The fall of the English gentleman: The national character in decline, c 1918-1970

Historical Research

Volumn 75, Issue 187, 2002, Pages 90-111

  Collins, Marcus ^a  

^a EMORY UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 61949464703     PISSN: 09503471     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1468-2281.00142     Document Type: Article

References (239)

1. Cited in 'The English character', Times Literary Supplement (7 Aug. 1948), 427
2. For the culture and politics of decline, see M. J. Wiener, English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850-1980 (Cambridge, 1981)
3. A. Sked, Britain's Decline: Problems and Perspectives (Oxford, 1987)
4. W. D. Rubinstein, Capitalism, Culture and Decline in Britain, 1750-1990 (1993)
5. D. Edgerton, Science, Technology and the British Industrial 'Decline, 1870-1970 (Cambridge, 1996)
6. D. Coates, The Question of UK Decline: the Economy, State and Society (Hemel Hempstead, 1994)
7. British Culture and Economic Decline, ed. B. Collins and K. Robbins (1990)
8. P. Wright, On Living in an Old Country: the National Past in Contemporary Britain (1985)
9. A. Gamble, Britain in Decline: Economic Policy, Political Strategy and the British State (New York, rev. edn., 1994)
10. Understanding Decline: Perceptions and Realities of British Economic Performance, ed. P. Clarke and C. Trebilcock (Cambridge, 1997)
11. P. Anderson, English Questions (1992)
12. P. Rich, 'Imperial decline and the resurgence of English national identity, 1918-79', in Traditions of Intolerance: Historical Perspectives on Fascism and Race Discourse in Britain, ed. T. Kushner and K. Lunn (Manchester, 1989), pp. 33-52
13. and R. Hewison, The Heritage Industry: Britain in a Climate of Decline (1987)
14. For a brilliant refutation of the link between declinism and the heritage industry, see R. Samuel, Theatres of Memory, i: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture (1994)
15. E. Barker, 'An attempt at perspective', in The Character of England, ed. idem (Oxford, 1947), p. 367
16. M. Girouard, The Return to Camelot: Chivalry and the English Gentleman (New Haven, Conn., 1981), p. 290
17. Wiener, pp. 162-3
18. For gentlemanliness, see also P. Corfield, 'The democratic history of the English gentleman', History Today, xlii (Nov. 1992), 40-7
19. H. David, Heroes, Maverick and Bounders: the English Gentleman from Lord Curzon to James Bond (1991)
20. P. Mason, The English Gentleman: the Rise and Fall of an Ideal (1982)
21. D. Castronovo, The English Gentleman: Images and Ideals in Literature and Society (New York, 1987)
22. P. N. Furbank, Unholy Pleasure: or, The Idea of Social Class
23. 1985)
24. R. Gilmour, The Idea of the Gentleman in the Victorian Novel (1981)
25. S. Collini, 'The idea of character: private habits and public virtues', in idem, Public Moralists: Political Thought and Intellectual Life in Britain, 1850-1930 (Oxford, 1991), pp. 91-118
26. and N. Annan, Our Age: the Generation that Made Post-War Britain (1991), ch. 2
27. For a discussion of the slippage between Englishness and Britishness, see P. Langford, Englishness Identified: Manners and Character (Oxford, 2000), p. 14
28. E. Wingfield-Stratford, The Making of a Gentleman (1938), p. 311
29. W. Dibelius, England (1930), p. 489
30. E. Cammaerts, Discoveries in England (1930), p. 138
31. H. de Vibraye, Old England: a French View (1941), p. 281
32. P. Morand, 'The gentlemen's island', The Listener (27 Dec. 1933), 969
33. For the history of national identity, see Wiener; D. Kuchta, 'Inconspicuous consumption: masculinity, political economy and fashion in England, 1550-1776' (unpublished University of California, Berkeley Ph.D. thesis, 1991)
34. L. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (New Haven, Conn., 1992)
35. M. Cohen, Fashioning Masculinity: National Identity and Language in the 18th Century (1996)
36. Myths of the English, ed. R. Porter (Cambridge, 1992)
37. Writing Englishness, 1900-50: an Introductory Sourcebook on National Identity, ed. J. Giles and T. Middleton (1995)
38. G. Dawson, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (1994)
39. J. Richards, Films and British National Identity: from Dickens to Dad's Army (Manchester, 1997)
40. E. Jones, The English Nation: the Great Myth (Stroud, 1998)
41. The Right to Belong: Citizenship and National Identity in Britain, 1930-60, ed. R. Weight and A. Beach (1998)
42. P. Rich, 'The quest for Englishness', History Today, xxxvii (June 1987), 24-30
43. H. Cunningham, 'The language of patriotism, 1750-1914', History Workshop Jour., xii (1981), 8-33
44. K. Robbins, Great Britain: Identities, Institutions and the Idea of Britishness (1998)
45. D. Gervais, Literary Englands: Versions of 'Englishness' in Modern Writing (Cambridge, 1993)
46. J. H. Grainger, Patriotisms: Britain, 1900-39 (1986)
47. Englishness: Politics and Culture, 1880-1920, ed. R. Colls and P. Dodd (1986)
48. Patriotism: the Making and Unmaking of British National Identity, ed. R Samuel (3 vols., 1989)
49. G. Newman, The Rise of English Nationalism: a Cultural History, 1740-1830 (1987)
50. P. Mandler, '"Race" and "nation" in mid Victorian thought', in History, Religion and Culture: Essays in British Intellectual History, 1750-1950, ed. S. Collini, R. Whatmore and B. Young (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 224-44
51. P. Langford, 'British politeness and the progress of Western manners: an 18th-century enigma', Trans. Royal Hist. Soc., 6th ser., vii (1997), 53-72
52. and J. Paxman, The English: Portrait of a People (1998)
53. H. Woodd Nevinson, Rough Islanders: or, The Natives of England (1930), pp. 76, 78
54. W. R Inge, England (1926), p. 56
55. W. B. Hughes, The Perfect Gentleman: Very Plain Talk to Men (1920), pp. 77, 15
56. W. R. Inge, 'Religion', in The English Genius: a Survey of the English Achievement and Character, ed. H. Kingsmill (1938), p. 4. For gentlemanly chivalry, see Girouard
57. G. Santayana, Soliloquies in England, and Later Soliloquies (1922), p. 4
58. W. R. Inge, England (New York, rev. edn., 1953), p. 75
59. W. Lewis, The Mysterious Mr. Bull (1938), p. 124
60. For Ernest Barker's advocacy of amateurism, see J. Stapleton, Englishness and the Study of Politics: the Social and Political Thought of Ernest Barker (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 166-9
61. V. Sackville-West, 'Outdoor life', in Barker, The Character of England, p. 410
62. I. J. Pitman, 'Recreation and games', in ibid., p. 448
63. P. Gibbs, England Speaks (1935), p. 459
64. Inge, 'Religion', p. 4
65. I. J. Pitman, 'Recreation and games', in Barker, The Character of England, p. 457
66. W. Lewis, 'The god of sport and blood', Blast, ii (July 1915), 9
67. For sportsmanship, see also R McKibbin, Classes and Cultures: England, 1918-51 (Oxford, 1998), pp. 380-2, 385
68. and R. Holt, 'Cricket and Englisbness: the batsman as hero', International Jour. Hist. Sport, xiii (1996), 48-70
69. G. J. Renier, The English: are they Human? (1931), p. 262
70. H. Nicolson, Good Behaviour: Being a Study of Certain Types of Civility (1955), p- 261
71. Nevinson, p. 73
72. R. N. Bradley, Racial Origins of English Character (1926), p. 141
73. O. Keun, I Discover the English (1934), p. 187
74. J. Wellard, Understanding the English (1938), p. 207
75. E. Waugh, 'Love among the ruins' (1953)
76. in idem, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold and Other Stories (Harmondsworth, ] 962), p. 182
77. P. Carr, The English are Like That (New York, 1941), p. 8
78. Walter le Strange, cited in C. Connolly, Enemies of Promise (New York, rev. edn., 1949), p. 207
79. A. Bryant, Humanity in Politics (1938), p. 39
80. Lewis, The Mysterious Mr. Bull, p. 272
81. F. Fox, The English, 1902-22: a Gossip (1923), p. viii
82. T. Cook, Character and Sportsmanship (1927), p. 286
83. E. Wingfield-Stratford, If 'Labour' Wins (1929), p. 17
84. P. Mandler, 'The consciousness of modernity: liberalism and the English "national character", 1870-1940', in Meanings of Modernity: Britain from the Late Victorian Era to World War Two, ed. M. Daunton and B. Rieger (Providence, R.I., 2001)
85. N. Young, England Conquers the World (1937), p. 200
86. Mandler considers anti-modernism to have been marginal to conceptions of English national character both before and after the First World War (see idem, 'Against "Englishness": English culture and the limits to rural nostalgia, 1850-1940', Trans. Royal Hist. Soc., 6th ser., vii (1997), pp. 53-72)
87. G. Orwell, 'Raffles and Miss Blandish' (1944), in The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, ed. S. Orwell and I. Angus (4 vols., 1968), iii. 223
88. D. Cannadine, 'War and death, grief and mourning in modern Britain', in Mirrors of Mortality: Studies in the Social History of Death, ed, J. Whaley (1981), p. 196
89. P. Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (New York, 1975)
90. Connolly, p. 253
91. B. Russell, Education and the Social Order (1932), pp. 78-82
92. M. Green, Children of the Sun: a Narrative of 'Decadence' in England after 1918 (New York, 1976), p. 3
93. D, Low, Does Colonel Blimp exist?' (1937), in The Complete Colonel Blimp, ed. M. Bryant (1991), p. 42
94. This England: Selections from the 'New Statesman' Column, 1934-68, ed. M. Bateman (Harmondsworth, 1969)
95. H. J. Laski, The Danger of Being a Gentleman and Other Essays (1939), pp. 17, 22, 28
96. 'Cato' (a.k.a. M. Foot, P. Howard and F. Owen), Guilty Men (1940)
97. T. C. Worsley, The End of the Old School Tie (1941), p. 13
98. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), cited in David, p. 178
99. G. Orwell, 'The lion and the unicorn' (1941), in Collected Essays, ii. 109
100. H. Belloc, An Essay on the Nature of Contemporary England (1937), p. 41
101. H. Kantorowicz, The Spirit of British Policy and the Myth of the Encirclement of Germany (1931), p. 72; Corfield, p. 47
102. A. Light, Forever England: Femininity, Literature and Conservatism between the Wars (1991), pp. 211, 7, 211, 210
103. T. Bogacz, '"A tyranny of words": language, poetry and antimodernism in England in the First World War', Jour. Modern Hist. lviii (1986), 643-68
104. R. M. Bracco, Merchants of Hope: British Middlebrow Writers and the First World War, 1919-39 (Providence, R.I., 1993)
105. V. Woolf, A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas (Oxford, 1992)
106. G. Orwell, 'Boys' Weeklies' (1939), in Collected Essays, i. 460-85
107. For patriotism in male genre fiction of the period, see also K. Boyd, 'Exemplars and ingrates: imperialism and the boys' story paper, 1880-1930', Hist. Research, lxvii (1994), 143-55
108. Green, Children of the Sun, p. 64
109. G. D. H. Cole and M. I. Cole, The Condition of Britain (1937), p. 312
110. G. Orwell, 'Raffles and Miss Blandish' (1944), in Collected Essays, iii. 224
111. Laski, p. 29; J. B. Priestley, English Journey (1984 edu.), p. 52
112. For Priestley, see C. Waters, 'J. B. Priestley. Englishness and the politics of nostalgia', in After the Victorians: Private Conscience and Public Duty in Modern Britain. Essays in Memory of John Clive, ed. S. Pedersen and P. Mandler (1994)
113. H. Steel Commanger, 'English traits, one hundred years later' (1948), in Britain Through American Eyes, ed. idem (1974), p. 757
114. S. Baldwin, 'The Englishman' (1940)
115. C. Hamilton, 'The Englishwoman' (1940)
116. Renier, pp. 84, 83
117. Woolf, p. 313
118. For the contrasting concern displayed by contemporaneous Fascist propaganda to create a national feminine ideal, see V. De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy, 1922-45 (Berkeley, Calif, 1992)
119. and C. Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family and Nazi Politics (1987)
120. For the difficulties in defining English femininity in an earlier period, see J. Mackay and P. Thane, 'The Englishwoman', in Colls and Dodd, pp. 191-229
121. For Baldwin and Englishness, see P. Williamson, 'The doctrinal politics of Stanley Baldwin', in Public and Private Doctrine: Essays in British History Presented to Maurice Cowling, ed. M. Bentley (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 181-208
122. J. Stewart Collis, An Irishman's England (1937), p. 137
123. H. Kirkpatrick, Under the British Umbrella: What the English are and how they Go to War (New York, 1939), p. 25
124. The English Vision: an Anthology, ed. H, Read (1933), p. viii
125. Inge, England (1953 edn.), p. 83
126. B. Darwin, British Sport and Games (1940), p. 25
127. Nicolson, p, 267
128. Nevinson, p. 55
129. 'Cato'; Worsley, p. 13
130. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, cited in David, p. 178
131. Chips: the Diaries of Sir Henry Channon, ed. R. Rhodes James (Harmoudsworth, 1970), entries for 9 July 1936, 30 Sept. 193 8 and 29 May 1940
132. Baldwin, p. 32
133. W. R. Inge, The Fall of the Idols (1940), pp. 76, 150
134. idem, in The Post Victorians (1933), p. vii
135. idem, The Fall of the Idols, p. 10
136. Lord Elton and A. P. Herbert, cited in The Complete Colonel Blimp, pp. 112, 5
137. Orwell, 'The limit to pessimism' (1940), in Collected Essays, i. 535
138. B. Darwin, British Clubs (1943)
139. idem, British Sport and Games
140. I. J. Pitman, 'Recreation and games', in Barker, The Character of England, p. 456
141. T. Lloyd Humberstone, The Public School Question (1944), p. 27
142. Gustav Witting, in Sweden Speaks, ed. idem (1942), pp. 20-1
143. Annan, p. 26
144. Mass Observation, The Journey Home (1944), p. 19
145. J. B. Priestley, Letter to a Returning Serviceman (1945), p. 33
146. Barker, The Character of England, pp. v, 33, 565, 566, 565, 233-4
147. For wartime attitudes to authority figures, see also P. Addison, The Road to 1943: British Politics and the Second World War (1977)
148. E. Barker, National Character and the Factors in its Formation (rev. edn., 1948)
149. Inge, England (1953 edn,)
150. E. Wingfield-Stratford, The Squire and his Relations (1956), p. 2
151. I. Coster, The First Gentleman: his Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, K.G., K.T. (1953)
152. S, Haseler, The English Tribe: Identity, Nation and Europe (Basingstoke, 1996), p. 51
153. T. H. Pear, English Social Differences (1955)
154. J. D. Scott, Life in Britain (New York, 1955), p. 10
155. E. Shils, 'The British intellectual', Encounter, iv (Apr. 1955), 6. In the case of Prince Philip, it should be noted that insiders doubted his gentlemanly credentials (see B. Pimlott, The Queen: a Biography of Queen Elizabeth II (1996), p. 104)
156. J. Braine, Room at the Top (1957), p. 187
157. J. H. Huizinga, Confessions of a European in England (1958), p. 257
158. H. Thomas, The Suez Affair (rev. edn., 1986), p. 173
159. P. Worsthorne, 'Class and conflict in British foreign policy', Foreign Affairs, xxxvii (1959), 422
160. Huizinga, p. 254
161. The Establishment: a Symposium, ed. H. Thomas (1959)
162. idem, The World's Game (1957)
163. J. Tomlinson, Inventing "decline": the falling behind of the British economy in the post-war years', Econ. Hist. Rev., xlix (1996), 731-57
164. Norman Mackenzie, in Conviction, ed. idem (1958), p. 17
165. Hugh Thomas, in idem, The Establishment, p. 19
166. B. Inglis, 'Sex and society in the 60s', King (Winter 1964), 15
167. G. Rees, 'Amateurs and gentlemen', Encounter, xxi (July 1963), 20-5
168. A. Albu, 'Taboo on expertise', Encounter, xxi (July 1963), 45-50
169. G. Chapman and others, Monty Python's Flying Circus (2 vols., 1989), i. 158
170. R. Bannister, The Four Minute Mile (New York, 1955), p. 246
171. A. Alvarez, 'Beyond the gentility principle' (1962), in The New Poetry: an Anthology, ed. idem (rev, edn., Harmondsworth, 1966), pp. 26, 32
172. Walter Allen, cited in B. Morrison, The Movement: English Poetry and Fiction of the 1950s (1986), p. 52
173. J. Osborne, Look Back in Anger (1957), p. 57
174. Guy Burgess, cited in T, Driberg, Guy Burgess: a Portrait with Background (1956), p. 23
175. R. S. Churchill, The Fight for the Tory Leadership: a Contemporary Chronicle (1964), p. 146
176. John Wain, cited in Huizinga, p. 104
177. M, Green, A Mirror for Anglo-Saxons (1961), p. 52; Rees
178. A Sampson, Anatomy of Britain (1962), pp. 21, 181
179. P. Johnson, The Offshore Islanders (1972), p. 347
180. Michael Shanks, in 'What is wrong with Britain?', The Listener (19 July 1962), p. 83
181. C. A. R. Crosland, The Conservative Enemy: a Programme of Radical Reform for the 1960s (1962), pp. 175-8
182. Anthony Crosland, in 'What is Wrong with Britain?', The Listener (5 July 1962), 3
183. Hugh Gaitskell, cited in Sampson, Anatomy of Britain, p. 110
184. Thomas Balogh, in Thomas, The Establishment, p. 85
185. H. Wilson, Purpose in Politics: Selected Speeches (1964), p. 28
186. B. Pimlott, Harold Wilson (1992), p. 296
187. Harold Wilson, cited in Churchill, p. 146
188. For the partisan nature of the decline debate, see I. Budge, 'Relative decline as a political issue: ideological motivations of the politico-economic debate in post-war Britain', Contemporary Record, vii (1993), 11-23
189. For party political differences in constructions of masculine 'character', see M. Francis, 'The Labour party: modernisation and the politics of restraint', in Moments of Modernity: Reconstructing Britain, 1945-64, ed. B, Conekin, F. Mort and C. Waters (1999)
190. G. Mikes, How to be an Alien (1946), p. 64
191. C. Barnett, The Collapse of British Power (1972)
192. Huizinga, p. 25 5
193. D. Home, God is an Englishman (1969), pp. 52-3, 55
194. For boys' stories, see E. S. Turner, Boys will he Boys (3rd edn., 1975)
195. and I. Quigly, The Heirs of Tom Brown: the English School Story (1982)
196. For critiques of Barnett, see J. Harris, 'Enterprise and welfare states: a comparative perspective', Trans. Royal Hist. Soc., 5th ser., xl (1990), 175-95
197. and D. Edgerton, 'The prophet militant and industrial: the peculiarities of Correlli Barnett', Twentieth Century British History, ii (1991), 360-79
198. Sampson, Anatomy of Britain, p. 74
199. J. Rae, The Public School Revolution: Britain's Independent Schools, 1964-79 (1981), p. 10
200. As W. D. Rubinstein has shown, public schools lud long produced businessmen; what changed from the 1950s onwards was that they actually set out to do so in a systematic manner by providing their charges with the requisite vocational skills (Rubinstein, ch. 3)
201. A. Sampson, Anatomy of Britain Today (1965), p. 73
202. J. Campbell, Edward Heath: a Biography (1994), p. 180
203. R Bevins, The Greasy Pole: a Personal Account of the Realities of British Politics (1965), pp. 102, 147
204. For Macmillan's gentlemanly mien, see L. A. Siedentop, 'Mr. Macmillan and the Edwardian style', in The Age of Affluence, 1951-64, ed. V. Bogdanor and R. Skidelsky (1970), pp. 17-54
205. S. Raven, The Decline of the Gentleman (New York, 1962), pp. 11, 95, 18, 177, 145
206. E. Waugh, Brideshead Revisited (1945)
207. cited in M. Stannard, Evelyn Waugh: No Abiding City, 1939-66 (1992), p. 107
208. E. Waugh, 'The ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold' (1957), in idem, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold and Other Stories (1973), p. 72
209. Ann Fleming, cited in A. Lycett, Ian Fleming (1995), p. 375
210. D. Cannadine, 'James Bond and the decline of England', Encounter, liii (1979), 46-53
211. Ian Fleming, cited in Lycett, p. 401
212. T, Bennett and J. Woollacott, Bond and Beyond: the Political Career of a Popular Hero (Basingstoke, 1987), p. 64
213. Albert Broccoli, cited in ibid., p. 56
214. John Le Carré and Pravda, cited in Lycett, pp. 447-8
215. For the humbling of the post-war aristocracy, see D. Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New Haven, Conn, 1990), ch, 14
216. For earlier bouts of declinism, see Kuchta; Colley, G. R. Searle, The Quest for National Efficiency: a Study in British Politics and Political Thought, 1899-1914 (Oxford, 1971)
217. A. L. Friedberg, The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895-1905 (Princeton, N.J., 1988)
218. and Daily Mail, 3 Nov. 1999
219. D. Frost and A. Jay, The English (New York, 1967), p. 75
220. J. Knowler, Trust an Englishman (1972), pp. 137, 199, 27
221. C. Irving, True Brit (1974), p. 39
222. Frost and Jay, p. 75
223. Sampson, Anatomy of Britain Today, pp. 668, 669
224. idem, The New Anatomy of Britain (1971), p. 660
225. For the parlous state of gentlemanliness today, see Gentility Recalled: Mere Manners and the Making of Social Order, ed. D. Anderson (1996)
226. Frost and Jay, p. 7
227. N. McKendrick, "'Gentlemen and players" revisited: the gentlemanly ideal, the business ideal and the professional ideal in English literary culture', in Business Life and Public Policy: Essays in Honour of D. C. Coleman, ed. idem and R. B. Outhwaite (Cambridge, 1986)
228. Wiener; H. Perkin, The Rise of Professional Society: England since 1880 (1989)
229. R. Lewis and R Stewart, The Boss: the Life and Times of the British Business Man (rev. edn., 1961), p. 248
230. F. Williams, The American Invasion (1962), p. 30
231. McKibbin, ch. 1
232. S. H. Beer, Britain Against Itself: the Political Contradictions of Collectivism (1982), xiii, 209
233. T. R. Fyvel, cited in Sure and Steifast: a History of the Boys' Brigade, 1883-1983, ed. J. Springhall, B. Fraser and M. Hoare (1983), p. 186
234. C. Wilson, 'Beyond the outsider', in Declaration, ed, T. Maschler (1957), p. 33
235. A. Koestler, "The lion and the ostrich', Encounter, xxi (July 1963), 6
236. A. Bennett and others, The Complete Beyond the Fringe (1987), p. 135
237. Chapman, ii. 136-7
238. Worsthorne, p. 426
239. R. Samuel, 'Exciting to be English', in idem, Patriotism, i. xviii-lxvii