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¹³ Davidoff, , Best Circles, p. 17Google Scholar. Lawrence and Jeanne Fawtier Slone assert that a similar emphasis on privacy and exclusivity characterized country house life as well; see An Open Elite?: England 1540–1880 (abridged ed.; Oxford, 1986), p. 163.Google Scholar

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¹⁶ Aberdeen, , Musings of a Scottish Granny, p. 22.Google Scholar

¹⁷ As late as 1880 these classes supplied a majority of the House of Commons, a high proportion of the cabinet, and 85% of new appointments to the peerage; see Thompson, F. M. L., English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1963), p. 278Google Scholar; Thomas, J. A., The House of Commons 1832–1901: a Study of its Economic and Functional Character (Cardiff, 1939), pp. 14–16Google Scholar; Guttsman, W. L., The British Political Elite (London, 1963), pp. 78–79Google Scholar; Pumphrey, Ralph, “The Introduction of Industrialists into the British Peerage: a Study in the Adaptation of a Social Institution,” American Historical Review 65 (1959): 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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¹⁹ Aide, , “Deterioration of London Society,” p. 113Google Scholar; Vanity Fair, 2 November 1889. See also Escott's, T. H. S. chapter on cliques in Society in London (London, 1885)Google Scholar. Both Bartlett's Familiar Quotations and the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations trace “upper ten thousand” to the novel Necessity for a Promenade Drive by Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806–1867).

²⁰ Outlook, 5 February 1898. Outlook was founded by George Wyndham, junior minister for the Conservatives and a friend of W. E. Henley, to replace the defunct New Review, see Mackail, J. W. and Wyndham, Guy, eds., Life and Letters of George Wyndham, 2 vols. (London, 1925), 1: 62.Google Scholar

²¹ Rubinstein, W. D., “Wealth, Elites and the Class Structure of Modern Britain,” Past and Present 76 (1977): 103CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thompson, , “Britain,” pp: 31–32Google ScholarPubMed; Perkin, Harold, The Origins of Modern English Society, 1780–1880 (London, 1969), p. 431Google Scholar. For a modem historian who confesses bewilderment over the problem of determining Society's size, see Jalland, Pat, Women, Marriage and Politics, 1860–1914 (Oxford, 1986), pp. 22–23.Google Scholar

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²³ Armytage, Percy, By the Clock of St. James's (London, 1927), p. 320.Google Scholar

²⁴ Ibid., p. 116.

²⁵ London Gazette, 14 July 1837.

²⁶ Quotes in Turner, Ernest Sackville, The Court of St. James's (London, 1959), p. 322.Google Scholar

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²⁹ In 1859, for example, Mrs. Charles Tennant, wife of a millionaire Glasgow industrialist and mother of the future Margot Asquith, was introduced under the sponsorship of Lady Camperdown, but the Tennant family did not begin to attend the London season until the late 1870s. At that time Mrs. Tennant was presented to the queen again, then introduced her eldest daughter, who was “coming out” (PRO, LC 6/8).

³⁰ For exact figures, see appendix.

³¹ Figures on population increase in Britain taken from Cook, Chris and Keith, Brendon, British Historical Facts, 1830–1900 (New York, 1975), p. 232Google Scholar. On the aristocracy, see Hollingsworth, T. H., The Demography of the British Peerage, supplement to Population Studies 18 (London, [1965]), p. 33.Google Scholar

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³³ These figures were obtained from a sample which counted the numbers of “Ladies” and “Honorables” among the sponsors in the years 1859, 1879, and 1899. This procedure excluded the granddaughters of title holders, as well as the daughters of baronets, but included the wives of knights.

³⁴ Escott, T. H. S., Society in the New Reign (London, 1904), p. 115.Google Scholar

³⁵ Beckett, J. V., The Aristocracy in England, 1660–1914 (Oxford, 1986), p. 41Google Scholar. The numbers of aristocrats in the samples were 1841–18; 1851–17; 1861–19; 1871–20; 1881–26; 1891–21.

³⁶ Badeau, , Aristocracy in England, p. 23.Google Scholar

³⁷ World, 13 May 1891; Koss, Stephen, The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain, 2 vols. (Chapel Hill, 1984), 2: 36.Google Scholar

³⁸ Thompson, , English Landed Society, p. 125.Google Scholar

³⁹ As far as possible the families of both husband and wife were checked in determining which social category to assign a woman. A woman born into a landed family — either aristocratic or gentry — was placed in that category, even if she married a professional or a businessman. A woman not from a landed background was placed in the category of her husband's occupation. Only the ranks of colonel and general in the army and captain and admiral in the navy were considered in placing a man in the category of military professional.

⁴⁰ Morier: Dictionary of National Biography; Bosanquet, : Law List (1865)Google Scholar, Walford's, County Families (1888)Google Scholar. The wives of both men presented their daughters in 1881.

⁴¹ Royle: Who was Who, 1916–1928.

⁴² Watson, : obituary in The Times, 27 January 1919Google Scholar; Dowell, : Walford's, County Families (1888)Google Scholar, Landed Gentry (1937).

⁴³ Coope, Fothergill, Paget: Who's Who of British Members of Parliament; Thwaites, Henry: Dod's Parliamentary Companion; Fowler, : obituary in The Times, 19 September 1905Google Scholar; Dakin, : obituary in The Times, 25 May 1889Google Scholar. The eighth businessman, Benjamin Piercey, was a civil engineer important for his construction of railways in India.

⁴⁴ Rubinstein, , “Wealth, Elites and Class Structure,” pp. 112–17.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Directory of Directors (1889).

⁴⁶ Reuter, : Dictionary of Business Biography, 4: 887Google Scholar. Reuter is difficult to categorize, since he was a foreigner to whom the court had granted the honors given to foreign nobility.

⁴⁷ Davies, : obituary in The Times, 19 September 1912Google Scholar. Davies had not even the plutocrats' enormous wealth behind him, for he left “only” £87,000 when he died. Morgans, Vaughan: Dictionary of Business Biography, 3: 3Google Scholar; Who was Who on Sir Walter Vaughan Morgan.

⁴⁸ Davidoff, , Best Circles p. 61Google Scholar; Middlemas, Keith, Pursuit of Pleasure: High Society in the 1900s (London, 1977), p. 247.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Bell: Dictionary of National Biography.

⁵⁰ Roose, : Medical Directory (1892)Google Scholar; obituary in The Times, 13 February 1905.

⁵¹ Haweis, : obituary in The Times, 30 January 1901.Google Scholar

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⁵⁴ Straker, : Landed Gentry, 1871, 1894Google Scholar. W. D. Rubinstein identifies the father, Straker, Joseph, as “a major shipowner, and the founder of a notable colliery dynasty” (Men of Property: The Very Wealthy in Britain since the Industrial Revolution [New Brunswick, 1981], p. 76).Google Scholar

⁵⁵ See Pascoe, Charles Eyre, London of To-day (London, 1888), pp. 27–29Google Scholar: “London has become a pleasure lounge for the idlers of the globe… Americans, French, Germans, Indians, Colonials, and persons of leisure and wealth from all parts of the world flock to the capital city during the season.”

⁵⁶ See Dean, Phyllis and Cole, W. A., British Economic Growth 1688–1959 (Cambridge, 1962), p. 152Google Scholar. Population of the United Kingdom rose from 26.7 million to 41.4 million between 1841 and 1901. During the same years, incomes for government workers and professionals rose from £34.6 million to £148.3 million.

⁵⁷ On these changes in late-Victorian London, see Olsen, Donald, The Growth of Victorian London (New York, 1976), chaps. 3, 5, 7Google Scholar. Between 1871 and 1901, the population of greater London grew 69%, while drawing room presentations more than doubled. Rubinstein demonstrates, however, that the wealthy middle class was disproportionately concentrated in London (“Wealth, Elites and Class Structure,” pp. 106–10.)

⁵⁸ Aide, , “Deterioration of London Society,” p. 115Google Scholar; Escott, , Society in London, p. 165Google Scholar; Fortescue, Seymour, Looking Back (London, 1920), p. 189Google Scholar; Fane, Augusta, Chit Chat (London, 1926), p. 281Google Scholar. For a summary of these changes, see Camplin, Jamie, The Rise of the Plutocrats: Wealth and Power in Edwardian England (London, 1978), chap. 12.Google Scholar

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⁶⁰ Outlook, 5 February 1898.

⁶¹ Diary for 7 May 1892, Edward Hamilton papers, B.L., Add. MSS. 48657. Lady Desborough's diaries for the years 1887–1914 in the Hertford County Record Office confirm this change in travelling for one aristocratic family who lived close to London.

⁶² Davidoff, , Best Circles, pp. 26–28, 63–65Google Scholar; Guttsman, British Political Elite, chap. 6.

⁶³ Thomas, J. A., The House of Commons, 1821–1901, pp. 14–16Google Scholar, indicates that 1880 was the first year that men from non-landed backgrounds made up a majority of the House of Commons.

⁶⁴ Escott, , Society in the New Reign, p. 72.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ On this important change in the role of the monarchy, see Cannadine, David, “The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual: The British Monarchy and the ‘Invention of Tradition,’ c.1820–1977,” in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 101–38.Google Scholar

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⁶⁸ On this point, see Perkin, Harold, “The Recruitment of Elites in British Society since 1880,” Journal of Social History 12 (1978): 222–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar