Twentieth Century Squires

Not for twelve years had there been a new edition of Burke's six-inch-thick Landed Gentry. Last week, in a rickety office in Fleet Street, Burke's genealogists put the finishing touches to the first postwar edition, in a melancholy atmosphere of impoverished squires and mortgaged manor houses. Landed Gentry used to limit itself to owners of domains that could properly be called "stately" (i.e., more than 500 acres). Now it has lowered the property qualification to 200 acres for all British families whose pedigrees have been "notable" for three generations.

Even so, almost half of the 5,000 families listed in the new volume are in there because their forefathers were: they themselves have no land left. Their estates are mere street addresses, like that of the Molineux-Montgomeries, formerly of Garboldisham Old Hall, now of No. 14 Malton Avenue, Haworth.

Many of the old estates had been taken over by 20th Century squires whose bank balances outran their pedigrees. Alongside such ancient names as Wolley-Dod of Edge, Willock-Pollen of Little Bookham, Polwhele of Polwhele and MacLachlan of MacLachlan, Landed Gentry now lists Martins, Bartons and Fishers. It even mentions 700 people in the U.S., including Cinemactress Joan Fontaine and the International Harvester McCormicks of Chicago.

Editor L. G. Pine has always been besieged by applicants who by cajolery, trickery or even bribery attempt to crash the book. "Pride of family sometimes carries people too far," said he. "If everybody who claims to have come over with the Conqueror were right, William must have landed with 200,000 men-at-arms instead of about 12,000."

According to Editor Pine, only three British families can prove descent through the male line from the Saxons who invaded Britain in the 5th Century. These are the Ardens (one was Shakespeare's mother), the Berkeleys and the Swintons. And only three can prove male descent from the Companions of William the Conqueror in 1066: Malet (or Mallet or Mellat), Giffard, and De Marris. Even King George VI's Saxon descent is through the female line; about 100,000 living Britons can claim legitimate descent from such royal ancestry. Pine calls Edward III (1312-77) the crossroads of British genealogy. Says he: "If you have some family tie with Edward III, you go back all the way."

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