Preface
Arthur Frederick Blandy, D.Phil. (Syd.), sometime Fellow in Genealogical Studies
It is not my purpose here to intrude myself upon the reader’s attention; the documents assembled, once the property of Viscountess Viola Vorpel, require no embellishment. Nevertheless, propriety demands that the hand which has ordered these papers into legible form should be briefly acknowledged.
My academic work lies elsewhere. I devoted my Master’s thesis to “U and Non-U: Linguistic Indicators of Class in English Domestic Service” (University of Oxford, 1954), later developing these enquiries in a series of monographs: On the Speech of Gentlemen and Their Servants (1958); The Decorum of Address: From Mistress to Miss (1962); and Language as Ladder: Social Class and the Idiom of Distinction (1967). Though these contributions were, I venture to suggest, not without merit, they failed to secure me that elusive tenure so casually conferred on less industrious scholars.
It was Octavia Mallard—herself a formidable mind and, I am proud to say, my doctoral supervisor—who first encouraged me to think of language not as neutral medium but as instrument of power. This lesson informs the present work. It is by no means my history, yet I trust my ordering of these disparate documents will be judged fair, though frank. I have resisted the temptation, common to family editors, to tidy scandal, suppress indiscretion or bowdlerise speech. If the Mallards, Dukes and Blandys appear in these pages neither better nor worse than they were, then I shall be content. That, at least, is my profession.
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