The aristocracy and middle classes before 1901 - power, glamour, beauty, ef fortless wealth (john singer sergeant, the Wymondham sis- ters, 1899 - doomsday survey - show land and income of land - 4/5 land just 7,000 individuals, 250 magnates own over 30,000acres - culturally compact, sense of identity, shared leisure culture (hunting, horse-racing, fox hunting), generally marry within group - change in economic status of the elites, declining economic importance of land, - cultural decline agricultural crisis from 1870s onwards - price of wheat almost half between 70 and 90 - income declines, outcome remains same - begin to sell of f land in order to make money - also seeing art to rich american collectors - liberal governments move vacation more heavily on the rich, death duties 8% - '500 ordinary men chosen accidentally from the unemployed' - 1911 parliament act - limits powers of house of lords - long process over several generations - ww one f i fth of aristocracy lost - urban land owned instead of agriculture, urban land worth rises - still trying to maintain power and money - relationship between aristocracy and land changes, no longer territorial, other forms of investments, mines mineral, stocks and shares. - who takes their place? - William lever (soap), Tipton, Guinness, Thomas holloway (medicine), new elite, no longer land, industry, manufacturing - make money in short space of time - frequently mocked by victorians, - lords open to others - lawyers, industrialists, press barons - 1846-1914 over 250new peers created - Court presentations, if daughter, formally presented to queen, 'marriage market' - 1842 - scandal, appearance of tenant sisters, Margot and Laura, most eligible brides, fa- ther was chemical factory in Glasgow, he was mp, - 1881, tenant buys London town house, presents Laura and Margot at court., his father was weaver, - signif i es change, old codes of behaviour, aristocracy losing cohesiveness - aristocracy took middle-class brides. - over 100 aristocratic families marry into american. - belief that business men were gentrif i ed - aristocracy won class war, bought out middle class - Gunn - failure of middle class, see towns and cities for middle class, success and lib- erty, testament to bourgeois power and achievement, sought to set up new sites of power to display wealth and cultural status. - art commissioned to celebrate marriage to aristocratic fsmily, celebrate rise in social sta- tus, sing of imtiitaiton, gentrif i cation, buying into aristocrats values - houses used as a means of excspade for city dwellers.