Lord Grantham, Lady Chatterton, Baron Merton, Countess of Grantham, Lord Meldrum, The Honourable Mr. Teddy, Sir Ralph Shawcross…

You can hear different titles of the English aristocracy just like Lord, Earl, Baron, Viscount, Lady etc in many films. I must admit the English peerages have never been clear to me and it started to annoy me, so I looked it up.

Like many other things in England, peerages are not simple either. In fact, they are rather complicated, therefore, I attempt to sum it up the best as I can to give you the essence of it without being exhaustive.

Basics

01.

Titles of the peerage are created by the reigning monarch.

02.

There are two types: peerages for life which cannot be inherited and heritable titles: Life Peers and Hereditary Peers.

Life Peers

From time to time the reigning monarch created life peers that could not be passed onto someone else by inheritance. For example the bishops of the Church of England belong to the House of Lords, however, neither their title or spiritual function could be inherited.

Hereditary Peers

The title is always owned by one person only, meaning the son of an Earl is not considered as an Earl. (Remark: in Hungary it would be.) When the current holder dies, his title passes to his eldest, legitimate son. If he does not have sons at all, the title would pass on to the next male relative in line. If there is no heir to inherit it, the title becomes known as “extinct”. (Interesting how different these things were back in time: in Hungary the daughters of a peer would inherit both the title and the wealth.)

03.

Every peerage belongs to the House of Lords, but not every Lord has a peerage.

What does it mean? It means that lord is an umbrella term which includes both the aristocracy (peerages like Earls, Dukes etc) and important members of the state like prime ministers and spiritual leaders like archbishops, bishops etc. In other words: the latter are not aristocrats, so not “blue blooded”, they get their title because of their important function.

04.

Peers have five ranks in Engalnd in the following, ascending order of hierarchy:

Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquess and Duke. Interestingly, in my home country, Hungary there are 4 ranks of peers only: Baron, Earl, Duke and King. We lack of the ranks Viscount and Marquess. The below chart shows the female counterpart of every rank plus how to formally address them.

The names of peers often consist of 4 elements:

Other interesting facts:

• A peer can hold several titles, meaning if an Earl becomes a Marquess he can retain both titles, but will use the highest rank.
• The son of a Duke, a Marquess and an Earl always uses the father’s second highest rank.
• Every legitimate wife of a peer is entitled to use the female counterpart of the rank, but it does not apply the other way round: husbands of female peers are not entitled to use it.
• The official title of the Mayor of London is The Lord Mayor of London.
• Judges of British courts are called My Lord.
• You could ask what about the title Prince. Well, this could be the 6th rank of peers, however, there is only one rank of that kind: the Prince of Wales.
• Baronets and Knights belong to the class Gentry and they are not peers.

Coronation Robes

Now that we know the basics of the peerages in England, let’s have the icing on the cake! I noticed at the home of Lord Nuffield, the founder of the Morris Mini car, that he and his wife owned a coronation robe. As I am always up to a little bit of fun, I put the costume on, but more importantly, I made a bit of research why they had a coronation robe at all.

Every peer had coronation robes and coronets (not crowns!) which they only ware at Coronation(s).

I must admit, I was not aware that peers are differentiated by their robes as well. The main difference is the coronet – see below drawings (no royalty-free image available, hence I drew it myself).

1) Duke – 8 strawberry leaves
2) Marquess – 4 strawberry leaves, 4 silver balls
3) Earl – 8 silver balls with strawberry leaves
4) Viscomt – 16 silver balls
5) Baron – 6 silver balls

This is not the only thing that reveals the rank. The number of rows of the spots on the ermine cap of the robe, also does that. A duke has 4, a Marquess has 3, an Earl has 2 and a Baron has 1 row of spots. Equally in case of a peeress not only the spots were symbols of her rank, but the length of the train (longest 1.82m, shortest 91.44cm) and the width of the ermine edging.

On top of this, peers had another robe which they wore (and still do) in the House of Lords. These were striped most of the times.

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Wow, I have to say. Mainly because it is incredible that these old traditions are still alive in the UK. This is very strange for somebody like me who comes from a country where we do not have monarchs and traditions linked to it. Although the peerage system is much more complicated than explained above and I am sure Meghan Markle has to do some more in-depth study, hopefully this post helps to understand films like Downtown Abbey much better. 🙂

 

The kitchen is the heart of the home.

When we visit a grand house, I am always looking forward to seeing the servants quarters and the kitchen. The Victorian and Edwardian kitchens are amazing: you can see the technology that was available and used, the different types of copper pots, pastry moulds and details. As I walk through the kitchen, I can see how busy it probably was back in time and realize work must have been difficult in the kitchen. Therefore, the chef and the cook were high up in the hierarchy of a household, however they were not on the top, that was the House Steward. In terms of salary, the chef and the cook took the biscuit.

Why?

Obviously cooking was essential the the household, therefore a cook was needed, however that was not the only reason for hiring one. Entertaining was very important in the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries and at a social event where kings, politicians and other famous guests turned up the food had to be flawless as it also represented the host and his household. Having an excellent cook was essential. Grand houses like Uppark and Petworth would have parties at the weekend when 20-30 guests were entertained, at bigger events the house accommodated 60-70 guests.

The Chef

Only the grandest houses could afford employing a chef who were very often French (NB Queen Victoria’s chef had Italian origin, Charles Emle Francatelli.). You could ask the question why did these grand houses have French chefs. It has several reasons: after the French revolution, servants spread all over Europe as their employers were either sent in exile or executed. The other reason why they were popular was because their cooking skills and expertise was far better then many of the English. All in all having a French chef was a status symbol those days, however, it happened that the English noblemen did not like the strange dishes that the French chefs cooked. In that case the French chefs put their “huff-hat” on and left. On this note I can recall a scene from the Canadian series “Road to Avonlea” where the Scottish director of the White Sand Hotel, Simon Tremayne has a debate with the French chef, Pierre Lapierre. The subject of the debate was haggis which was ordered by the Scottish director, but the French chef was reluctant to prepare it, finding this dish disgusting. Obviously the Scottish director finds oysters, snails and other quirky dishes of the French disgusting.

The Chef earned £120 or £150 per annum which was a generous amount. To put it into perspective, the House Steward too earned £120 but the scullery (kitchen) maid earned £9-12 per annum. The job of a chef was not easy and was rather stressful, so he earned his money to say the least and he had other perks as well. Do not forget, food was not preserved in those days yet, fridges did not exist, so keeping everything fresh was difficult. On top of this, the chef had to amaze the Lord of the house (and his guests) with new recipes all the time, in days when cookery books were not widely spread. A highly valued chef at grandest houses could hire a roast and a pastry cook and several kitchen maids to help out in the kitchen. His perks was to have a little room next to the kitchen where he could have a rest (or a doze 🙂 ) or work on new recipes.

The Cook

We can talk about two types of cooks, the plain cook who could prepare simple dishes, roasts, soups and deserts and served at middle class families and the professional cook who had better skills and could prepare foreign dishes and cook for 12-18 or even for 24 people. Professional cooks had kitchen maids as help in the kitchen and were often women in their 40s who climbed up the ladder and started their career as scullery maids just like Mrs Lipton in “You Rang, M’lord?”. (Alright, she probably was older than 40 but she did mention in the episode “Royal Flush” when she was to cook for 18 guests for a dinner party that “Oh, such a humiliation, nobody talked to me like that since I was a scullery maid.”)

Daily duties

Even the everyday tasks of a cook were depicted in „You Rang, M’lord?” well: the cook got up at 6:30am, by that time the rest of the servants had made the fire and prepared breakfast for the staff. The servants normally had breakfast at 7:30 so that they could prepare and attend the family’s breakfast around 9-9:30am. The cook received the daily supply from the gardener, grocer, fishmonger or butcher in the morning and started to prepare the lunch. The lady of the house discussed the weekly menu with the cook, (this is missing from “You Rang, M’lord?” as Lady Meldrum died and the daughters were not interested) and once a week the cook had to show the accounts, unless there was a housekeeper at the house whose task this was. In case of a social event the menu was discussed days before the event and preparations started as soon as possible, to get ahead of the game. On the day of the event the cook did not stop between 5 and 9pm. To deliver every dish perfectly, a big event required extra attention even from an experienced cook and it was exhausting.

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If we think about it, there were no kitchen appliances back in those days and they had to do lot of things with their own hands, so cooking was indeed a tough job. On top of this if the family did not like the dishes, it was the cook to be blamed so the cook had to please the entire family on a daily basis, so respect for them. This stress is still there for chefs today I presume, the only difference is they have many more kitchen appliances, which makes their lives easier.

Does this sentence ring a bell? Yes, it was Miss Poppy who used to say it with enthusiasm in the series “You rang, M’lord?”, whenever the Kit-Kat Club was the solution for their aristocratic boredom. I was interested, whether this club exist or was a fictional club.

To my greatest surprise the original, or the first real Kit-Kat club had a different function than the one in the series and was established way earlier than the 1920s. The club used to be a political and literary club in the early 18th century and was committed to whig objectives (Whigs were against absolute monarchy). It held its meetings in London and in Water Oakley in Berkshire. The first meetings were held at a Tavern in Shire Lane, run by innkeeper Christopher Catt. Catt called his mutton-pies Kit-Cats, hence the name of the club. The club became famous with members like the architect Sir John Vanburgh, the Duke of Somerset or Sir Robert Walpoe (the first unofficial prime minister of Great-Britain.)

But what does it have to do with a night club in London in the 1920s? Apart from the name, nothing, really. The club Miss Poppy loved to visit, did exist. The Roaring Twenties were marked with the wealth of factory owners and their young families, whose products were needed and used during the war. For the young growing up, this decade brought out the wealthy bohemian aristocrats and new rich generally called as “The Bright Young Things”. They did their best to party as much as they could, because this generation was too young to fight in the Great War and felt guilty for not having fought and survived, or they just simply wanted to enjoy life, we do not know.

After the Great War, in 1921 the rules of serving alcohol were finally changed and drinks could be served until 1 o’clock in the morning, as long as it was served with a meal. As a result, night clubs and jazz clubs flourished.

The Kit-Kat club opened in the Haymarket Street, West End, London, in 1925 and became the centre of London’s night life. According to many, it was Europe’s most luxurious and expensive night club, attracting princes, ministers and of course London’s aristocracy as members. Its seated capacity was 1700 and the number of the members grew rapidly reaching 6000.

The club itself was 2 levels below the entrance level: this is where the ballroom, restaurant, American bar and the dance floor used to be. The balcony was a favorite meeting place for professionals, where the dress code did not apply. The ballroom was rectangular with high ceilings and lobbies. The colours of the interior design were ivory, gold and turquoise. The giant columns which were royal blue and gold and the lights of the dance floor were constantly changing: bright lilies, blue and orange light were illuminated from the ceiling. The club opened at ten o’clock in the evening, but the real party started at half past twelve, when the guests wanted to have fun after visiting the theater. At midnight, guests were entertained by singers, dancers and acrobats. I can see it with my eyes… it must have been similar to the world of the Great Gatsby… I can see the crowd, people dancing, glasses full of champagne chinking together, Charleston played by the band…

In December 1926, the club was closed for three months and fined because liqueurs were served outside of opening hours. There was no consistency in the club’s management and there was a fight going on for the manager position. In May 1927, it was announced that the club re-open as a restaurant, and finally in October, the Kit-Kat Club really opened with a new sparkling program. In the years to follow, the club was proud of many performers and artists and offered a variety of entertainment to its members. Despite all efforts the club’s financial situation deteriorated and it was closed in 1931. The Kit-Kat Club had been one of the most popular entertainment venues. Replacing the Kit-Kat Club was the Trocadero, simply called “Troc” which was popular in the West End, and the most expensive club was “The Embassy”, however they never managed to surpass the decadence of the Kit-Kat Club during it heyday.