Subject: aristocratic gentleman
Culture: English
Setting: Edwardian era, England late 19th-early 20thc
Event Photos
* Baudot 1999 p59
"The nineteenth and twentieth centuries continued to reaffirm the essential masculine principle of discretion. Restraint, fitting behaviour, giving women precedence and knowing when to keep quiet remained the best ways for gentlemen to distinguish themselves. Brummell said that true elegance passes unnoticed. Or rather claimed that it should do so."
* Hyams 2011 p185
"Yet again, the moral code of Edwardian high society dictates that the superficial is what counts. In fact, there is a long-held mantra that a respectable society woman's name only ever appears in a newspaper at birth, on marriage and on her demise. Newspapers, of course, will report the official engagements of high society. But if it all explodes into scandal and a widely reported court case -- which it infrequently does -- then it's open season on those who are 'caught'. And social death.
"Essentially, the code permits married wealthy people to cover up their love affairs with a finely woven web of discretion and manners. If they are caught out by their spouse, the aggrieved party cannot make a scene or a noisy fuss. That just isn't permitted. Etiquette matters so much more than a discreet affair between marrieds, though at times, of course, very human emotional responses break through the web of discretion."
* Gosling 2013 p5
"Each spring, from the mid-nineteenth century through to the beginning of the Second World War, as the blossom on the trees in London's exclusive squares unfurled, the well bred adn well-heeled left their country estates and headed for the capital. Ahead of them travelled servants to prepare houses in readiness for their family's arrival. Across Mayfair, dustsheets were removed from heirloom furniture adn windows were flung open to air fusty rooms. This flurry of activity prompted hotels, florists, hairdressers and caterers to place advertisements in society magazines, and to wait for their order books to fill up as invitations and RSVPs to endless balls, parties, evening receptions and events criss-crossed the city. This seasonal migration, these fevered preparations, heralded the start of what was known as the London Season; an intensive three-month social whirl participated in by those whose breeding, wealth and status marked them out as the so-called cream of British society.
"'Society' once described the country's uppermost social ranks, a handful of ducal families sometimes described as the 'ton'. But an expanding population in the early nineteenth century led to an expansion of Society itself. Martial links were forged further down the chain, between the aristocracy and the landed gentry, and, in turn, the middle class, as younger sons of larger families cast their net wider in order to find a wife. In addition, increasing industrialisation created a growing contingent whose fortunes were made rather than inherited. These were 'new money' families; those who had the wealth but not, necessarily, the connections to gain admittance to Society."
* Hyams 2011 p193
"[T]he 'invisible' but very real trade of sex for cash or a visit to a brothel remains a huge draw for the privileged and moneyed classes. It's the place where younger men pay to learn about love and older men get their particular tastes of whims serviced. Wives often understand this, and look away. Discretion is more or less assured when travelling, so the more popular brothels with the English toffs tend to be in Paris, the city of love."
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Field Notes
