pronouncements it occasionally issued on professional matters were received as

though hewn' on tablets of stone.

 

But one matter the Society resisted pronouncing on for some time was the

question of its own criteria for membership. Pressure to have these announced

steadily mounted, and in response to a series of letters published in A

Quarterly for the Gentleman's Gentleman, the Society admitted that a

prerequisite for membership was that 'an applicant be attached to a

distinguished household'. 'Though of course,' the Society went on, 'this by

itself is far from sufficient to satisfy requirements.' It was made clear,

furthermore, that the Society did not regard the houses of businessmen or the

'newly rich' as 'distinguished', and in my opinion this piece of out-dated

thinking crucially undermined any serious authority the Society may have

achieved to arbitrate on standards in our profession. In response to further

letters in A Quarterly, the Society justified its stance by saying that while it

accepted some correspondents' views that certain butlers of excellent quality

were to be found in the houses of businessmen, 'the assumption had to be that

the houses of true ladies and gentlemen would not refrain long from acquiring

the services of any such persons'. One had to be guided by the judgement of 'the

true ladies and gentlemen', argued the Society, or else 'we may as well adopt

the proprieties of Bolshevik Russia'. This provoked further controversy, and the

pressure of letters continued to build up urging the Society to declare more

fully its membership criteria. In the end, it was revealed in a brief letter to

A Quarterly that in the view of the Society - and I will try and quote

accurately from memory - 'the most crucial criterion is that the applicant be