To have a grandson heir to a dukedom is a greater distinction than to be President of the United States!
The silhouette of the Edwardian woman changed drastically between the 1880s and the start of WWI. From the protruding bustle of the 1880s and the aggressive, slightly masculine leg-o’mutton sleeves of the 1890s, to the S-bend, swan-like shape of the 1900s and the ultra-slim line of the hobble-skirt in 1910, each reflected the shift of [...]
The ritual of taking tea in the “afternoon” (really, early evening, around four to five o’clock) conjures images of polite, white-gloved ladies gossiping over cups of steaming Oolong or Darjeeling. The ritual was established in the 1840s by the 7th Duchess of Bedford, who, finding herself famished between dinner and supper, “ordered a small [...]
To the Edwardians, everything had its place, and most importantly, everyone. For a society now transformed by the influx of wealth-sans-birth, a set rules were created to show who was in, and keep others out. Prior to the era, Britain’s ruling class of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century was composed of scarcely more than [...]
