A Look at 19th C. Snobbery

Snobbery flourishes in fluid societies where a prosperous and rising middle-class presses on the heels of an established aristocracy. It is a defense-mechanism and, as such, may perhaps be excused. But the Victorians certainly pushed it to extreme lengths. Although they lived in the great era of commercial expansion, everybody “who was anybody” had to pretend that he had nothing to do with Trade.

THE Victorians were snobs: In fact, they invented the term. It was Thackeray who gave it its present significance. Snobbery does not flourish in rigid societies, like that of the eighteenth century when every one knew a lord by the star of some order on his coat. Snobbery flourishes in fluid societies where a prosperous and rising middle-class presses on the heels of an established aristocracy.

It is a defense-mechanism and, as such, may perhaps be excused. But the Victorians certainly pushed it to extreme lengths. Although they lived in the great era of commercial expansion, everybody “who was anybody” had to pretend that he had nothing to do with Trade.

THERE were two curious exceptions to this rule: it was always permissible for a gentleman to be a wine merchant, and toward the end of the Victorian period it began to be possible to be a stockbroker without losing caste. Barristers were accepted members of gentility's ranks, but solicitors were not; nor doctors. Even as late as the Eighteen Eighties it is surprising (and rather distressing) to find, in, for example, George du Maurier's cartoons in Punch, how much time and thought the Victorians gave to such questions.

It was all very difficult for those who were on the borderline and, to help them, etiquette books began to be published in large numbers. When even these did not supply the right answers there were the correspondence columns of magazines like The Queen.

Many of the inquiries were concerned with the complicated ritual of “leaving cards.” “If the lady is at home, give your name to the servant, who will announce you; and, as you go out, leave two of your husband's cards in the hall, one for the host and one for the hostess. As you have seen her, you naturally would not leave your own card.”

“Going in to dinner” was a process even more formal. “The host communicates to each gentleman the name of the lady he is to take in to dinner the butler announces the latter to his master, who then offers his arm to the lady appointed to be escorted by him. This should be either the oldest lady, the lady of the highest rank, or the greatest stranger. The other guests follow arm-in arm, and the hostess closes the procession, escorted by the gentleman who has been appointed to the honorable post for one of the three reasons above-mentioned, as being the oldest or of highest rank, etc.” Plenty of pitfalls here for the aspiring hostess not quite sure of her position!– The New York Times, 1960

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia