Chapter 2 - Aristocrats and Socialites

Summary

This chapter is concerned with the writings of women whose wealth and social status permitted their independent travel to Norway and allowed them to experience parts of Norway which were beyond the conventional routes of tourists. Before the nineteenth century – due to a paucity of infrastructure and little religious, commercial and cultural motivation to travel there – Scandinavia had been visited only infrequently by wealthy and titled Britons wishing to extend aristocratic connections and to explore this relatively unknown area. In the nineteenth century the journeys of wealthy female travellers continued to emulate these early journeys. Often arriving in private sailing ships and taking along their own carriages and staff, they did not have to rely, as tourists did, on steamships and railway connections. As well as the modes of transport, the pattern of the journeys made by aristocratic women was also different to that of journeys made by other travellers. Whilst tourists followed routes which focussed on the interior of the country, particularly the western fjords, upperclass travellers usually spent more time in Norway's cities or in its coastal towns if they were residents on a yacht. Residence in the city was punctuated by visits to local people of high status and social events. Norwegian dignitaries would be called upon to show the British aristocrat important sites and often visits were organised, using Christiania as a base.

The first account to be considered is by Lady Elizabeth Grosvenor, who travelled to Norway with her husband, Richard, as part of a large tour destined for St Petersburg in 1827, although her journal was not published until 1879. The Grosvenors travelled across Europe in order to reach Trondheim in Norway, where Lord Grosvenor had business interests. He travelled alone by carriage, leaving Lady Grosvenor in rented lodgings in Christiania under the care of local aristocrat and politician Count Wedel and his family. Although she undertook a series of visits with Countess Wedel, Lady Grosvenor's threeweek experience of Norway did not extend much beyond Christiania and its environs.

Lady Di Beauclerk's experience of Norway was much more extensive than that of Lady Grosvenor.