I don't know how tipping waiters and waitresses in England works, but I know when my cousin came over to the U.S.A. with his wife for a trip to Florida, he was very surprised at all the tipping that was expected. In his letter to me telling me about his trip, he had a really hard time understanding the concept.
Here's what he wrote:
That tipping thing we are not used to it, it just seemed wrong to us, but we had to go along with it, is it like that all over the USA?