Britain's Elites in the Inter-War Period, 1918-1939: Decline or Continued Ascendancy?

Abstract

In this article I wish to consider the survival and continuation of Britain’s elites in the two decades after the First World War. It is commonplace to view Britain’s traditional elites as having reached a peak of influence, power, and wealth in the late Victorian period, perhaps attaining a zenith at the time of the 1897 Jubilee, and then rapidly fading in the wake of the Great War. Much less attention has been paid to them by historians of the inter-war period, when it is often taken for granted that they underwent significant, perhaps catastrophic, decline. In this article I want to argue the opposite, that Britain’s elites were relatively as well off and influential, and arguably in some ways better off, during the inter-war period, especially after the mid-1920s, than before.1 If one were to try and identify a