The National Trust and Titles

The National Trust really likes titles.

No. I mean. It really likes titles. The drop-down list for titles has 200 options for titles. I am struggling to think of even where I could source a list that long, but the National Trust managed to do it.

My mental model of England has always had a strong class component to it; I assumed that most of the English are relatively attuned to their class, and the class of those around them. 1 I realize that this is probably a fairly old and outdated sterotype,2 but yet, I can’t really shake it. With that background, it should be clear that this list is like catnip for me.

So, without any further delay, here is the list:

There is so much to love in this list; echoes of an older time where a Graf and a Viscount would have drinks at their club. There is a sense of an almost admirable complexity in life, something that the modern world has slowly ground away. Luckily, there is the National Trust, doing their part to preserve one small part of the floating world.

  1. I mean. This is the country where the national airline at one point had 4 distinct classes of service. (Although, in truth, it looks like Delta now has four classes of service on some airplanes: Business, Premium Economy, Comfort Economy, and then regular Economy. I should write a piece about how the South and England are similar in important ways, or something like that.) 

  2. I blame watching too much late Victorian / Edwardian BBC crime dramas on “Mystery!” as a child. You know, Miss Marple, Lord Peter Wimsey, Sherlock Holmes. 

Updated: