|
 I’ve
just been doing a nostalgic ramble through my 1931 Pears’
Cyclopaedia. As an adolescent I derived a lot of information from
it, both helpful and trivial, despite the fact that when it was given to
me second-hand by an aunt it was almost 20 years out of date.
With your
indulgence, I’d like to present here some picturesque information that
68 years ago the publishers, A. & F. Pears Ltd., “Soap Makers by
Appointment to Their Majesties The King and Queen”, deemed most
suitable for inclusion in their “handy volume”.
No doubt
it is all still relevant today, but how baroque it seems.
It’s the
Table of Precedency I’m referring to. This page gives the relative
position of everyone in Britain from the Sovereign right down to “Gentlemen
entitled to bear arms”.
Especially
intriguing is this extract from the notes on the ways women were/are
ranked:
Women
rank as their husbands or as their eldest brothers; but the daughter of
a peer marrying a Commoner retains her title as Lady or Honourable . . .
Daughters of Peers marrying Peers of lower degree are given only
thenceforth the same order of precedency as that of their husbands; thus
the daughter of a Duke marrying a Baron ranks as Baroness only, while
her sisters married to commoners would retain their rank and take
precedence of the Baroness.
Whew!
|
