Lords, Dukes,Earls. Someone not part of the Royal Family. Someone like that guy in The Remains of the Day. A guy living in old manor who seemingly does nothing but socialise with other old money.
Someone with an ancient title, actually descended from ancient titles who has money based on land ownership or political involvement and not from some type of more modern industry or business?
Heavens, yes, quite a few. The Duke of Norfolk, for example, has a title which goes back to 1483, has his principal seat at Arundel Castle in Suffolk but has a alternative country home at Carlton Towers in Yorkshire, and various other properties. Over the years I dare say the family wealth has diversified, but the basis of it would still be large landholdings. And there would be quite a number of other Dukes, Marquesses and Earls about whom similar things could be said.
They don’t necessarily do nothign but socialise; running a large estate and managing all that wealth can take a good deal of time and attention. And may of them, or their family members, will have a professional career as well, stereotypically in the army, law or banking, but nowadays in a wide variety of fields.
Quite a few I’d think. Many of them still own lots of land. Two obvious examples from the 2009 Sunday Times Rich List:
Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster
Charles Cadogan, 8th Earl Cadogan
These two own vaste swathes of the most valuable property in London.
William Herbert, 18th Earl of Pembroke.
Direct descendant of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke.
I assume he is of good naturall parts, but very colerique.
Yes, the Gascoyne-Cecils [Marquess of Salisbury] have extensive estates at Hatfield and Cranborne, and still dabble in politics.
The Dukes of Bedford own large portions of the West End of London. As do the Howard de Walden Estates.
All these people have business interests, of course, they don’t tamely rake the cash in and spend it.
I have met the Duke, briefly. I was a member of a golf club situated on his estate in Chester. Apparently in the 1960s they were concerned that the Labor party would confiscate land from the nobility and so they converted some of it to a golf course on which the locals could play. In the early 1990s they must have thought they were safe because they closed the course and allowed it to return to its natural state.
Also with an estate (and castle) in Cheshire, and famous on these boards for the pronunciation of his name, I offer the Marquess of Cholmondeley, although he does seem to have a bit of a career in film-making.
The 9th Baron Howard de Walden (1912-1999, RIP) was also one of the last great British racehorse owner-breeders.
I once saw him on a wet and miserable Monday evening at Wolverhampton racecourse. I found myself wondering what he was doing in such an uninspiring environment when he was normally to be found holding court at the more salubrious venues of Ascot, Goodwood, and Newmarket. The answer was, of course, that he had a runner in the sixth. Concluding that the presence of the good lord was a fair indicator of the horse’s chance, I invested a modest sum at 9-1, the animal duly obliging by 6 lengths.
The 9th Baron also claimed to have knocked down Adolf Hitler while driving around Munich in his new car sometime in the early 1930s.