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The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy

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David Cannadine is probably the leading historian of the British aristocracy and landed gentry. The readers of this book will fall into two classes (1) serious historians of the period, and (2) readers of English fiction from Trollope to Waugh who would like to know more about the aristocracy. The latter may find parts of this book heavy going. Cannadine is concerned with the history of a class, and individuals are discussed to illustrate his points. Additionally, a working knowledge of British political history of the period covered (1870-post WWII) is presumed.

Having said that, I found the book well written and thoroughly researched. Cannadine's work is too complex to be reduced to a short summary, but basically the aristocracy found itself beset on all side from around 1880 onward. A prolonged agricultural depression lowered their incomes, and created political pressure to break up the big estates. The increase in the franchise and the end of pocket boroughs undercut their power in the House of Commons. This in turn led to the aristocracy being abandoned even by the Tory party, which realized where the votes were. Ever increasing estate taxes (especially during and after World War II) approached confiscatory levels, requiring families to sell off their land. And many aristocrats found themselves completely unable to cope with those changes. Those who could cope did so largely by breaking the mold of the landed aristocracy of tradition.

Anyone looking for a "Brideshead Revisted" view of the aristocracy will be disappointed. But anyone who wants to know the pressures on the real-life equivalents of the characters of Waugh or Trollope will be greatly informed by this book.

A century ago, the British titled class was still God's elect: the wealthiest, most powerful, and most glamorous segment of the population. Then things began to fall apart and this rather scholarly work attempts to explain why. The popular assault on "landlordism," the proliferation of titles, the democratic revolution, the question of Irish independence, the escape of many of the nobility to the farther corners of the empire where they could still wield something like their old power, the institution of life peerages, plus the leveling effects of two world wars -- all took their toll and resulted in today's titled elite becoming, for the most part, an elegant anachronism surviving precariously on the margins of British society. The author's style and wit are especially evident in his vignettes of such characters as Wilfrid Blunt, Lord Howe, and the Mitford sisters, but this book will still demand some intellectual commitment from the reader.

How is it that the owners of Britain's stately homes, who once lived magnificently, now are reduced to admitting paying visitors to keep their homes? While this question is never asked in David Cannadine's book, it is answered nonetheless.

Cannadine manages rather adroitly to discuss the long downward spiral of the British aristocracy amidst the backdrop of the history of Great Britain in the 19th and 20th century. There was a time in which these great magnates practically owned or controlled most of the wealth of the nation. What went wrong?

A better question might be, what went right. Although they managed to control politics, the military, the church and the civil service, the position of these guardians of Britannia was undermined by two things, the industrial revolution (which put up a new manufacturing class in opposition to the traditional nobles) and the rise of popular democracy. The first three reform bills drastically weakened the traditional hold of the aristocracy on the political process. During the 19th century it was a rare government that did not include several if not many representatives of the titled orders. By late the 20th century, the presence of one of these would seem somewhat quaint, a reminder of by gone days.

But it was not just the loss of political power that undermined the aristocracy, the immediate pre WWI years were a disaster of the first magnitude with Lloyd George and his "people's budget."
One wonders what would have happened to someone of Lloyd George's ilk in the 17th century. Doubless he would have shared the same fate as Bishop Laud.

WWI, WWII, and the rise of the Labor Party really were the final nails in the coffin of the British Aristocracy and the once lords of the realm are now reduced to lending their names to directorships (some of doubtful legitimacy), opening their homes to tourists, and even worse turning their backs on the whole of what it meant to be noble as the family fortunes and the roof of the family manse continue to erode away.

Cannadine handles all of this rather well bolstering each of his claims brilliantly. If one wants to know how the British Aristocracy went from being the rulers of the realm to one of its tourist attractions they should read this book.

This book is an absolute must read for anyone interested not merely in the decline of British aristocracy, but in the swift changes wrought in British society, politics and literature from 1880 to the outbreak of WWII. Cannadine does cover WWII and the following decades, but he gives them rather short shrift, for, as the exacting and exhaustive main body of this magisterial work makes superabundantly clear, the British aristocracy was already in rigor mortis by then.

What made this work so indispensable to me was that it showed the actual, very real, background for literary works written during this period: Waugh, Wilde, Wodehouse, Yeats and, of course, the Mitfords. If you want to know the reality of what happened to estates like Waugh's fictional Brideshead, you will learn all about the land devaluation, estate taxes and encumbrances on such estates originally contracted in order to ensure entail and jointures, but now spelling their doom. You will meet many, all too many, real life Lady Marchmains and understand more fully the social backdrop which makes them totally unsuited for the 20th Century.

And, well, let's just take an actual case: Bertrand Russell. Primogeniture ensured that the gentrified earldom in which he came of age passed onto his brother. In previous eras, a generous codicil with annuity would have, nevertheless, granted him lifelong security. Unfortunately, due to land devaluation, his brother went bankrupt and lost everything except the title. Russell, too, lost everything and became a Socialist member of the Labour party, not entirely because of his ideological position and philosophical beliefs, but because of something deeper from which they arose: a visceral animosity to the industrialists and capitalists who now controlled the country. As Cannadine points out, there were really only two extreme positions for such disillusioned, disinherited aristos to take: socialism or fascism. Of course, Russell was a genius who made great advances in the field of mathematics and went on to win the Nobel Prize in literature. But, through most of his life, he had to support himself through lectures and writing; and, until the publication and unexpected popularity of his A History of Western Philosophy, he was almost continuously on the verge of bankruptcy. Even after his brother died and he became Lord Russell, he maintained that the only benefit that accrued from the title was the ability to secure hotel rooms. The point exemplified here, so well explicated by Cannadine, is that, after over seven hundred years of Earls and their ilk being the ruling, moneyed class, they met an end so swiftly and irretrievably at the hands of industrialism and capitalism, that these former members of the ruling class had no recourse in this unfamiliar world than to become quixotic Utopians, or socialists like Russell or quixotic Arcadians, or fascists, like Oswald Moseley.

Cannadine is a wonderful writer, and in spite of the jumble of numerous titled names that pile up in so many paragraphs - Duke This, Duchess That etc. - which he must needs provide along with 8 Appendices and over 3,000 footnotes in order to provide the scholarly underpinnings necessary for the work's credibility, it is all surprisingly readable. In one section, Cannadine larkishly names the chapters after Shakespearean plays: Ireland: A Winter's Tale, The Church: Much Ado About Nothing etc.

My attention was drawn to this work by reviews of a spate of books that have recently come out on this subject. The reviews, almost to a one, compare the new ones to this book, and find them seriously lacking indeed in the juxtaposition. I can only say that Cannadine's ten years spent in the composition of it were extremely well spent.

Finally, there is the question of how one has come to feel about all these once privileged Peers after wading through this meticulous account of the upheavals that led to their downfall. I should say that any reader who has even only slight misgivings about the fast-paced, leisureless, de facto capitalist lives we all live now to some extent can't help but feel a touch of sympathy for these hothouse flowers pushed out into the cold.
Let's allow the scion of a once powerful family to have the last word. Lord Robert Cecil: "I am unfitted for political life, because I have a resigning habit of mind."

First let me begin by recommending this book to potential readers. While I have read the occasional biography of historic British aristocrats this is the first overview of their decline that I have read. I found it to be comprehensive in dealing with a variety of political, economic and social factors affecting the British aristocracy. David Cannadine's writing is clear and very readable. However the book deals with many concepts, some of significant complexity, and reader involvement is required but will be rewarded.

In his introduction the author acknowledges that many critics have identified him as a left wing intellectual and that the reader is therefore forewarned. In truth one of the reasons why the book is so readable is that there is relatively little overt class bashing. That does not mean that the author and the book are not heavily biased. However the bias is more the omission of critical questioning rather than in your face editorializing. For example the government mandated declines of 20-40% in rents from tenant farmers, which was a major factor in bankrupting the landowning aristocrats. While the author clearly relishes the outcome, the breakup of major estates, there is no substantive analysis of whether the rent reductions were in fact economically justified (as opposed to politically expedient). Since the author clearly states that the land, valued by its rents, was far less than the value of the land based on tenant farmer income it is by no means clear that rents were excessive. Also there is no history presented as to how the landlords and tenants had historically adjusted rents during crop failure etc. Nor, apparently since the author thinks the landlords had it coming, is there any discussion about the morality or legality of the government effectively confiscating the economic value of the land without compensation. I think any reader will enjoy the overview presented by this book but they do have to keep in mind the questions not asked by the author.

Surprisingly I found it impossible to read the book without concluding that the aristocracy were victims. The politicians drove down food prices, by opening the market to low cost imports, in order to benefit the large urban populations arising from industrialization. The politicians then skewed the resulting decline in farm incomes, by arbitrarily reducing rents received by the landlords in favor of the tenants. I'm sure the fact that there were few landlords to vote but many tenants was a consideration. The politicians then further curried favor with the electorate by double and triple taxing the landlords until they had no net income from the properties and had to sell. The tenants, poor and oppressed according to the author, magically turn out to rich enough to immediately buy the properties at fire sale prices (another question not asked by the author). The author appears to believe that the mere possession of so much land by so few will will provoke righteous indignation amongst the readers but unfortunately his facts make the politicians and voters appear far more venal.

Cannadine clearly chronicles the disintegration of the British aristocracy. The book looks at several different arenas in which the aristocracy is removed from preeminence. Then it goes through the aristocracy's struggle to find a place in this new Britain. Cannadine illustrates the decline of the aristocracy with many examples of individual aristocrats' stories. I enjoyed this book mostly because of these stories.

The book certainly makes it clear that the heyda y of the titled elite is passed. As an American I had no idea the aristocratic class in Britian had become so financially obsolete. I was aware that their wealth and political influence had declined but until reading this book I was quite under the impression that the majority of Britain's old, landed families still had their wealth and land. I had no idea those who were still prosperous were in a shrinking minority. It was an enlightening and also sad story to read.

A nuanced and poignant view of a class come and gone.

Disregard the Library Journal blurb Amazon offers unless one weighs the value of a book with a postage scale. It is many pages but never feels overlong. In fact, its length is rather the point. It offers both a sweeping view and compelling detail of a phenomenon (dissipation of a ruling elite over generations) that too frequently is lightly covered in general histories or shunted aside for more dramatic social change. For all the value in studying revolutions, it is not how most societies change over most time periods.

And thankfully not only is Cannadine's writing clear, it is done with style. It stands in contrast to so much "social science" written today, where graphs predominate and there is a near-prohibition of commas in paragraph-length sentences. Things like subject headings written as Shakespearean wordplay are like putto impishly grinning in the corners of a landscape. They do not make the picture, but they do add fun and make it memorable.

In 1875, the British landed aristocracy and their landed gentry allies were the dominant social group in the world's most powerful nation. A century later, they were a marginal force in British society. This book is a detailed and unusually well written chronicle and analysis of the eclipse of this once dominant group.
The basic story is relatively straightforward. The decline and fall of the British aristrocracy resulted from the convergence of several key features of the modernization of British society and in some respects, an ironic result of phenomena that made Britain the world's commercial power. In the last quarter of the 19th century, dropping transportation costs plus the opening of enormous acreages in the western USA and Canada, Australia, and Argentina resulted in falling prices for primary agricultural commodities. The British aristocracy and gentry, whose fortures were tied to large, large estates, rent, and commodity prices, began to suffer declining incomes, a process that lasted well into the 20th century. One major consequence was the loss of aristocratic land holdings as expenses mounted. The breakup of estates resulted not only in lost economic power but also loss of local leadership. At the same time, the maturing British industrial economy was bringing forth a new class of increasingly rich plutocrats who would gradually displace the traditional aristocracy.
In politics and government, the dominant position of the aristocracy and gentry was eroded and then obliterated by a series of political and constitutional changes. The Third Reform Act in the 1880s greatly expanded the franchise and essentially eliminated the pocket boroughs so useful for maintaining aristocratic-gentry political power. The expansion and modernization of British government, with its resulting professionalization, led to increasing dominance of local and national government by the increasingly well educated middle classes. Similar phenomena occurred in the professions and the church.
Accompanying all these phenomena was a loss of a sense of aristocratic sense of mastery and self-confidence. This process was completed by the social catastrophe of the First World War, which resulted in a disproportionate loss of young aristocrats/gentry and accelerated the economic and political decline of the aristocracy/gentry.
Cannadine covers all these phenomena and more in an unusually well written book. This is one of the better combinations of careful, detailed scholarship and narrative I've encountered recently. My only criticism and it is minor is that more comparative detail about other European aristocracies would have been useful.

No country does more historical navel gazing than Britain, no people write more exacting penetrating histories of themselves. This history is no exception; its research is detailed and thorough in its depth and exactitude. Cannadine, a superb writer obsessed with the aristocratic slide from 1880 to the present, is judgmental, biting and caustic. He covers all angles of the aristocracy's descent. For the American reader looking for an casual read, this book exhausts, taxes, it is repetitive. Cannadine uses a convenient template of analysis for long stretches of this 700-page book; it is packed with unfamiliar names, events and places which sends one pulling out his ordinance maps of England. This 1992 book, written for the Anglophile, is a serious yet witty history of the collapse of the British aristocracy.