ABSTRACT
AS the nineteenth century opened the passion for fashionable mourning dress flourished undimmed. It continued to slide gently down the social ladder-now permeating the
ranks of the middle classes until by the early twentieth century it had finally reached the very poorest levels of society. This process caused no diminution of interest within
wealthy families. It seemed, on the contrary, to make them redouble their own efforts in a
final attempt to demonstrate their social superiority. Victorian society was a society under pressure. The middle classes, many of them
extremely rich from trading and industrial profits, pushed against the social barriers which kept them out of high society. Long established ‘society’ families, headed by the
Royal Family, were determined to maintain the traditional barriers separating the
aristocracy from those ‘in trade’. This pressure seemed to reach bursting point during the
reign of Queen Victoria, when the richest families of the new industrial middle classes
had both the wealth and the will to fight the battle for social recognition and acceptance by the aristocracy.
