Long before Virginia Woolf and her “Bloomsbury Group” became synonymous with the now quaint London neighborhood, the area was a “grimy, sordid, squalid region” where “no nice people lived.” Its boundaries roughly defined by Tottenham Court Road to the west, Euston Road to the north, Gray’s Inn Road to the east, and either High Holborn or the thoroughfare formed by New Oxford Street, Bloomsbury Way and Theobald’s Road to the south, it was ,generally, the bridge between the glittering, aristocratic West End, the sooty City and the poorer districts of Holborn in the south, St Pancras in the north-east and Clerkenwell in the south-east. Nonetheless, the district was known for its abundance of gardened squares and numerous hospitals and academic institutions–if not its most famous tenant, the British Museum.

Bloomsbury was a mixture of shabby genteel and intellectual atmospheres. The old, solidly built Georgian houses had a dignity of their own, and many were converted into shabby, but clean, boarding or temperance houses run by respectable ladies. Some of the streets had come down in the world; in their decay, they retained “a mournful look of having known better days; a look that even their tenement rooms their broken windows, half-stuffed with paper, and their shock-headed dirty inmates [could not] altogether abolish or destroy.” One thing the neighborhood could not escape was the pervading smell of fried fish, which gave rise to jokes that “Bloomsburians live[d] mainly on a dish called ‘Smoked ‘Addick‘.”

The existence of the British Museum and various professional institutions brought a naughty “Bohemian” atmosphere to the district. The population of Bloomsbury largely composed of those that eddied round and round the Museum: the students from overseas–both foreign and from the British colonies–, the continental scholar writing his magnum or other opus, and generally all who filled the boarding houses of which Bloomsbury almost entirely consisted. London University in Gower Street was not far away and students of both Museum and University formed a continuous population, a sort of “Latin Quarter” as different from the Parisian one as could well be imagined.

The squares themselves were found cheek-by-jowl with one another’s differing attitudes. But these were not always boarding houses. Literary and other associations cluster thickly about them. The high ground on which Bloomsbury is built (for it is a gradual ascent all the way from the river to Russell Square) rendered it–its fogs and soot notwithstanding and despite the old tradition that the victims of the plague were mainly buried here–far more bracing than the more fashionable West End. It had certainly its quota of fogs or, “London particulars” as Sam Weller called them, but so had other parts of London.

Queen Square, laid out in the reign of Queen Anne and adorned with a statue whose figure is still questioned today (a toss-up between Queen Anne or George III’s consort, Queen Charlotte), is a curiously shaped square. Though enclosed, no houses were built at the northern end.This arrangement was made for the sake of the fine view of the hills of Highgate and Hampstead that the square then commanded. In and about Great Ormond Street and Queen Square are many hospitals, large airy and splendidly managed institutions such for instance as the well known Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, the National Hospital for Epilepsy and Paralysis under the great Dr Ferrier, and the tall newly built Alexandra Hospital for children. In Powis Place, close to Queen Square, Lord Macaulay lived in early manhood with his family. The house is now joined to the Homoeopathic Hospital. In Great Ormond Street also on the northern side is the Working Men’s College the history of which is so deeply associated with Ruskin, Rossetti, Madox Brown and their friends.

Russell Square, a large and orderly square whose gardens were originally designed by Humphry Repton, was named after the earls and dukes of Bedford, who developed the family’s landholdings in the 17th and 18th centuries. This square was created when new streets were laid out by the duke on the site of the gardens of his former London seat, Bedford House. The surrounding streets contained large terraced houses aimed mainly at upper middle class families and the street lamps all carried the Bedford Arms. At No 65 lived the celebrated painter, Thomas Lawrence, where he received the famous and eminent sitters who made his name famous. At No 66 was a curious relic, a silent, palatial, empty house, from Bloomsbury’s fashionable days.

Bedford Square, built between 1775 and 1783, also targeted upper middle class families. The large, spacious terraced Georgian-style houses were called home by many well-known personages. No 48 housed Elizabeth Jesser Reid, anti-slavery activist and founder of Bedford College for Women; No 6 Lord Eldon, England’s longest-reigning and most popular Lord Chancellor; Margot Asquith, Prime Minister H.H. Asquith’s outspoken wife lived at No 44; and Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, one of the theatre’s finest Hamlet’s, resided at No 22.

For many years after its construction, Bloomsbury Square and its premiere home, Bedford House, were sights of London. About 1760, the square was so countrified that the Duchess of Bedford used to send out cards to her guests, inviting them to Bedford House to “take tea and walk in the fields.” By the Regency era, the square, shorn of Bedford House, had ceased to be fashionable, and as the century progressed, the square was mainly occupied by middle-class professionals. By the Edwardian era, resident had been ousted by offices of professionals and solicitors.

Gordon Square was developed by Thomas Cubitt in the 1820s, as one of a pair with Tavistock Square, which is a block away and has the same dimensions. The economist John Maynard Keynes lived at 46 Gordon Square, and the same house was used by the Bloomsbury Group before Keynes moved in when Vanessa Bell lived here. Fellow Bloomsburyite, Lytton Strachey, lived at No. 51.

At No 32, Brunswick Square, lived Punch artist John Leech, whose illness was aggravated by the organ grinders and minstrel singers who gravitated to the area from nearby Hatton Garden. Great Coram Street, west of this square, was the home (at No 13) of Thackeray during the early period of his marriage, and where he wrote his Paris Sketch Book. “Highly respectable, but not at all fashionable,” was the cruel sentence pronounced for this square and its neighbor opposite, across the grounds of the Foundling Hospital, Mecklenburgh Square.

Founded in 1739 and built in Bloomsbury in the 1740s, Captain Thomas Coram’s Foundling Hospital was a children’s home established for the education and maintenance of exposed and deserted young children. Its playing-grounds looked out onto Lamb’s Conduit Street where passers-by could glimpse the children in their uniforms–boys in their brown and red, and girls in brown frocks, white caps, tuckers and aprons–each sex playing on opposing sides. Lamb’s Conduit Street itself was a place of amusement; filled with curio shops, Hindo idols, yellow dragons and the like, glaring from behind grimy shop windows. Secondhand bookstores could also be found in Bloomsbury, with rare gems and old classics piled high in dingy corners.

Bloomsbury’s smaller squares include Woburn Square, Torrington Square (both made from pieces of the Duke of Bedford’s demolished London house, Red Lion Square, Regent Square and Argyle Square. Mrs Siddons, Lord Eldon, and Millais at No 87, once lived in Gower Street, and Woburn Square holds in Christ Church a memorial of Burne Jones design to Christina Rossetti who, however; lived in Torrington Square No 80. Red Lion Square, laid out in 1698 taking its name from the Red Lion Inn, is intimately connected with nineteenth century art and literature, for William Morris practiced his various crafts at No 9, and at No 17 once lived Burne Jones and Rossetti. According to some sources the body of Oliver Cromwell and two other regicides was placed in a pit on the site of the Square. In Theobald’s Road near by, at No 28 Benjamin Disraeli was born in 1804. By Lamb’s Conduit you come to Great Ormond Street, once a home of Macaulay at No 50, as also of Chancellor Thurlow at No 44. In Hunter Street, leading from Brunswick Square, at No 54 John Ruskin was born, and at 48 Doughty Street, Mecklenburg Square was once a home of Dickens, as No 14 was of Sydney Smith.

Adjoining organ-grinders and minstrel-singers, were “pavement artists”, who camped out in the squares and streets of the district with pastels, paints and canvas, to render the scenery or passers-by who consented to being sketched at the rate of a few shillings. Residents and visitors to the area could find a number of amusements to engage in and catch their eye, in particularly the British Museum. The stranger having satisfied the Cerberus at the wicket gate that he or she is over twenty-one, a warm atmosphere, a comfortable seat, and a luxurious leather desk awaited the jaded wayfarer with further polite attendants in the innermost circle to assist, if necessary his researches; and should he be hungry, a further possibility of a cheap lunch of sausage and mashed potatoes sandwiched between slices of crusty bread, could be found in the refreshment rooms. The British Museum gradually absorbed all the houses near it, and in 1906, plans were made to amalgamate the eastern side of Bedford Square and part of the western side of Russell Square.

Posterity has coupled The Bloomsbury Group with this district of London. An English collectivity of loving friends and relatives who lived in or near London during the first half of the twentieth century, their work deeply influenced literature, aesthetics, criticism, and economics as well as modern attitudes towards feminism, pacifism, and sexuality. Coming mostly from upper middle-class professional families, several members of the Group (E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell) had small independent incomes. Others such as Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf, the MacCarthys, Duncan Grant, and Roger Fry needed to work for their livings. Only Clive Bell could be called wealthy. All the male members of the early Bloomsbury Group except Duncan Grant were educated at the Cambridge colleges of Trinity College or King’s College. At Trinity in 1899 Lytton Strachey, Leonard Woolf, Saxon Sydney-Turner and Clive Bell became good friends with Thoby Stephen, who introduced them to his sisters Vanessa and Virginia in London, and in this way the Bloomsbury Group came into being.

The district has had its ups and downs: from ultra-fashionable residence in the 17th and 18th centuries to professional, medical and slightly nefarious, it nonetheless retained its draw for the Bohemian aspects of society–the artists, authors and theatrical groups–who have granted us, and generations to come, the gifts of aesthetic and literary masterpieces.

Further Reading:
Virginia Woolf’s London: A Guide to Bloomsbury and Beyond by Jean Moorcroft Wilson

According to British restaurant critic, Giles Coren,”a hundred years ago, British food was in its golden age, with the arrival of the great restaurant, the celebrity chef, exotic new dishes, and gargantuan 12 course meals.” Leading the way was, of course, King Edward VII. When Prince of Wales, he had swept aside both the lengthy meal times, encouraged service à la russe, and introduced, via his great appetite, the trend for copious, rich, luxurious eating habits. By the time he came to the throne, “his aristocratic and upper middle-class subjects were set on an annual collision course with raging dyspepsia.”

The restaurant dinner, popular in Paris since the time of the French Revolution, had reached British shores by the 1880s. At first the act of dining in public was viewed warily–gentlemen were already accustomed to dining away from home at their clubs, men of the middle-class in steak shops and those of the working-class at oyster shops or food stands along the streets. For ladies, the thought of eating in a place where strangers could gawk and stare was abhorrent. The breaking down of social barriers contributed to the custom of “dining out” by the 1890s. No longer were private, in-home suppers indicative of who was “in” and who was “out”, and both ladies and gentlemen eagerly partook of the opportunity to leave their homes to see and be seen in the glamorous setting of a restaurant of the highest class.

To cater to this influx of diners, luxury hotels such as Claridge’s, the Cecil, the Ritz and the Savoy, began to remodel their dining rooms into chic restaurants, fitted with terraced dining, winter gardens and separate supper rooms for private parties. An American influence came with the introduction of the “bar” and the “grillroom”, which was a room set aside for informal dining. The advent of this new transatlantic society left one restaurant clinging to the English tradition of formal evening attire. To dine in the Savoy’s restaurant, or even to be served coffee in the adjoining foyer, it was absolutely essential that a lady wore a dinner gown sans chapeau and her escort a dress suit. Anyone who didn’t follow this command was liable to be refused entry, as an earl and his countess were to discover one night in 1907.

With these restaurants came the celebrity chef. Not since Antoine Carême ruled the stomachs of the Regency era’s celebrities had the British shores experienced the artistry of a chef de haute cuisine. His successor? Auguste Escoffier, a Nice-born chef who simplified and modernized Carême’s methods and contributed to the development of modern French cuisine. Forming a partnership with Cesar Ritz in 1890, the two men moved to the Savoy Hotel in London and from there, established numerous hotels, including the Hotel Ritz’s across the world. In 1898, they opened the Hotel Ritz in Paris, with The Carlton opening in London the following year, where Escoffier also introduced the practice of the à la carte menu.

Escoffier had a rival in the form of a woman: the former scullery maid and proud Cockney, Rosa Lewis. The proprietress of the Cavendish Hotel, she had begun her culinary career in the house of the Comte de Paris, the London-based Orleanist pretender to the French throne. From there she went from the kitchens of the Duc d’Aumale, to the Duc d’Orleans, and at one time, simultaneously controlled the kitchens of White’s Club, and W.W. Astor’s home, Hever Castle. It was when Lady Randolph Churchill acquired Rosa’s services that she began her ascent to fame. Anecdotes tell of the Prince of Wales, upon being introduced to Rosa by Lady Randolph as an excellent cook, never doubted it, exclaiming “Damme, she takes more pains with a cabbage than with a chicken. . . . She gives me nothing sloppy, nothing colored up to dribble on a man’s shirt-front.”

Rosa became the first freelance cook, and was available for hire by any person who could afford her services. With Bertie’s endorsement and her food witness to her talent, she became much in demand, with hostesses vying to obtain her services for country house parties throughout England. As she grew in importance, Rosa began to travel about with a chorus of assistant cooks attired exactly as she was, in spotless white with tall chef’s hats and high laced “cooking boots” of soft black kid, to support the ankles during the long hours spent preparing dishes.

During the Coronation year of 1902, Rosa produced 29 suppers for just as many large balls, and often came home in the wee hours of the morning without a wink of sleep. With the money saved from that year, she bought the Cavendish Hotel in Jermyn Street, where she earned a fortune catering to the vital needs of the aristocracy–privacy and excellent food. Available for use was a private dining room where swells could bring their lady friends, and permanent suites for those inclined to live outside of their homes.

Exotic dishes were created to meet the demand from aristocratic gourmands. The ultimate Edwardian recipe? A rich, extravagant dish comprised of pate de fois gras stuffed inside of a truffle, which was stuffed inside of an ortolan, itself stuffed inside of a quail. Escoffier invented the Peche Melba and Melba Toast in the 1890s, both dishes named for the strident soprano Nellie Melba, and Rosa Lewis invented a delicious quail pudding for King Edward.

Because meal times were pushed back by the close of the 19th century, other, smaller meals were inserted into the day to fill rumbling bellies. Lunch was inserted between breakfast and dinner, ladies added the afternoon tea. Another sort of tea–with hot muffins, crumpets, toast, cold salmon, pies, ham, roast beef, fruit, cream and tea and coffee–found its way into the more active and informal program of the country house.

The Edwardians never stopped eating. From the time they rose, to even the times they awoke in the middle of the night, food was ready and available. A typical English breakfast consisted of haddock, kidneys, kedgeree, porridge, game pie, tongue, poached eggs, bacon, chicken and woodcock. Luncheon included hot and cold dishes: cold fowls, lamb, pigeon, cold pie and ptarmigan, puddings, cheeses, biscuits, jellies, and fruit.

Supper now served à la russe, this allowed a greater sample of dishes available, and the course numbers grew. Guests sitting down for a ten to fifteen course meal was quite normal. Of course one wasn’t required to partake of each course, nor was it expected, but the parade of dishes: hors d’oeuvres, soups, salads, vegetables, meats–poultry, game, beef, mutton, and pork–, seafood, puddings, breads, savories, and fruits, if not the number of wines offered to compliment each course, was enough to make our 21st century stomachs queasy. And it didn’t end there. Hostesses expecting the King were well advised to provide snacks consisting of lobster salad and cold chicken to serve at eleven, and even after dinner, a plate of sandwiches, and sometimes a quail or cutlet, was sent to his rooms. At night, dainties were left outside of guests’ rooms during country house parties, in case someone felt a bit peckish.

Despite the expense put into creating these elaborate meals, those of smaller means weren’t left out of the general smörgåsbord. This was the apogee of name brands and modern processed foods such as Marmite (1902), Ty.phoo tea (1904), Colman’s Mustard (1903), bouillon cubes made simulate beef extract by Maggi (1908 ) and Oxo (1910), instant coffee (1901), Bird’s Custard Powder (est. 1837), Jacob’s water biscuits (1881), HP Sauce (1903) and Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate (est 1824). The appearance of refrigeration made dining much easier too.

This trend for gargantuan meals obviously had its downsides. A the end of the season, these Edwardian gastronomes found their digestion so wound in knots, a month-long jaunt to the Continent was deemed necessary. And the annual trek to Austrian or German watering spots like Bad-Ischl or Carlsbad, were added to the general round of the season. Here our ladies and gentlemen were put on strict diets and forced to exercise daily. At the end of the treatment, or “cure”, they would return to their homes a bit trimmer and with better digestion, only to begin the round of eating once more. Fortunately for the ladies, the standards of beauty praised the ample, womanly curves created by nature and enhanced with corsets, which gave them the signature “S” shape most assiduously admired by the men of the period.

Further Reading:
Manor House: Life in an Edwardian Country House by Juliet Gardiner
Rosa Lewis: An Exceptional Edwardian by Anthony Masters
Escoffier: The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery by H. L. Cracknell and R. J. Kaufmann
Food in History by Reay Tannahill

During Victoria’s reign, the Court Drawing Rooms were held in Buckingham Palace at four stated periods every year–two before Easter and two after. Levées, hosted by the Prince of Wales for the presentation of gentlemen, were held at intervals during the like season in St. James’s Palace. Though of lessening distinction as the Victorian period wore on, the delicious prospect of being presented to the Queen or Prince of Wales continued to be a beacon to ambitious social climbers.

When the date of a drawing room was announced, letters poured into the Lord Chamberlain, suggesting names of ladies for presentation. Everyone who had kissed the Queen’s hand was able to nominate another for presentation. But it wasn’t guaranteed that any name submitted was accepted. The list underwent careful scrutiny by both the Lord Chamberlain and the Queen, Her Majesty only receiving those who “wore the white flower of a blameless life.”

There were only three qualifications for admittance to the throne room:

• 1. The lady wishing to be presented should be of good moral and social character.
  2. Presentation had to be made by someone who had already been presented.
  3. The status of the actual presentee. The most obvious candidates, the wives and daughters of the aristocracy, had the privilege of being kissed by Queen Victoria (though no kisses were received if the Princess of Wales were acting as stand-in, and the practice was dropped entirely in the Edwardian era), then came the ranks of those candidates whose presentation would be sealed by the action of kissing the Queen’s hand. These included the daughters and wives of the country gentry and Town gentry, of the clergy, of naval and military officers, of professional men such as physicians and barristers, of merchants, bankers and members of the Stock Exchange, and “persons engaged in commerce on a large scale.”

Summonses were sent out three weeks in advance, allowing ample time for the excited debutante or newly married lady, to practice the complicated court curtsy and order the regulated costume demanded for presentation, as laid out, via the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, in Lady Colin Campbell’s Manners and Rules of Good Society, 1911 edition:

Full Court Dress: low bodice, short sleeves, and train to dress not less than three yards in length from the shoulders. Whether the train is cut round or square is a matter of inclination or fashion. The width at the end should be 54 inches. It is also imperative that a presentation dress should be white if the person presented be an unmarried lady and it is also the fashion for married ladies to wear white on their presentation unless their age rendered their doing so unsuitable The white dresses worn by either debutante or married ladies may be trimmed with either colored or white flowers according to individual taste.

High Court Dress: dress of silk satin or velvet may be worn at Their Majesties Courts and on other State occasions by ladies to whom from illness infirmity or advancing age the present low Court dress is inappropriate. Bodices in front cut square or heart shaped which may be filled in with white only either transparent or lined at the back high or cut down three quarters height. Sleeves to elbow either thick or transparent. Trains, gloves, and feathers as usual. It is necessary for ladies who wish to appear in High Court Dress to obtain Royal permission through the Lord Chamberlain. This regulation does not apply to ladies who have already received permission to wear high dress.

White gloves only should be worn excepting in case of mourning when black or grey gloves are admissible. As a lady on presentation does not now kiss the Queen’s hand as formerly she did she is not required to remove the right hand glove before entering the Presence Chamber. This order therefore is no longer in force and a lady wearing elbow gloves and bracelets will find it a great convenience not to be to take off her glove.

It was compulsory for both Married and Unmarried Ladies to Wear Plumes. The married lady’s Court plume consisted of three white feathers. An unmarried lady’s of two white feathers. The three white feathers should be mounted as a Prince of Wales plume and worn towards the left hand side of the head. Colored feathers may not be worn. In deep mourning, white feathers must be worn, black feathers are inadmissible.

White veils or lace lappets must be worn with the feathers. The veils should not be longer than 45 inches.

Bouquets are not included in the dress regulations issued by the Lord Chamberlain although they are invariably carried by both married and unmarried ladies. It is thus optional to carry a bouquet or not, and some elderly ladies carry much smaller bouquets than do younger ladies. A fan and a lace pocket handkerchief are also carried by a lady on presentation or on attending a Court but these two items are also altogether optional.
Armed with the proper arsenal, the young lady or new wife was ready to take London by storm. Queen Victoria held her presentations in the afternoon at 3 o’clock, which caused a traffic snarl of monumental proportions. It was common for the débutante to queue up in her carriage for hours down The Mall towards Buckingham Palace, boxed in on both sides by other equipages and the throng of curious onlookers. Then, once she alighted from her carriage, there was another long wait in the close, sweltering palace antechambers, where neither refreshments nor relief were available.

The young lady who persevered to the end, however, got her rewards. Carrying her train over her left arm, she made her way through the groups of attendants to the anteroom or corridor where one of the lords-in-waiting, with his wand, spread out her train she’d let down, and walked forward to the Throne Room.

Her name was announced as she curtsied before the Queen, so low as to almost kneel, and while doing such, she kissed the royal hand extended to her, underneath which she placed her own ungloved right hand. The peeress or daughter of a peer received a kiss from Queen Victoria. When the Princess of Wales stood in for Her Majesty, the lady being presented curtsied only and did not kiss the Princess’s hand. After passing Her Majesty, the débutante curtsied to any of the Princesses near her and retired backwards in what may be called a succession of curtsies until she reached the threshold of the doorway. The official in attendance replaced her train upon her arm and the presentation was complete!

As was stated above, the reception of a kiss on the cheek from the Queen or the gift of one upon her hand was tossed out when Edward VII came to the throne. Other, more important changes were made to the presentation ceremony. Things were sped up by his reign, the drawing rooms and levees switched to the evening and held in June; the telephone used to summon a débutante’s transport, thus easing the traffic; buffet supper, served from tables laid with gold plate helped to revive waiting ladies; and the court photographers were allotted a room for speedy snapshots of the women.

Levées were conducted somewhat on the same plan as that of the Drawing room but were confined exclusively to men who wear uniform or Court dress. Hosted by the Prince of Wales, later the King, those entitled to be presented to H.R.H./H.M. were members of the aristocracy and gentry, the members of the diplomatic courts, the Cabinet and all leading Government officials, Members of Parliament, leading members of the legal profession, the naval and military professions, the leading members of the clerical profession, the leading members of the medical and artistic professions, the leading bankers merchants and members of the Stock Exchange, and persons engaged in commerce on a large scale. An exception to the rule as regards retail trade was made in favor of any person receiving Knighthood ,or when holding the office of Mayor, or being made a Justice of the Peace, or on receiving a Commission in the Territorial forces.

The workings of the levee were similar to those of the drawing rooms: dates announced and names submitted, and specific court dress required:

The Dress to be worn at Courts State Functions and Levees: Full dress uniform is invariably worn by all gentlemen entitled to wear it. All officers Scottish kilted corps should wear the kilt irrespective their being mounted officers or not. Gentlemen who do not wear uniform may wear either velvet Court dress new style; velvet Court dress old style; cloth Court dress.

The new style velvet Court dress is of black silk velvet. The body of the coat lined with white silk and the skirt with black silk. Steel buttons. Waistcoat of white satin or black silk velvet. Breeches of black silk velvet, black silk hose, patent leather shoes, steel buckled, white bow necktie, white gloves, sword, black beaver or silk cocked hat.

The velvet Court dress old style is very similar to the foregoing with the addition of a black silk wig bag at the back of the neck and lace frills and ruffles.

The cloth Court dress consists of a coat of dark mulberry claret or green cloth with black silk linings, gold embroidery on collar, cuffs, and pocket flaps, gilt buttons with Imperial Crown, waistcoat of white corded silk or white Marcella, breeches of cloth color of coat, black silk hose, patent leather shoes, sword, white bow necktie, white gloves, black beaver or silk cocked hat.

On certain days of the year, the so-called Collar days, high diplomatic and distinguished personages wear the collars and badges of the Garter, Thistle, St Patrick, Bath, and other Orders of Knighthood.

The rules and regulations for being presented at a drawing room or levee were strictly adhered to, but the practically “open sesame” granted towards those who wished to enter society (with a little “s”), the air of exclusiveness granted court circles in the early decades of the Victorian era had nearly dissipated. Under the aegis of the convivial and bon vivant Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, anyone who could entertain and be entertained was welcome in his circles. It was a trend that, if not the numbers of middle-class men entering Parliament, the self-made millionaires being ennobled or knighted, or the hordes of Americans and Continental aristocrats flooding British shores for the season, hunting, shooting, racing, and other amusements–and vice versa–sorely tried the aristocratic and royal prerogatives that kept social climbers firmly out. By the 1880s, American writers cynically shared that “in time it became possible to achieve a Court introduction without the intercession of the American Envoy, simply by arousing, through means it would not be discreet to name, the interest of some English noblewoman whose exchequer was at a low ebb.” However that may be, this brief brush with royalty continued to be considered a stamp of social approval by nouveaux riches and foreign nobodies until its demise in 1958.