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| Visions & Revisions |
A Distant Mirror
Douglas McWhirter
08/02/2004
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That said, prior to the last quarter of
the 19th century, the wealthiest people in Britain remained the traditional
aristocracy: people like the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Bedford or the Duke
of Westminster. The bedrock of that wealth remained broad acres. However, by the
19th century, the very richest aristocrats were very rich, not on account of
their agricultural acres, but because of their involvement in a variety of ways
in the new industrializing economy: real estate, railroads and a whole variety
of industrial ventures. The super rich of the aristocracy in the late 19th
century were all involved in the new world of industry and the cities, which
augmented their traditional landed wealth. British aristocrats of this era were philanthropic.
The idea of philanthropy did not exist in the 19th century in the way
that it does now, so you have to redefine the question a bit. They certainly
believed in a limited amount of charity, but it was pretty small scale. Their
notion of charity was to support churches on their estates, and to give to local
institutions that were on their estates, which they wanted to support: botanical
gardens or literary societies or whatever it might be. They regarded it as a
matter of duty to invest in local railroads that were on their estates. But that
was normally about as far their giving went. The British aristocracy on the
whole has never been renowned for broader philanthropy than that. The greatest
philanthropists in Britain in the 20th century were, on the whole, middle-class
people.
The British aristocracy maintained its power far longer than its
counterparts in continental Europe.
It is difficult to make these comparisons across Europe, let alone across
the Atlantic, but it is fair to say that the British aristocracy stayed intact
as the wealth, status and power elite across more of the 20th century than most
other aristocracies did. It is important to remember that the Russian one
disappears completely after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917.
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