Etiquette, Secrecy for Hosting Royals

Son of the Gilded Age financier, banking executive and philanthropist, John Pierpoint Morgan, Jack (J.P. Morgan Jr.) “developed a close relationship with King George VI, whom he first knew as Albert. Jack spent his summers in the United Kingdom, splitting his time between London, Hertfordshire, and Scotland. In 1914, Jack and his friend Eric Hambro, a British banker and politician, purchased a hunting lodge, Gannochy, in Scotland. Albert and Elizabeth, the future King and Queen of England, were frequent visitors to Gannochy. Thanks to the guest book that was maintained at the house, we can track the visits of the Royal family from 1934 to 1939. The couple often visited for a week in August to participate in the start of the grouse hunting season, and was usually accompanied by extended family, such as the Elphinstones and the Bowes-Lyons.” – From the JP Morgan Chase & Co. Alumni Network website, Cropped photograph of J.P. Morgan Jr. at a 1917 war bond parade. –Public domain image 

Morgan Menu for Royalty Secret

GANNOCHY LODGE, ELZELL, Scotland (AP)

King George and Queen Elizabeth enjoyed another outdoor picnic lunch today with an American host.

Last June 11, President and Mrs. Roosevelt entertained the Royal couple at Hyde Park, N. Y., with a picnic which introduced their majesties to “hot dogs”, an American staple separate and distinct from the sausage rolls of England.

Today their host was J. P. Morgan, whose house guests they are for several days of grouse shooting. The King and the banker were out early in sparkling sunshine with their guns and their game beaters. The Queen joined them on the heathery slopes at noon.

Servants spread a bountiful lunch from picnic hampers. The menu? That was a secret of the Morgan household. – San Pedro News Pilot, August, 1939

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

Etiquette and Obeisance

Lord Carisbrooke – The “Marquess of Carisbrooke“ was a title created in 1917 for Prince Alexander of Battenberg, the eldest son of Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom (the youngest daughter of Queen Victoria) and Prince Henry of Battenberg. He was also made Viscount Launceston, in the County of Cornwall, and Earl of Berkhamsted at the same time, all in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. At this time, along with other German-surnamed relations of the British Royal family, Alexander changed his surname to Mountbatten. Confused yet??? Sadly, all of these titles became extinct upon his death in 1960, as he had no sons.- Photo Public Domain

It was hard for Gotham Society to know the right amount of deference and respect to show when they were unknowingly dealing with a “Minor Royal”

Gotham Society– with a very large, capital S– is considerably exercised over the proper amount of obeisance due Lord Carisbrooke, its at present most distinguished guest. Because he is a grandson of Queen Victoria and brother of the Queen of Spain, his hosts and fellow guests started in by giving him regular court curtsies and presenting women to him as rapidly as all the rest of what they deemed his due. Then along came carping critic and laughted them to scorn. 

“He’s not a Prince of the Blood” he told them. ‘‘He must he getting a lot of fine laughs out of you. Etiquette doesn’t let you treat him any different from any other gentleman.” The most embarrassed person among the mis-steppers is one who is credited with ambitions to be made ambassador to the Court of St. James and now he’s given it away that he doesn’t even know court etiquette!– Press Democrat, 1921

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

Etiquette and Gilded Age Money

 The papers wanted to remind Vanderbilt of his “Poverty of Riches”... That his money could not buy friends, love, social acceptance or class, and that his family had not yet become included in Mrs. Astor’s New York Society “400.” 

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 “The price of flowers, of the caterer's bills, of the dresses to be worn, etc..., are as much a part of the Vanderbilt balls as the balls themselves; and the rather intelligent public that Mr. Vanderbilt sometimes hastily consigns to damnation, is not in any degree misled by the sorry spectacle of a man who possesses only great riches, trying to buy social esteem—about the only commodity that is never in the market.”

Vanderbilt's Poverty of Riches

The public journals are embellished now and then with reports in advance of a hundred thousand dollar ball to be given by Mr. William H. Vanderbilt, and a detailed account of the occasion is furnished in the newspapers after the fact. Indeed, public notice in advance of the cost of the Vanderbilt balls, with details of the price of flowers, of the caterer's bills, of the dresses to be worn, etc., are as much a part of the Vanderbilt balls as the balls themselves; and the rather intelligent public that Mr. Vanderbilt sometimes hastily consigns to damnation, is not in any degree misled by the sorry spectacle of a man who possesses only great riches, trying to buy social esteem—about the only commodity that is never in the market. 

The Vanderbilt balls come along as regularly as do seasons, but the same medley of speculators, politicians, shoddyites and social stragglers come and go all the time. It must be evident to a sensible, practical business man like Mr. Vanderbilt that no measure of extravagant expenditure in flowers, suppers, silks, satins and diamonds, will make the New York social public regard him as any other than William H. Vanderbilt, the son of his father, with much clustering about the family name and fortune that it would be generously charitable to forget. 

He knows how to buy or wreck a railroad, and how to draw the ribbons on the fastest horses, and how to compel Wall Street to pay homage to his financial power; but he can neither drive nor lead that often obstinate and ever capricious element of humanity that assumes to be the society of the period. It will smile or frown at will, and even the wealth of a Vanderbilt knocks at its doors, clad in all the trappings of the old and the new world, without responsive welcome. Mr. Vanderbilt is the richest private citizen of any nation in the world. His annual income reaches him a score of millions, and he has houses and lands and railways and horses and paintings and statuary and fine raiment until they must pall upon his taste; but what good? He will die just as other men die, and who will keep his memory green? We have yet to hear of a church, a school, a library or a charity that owes its existence to his generosity, and the poor and friendless do not lisp his name with the gratitude that cheers the benefactor. 

Hard by his grand palace is the unfinished cathedral, that if completed by the donation of half of his legitimate income a twelve month , would be a perpetual monument of the usefulness of his life, and it would stand as a faithful sentinel against the mob that sometimes turns to destruction in the fruitless hunt for bread. There are a thousand channels in which the rapidly accumulating wealth of Vanderbilt could be made to pay a much larger and better interest to its owner. It would not be in added millions to the already unneeded millions of the richest citizen of the world; but it would brighten the evening of his life with consolation and gather about him the only sincerity he can find to bless his name while living and embalm it in grateful memories when dead. 

Mr. Vanderbilt can well afford his hundred thousand dollar balls to gratify the love of display that usurps the better social attainments of life, as that would be wasting not more than three days’ income; but if he would make the shadows of the gathering night resplendent with golden lining, let him make the world better and happier because of his existence, and leave at least some few of the poor and friendless to keep his memory green, when those who revel in his shoddy gifts shall have speeded his departure into forgetfulness. – Los Angeles Herald, 1884

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

Gilded Age Etiquette Humor

The Gilded Age was the golden age of dining at its finest, which brought about new table etiquette for newly designed utensils, for everything edible and expensive, from turtle soup to nuts.

Table Etiquette 

A correspondent, who is somewhat of a philanthropist in his way, sends up the following hints  on Table Etiquette, for the benefit of the members of the club. We believe they will be superfluous to most of our readers, but as our correspondent begs us not to lose the opportunity of improving the present occasion we append them: 

1. Do not commence eating before your host gets through with his grace. I have known some men to bite a biscuit as large as a blacking-box into a half-moon, and have to hold it between his teeth, under a suspension of the rules during a blessing. This is disgraceful.
2. Do not sup soup with a fork. Your soup will always have you at a disadvantage with such odds. Besides, it is “souperfluous.”
3. In passing your plate to be helped, retain your knife and fork in your vest pocket.
4. When asked for a dish, do not propel it across the surface of the table after the manner or game of shovel-board ; always pitch it gracefully, after the manner of quoits. This will be "quoit" sufficient.
5. Never try to eat fish with a salt-cellar.
6. While drinking, be careful not to empty hot coffee or anything of that sort into your neighbor's paper collar.
7. Do not eat too fast. You will not “get left,” if you make up in heroic doses for that time.
8. If you find anything auspicious in your hash, don't eat any more hash ; And if there is anything wrong in your butter, propose a toast or tell an anecdote.
9. When you burn your mouth with a cold potato, don't whistle or make faces at the company, but shed tears in silence.
10. Never leave the table without asking the lady of the house to be excused ; but if you happen to be at a barbecue or a free lunch, don't leave as long as there is a bone or a crumb in sight.
11. Should you put too much pepper in your soup, and the tears come to your eyes in consequence, do not wipe your eyes and blow your nose in your napkin.
12. As usual, when resting your elbows on the table that your neighbor's little preserve plate is not within reach, not that you need mind upsetting it, for that would only serve him right, but you may get your left sleeve jellied through his carelessness in not giving you room enough.
13. Do not pick your teeth with your fork, or wipe it on the table-cloth after you have just extracted a long piece of sinew from a hollow in one of your double grinders.
14. If you happen to partake of some dish with which you are unacquainted, don't spit it out on your plate with a splutter, as if you had been poisoned, because it might be supposed you had been accustomed to move in society. Simply rap on tbe table with your fork for the servant, and tell him, or her, to fetch a spittoon. By this time, all eyes will be upon you, and as the servant brings the spittoon you can eject the disagreeable mouthful with a proper air of disgust, remarking that you always hated French “kickshaws,” and preferred something the real origin of which you could guess at. By this proceeding you will let the people at the table see you know a thing or two, and are not to be easily taken in. –From the New York Dispatch, 1871

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

Gilded Age NYC‘s New Year’s Customs

“The politicians will have all their constituents down on them like a swarm of locusts and there is no avoiding it. No etiquette will answer to repulse them, for hunger is at their back, and their charge is the ravenous rush of the famishing wolf.”— New Year's, 1871 

Change of New Year's Day Customs in New York of 1871 

Part 3
The General Crows

Meantime the canaille will hunt in couples and crowds, as usual, and prey on the great part of our people who foolishly adhere to the custom of furnishing forth immense tables with dainty commissary stores in quantity sufficient to satisfy a battalion of hungry troopers. Every livery-stable carriage in the City was engaged two weeks ago, and the “roughs” especially have taken care to form their little parties and engage their conveyances in time. The politicians will have all their constituents down on them like a swarm of locusts and there is no advoiding it. No etiquette will answer to repulse them, for hunger is at their back, and their charge is the ravenous rush of the famishing wolf.

Temperance Movements

Public prejudice has done a great deal toward reforming custom this year, as far as wine and whisky drinking at New-Year’s tables goes. Many will abandon the flowing bowl for this one time, in disgust with the effects of “cheering spirits” on the late callers: but the great mass of those who receive calls will cling to their rum as of yore. The result of course, will be a maudlin aspect of affairs when the gas-lights begin to illuminate the depleted decanters and the remains of the New-Year’s feasts. The retail liquor trade for holiday uses is reported as fully equal to that of any previous year, which is a good showing, we take it, for King Alcohol, after all the boasts of his Temperance toes.

New fashions for the 1870s —On New Year’s Eve the New York Times in 1871 publicized the outcome of “cheering spirits” and the public prejudice toward such behavior with the result of how rum can be disruptive with no conscience of etiquette politeness. 

Part 4
Reception of Callers by the Sheriff

The Mayor will not receive New-Year’s Day officially. Sheriff Brennan will take possession of his Department on Monday morning, and he and County Clerk Loew will receive jointly in the Sheriff’s office, between the hours of 11:00 am and 1:00 pm on Monday.

Suspension of Public Business

The Custom-house will be closed on Monday, except between The Sub-Treasury will be closed during the entire day, and the Gold and Stock Exchanges adjourned over yesterday until Tuesday morning. The various public offices will also be closed to-morrow, together with the National and State Courts.

New Year at Newark

Last night the Methodists of Newark, according to custom, held watch meetings to usher the old year out and the new year in. This morning the chimes at St. John’s Church will be rung, and at many of the churches special services will be held and sermons preached appropriate to the occasion. Monday will be observed as a legal holiday, and the banks, as well as most of the other places of business, will be closed. The Mayor and Senator Taylor will receive calls at the City Hall, and most of the City Fathers will keep open house for their constituents. Rev. Alfred Taylor of New-York, will make an address at the New Year’s celebration of the Sabbath-schools connected with the First Reformed Church, Market Street Newark, to-day.

Observed at Brooklyn

The following chimes were sung at St. Ann’s Church on the Heights of Brooklyn, about midnight, as greeting to the New Year:

• Ringing the Changes on Eight Bells 
• Old Dog Tray 
• Blue Bells of Scotland 
• Yankee Doodle 
• Life Let Us Cherish 
• Once in Royal David’s City 
• A Happy New Year to Thee 
• Watchman, What of the Night 
• The Christmas Tree From Greenland’s Icy Mountains 
• Hosannah to King David’s Son 
• Carol Christians 
• Home Sweet Home 

To-morrow the city dignitaries of Brooklyn, including the Alderman, Supervisors and Park Commissioners, will celebrate New-Year’s Day by a reunion at the District-Attorney’s office.

Part 5
Trinity Chimes

The chimes at Trinity Church did not attract a very large crowd last night. There seems to be a feeling among Americans that it is best to forget the past, live in the present, and look to the future. As the bells rang out the old year, there were but few to listen to the artistic music. The clear star-lit night made the melody very entrancing to a reflective mind, and as the old year, whose dying song, which seemed to blend harmoniously with the joyous anthems of the new, became a thing of the past, one could fancy that the firmament participated in high hopes of the future and assumed a more glorious aspect.


This might be the mere effects of imagination, in the thought that such an eventful year as 1870, with its holocaust of slain and its wonderful changes in the map of Europe, was dying out in this peaceful land to the music of merrily-peeling bells, while on the bloody-dyed fields of France 1871 may be welcome with the deadly boom of cannon, belching death and destruction.

The Decline of Brooklyn

On the whole, however, it is apparent that New-Year’s Day is fast losing its jolly characteristics and becoming a dreary, formal period of platitude and palaver, instead of a day of innocent mirth, merriment and congratulation, as in the olden time. As an institution the New-Year is slipping away from us fast. Even today the olden customs are so modified as to be scarcely recognizable. And What remains is devoid of spirit – a mere meaningless bacchanalian orgie on the one extreme, or a formal senseless dropping of cards in baskets on the other. It is the New-Year’s Day of the future that we see not the New Year’s Day of the past. — From New York Times January 1, 1871

Note — In 1871 New Year Day fell on a Sunday, thus the public offices and officials observed the holiday on Monday.

                                         

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

Gilded Age New Year's Day Etiquette

New Year's Celebrations in New York, 1871 — "No calls after 9pm will be permissible, according to the new etiquette of the day. From all that can be learned, therefore, it appears that in “high circles” the celebration is to be about the dullest and dreariest formality that could be conceived." 

The Celebration this Year 

In New-York

Part 1— The Customs of the Day

The celebration will not prove less general this year as far New-York is concerned, but there will be noted considerable change in the customs of the day. From all that can be gathered from Brown and other wise men of the inner social circle, it appears that there will be a dull tone respectability pervading the observances. It will not be the rollicking carnival of the olden time, when everybody, however genteel, felt warranted in coming down from his stilts and engaging with impunity in a wild revelry that would be tolerated on no other day. 

A remarkable falling off in enthusiasm has marked New-Year’s Day celebrations for the past five years. But before that, even, croaking prophets had begun to presage the decline of the festival; though; notwithstanding, “calling” continued general, among high and low, and the streets afforded the usual midnight scenes and sounds of bacchanalian uproar. There was a change in custom, however, for all the outward signs remained as strong as ever.

What Brown Says

Many of our first families, according to Brown, are going further still. Forestalling the fashion of the future, they entirely abandon the customs of their fathers. They close their doors against all comers, of whatever quality, affording not even the poor cheer of a social glass. The reception of cards, not of persons, will be encouraged by these ultra-exclusive fashionables. 

For such as do call in high circles, Brown says that full evening dress will be necessary: claw-hammer coat, black necktie and the display of shirt bosom equal to one-third the square inches of the caller’s surface. No calls after 9pm will be permissible, according to the new etiquette of the day. From all that can be learned, therefore, it appears that in “high circles” the celebration is to be about the dullest and dreariest formality that could be conceived. But it must not be supposed that the first “society” is in the majority. Although it sets the fashion for all, that fashion has a year or so to run before its general adoption.

The Card-Droppers

The cards of the callers are being gotten up by the Broadway engravers in various unique styles, comic effects predomination in the designs, though a few attempts at poetical graces in delicacy of workmanship and suggestiveness of allegory are to be remarked. The orders for such cards have been filled by the million. There never was such a demand as that which prevailed last week among the trade in bristol board. This is accounted for by those best acquainted with the rules of social etiquette, by cards, instead of calling and gorging and guzzling in proof of good feeling for the at whose expense you gorge and guzzle. A very sensible reform, truly – at least so think the engravers.

A Victorian calling card salver —The New York Times in 1871 has published a new reform of social etiquette to send an invitation on a card instead of calling (per “Brown” in the above article). One would wonder how the unique styles would be used, according to the station in society. But then again the importance of receiving one would show the request of your presence.

Part 2 — Society Alarmed

The wealthy classes – those among them, at least who delight in the lacteal pedigree, crème de la crème – had begun to draw pertly within their shells. Merchants and manufacturers no longer set immense tables, and threw open their doors for the admission of their workmen, and often a general rabble composed of fire boys and corner loafers. Their wives and daughters began to doubt the propriety of making their usual concessions to the rude customs of the days culture was at work lopping of the gnarled branches of the social tree. Mrs. Grundy commanded exclusiveness in New Year’s receptions fashion indorsed Mrs. Grundy. So high society closed its doors to the world in general and limited its hospitalities to a select set.

Change of Customs

This was the first step of a reform that is gradually undermining customs of the New Year, working its changes almost imperceptibly, yet so surely that in five years more the custom of calling and gorging may have fallen back into misty tradition of the manners of an olden time. Today’s celebration will be pretty general – there can be no doubt of that; but there are significant changes of custom to be noted.

There will be fewer tables set than ever before, among the society leaders; there will be less display of culinary temptations in the parlors of the parvenus. It is the style of thing, this time, to fill your house with young women in superb toilets, and offer your guest a simple glass of wine; and in no case must this guest be a partial stranger, nor must strangers be introduced on this carnival time, no matter what their social standing. 

High society has taken the alarm, and fearing she has been too free in the past, does not mean to let her feelings carry her away again; hence the tighter drawing of the lines on this day, which once was marked by an utter abandonment of the rules of social exclusiveness. — From New York Times January 1, 1871

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