Career paths for my fictional, young, non-academic gent in the 1920s/30s

[fictitiousfoibles]

I'm trying to flesh out one of the characters in my novel and am really stuck on a career path for him. Anyone up for taking part in a creative brainstorm?

He's grown up in on an English country estate owned by his mother's family (old money though, again, I haven't decided on how they made their fortunes). Mother lost her brother in WW1, inherited the house and lives their with her husband and their two children. This character is due to inherit it in time but is a dreamy non-academic, non-corporate type - what sort of job would his parents have nudged him into? Ideally it would be a reserved occupation so that his mother (traumatised by loss of brother) can justify his not joining up.

All ideas gratefully received!

Parent is the youngest child of a minor earl, grandfather's investments in the railways. shipping, industrialist etc. Invented some engineering process vital to some component in the railway carriage braking system. Bred a horse that turned out rather fast and won the Derby, then syndicated at stud for ££££.

For second sons who needed to earn a living, the Clergy, the services, a Solicitors office with a view to becoming a junior partner in time, land agent, Schoolmaster at a local boarding school, sent out to the outposts of the Empire to run rubber plantations or work his way up in the Indian civil service , the motor trade was becoming a thing, the police for a very few, the civil service here, private secretary to a magnate or politician

for the heir, almost certainly he would be at home running the estate: There should be many tenant farms , a bit of shooting and fishing, timber to manage and sell and replant, a home farm maybe, livestock bred with a view to medals and selling at a profit (bulls to Argentina) maybe put forward as local MP.

(I read extensively in this period )

Even though he isn’t academic would family connections not have been good enough to encourage him into something like banking?

I think civil service and BBC is very middle class so depends how “old money” they are.

I imagine your character as a traveller - maybe India … not that I know anything about him haha.

Or depending on the family army officer. Quite an old money job for then.

And now even 😂

Does he have to have a career?

Could he not be a good old fashioned cad with an eye for the ladies, spending money his family do not have?

So many good questions/ ideas. I was going to ask how many generations does the money need to go to be considered upper class but I think @HelenaWilson has answered that (thank you also for the excellent info on conscription - I think I did know that at some point but then abandoned research and forgot it all). So, if, say, his grandfather had made money in the industrial revolution, bought a large house, made some good investments it sounds as if the family would still be considered, by some at least, 'new money' at the outbreak of WW2?

@foodiefil Yes, I think he'd love to travel but feels bound to home for now. I wanted to have him volunteering to sign up in 1940 but I need to check if that was even possible. He's 23 at the start of the book and would be turning 24 in 1940, around the time I want him to sign up. So I might need to push the timings a bit.

PS, apologies, I've thrown everyone with the thread title because I threw in 1920s but actually mean mid to late 1930s - I added 20s because I was interested in what young men in the decade or so before would have gone into.

Because if they were cits they probably wouldn't be upper class, unless maybe they were cits back in the very early industrial revolution? But even then I think it would have been a push.

If they made their pile back in the 18th century, the founder of the family fortunes could have been knighted - Richard Arkwright, for example. You could perhaps push that to a baronetcy, so the title (Sir John and Lady Smith) would pass down and by the 20th c they'd have bought a country estate and be living off the income from investments rather than directly involved in t'mill.

I could see Jonathan Chawleigh ending up with a knighthood.

He probably doesn't need to have a career but he does have itchy feet and his parents (at least his mother) want to keep him close to home so he is, probably, tied down to something for now.

But the young man you are describing sounds very much like another minor character in the book ;)

Oh my next suggestion was could he be a “bright young thing” of the 1920s but sounds like he’d be too young :(

Good stuff. I definitely need to gen up on my titles though. But yes, I'm thinking (literally as I type, early days as you can tell) that his grandfather or great-grandfather did rather well in the 18th century and that they are an established, wealthy family but I just don't have a clear sense of how that would have been viewed in the 1930s class system.

Have to leave my desk for a while but thank you again everyone for your input so far - looking forward to revisiting this later

I think he'd love to travel but feels bound to home for now. I wanted to have him volunteering to sign up in 1940 but I need to check if that was even possible.

Does it have to be the Armed Forces? Could the Merchant Navy be an option? Crews were all volunteers, counted as civilians. Maybe the family fortune could come from shipping, and he has Merchant Navy ancestry?

Where is the family home? Maybe he's a keen amateur sailor with a small boat in May 1940....

But I think a young man in his early 20s wouldn't necessarily feel tied to home just because his mother wanted to keep him there.

You could be talking about my grandfather he was the second son of the third son,of the fourth son, of the second son going back generations to a powerful family who arrived with William the conqueror. His father was a gentleman tenant farmer. His father died when he was young (about 6) his mother who had been a painter of note ( exhibited at the royal academy in around 1910) was the daughter of another gentleman tenant farmer who had 13 children, 11 girls who all attended Cheltenham ladies college. Farming paid well then her father died in around 1913 leaving an estate of over £2million and there was no land.
After my great grandfather died my great grandmother ran the farm and raised her four young children. All were private educated the first two were very bright the boy became a lecturer at Cambridge and was the Head of the hut that decoded the enigma information at Bletchley, the girl went to Girton college studied chemistry but no degree was awarded in those days she went to work for ICI and was one of the most significant female chemists of her generation. My grandfather and his younger brother were not so bright and were sent into farming. My grandfather attended Wye College in Kent. My grandfather obtained a three generation tenancy on a 900 acre farm in 1935. He was a reserved occupation in WW2.
There were a huge number of gentlemen tenant farmers who filled a gap on good sized farms between the landed gentry and the peasant farmers. They would have considered themselves upper middle class they did none of the hard work themselves they had staff both inside and outside. My grandfather had a part time housekeeper right until the end of his life in 2000.
Other careers taken in my family by the ‘less clever’ were bloodstock agent, racehorse trainer and vet (also a reserved occupation). All would consider themselves upper middle class and privately educated their children.

My DGF born pre 1910 was a bookkeeper for a small business.
Aviation was the new thing in the early part of the 20th century. Maybe a pilot, which would give him a way into the RAF.

What about advertising (and read Dorothy L Sayers Murder Must Advertise for colour - she worked in advertising for several years). It wouldn't be reserved, but his mother could be trying to persuade him to turn to full time estate management.

I'm thinking (literally as I type, early days as you can tell) that his grandfather or great-grandfather did rather well in the 18th century and that they are an established, wealthy family but I just don't have a clear sense of how that would have been viewed in the 1930s class system.

I think if the sons had been going to public school and they had the manners and lifestyle of the gentry, they'd have been quite acceptable by the 1930s.

The upper levels of the aristocracy had been happy to marry the daughters of American railroad and shipping fortunes in the later 19th century, after all.

And with reference to his mother having lost her brother in WW1 - most of the families they know would probably also have lost someone, or more than one person, or have a family member left disabled. You'd need somehow to make this particular loss more significant if it's going to be a plot point.

On fiction - anything published at the time, really. Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers. Angela Thirkell wrote social comedy. I'm not a great fan of hers - I find a little goes a long way - but you could give her a try.

Great thread!

The Crowthers of Bankdam by Thomas Armstrong follows a family from the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution , when they were small fry mill owners, to the early 20th century , at which time they had become more or less landed gentry and acceptable to the ruling class. Might be worth a read - altjough it is very Northern-centric

There’s no way his mother would have inherited the place.

It would have gone to an obscure male third cousin, last heard of somewhere far away under British rule. He’d have arrived, taken over the property, moved Mama to a cottage out of sight, and made arrangements for your young man to be trained up in whatever would be most useful to the estate.

Did he work at all? I think the whole point of a gentleman was not to work, but to live off inherited money. But maybe he was an estate agent in a small country town. Working as an artisan or craftsman was not really the preserve of a gentleman. Maybe he worked as a bank clerk, like Arthur Wilson in Dads' Army?

What about publishing? 1920s was a golden age for publishing, and since it was moving into more mass market book publishing it wasn't necessary to be highly academic or literary. It was still slightly frowned upon in some quarters!

Wasn't Edith in Downtown Abbey getting into publishing when she met her 'man' in Downtown Abbey in this era?

There’s no way his mother would have inherited the place.
It would have gone to an obscure male third cousin....

Only if it was entailed. Not all landed property was entailed. And entails can be broken.

Entails were also abolished in 1925. It would be pretty unlikely that a new money, non-aristo family would have an entail anyway.

Army? Or Colonial Civil Service then invalided out? Born 1916, enters the CS very low down around 1937 (my grandfather was in the ICS but was super academic), immediately contracts ?malaria or yellow fever, still unfit for military service in 1939?

So many great ideas here.

Say our young man went to agricultural college (estate management) after boarding school, he'd presumably have finished around the age of 20 (google tells me the courses were around 1-2 years). But he then has to find an estate to manage - would that have been a thing?!

Could he be milling around at home meddling with how things have been done up until that point / irritated by the restrictions of only having a small-holding to manage, waiting to be able to sign up? For plot purposes, I need him at the house at the outbreak of war through to at least Feb/March 1940 (could be up to around September 1940) so I don't think an actual career in the army pre-outbreak of war will work.

Estate management jobs were based on connections/nepotism hires a lot of the time. Are there some nearby aristocratic neighbours who could have given him a job helping on their estate, but he lives at home? Perhaps they have a current agent in place who lives in the agent's cottage but who wants to retire soon, so your character is shadowing him and getting trained up as a replacement?