Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:59:10.019Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Theory and Practice of the English Leisure Classes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

David Cannadine
David Cannadine
Affiliation:
Christ's CollegeCambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Review Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 1978 , pp. 445 - 467
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Spring, David, ‘The role of the aristocracy in the late nineteenth century’, Victorian Studies, IV, 1 (1960).Google Scholar

2 See, for example: Turberville, A. S., The House of Lords in the age of reform (London, 1958)Google Scholar; Woolley, S. F., ‘The personnel of the parliament of 1833’, English Historical Review, LIII (1938)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Aydelotte, W. O., ‘The House of Commons in the 1840s’, History XXXIX (1954)Google Scholar; Hollingsworth, T. H., ‘A demographic study of British ducal families’, Population Studies, XI, 1 (1957)Google Scholar; Pumphrey, R. E., ‘The introduction of industrialists into the British peerage: a study in adaptation of a social institution’, American Historical Review, LXV, 1 (1959)Google Scholar; Hanham, H. J., ‘The sale of honours in late Victorian England’, Victorian Studies, III, 3 (1960)Google Scholar; Ward, J. T., ‘The Earls Fitzwilliam and the Wentworth Woodhouse estate in the nineteenth century’, Yorkshire Bulletin of Economic and Social Research, XII, 1 (1960)Google Scholar; idem, ‘West Riding landowners and the railways’, Journal of Transport History, IV, 4 (1960)Google Scholar; idem, ‘The Beaumont family's estates in the nineteenth century’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, XXXV, 92 (1962)Google Scholar; idem, ‘The squire as businessman: William Aldam of Frickley Hall (1813–1890)’, Transactions of the Hunter Archaeological Society, VIII, 4 (1962)Google Scholar; idem, ‘West Riding landowners and mining in the nineteenth century’, Yks. Bull. of Econ. and Soc. Res., XV, 1 (1963).Google Scholar

3 For some recent examples, see: Carnarvon, Lord, No regrets (London, 1976)Google Scholar: Eden, Anthony, Another world, 1897–1917 (London, 1976)Google Scholar; Amherst, Jeffery, Wandering abroad (London, 1976)Google Scholar; Mosley, Diana, A life of contrasts (London, 1977).Google Scholar

4 Spring, David, The English landed estate in the nineteenth century: its administration (Baltimore, 1963)Google Scholar; Thompson, F. M. L., English landed society in the nineteenth century (London, 1963)Google Scholar; Guttsman, W. L., The British political elite (London, 1963).Google Scholar

5 For their earlier work, see: Spring, David, ‘The English landed estate in the age of coal and iron, 1830–1880’, Journal of Economic History, XI, 1 (1951)Google Scholar; idem, ‘The earls of Durham and the Great Northern coalfield, 1830–80’, Canadian Historical Review, XXXIII, 3 (1952)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Earl Fitzwilliam and the Corn Laws’. Am. Hist. Rev., LIX, 2 (1954)Google Scholar; idem, ‘A great agricultural estate: Netherby under Sir James Graham, 1820–45’, Agricultural History, XXIX, 2 (1955)Google Scholar; idem, ‘The fall of the Grenvilles, 1844–1848’, Huntingdon Library Quarterly, XIX, 1 (1956)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Ralph Sneyd: tory country gentleman’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, XXXVII, 2 (1956)Google Scholar; idem, ‘English landownership in the nineteenth century: a critical note’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., IX, 3 (1957)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Agents to the earls of Durham in the nineteenth century’, Durham University Journal, LIV (1962)Google Scholar; idem, ‘George Webb Hall and the Agicultural Association’, Journal of British Studies, II, 1 (1962)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Aristocracy, social structure and religion in the early Victorian period’, Victorian Studies, VI, 3 (1963)Google Scholar; Thompson, F. M. L., ‘The end of a great estate’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., VIII, 1 (1955)Google Scholar; idem, ‘The land market in the nineteenth century’, Oxford Economic Papers, new ser., IX, 3 (1957)Google Scholar; idem, ‘English landownership: the Ailesbury trust, 1832–56’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., XI, 1 (1958)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Whigs and Liberals in the West Riding, 1830–1860’, Eng. Hist. Rev., LXXIV, 2 (1959)Google Scholar; idem, ‘English great estates in the nineteenth century, 1790–1914’, in Contributions to the First International Conference of Economic History (Paris, 1960)Google Scholar; Guttsman, W. L., ‘The changing structure of the British political elite, 1886–1935’, British Journal of Sociology, II, 2 (1951)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Aristocracy and the middle class in the British political elite, 1886–1916’, Brit. Jour. Soc., V, 1 (1954)Google Scholar. For their subsequent work on this subject, see: Spring, David, ‘Lord Chandos and the farmers, 1818–1846’, Hunt. Lib. Quart., XXXIII, 3 (1970)Google Scholar; idem, ‘English landowners and nineteenth-century industrialism’, in Ward, J. T. and Wilson, R. G. (eds.), Land and industry: the landed estate and the Industrial Revolution (Newton Abbot, 1971)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Walter Bagehot and deference’, Am. Hist. Rev., LXXXI, 3 (1976)Google Scholar; Thompson, F. M. L., ‘Land and politics in the nineteenth century’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., XV (1965)Google Scholar; idem, ‘The social distribution of landed property in England since the sixteenth century’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., XIX, 3 (1966)Google Scholar; idem, ‘The second Agricultural Revolution, 1815–1800’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., XXI, 1 (1968)Google Scholar; Guttsman, W. L. (ed.), The English ruling class (London, 1969)Google Scholar; idem, ‘The British political elite and the class structure’, in Giddens, A. and Stanworth, P. (eds.). Elites and power in British society (Cambridge, 1974).Google Scholar

6 For landownership and finance, see: Beastall, T. W., A North Country estate: the Lumleys and Saundersons as landowners, 1600–1900 (London, 1975)Google Scholar; Duckham, B. F., ‘The Fitzwilliams and the navigation of the Yorkshire Derwent’, Northern History, 11 (1967)Google Scholar; Davies, John, ‘The end of great estates and the rise of freehold farming in Wales’, The Welsh History Review, VII, 2 (1974)Google Scholar; Daunton, M. J., ‘Aristocrat and traders: the Bute docks, 1839–1914’, Jour. Transport Hist., new ser., III, 2 (1975)Google Scholar; James, B. L., ‘The “great landowners” of Wales in 1873’, National Library of Wales Journal, XIV, 3 (1966)Google Scholar; Mather, F. C., After the Canal Duke: a study of the industrial estates administered by the trustees of the third duke of Bridgewater in the age of railway building, 1825–1872 (Oxford, 1970)Google Scholar; Mee, Graham, Aristocratic enterprise: the Fitzwilliam undertakings, 1795–1857 (London, 1975)Google Scholar; Olsen, Donald J., Town planning in London: the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (London, 1964)Google Scholar; Parker, R. A. C., Coke of Norfolk: a financial and agricultural study, 1707–1842 (Oxford, 1975)Google Scholar; Raybould, T. J., The economic emergence of the Black Country: a study of the Dudley estate (Newton Abbot, 1973)Google Scholar; Richards, Eric, The leviathan of wealth: the Sutherland fortune in the Industrial Revolution (London, 1973)Google Scholar; idem, ‘The Industrial face of a great estate: Trentham and Lilleshall, 1780–1860’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., XXVII, 3 (1974)Google Scholar; idem, ‘“Leviathan of wealth”: West Midlands agriculture, 1800–50’, Agricultural History Review, XXII, 2 (1974)Google Scholar; Sturgess, R. W., Aristocrat in business: the third marquess of Londonderry as coalowner and portbuilder (Durham, 1975)Google Scholar; Ward, J. T., ‘Ayrshire landed estates in the nineteenth century’, Ayrshire Collection, VIII (1969)Google Scholar. For county government and local politics, see: McQuiston, J. R., ‘The Lonsdale connection and its defender, William, Viscount Lowther, 1818–1830’, Northern History, XI (1976 for 1975)Google Scholar; Davies, R. W., Political change and continuity, 1760–1885: a Buckinghamshire study (Newton Abbot, 1972)Google Scholar; Olney, R. J., Lincolnshire politics, 1832–1885 (Oxford, 1973)Google Scholar; Nossiter, T. J., Influence, opinion and political idioms in reformed England: case studies from the North East, 1832–74 (Brighton, 1975)Google Scholar; Howarth, Janet, ‘The Liberal revival in Northamptonshire, 1880–1895: a case study in late nineteenth-century elections’, Historical Journal, XII, 1 (1969)Google Scholar; Foster, D., ‘Class and county government in early nineteenth-century Lancashire’, Northern History, IX (1974)Google Scholar; Lee, J. M., Social leaders and public persons: a study of county government in Cheshire since 1888 (Oxford, 1963)Google Scholar; Moir, Esther, The justice of the peace (Harmondsworth, 1969)Google Scholar; Zangeril, Carl H. E., ‘The social composition of the county magistracy in England and Wales, 1831–1887’. Jour. Brit. Studs., X, 1 (1971)Google Scholar; Quinault, R., ‘The Warwickshire county magistracy and public order, c. 1830–1860’, in Stevenson, John and Quinault, Roland (eds.), Popular protest and public order (London, 1974)Google Scholar; Richards, Eric, ‘The social and electoral influence of the Trentham interest, 1800–1860’, Midland History, III, 1 (1976)Google Scholar; Dunbabin, J. P. D., ‘The politics of the establishment of county councils’, Historical Journal, VI, 2 (1963)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Expectations of the new county councils and their realisation’, Historical Journal, VIII, 3, (1965)Google Scholar. For demography, see: Hollingsworth, T. H., ‘The demography of the British peerage’, Population Studies, XVIII, 2 (1964)Google Scholar, supplement; Thomas, David, ‘The social origins of marriage partners of the British peerage in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’, Population Studies, XXVI, 1 (1972).Google Scholar

7 Razzell, P. E., ‘Social origins of officers in the Indian and British home army, 1758–1962’, Brit. Jour. Soc., XIV, 3 (1963)Google Scholar; Otley, C. B., ‘The educational background of British army officers’, Sociology, VII, 2 (1973)Google Scholar; idem, ‘The social origins of British army officers’, The Sociological Review, new ser., XVIII, 2 (1970)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Militarism and the social affiliation of the British army elite’, in Van Doorn, J. (ed.), Armed forces and society: sociological essays (The Hague, 1968)Google Scholar; Grusky, Oscar, ‘Career patterns and characteristics of British naval officers’, Brit. Jour. Soc., XXVI, 1 (1975)Google Scholar; de Vere Allen, J., ‘The Malayan civil service, 1874–1941: colonial bureaucracy/Malayan elite’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, XII, 2 (1970)Google Scholar; Morgan, D. H. J., ‘The social and educational background of Anglican bishops: continuities and changes’, Brit. Jour. Soc., XX, 3 (1969)Google Scholar; Hall, R., ‘The family background of Etonians’, in Rose, R. (ed.), Studies in British politics (London, 1963)Google Scholar; Willson, F. M. G., ‘The routes of entry of new members of the British cabinet, 1868–1958’, Political Studies, VII, 3 (1959)Google Scholar; Alt, James E., ‘Continuity, turnover and experience in the British cabinet, 1868–1970’, in Herman, Valentine and Alt, James E. (eds.), Cabinet studies: a reader (London, 1975)Google Scholar. For two recent anthologies of important work, see: Giddens, and Stanworth, , Elites and power in British SocietyGoogle Scholar; Urry, John and Wakeford, John (eds.), Power in Britain (London, 1973).Google Scholar

8 Habakkuk, H. J., ‘England’, in Goodwin, A. (ed.), The European nobility in the eighteenth century (London, 1953), p. 4Google Scholar; Coleman, D. C., ‘Gentlemen and players’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., XXVI, 1 (1973), 108.Google Scholar

9 There are no studies for other decades comparable to those of Prof. Aydelotte for the 1840s.

10 For some suggestive hints, see: Harrison, , Gentlemen's gentlemen, p. 245Google Scholar; Hyam, Ronald, Britain's imperial century, 1815–1914: a study of empire and expansion (London, 1976), p. 377Google Scholar; Barnett, Corelli, Britain and her army, 1509–1970 (London, 1970), p. 479.Google Scholar

11 Mingay, G. E., The gentry: the rise and fall of a ruling class (London, 1976)Google Scholar, although fully summarizing recent work, has virtually nothing to say on the finances of the nineteenth-and twentieth-century gentry.

12 Compare the definitions used in: Thompson, , ‘Social distribution of land’, 506–7Google Scholar; Mingay, , The gentry, pp. 1–17Google Scholar; Aydelotte, W. O., Quantification in history (Reading, Mass., 1971), pp. 146, 148–9Google Scholar; Girouard, Mark, The Victorian country house (Oxford, 1971), p. 6Google Scholar, note 16; Stone, Lawrence and Stone, Jeanne C. Fawtier, ‘Country houses and their owners in Hertfordshire, 1540–1879’, in Aydelotte, W. O., Bogue, A. C. and Fogel, R. W. (eds.), The dimensions of quantitative research in history (London, 1972), pp. 73–88.Google Scholar

13 Burn, W. L., The age of equipoise: a study of the mid-Victorian generation (London, 1968), p. 316.Google Scholar

14 Clark, G. S. R. Kitson, The making of Victorian England (London, 1962), chs. VII, VIIIGoogle Scholar; Perkin, Harold, The origins of modern English society, 1780–1880 (London, 1969), pp. 428–37Google Scholar; Girouard, , Victorian country house, p. VIIGoogle Scholar. For an outsider's description of the English ‘ruling classes’ in the 1930s, which attributes to them excessive unity and self consciousness, see: Gunther, John, Inside Europe (new and rev. edn, London, 1936), p. 243.Google Scholar

15 Carr, , Fox hunting, p. 240.Google Scholar

16 Veblen, Thorstein, The theory of the leisure class: an economic study of institutions (London, 1970), p. 64.Google Scholar

17 Hecht, J. J., The domestic servant class in eighteenth-century England (London, 1956), pp. 1–2, 34.Google Scholar

18 Girouard, , Victorian country house, p. 19Google Scholar; Lawrence, and Stone, Jeanne, ‘Country houses and their owners’, p. 119.Google Scholar

19 Franklin, Jill, ‘Troops of servants: labour and planning in the country house, 1840–1914’, Victorian Studies, XIX, 1 (1975)Google Scholar; Girouard, , Victorian country house, pp. 19–26.Google Scholar

20 For an excellent account of such changes at one great house – Belvoir – see: Cooper, Diana, The rainbow comes and goes (London, 1958), pp. 34–8.Google Scholar

21 Churchill, Randolph S., Lord Derby: ‘king’ of Lancashire (London, 1959), p. 104Google Scholar; Birkenhead, Lord, F.E.: the life of F. E. Smith, first earl of Birkenhead (London, 1965), p. 176.Google Scholar

22 Taylor, A. J. P., English history, 1914–1945 (Harmondsworth, 1970), p. 226.Google Scholar

23 Macmillan, Harold, Winds of change, 1914–1939 (London, 1966), pp. 180–1.Google Scholar

24 Gathorne-Hardy, , British nanny, pp. 56, 184.Google Scholar

25 The dowager countess of Radnor, ‘Longford Castle’, in Strong, Roy, Binney, Marcus and Harris, John (eds.), The destruction of the country house, 1875–1975 (London, 1974), p. 172Google Scholar; Lees-Milne, James, Ancestral voices (London, 1975), pp. 33, 103, 129, 172, 190, 232, 255, 284Google Scholar; James, Robert Rhodes (ed.), ‘Chips’: the diaries of Sir Henry Channon (London, 1967), p. 346Google Scholar; Blythe, Ronald, ‘Akenfield’: portrait of an English village (Harmondsworth, 1972), p. 117.Google Scholar

26 Franklin, , ‘Troops of servants’, 213Google Scholar; Sampson, Anthony, The anatomy of Britain (London, 1962), p. 18.Google Scholar

27 Horn, , Rise and fall of Victorian servant, p. 183.Google Scholar

28 Harrison, , Gentlemen's gentlemen, p. 1.Google Scholar

29 For the Astors' life above stairs, see: Astor, Michael, Tribal feeling (London, 1963)Google Scholar; Sykes, Christopher, Nancy: the life of Lady Asor (London, 1972).Google Scholar

30 Veblen, , Leisure class, 52–60Google Scholar; Davidoff, Leonore, ‘Mastered for life: servant and wife in Victorian and Edwardian England’, Journal of Social History, VII, 4 (1974).Google Scholar

31 Gathorne-Hardy, , British nanny, p. 7.Google Scholar

32 Harrison, , Gentlemen's gentlemen, p. 113.Google Scholar

33 For nannies before the First World War, see: Cooper, , The rainbow comes and goes, pp. 13–16Google Scholar. For the inter-war years, see: Macmillan, , Winds of change, p. 181.Google Scholar

34 See the recollections of: Churchill, Winston, My early life (London, 1969 edn), p. 11Google Scholar; Nicolson, Nigel, Portrait of a marriage (London, 1974), p. 202Google Scholar; Cooper, , The rainbow comes and goes, p. 18.Google Scholar

35 For men, see: Hyde, H. M., The Cleveland Street scandal (London, 1976), pp. 20–3, 32–3.Google Scholar

36 For three recent studies, see: Newsome, David, Godliness and good learning: four studies on a Victorian ideal (London, 1961)Google Scholar; Bamford, T. W., The rise of the public schools (London, 1967)Google Scholar; Simon, Brian and Bradley, Ian (eds.), The Victorian public school (Dublin, 1975)Google Scholar. For the views of one pro-consul – Lugard – on the merits of the public school as a training ground for colonial administrators, see: Cross, Colin, The fall of the British empire, 1918–1968 (London, 1970), p. 158.Google Scholar

37 Harrison, J. F. C., The early Victorians, 1832–51 (London, 1971), pp. 109–10Google Scholar; Pelling, Henry, Sociol geography of British elections, 1885–1910 (London, 1967), pp. 22–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Source: McBride, , Domestic revolution, pp. 36, 112Google Scholar. It should be noted that the 1841 census categories are not comparable to those of subsequent censuses.

39 Mathias, Peter, The first industrial nation: an economic history of Britain, 1700–1914 (London, 1969), p. 263Google Scholar; Harrison, , The early Victorians, pp. 45–6.Google Scholar

40 Horn, , Rise and fall of Victorian servant, p. 179.Google Scholar

41 The best discussion of this irritatingly imprecise concept is to be found in: Wrigley, E. A., ‘The process of modernisation and the Industrial Revolution in England’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 111, 2 (1972).Google Scholar

42 Briggs, Asa, Victorian cities (Harmondsworth, 1968), p. 86Google Scholar; Perkin, Harold, The age of the railway (London, 1970), p. 124.Google Scholar

43 Armstrong, Alan, Stability and change in an English county town: a social study of York, 1801–51 (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 10, 28–30, 44–5, 179–80Google Scholar; Foster, John, Class struggle and the Industrial Revolution: early industrial capitalism in three English towns (London, 1974), pp. 99, 163CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anderson, Michael, Family structure in nineteenth-century Lancashire (Cambridge, 1971), p. 46Google Scholar; idem, ‘Household structure and the Industrial Revolution: mid-nineteenth-century Preston in comparative perspective’, in Laslett, Peter (ed.), Household and family in past time (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 220–1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 Spring, , ‘The role of the aristocracy’, 60Google Scholar. See also: McGregor, O. R., ‘Some research possibilities and historical materials for family and kinship study in Britain’, Brit. Jour. Soc., XII, 4 (1961), 315–16.Google Scholar

45 Guttsman, , British political elite, pp. 216–21Google Scholar. See also: Lupton, Tom and Wilson, C. Shirley, ‘The social background and connections of “top decision-makers’”, Manchester School, XXVII, 1 (1959)Google Scholar, with diagrams reproduced in Sampson, , Anatomy of Britain, between pp. 34–5.Google Scholar

46 Rowse, A. L., The later Churchills (London, 1958)Google Scholar; Newman, Aubrey, The Stanhopes of Chevening: a family biography (London, 1969).Google Scholar

47 See their work cited in note 6.

48 Smith, E. A., Whig principles and pony politics: Earl Fitzwilliam and the Whig party, 1748–1833 (Manchester, 1975)Google Scholar; Mee, Graham, Aristocratic enterprise: the Fitzwilliam undertakings, 1795–1857 (London, 1975).Google Scholar

49 Spring, , ‘Earl Fitzwilliam and the Corn Laws’Google Scholar, cited in full in note 5.

50 Checkland, S. G., The Gladstones: a family biography, 1764–1851 (Cambridge, 1971), p. xi.Google Scholar

51 It was once thought that those aristocrats and gentry in favour of repeal enjoyed great (or potentially great) non-agricultural incomes. But recent research has severely undermined this view. For the development of this debate, see: Clark, G. S. R. Kitson, ‘The repeal of the Corn Laws and the politics of the forties’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., IV, 1 (1951)Google Scholar; Southgate, Donald, The passing of the whigs, 1832–1886 (London, 1962), pp. 101–6Google Scholar; Aydelotte, W. O., ‘The country gentlemen and the repeal of the Corn Laws’, Eng. Hist. Rev., LXXXII, 1 (1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ward, J. T., ‘West Riding landowners and the Corn Laws’, Eng. Hist. Rev., LXXXI, 2 (1966).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

52 Stone, Lawrence, Family and fortune: studies in aristocratic finance in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Oxford, 1973), p. 159.Google Scholar

53 Oman, Carola, The Gascoyne heiress: the life and diaries of Frances Mary Gascoyne-Cecil, 1802–39 (London, 1968), p. 53Google Scholar. See also: Sanford, J. L. and Townsend, M. E., The great governing families of England (2 vols., London, 1865), 11, 95.Google Scholar

54 Marshall, Dorothy, Eighteenth-century England (London, 1962), p. 60Google Scholar; Walcott, R. W., English politics in the early eighteenth century (London, 1956), p. 45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Southgate, , Passing of the whigsGoogle Scholar, genealogical tables; Plumb, J. H., The growth of political stability in England, 1675–1725 (Harmondsworth, 1969), p. 10.Google Scholar

55 Sampson, , Anatomy of Britain, pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

56 Cannon, John, The Fox-North coalition: crisis of the constitution, 1783–4 (Cambridge, 1969), p. 238.Google Scholar

57 Butler, Iris, The eldest brother: the Marquess Wellesley, the duke of Wellington's eldest brother (London, 1973), pp. 491–501, 565, 570Google Scholar; Longford, Elizabeth, Wellington: pillar of state (St Albans, 1975), pp. 151, 197, 212, 481Google Scholar; Oman, , The Gascoyne heiress, p. 283.Google Scholar

58 Ward, , ‘West Riding landowners’, p. 262.Google Scholar

59 Cannadine, David, ‘The Calthorpe family and Birmingham, 1810–1910: a “conservative interest” examined’, Historical Journal, XVIII, 4 (1975), 751–4.Google Scholar

60 See, for example, the difficulties and strains experienced in the Sutherland family as recounted by Sir George Gower, Leveson, Years of contrast, 1858–86 (London, 1940), pp. 219–20.Google Scholar

61 Nicolson, Nigel (ed.), Harold Nicolson: diaries and letters, 1945–1962 (London, 1968), pp. 90–4.Google Scholar

62 For the most recent work on Salisbury, see: Pinto-Duschinsky, Michael, The political thought of Lord Salisbury, 1854–68 (London, 1967)Google Scholar; Smith, Paul (ed.), Lord Salisbury on politics: a selection from his articles in the Quarterly Review, 1860–1883 (Cambridge, 1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Taylor, Robert, Lord Salisbury (London 1975).Google Scholar

63 See Salisbury's anonymous article, ‘Lord Gran ville and Mr Cadogan’, in The Saturday Review, 11 10 1862, p. 433.Google Scholar

64 Cecil, Lady Gwendolyn, Life of Robert, marquess of Salisbury (4 vols., London, 1921–1932).Google Scholar

65 Nicolson, Nigel (ed.), Harold Nicolson: diaries and letters, 1939–1945 (London, 1967), p. 287.Google Scholar

66 For Lord Hugh's career, see: Rempel, Richard A., ‘Lord Hugh Cecil's parliamentary career, 1900–1914: promise unfulfilled’, Jour. Brit. Studs., XI, 2 (1972).Google Scholar

67 Cowling, Maurice, The impact of Labour, 1920–1924 (Cambridge, 1971), p. 415.Google Scholar

68 James, , ‘Chips’, p. 197.Google Scholar

69 Cowles, Virginia, No cause for alarm: a study of trends in England today (London, 1949), p. 91Google Scholar. For an appraisal of the fifth marquess which gives a similar impression, see his Times obituary, 24 Feb. 1972.

70 Guttsman, , British political elite, pp. 222–4.Google Scholar

71 For the resurgence of another ‘establishment’ family, the Lytteltons, who also crossed from the Liberals to the Conservatives, see: Askwith, Betty, The Lytteltons: a family chronicle of the nineteenth century (London, 1975)Google Scholar, and the writings of Lyttelton, Oliver, Chandos, Viscount, The memoirs of Lord Chandas (London, 1963)Google Scholar, and From peace to war: a study in contrasts, 1857–1918 (London, 1968)Google Scholar. There is an excellent genealogical table in: Hynes, Samuel, The Edwardian turn of mind (Princeton, 1968), p. 389.Google Scholar

72 James, , ‘Chips’, p. 346.Google Scholar

73 Habakkuk, H. J., ‘Economic functions of English landowners in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, in Aitken, H. G. J. (ed.), Explorations in enterprise (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), p. 339Google Scholar. My italics.

74 Clark, Kitson, Making of Victorian England, p. 313.Google Scholar

75 Olney, , Lincolnshire politics, p. 232.Google Scholar

76 Young, G. M., Today and yesterday:collected essays and addresses (London, 1948), p. 37Google Scholar; Vincent, John, The formation of the Liberal party, 1857–1868 (London, 1966), pp. 212–14Google Scholar; Morley, John, The life of William Ewart Gladstone (3 vols., London, 1903), 1, 344–9.Google Scholar

77 Best, Geoffrey, Mid-Victorian Britain, 1851–75 (London, 1971), p. 242.Google Scholar

78 Brewer, John, Party ideology and popular politics at the accession of George III (Cambridge, 1976). PP. 58–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

79 Thompson, , English landed society in the nineteenth century, p. 104.Google Scholar

80 Bagehot, Walter, The English constitution (London, 1963 edn, intro. by R. H. S. Grossman), p. 248.Google Scholar

81 SirFraser, William, Disraeli and his day (2nd edn, London, 1891), p. 76.Google Scholar

82 Christie, O. F., The transition to democracy, 1867–1914 (London, 1934), pp. 248–9Google Scholar; Carter, Violet Bonham, Winston Churchill as I knew him (London, 1967), p. 137.Google Scholar

83 The marchioness of Londonderry, , Retrospect (London, 1938), pp. 175–6Google Scholar; Blake, Robert, The Conservative party from Peel to Churchill (London, 1972), p. 236Google Scholar; Gunther, , Inside Europe, p. 248.Google Scholar

84 Compare the accounts of life in the 1920s and 1930s given by Channon in his diaries and in: Middlemas, Keith (ed.), Thomas Jones: Whitehall diar, 1916–30 (2 vols. London, 1969)Google Scholar and James, Robert Rhodes (ed.), Memoirs of a Conservative: J. C. C. Davidson's memoirs and papers, 1910–37 (London, 1969).Google Scholar

85 Thompson, , English landed society in the nineteenth century, pp. 99–104.Google Scholar

86 Nicolson, , Portrait of a marriage, p. 41Google Scholar. See also Salisbury's anonymous articles in The Saturday Review: ‘Match-Making mammas’, 12 10 1861Google Scholar; ‘Chaperones’, 28 June 1862; ‘No cards’, 24 January 1863; ‘Heir hunting’, 30 05 1863.Google Scholar

87 Althorp to Fitzwilliam, 15 July 1833. Quoted in Sweeney, J. M., ‘The House of Lords in British politics, 1830–1841’ (unpublished D.Phil, thesis, Oxford University, 1973), p. 28.Google Scholar

88 Fraser, , Disraeli and his day, p. 10.Google Scholar

89 Edgbaston Estate Office MS box 9, Sidmouth to Calthorpe, 24 August 1813.

90 Best, Geoffrey, ‘The making of the English working class’, Historical Journal, VIII, 2 (1965), 278Google Scholar; The Times, 23 December 1899; Huxley, Gervas, Victorian Duke: the life of Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, first duke of Westminster (London, 1967), pp. 176–94Google Scholar; Vamplew, , The Turf, p. 226Google Scholar; Churchill, , Lord Derby, pp. 50–5, 569–71, 592–3, 616–17.Google Scholar

91 Oman, , Gascoyne heiress, p. 106.Google Scholar

92 Cooper, , The rainbow comes and goes, p. 29.Google Scholar

93 de Broke, Lord Willoughby, The passing years (London, 1920), p. 11.Google Scholar

94 Thompson, , English landed society in the nineteenth century, p. 144.Google Scholar

95 For some further evidence on this subject, see: Itzkowitz, David C., Peculiar privilege: a social history of English foxhunting, 1753–1885 (Hassocks, 1977)Google Scholar, which appeared too late for discussion in this article.

96 For one pioneer study, see: Crook, J. Mordaunt, ‘Patron extraordinary: John, 3rd marquess of Bute (1847–1900)’ in Victorian South Wales – architecture, industry and society (Victorian Society, Seventh Conference Report, London, 1970).Google Scholar

97 Brougham to Spencer, 4 April 1835. Quoted in Sweeney, , op. cit., p. 93.Google Scholar

98 For recent work, see: Plumb, J. H., The commercialisation of leisure in eighteenth-century England (Reading, 1973)Google Scholar; Dunning, E. (ed.), The sociology of sport: a selection of readings (London, 1971)Google Scholar; Malcolmson, R. W., Popular recreations in English society, 1700–1850 (Cambridge, 1973)Google Scholar; Meller, H. E., Leisure and the changing city, 1870–1914 (London, 1976).Google Scholar