The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy

This book is an absolute must read for anyone interested not merely in the decline of British aristocracy, but in the swift changes wrought in British society, politics and literature from 1880 to the outbreak of WWII. Cannadine does cover WWII and the following decades, but he gives them rather short shrift, for, as the exacting and exhaustive main body of this magisterial work makes superabundantly clear, the British aristocracy was already in rigor mortis by then. What made this work so indispensable to me was that it showed the actual, very real, background for literary works written during this period: Waugh, Wilde, Wodehouse, Yeats and, of course, the Mitfords. If you want to know the reality of what happened to estates like Waugh's fictional Brideshead, you will learn all about the land devaluation, estate taxes and encumbrances on such estates originally contracted in order to ensure entail and jointures, but now spelling their doom. You will meet many, all too many, real life Lady Marchmains and understand more fully the social backdrop which makes them totally unsuited for the 20th Century. And, well, let's just take an actual case: Bertrand Russell. Primogeniture ensured that the gentrified earldom in which he came of age passed onto his brother. In previous eras, a generous codicil with annuity would have, nevertheless, granted him lifelong security. Unfortunately, due to land devaluation, his brother went bankrupt and lost everything except the title. Russell, too, lost everything and became a Socialist member of the Labour party, not entirely because of his ideological position and philosophical beliefs, but because of something deeper from which they arose: a visceral animosity to the industrialists and capitalists who now controlled the country. As Cannadine points out, there were really only two extreme positions for such disillusioned, disinherited aristos to take: socialism or fascism. Of course, Russell was a genius who made great advances in the field of mathematics and went on to win the Nobel Prize in literature. But, through most of his life, he had to support himself through lectures and writing; and, until the publication and unexpected popularity of his A History of Western Philosophy, he was almost continuously on the verge of bankruptcy. Even after his brother died and he became Lord Russell, he maintained that the only benefit that accrued from the title was the ability to secure hotel rooms. The point exemplified here, so well explicated by Cannadine, is that, after over seven hundred years of Earls and their ilk being the ruling, moneyed class, they met an end so swiftly and irretrievably at the hands of industrialism and capitalism, that these former members of the ruling class had no recourse in this unfamiliar world than to become quixotic Utopians, or socialists like Russell or quixotic Arcadians, or fascists, like Oswald Moseley. Cannadine is a wonderful writer, and in spite of the jumble of nu

In 1875, the British landed aristocracy and their landed gentry allies were the dominant social group in the world's most powerful nation. A century later, they were a marginal force in British society. This book is a detailed and unusually well written chronicle and analysis of the eclipse of this once dominant group. The basic story is relatively straightforward. The decline and fall of the British aristrocracy resulted from the convergence of several key features of the modernization of British society and in some respects, an ironic result of phenomena that made Britain the world's commercial power. In the last quarter of the 19th century, dropping transportation costs plus the opening of enormous acreages in the western USA and Canada, Australia, and Argentina resulted in falling prices for primary agricultural commodities. The British aristocracy and gentry, whose fortures were tied to large, large estates, rent, and commodity prices, began to suffer declining incomes, a process that lasted well into the 20th century. One major consequence was the loss of aristocratic land holdings as expenses mounted. The breakup of estates resulted not only in lost economic power but also loss of local leadership. At the same time, the maturing British industrial economy was bringing forth a new class of increasingly rich plutocrats who would gradually displace the traditional aristocracy. In politics and government, the dominant position of the aristocracy and gentry was eroded and then obliterated by a series of political and constitutional changes. The Third Reform Act in the 1880s greatly expanded the franchise and essentially eliminated the pocket boroughs so useful for maintaining aristocratic-gentry political power. The expansion and modernization of British government, with its resulting professionalization, led to increasing dominance of local and national government by the increasingly well educated middle classes. Similar phenomena occurred in the professions and the church. Accompanying all these phenomena was a loss of a sense of aristocratic sense of mastery and self-confidence. This process was completed by the social catastrophe of the First World War, which resulted in a disproportionate loss of young aristocrats/gentry and accelerated the economic and political decline of the aristocracy/gentry. Cannadine covers all these phenomena and more in an unusually well written book. This is one of the better combinations of careful, detailed scholarship and narrative I've encountered recently. My only criticism and it is minor is that more comparative detail about other European aristocracies would have been useful.

How is it that the owners of Britain's stately homes, who once lived magnificently, now are reduced to admitting paying visitors to keep their homes? While this question is never asked in David Cannadine's book, it is answered nonetheless. Cannadine manages rather adroitly to discuss the long downward spiral of the British aristocracy amidst the backdrop of the history of Great Britain in the 19th and 20th century. There was a time in which these great magnates practically owned or controlled most of the wealth of the nation. What went wrong?A better question might be, what went right. Although they managed to control politics, the military, the church and the civil service, the position of these guardians of Britannia was undermined by two things, the industrial revolution (which put up a new manufacturing class in opposition to the traditional nobles) and the rise of popular democracy. The first three reform bills drastically weakened the traditional hold of the aristocracy on the political process. During the 19th century it was a rare government that did not include several if not many representatives of the titled orders. By late the 20th century, the presence of one of these would seem somewhat quaint, a reminder of by gone days. But it was not just the loss of political power that undermined the aristocracy, the immediate pre WWI years were a disaster of the first magnitude with Lloyd George and his "people's budget." One wonders what would have happened to someone of Lloyd George's ilk in the 17th century. Doubless he would have shared the same fate as Bishop Laud. WWI, WWII, and the rise of the Labor Party really were the final nails in the coffin of the British Aristocracy and the once lords of the realm are now reduced to lending their names to directorships (some of doubtful legitimacy), opening their homes to tourists, and even worse turning their backs on the whole of what it meant to be noble as the family fortunes and the roof of the family manse continue to erode away. Cannadine handles all of this rather well bolstering each of his claims brilliantly. If one wants to know how the British Aristocracy went from being the rulers of the realm to one of its tourist attractions they should read this book.

In the 1990 "Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy," David Cannadine masterfully shows how the traditional landed classes of England lost much of their political power and economic pre-eminence as late-19th century democracy and capitalism swept over Britain. This well-documented volume convincingly shows aristocratic decline in almost every facet of British society and also explains how the landed classes adjusted to their lessened position in society. Cannadine uses both statistics and anecdotes to support his arguments, and voluminous footnotes, appendices, and an index follow. This book will be mostly appreciated by those with a background in British history, as Cannadine makes many references to 19th/20th century British culture, politics, people, and news events without explaining them. Furthermore, this book is rife with typographical errors, albeit harmless. For example, a lady by the name of "Violet" in the first chapter is referred to as "Violent." Minor nit-picking notwithstanding, this volume is well-researched, thorough, and quite entertaining. It should become a classic work on British social history alongside great books such as "The Long Weekend" and the "Strange Death of Liberal England."