The Upper Class: Honour and Wealth

For most of the period 1918–51, there was an English upper class, though it had no clear-cut boundaries. This chapter defines the upper class and examines how its members behaved towards each other and society. In particular, it looks at the role of the monarchy, its relations with the aristocracy, with the broader upper class, and with the English people; at the aristocracy and its political and social status; at the notion of society and its function; and at wealth, who earned it and how, and the extent to which wealth and the upper class were synonymous. It notes that a large part of the upper class had collapsed into the upper middle class due to the relative decline of the significance of landed wealth, and the increasing diversity of wealth.