The English class system and the Marlows in't

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

Being one of them iggerant colonial types, I don't really understand the English class system. I have seen the Marlow family described as both 'upper middle class' and 'landed gentry'. Some questions:

1. What is the difference between 'upper middle class' and 'landed gentry' in terms of typical profile, assets/income, attitudes and behaviour?

2. Seeing Trennels is a large farm entailed to the Marlow line, the family is presumably 'landed', but does this necessarily make them 'gentry'?

3. Whereabouts do senior naval officers stand in the grand scheme of social status and income?

Tell all, ye wise and knowledgeable...

Comments

[gillo]

Personally, from the vantage point of upwardly-mobile-intellectual-middle class, I'd say that the Marlows are probably both UMC and LG. The "gentry" bit links back to the untitled but hugely influential squirearchy of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century - think Jane Austen's Bennet and Knightley families.

The assumption of boarding school is a pointer, as is the entailment. That makes them an "old" family, and socially significant, whatever their income.

Officers are by definition "gentelmen" (or ladies*g*) but senior naval officers are definitely upper crust.

Another term you might come across which would suit the circles the Marlows move in is "county set". Untitled, but of a lineage that makes them vaguely scorn the more nouveau riche suchies and earldoms.*g*.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

In The Player's Boy, the Marlowes are prosperous yeoman farmers: I imagine a fair amount of social mobility during C18th-C19th (the kind of thing that Cobbett ranted about, educating sons to be gentlemen and giving girls piano lessons instead of training in dairywork).

The situation is complicated by the fact that people who had made their money in commerce, industry, the professions, etc, used to buy property in the country and set up as 'country gentlemen'.

Any account of the English class system is either going to be very long or extremely over-simplified! All sorts of gradations even within classes.

[liadnan]

"Landed Gentry" is really the blurred boundary between the upper end of the rural upper middle class and the aristocracy. I am not convinced the Marlows are properly described as such, though the Merricks clearly are, and have been at least that since before the Elizabethan storys, when the Marlows were clearly mid-ranking yeoman farmers. Evidently they've been successful over the ensuing 400 years, meanwhile the Merricks were probably paying recusancy fines from time to time.

The Trennels entail is to my mind slightly odd. (Is it entailed in the Player's Boy? Surely not.)

I continue to maintain that the best book written on the English class system in the post-war years is Jilly Cooper's Class, though it was written before the Thatcher revolution, which did change some things radically. I'm not sure it's sensible to generalise about the upper middle class and there is a huge distinction to be made between its rural and urban, particularly North London, varieties.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

That's actually the key point - the Marlows are fundamentally urban at the beginning and retain a certain urban outlook about them. Some of them adapt more effectively than others, but that's the slight twinge that takes away from them being landed gentry.

[liadnan]

The other point worth noting that English class, in the social perception sense as opposed to the distinct strict economic and particularly marxist sense, has an awful lot to do with where the observer is standing...

[liadnan]

Actually, cycling home last night it occurred to me that there's perhaps a better way of putting it: the landed gentry is the lower ranking bit of the upper classes, specifically, that bit without a peerage (?or baronetcy).

Which fits well for the Merricks. Typically, while catholic peers managed to quietly hang on (Howards, Mowbrays etc), those of the upper class families of Englandwho were steadfast recusants missed out on the vast expansion of the peerage after Elizabeth (except, to some extent, under James II of course). For example, the Stonors, (who I occasionally suspect had something to do with Forrest's perception of the Merricks though if so she's downgraded them a little bit*): have held their large estate since at least shortly after the conquest, possibly earlier, though they sold all their other lands to pay recusancy fines, but didn't acquire a peerage (or even a baronetcy I think) until one of them married the female only heir of an ancient barony and persuaded Victoria, with whom they had an in, to re-grant it on the basis it would be a shame if the title died).

*The Stonors continue to hang on at Stonor Park, near Henley. It was Campion's main base and the press on which he ran off Decem Rationes remains in place (compare "Blessed Edmund Campion said mass at our place once", though that's a proud boast of many recusant gentry families), and like certain Merrick's some of the Elizabethans made the long list for the Forty Martys but fell off for suspected more political motives. They included the magnificent Dame Cecily Stonor, whose facing-down of the Justices at Oxford when in her 80s ought to qualify her as patron saint of the crabby old bat brigade.

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

Very interesting. What do you make, in light of what you've said above, of Patrick's almost invariable habit of referring to the priest who says Mass in the Merricks' private chapel as 'our old lad'? It always strikes me as astonishingly disrespectful and rather odd, particularly in view of his personal devoutness and the family's very deliberate identification with their recusant tradition and pre-Vatican II Catholicism. I grew up in a very different, but also devoutly Catholic, provincial Ireland (source of the stable boys who presumably inject a touch of much-needed proletarian oomph into the rarefied atmosphere of the Merrick chapel), and priests were invariably referred to as 'Father So and So', with (a rather excessive amount of) respect now completely banished by disgust at clerical abuse revelations.

I wondered idly whether Patrick's references to the priest rather as though he were a type of valued family servant suggested a kind of latter-day recusant arrogance and class entitlement, with priests essentially being adjuncts to family adherence to the faith?

[liadnan]

I think it's quite believeable for someone of Patrick's social position and age (he is posing though and if Anthony heard him his eyebrow might well go up).
My father grew up in much the same environment as you.

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

Hurrah for the Censuring Eyebrow of Anthony Merrick.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

I supposed that the "old" was literally the case, and that he was too old for parish life, perhaps living in a clergy house but supported financially by the Merricks. I'd supposed that referring to him as lad was a facetious way of disguising the socially embarrassing fact (to someone like Patrick by that date and in those surroundings) that they were in a position to supply a priest to the neighbourhood

Entailment

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, Trennels is entailed in Players Boy (or P & Rebels). Will (I think) is talking to Nick about going home and asks "is it in tail-mail?" Meaning, I think, that if Geoffrey and Kate have no children, or only girls, Nick would be in line to inherit the property.
As there's been a Marlow at Trennels since 900 and something (see Falconer's Lure) I imagine there must have been something in place to stop some ne'er-do-well ancestor selling up to pay off debts.

Quite agree about working classes and upper-class children and dogs eating midday dinner - my great-aunt, deeply ordinary but aspiring posh used to quote that all the time.
Schools of course, always have midday dinner, even posh, Kingscote type academies.

Re: Entailment

[liadnan]

Tail male is strictly a restricted entail, "to A and the heirs male of his body", which limits it to inheritance down the male line only. I still have doubts about the likelihood of anyone leaving Trennels in such a way. Possible of course, and I don't have access to stats on entails at present.

Re: Entailment

[owl]

Isn't there an 'in tail general' as well? And Trennels obviously did pass down in the male line, or else the husbands were forced to take 'Marlow' as their surnames. :D

Re: Entailment

[liadnan]

Yes: tail general, tail male, and, if only for the purposes of exam questions, tail female. There could also be a "special tail" "to A and the heirs of his body begotten on B".
All arises from the statute De Donis 1285 as amended up to and including the 1925 property legislation. Since 1996 it has been impossible to create them at all.

Re: Entailment

[liadnan]

Memo to self: check whether Duffy has anything to say about any of the wealthier farms in Morebath being entailed in The Voices of Morebath

Re: Entailment

[richenda.livejournal.com]

My school had lunch - even by the time that the school had outgrown its dining hall, you ate either first or second lunch.

Most people had supper when they got home, unless there were dinner guests. In that case, it depended much on your age, and the relationship between the family and the guests whether you went in to dinner or had supper and homework and went in for dessert before you said goodnight

[anstruther.livejournal.com]

The English class system is horribly complicated, being made up of a thousand gradations and shadings. No one fact is enough to base a judgement on, it's more a matter of building up a picture based on lots of little indications. And as liadnan and clanwilliam say, class works differently in rural and urban areas. The increased social mobility of the last two centuries adds to the confusion.

The Merricks are definitely landed gentry, it's less clear what the Marlows are.

[(Anonymous)]

I think the Merricks (esp Ronnie) are clearly a lot smarter than the Marlows. Isn't there a bit in Peter's Room where Nicola's surprised to see that Rowan can not only dance, but 'fit in' at the Merrick's do - the Marlow girls have clearly not been brought up with the expectation of plenty of local parties.

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

But remember, the Marlows, while historically attached to Trennels, have only relatively recently begun to live there, and before that were solidly Hampstead types. Neither Rowan nor any of the Marlow young would have had all that much to do with the kind of 'county' society they begin to find themselves moving in by their (is it?) second Christmas at Trennels, nor would they have had any expectation of it. Of course, as I think the vicar says near the start of Falconer's Lure, that the Marlows ARE Marlows is all-important locally. Presumably a family that had emrely bought, rather than inherited, Trennels would have had a far more difficult time being considered anything other than blow-ins.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

As a slight additional complication, the Trennels in The Player's Boy is actually the farmhouse now inhabited by Kay and the steps: Trennels as Nicola knows it "was actually built by a Marlow called Joshua who'd made his pile in the slave trade".

So the Marlows are socially mobile but have made it to the upper middle classes now, whereas the Merricks have always been landed gentry.

[liadnan]

Ah, of course, I'd forgotten about Joshua. Quite credible of course.

Trennels

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

I never knew any of this! Which book is it in, please?

Re: Trennels

[liadnan]

Can't quite remember but is when Nick is reading the farm log from Nicholas' time and thinks about him riding away from Trennels then adjusts her mental picture when she realises she is thinking of the wrong house.

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

I am sure coughingbear knows better than I about these things, but my understanding is that the Navy has historically offered unique opportunities for social mobility. In the early days, relatively poor lower middle class families would go to enormous lengths to get their sons a berth as a midshipman, in the hope he would distinguish himself and rise through the ranks (and getting rich on prize money on the way). And it was even possible ordinary sailors with skill and valour might gain a commission via the warrant officer system.

These days of course, you only need 2 A levels...and there's a sad shortage of prize money....

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

The navy is definitely more upper class (and has been for most of the 20th Century) than the army or, in particular, the air force.

[gillo]

The Guards regiments, on the other hand, are more upper class than anything - for officers, that is.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

And that's what Ronnie Merrick is in, of course.

Navy

[(Anonymous)]

Hence the old joke at the Army v. Navy Rugby match, where the Colonel and Admiral are entertaining a lady:

Lady - Why do the Army where red jerseys?
Colonel - So that the blood doesn't show
Admiral - The Navy wear blue for the same reason.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

Not quite - the Air Force is much more socially acceptable than the Army, unless we're talkijg about the Guards.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

Funny you should ask that - recently had a lonmg email discussion about it.

As someone says, the Marlowes are yeomanry in the historical books.
The class structure then was nobility, gentry, yeomanry. Landed gentry is a more recent distinction from simply gentry, and the easiest way to explain it is that landed gentry don't need to earn a living, whereas gentry might be in reduced circumstances. Even in Jon's time. the Marlowes run their land themselves, which landed gentry wouldnt need to do - they'd employ an agent.
They'd also have a much larger domestic staff. Even after the Second World War, many ordinary professional families would almost certainly have one or two staff - probably cook-general and possibly a maid - whereas landed gentry would have an agent, perhaps a man servant/chauffeur, and probably a butler too.
Rowan talks about being finished, but not about not being presented - not even about not doing a season. That would be very odd in landed gentry. (Presentation to the King and Queen had ended by then, but doing the season hadn't, nor Queen Charlote's Ball and curtseying to the cake.)Naval officers - well, they might fit anywhere -birth or career - but it's pretty clear that they need his income - which they wouldn't, if they were more than simple gentry, risen from yeoman farmers(not that the term yeoman was much used by the twentieth century, except in a historical sense).
I could g oon, but that's probably enough.

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

Oh, I dunno; my father is what might be called landed gentry (he would describe himself as a land agent or landowner rather than a farmer, although that's what he is really!) but the question of a season never even arose - I didn't even know it still happened until long after I would have had one, in the early 1970s! My family considered it, and spoke of it as, something that died with the War.

And yes, the Marlows would definitely have needed their father's income from the Navy - suddenly inheriting what is a fairly large estate they would have had to pay enormous death duties, and very little cash to pay them with. Land may be incredibly valuable, but it doesn't necessarily provide any cash!

[richenda.livejournal.com]

Well, you have to be introduced (to the cake and the Ball : D) by someone who's already been introduced. If you didn't know that it still existed, presumably you didn't know anyone who had?

And I agree that there are immense variations and gradations, and that it was very different in the 70s than in the 40s and 50s - but, in my view, the strongest argument is that the author says that they were yeomanry in Elizabethan times, when they owned the same land, and that, to me, discounts them completely from the genre. Yeomanry might and often were considered gentry, especially still owning the same land for four centuries, but to be regarded as landed gentry I think that they'd have had to make a lot more social and ownership progress than they seem to have made.

An argument that I didn't bother with last time is much weaker - would their grandmother have been so discouraging of the marriage and so supercilious of the family if they were regarded as landed gentry?

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think my parents knew plenty of people, they just didn't want it for us. Nor would I have wanted it, I don't think.

Don't forget that just having been there for 500 years, or whatever, would make the Marlows pretty much viewed as "landed gentry" in the eyes of the village people, even if not among their own social circle. Although "our" Marlows, in point of fact, would have been viewed as "incomers" since they had been living in London.

And I think the grandmother would have been supercilious about _anybody_ wanting to marry Pamela at that stage - I think she was too young, wasn't she?