chief cook and bottle washer around here"

...might be said about the boss man's son that gets a fat check but is generally a worthless, clock-milking employee.

Answer 5

The earliest reference to the phrase that I've found in print so far is from 1835, in the New York Knickerbocker magazine:

'Pretty good reasoning, friend Seymour,' said I: 'you've made it very plain, that the DEvil is chief cook and bottle-washer for the slave-trade. I don't wonder it prospers so well, since he is at the wheel.'

Another reference is found in 1843, and this also confirms the way my own father used the phrase, in that it refers to two professions, not three.

The sentence come from The Weekly Globe, as US publication, from the July 14th, 1843 edition:

We can assure the chief cook and bottle-washer of the hard-cider campaign that he must make some other disposition of his dregs

The two profession option makes sense to me, in that one is at the same time at the top and bottom of the pecking order, with regard to a work situation. Hence, one is responsible for the entire operation from top to bottom, singlehandedly.

There is a singularly splendid passage in The Life of the Late General William Eaton, dated July 20th, 1799 that runs as follows:

I am sorry that the request of the "female Bocris"* is inadmissible, being much disposed to serve them. But, I have already employed a "hack sansal" from among the dispersed, who serves me as a drogoman, broker, footpage, groom, scullian, bottle-washer, aid du corps and physician : who was born in Gibraltar, is free of London, a convict from Ireland, a burgomaster of Holland : was circumcised in Barbary; was a spy for the Devil among the Apostles at the feast of Penticost, and has the gift of tongues : has travelled in all Europe, and will undoubtedly be hung in America, for I intend to take him there. He is the most useful scoundrel in the world. He interprets, trades, runs, holds a horse, scrubs, makes punch, intrigues, fights and prescribes for me, for the moderate sum of five dollars per month, and the perquisite of purloining every thing which I cannot miss. I regret that I cannot oblige the ladies.

*Two ladies in Algiers, who wished Eaton to take one of their men servants.

This is the earliest reference I've found to a list of occupations, including bottle-washer, used to indicate that a person is a jack-of-all-trades, reminiscent of Jean Passepartout in "Around the World in Eighty Days".