The Landed Aristocracy and Business Elites in Victorian Britain

Résumé En

Recent generalizations have spoken, with apparent inconsistency, of the simultaneous gentrification of the Victorian bourgeoisie and the widening social gulf, in the nineteenth century, between the new business magnates and the British landed aristocracy. It has been proposed that these positions can be reconciled by claiming that the first is a cultural statement, and the second a socio-economic statement. This is an unhelpful, and unnecessary, dichotomy. This paper argues that the social gulf was becoming narrower, not wider. When the life-cycle characteristics of successful and wealthy businessmen are given proper weight, the evidence suggests that the propensity of the very wealthy to acquire country houses, landed estates, and aristocratic life-styles was well maintained in the Victorian period, and possibly was more pronounced than it had been previously. This has wide implications for the analysis of the Victorian social structure and for the assessment of entrepreneurial motives and achievements in British society.