The Edwardian era is seen by most as Indian summer, an interlude between the interminable reign of Victoria and the disappearence of the old order – swallowed up in the mud of Flanders. Over the elaborate social rituals of the period presides the portly, irascible figure of Edward, whose public dignity and private failings so faithfully reflected the lives of his more privileged subjects.

          Whilst the landed gentry in their country houses observed uneasily the minatory attitudes of Lloyd George, the ostentation of the "new rich" and the rapid encroachments of indutrialisation and suburbia, the confident middle classes had nver had it so good. The leisured rentier with 500 pounds a year could boast a respectable London address and keep three servants; with 1000 pounds a year he was rich and could rent a house in the 'Shires for hunting and another by the sea for when the London season was over.

          But beneath the outward luxury there lurked profound misery and discontent. Walled into the decaying working class districts of the great cities were "a different race of people, short of stature and of wretched for beer-sodden appearance", as Jack london described them. Slowly they were organising themselves into great Unions of unskilled or semi-skilled workers, growing ever more impatient of the tardy progress towards social reform.