The Family and Background of the Duchess of Cambridge, the Middletons 1, Until 2022


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Don't get me wrong guys - I think Kate is no better than an American cheerleeder (but she iS goodlooking - I give her that) but I think the point of the article was that this Sir Christoipopher and Lady Bullock (the cousin of Kate) WERE very well known in parliamentary circles. I have an English grand father who remembers Sir Chrostopher very well.... I still cannot believe it! Kate's Mamma was an airline hostess and from a dirt poor family we were told soooo many times.....In Europe VERY few people can count "Knights," " Sirs" or "Ladys" amongst their immediate ancestors / relatives.

Is Kate- "gentry" or a simple maid from "la country"?
I am still not sure - and rusty at this "threading". Kate is very attractive but is she working class or very wealthy and what you Brits call "gentry" with this Lady Bullock ( nee Lupton) connection. It took us back ,I can tell you that! Smiles from toni
 
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Kate's mother was an airline hostess, who lived in a council flat for the first few years of her life. Her dad was a builder and her grandfather was a coal miner; they were undoubtedly working class. You make it seem as if Kate's family have been portrayed as something they weren't, but that's not the case.

I fail to see what's so shocking about this. Most Britons, if you were to go back far enough, could probably find someone with a title in their family tree, yet the vast majority would consider themselves working/middle class.
 
tonyferen said:
I am still not sure - and rusty at this "threading". Kate is very attractive but is she working class or very wealthy and what you Brits call "gentry" with this Lady Bullock ( nee Lupton) connection. It took us back ,I can tell you that! Smiles from toni
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This thread is to do with the couples current events.
The other thread you're posting in is to do with her family and background.

Catherine comes, IMO, from a middle class family. Her aristocratic ancestors are from far back and make no bearing on her 'class'
 
tonyferen said:
I am still not sure - and rusty at this "threading". Kate is very attractive but is she working class or very wealthy and what you Brits call "gentry" with this Lady Bullock ( nee Lupton) connection. It took us back ,I can tell you that! Smiles from toni
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Kate was not gentry (a term that designates untitled nobility, aristocracy or landlords), and neither was she working class: Kate and her family were a middle-class.

Granted, her family is quite wealthy and anywhere but Britain she would have been considered upper middle-class or even upper class, but the class system in Britain is different from most of the world. Upper middle-class usually means the aforementioned untitled aristocracy, gentry and families of high-ranking officers, while upper class is reserved for nobility or highest aristocracy.
 
A king of England was the grandson of a tanner. Royalty is not something genetic.




LaRae
 
Hi- it seems I am on 2 threads so I hope I am not repeating myself. My wife says that on the wikipaedia site for Kate and a site for her family,
her grandfather was at Oxford University .

This is the son of this Olive Middleton (nee Lupton) that the paper article (Guardian) talks about - Olive is the 2nd cousin to Lady Bullock (nee Lupton) That is a reasonably close relationship in European terms... In England such a background as this can't be considered working class ...or can it?

Still confused
Keep the smiles on Toni
 
British class system can be somewhat confusing. :)

Kate was never working class (although her mother's family was, so in a way Carole married "up"): she was from a middle class.
Despite her family's wealth, she could never be considered upper class or even upper middle class since those two are usually used to described nobility, aristocracy, landed gentry, etc.
 
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Having one fairly distant relative who married a man who'd been created a Knight doesn't suddenly make a middle class family 'gentry'.

It's always been well known that Kate's paternal relatives were quite wealthy middle class people, who are distantly related to aristocracy through marriage almost 600 years ago. Her maternal family, on the other hand, were definitely working class.

All in all, Kate has a bit of everything in her ancestry and her family would now be considered middle class.
 
Thaning you so much for your help here
It must be the "Carole" slant that the bulk of the papers take up.
BUT.... If there is wealth and Oxford education from decades ago and Kate's grandmother presumably knew her second cousin, Lady Bullock, wife of a man famous internationaly for being sacked by Prime Minister Sir Stanley Baldwin.........surely that is what you might call "gentry" in ANY country?
 
:previous:
Not in Britain, I'm afraid, it's not nearly enough.
Money doesn't equal class: even billionaires can never aspire to be part of upper class or even upper middle class, unless they were born into it.
 
You are losing me a bit now!! If you look at the wikipaedia site we found out that Kate's great gandfather , great great grandfather and great great great grandfather were all solicitors !!!! As you say Money isn't equal to class . But, in Europe 4 generations of highly educated men / women (this lady Barbara Bullock / Lupton was a Cambridge graduate too!!!)......Very impressive and hard to top.

I am thinking is your backround this impressive

If YES - LUCKY YOU!!!!

I am pretty convinced that the Middleton line is essentially "gentry" - despite Kate being not much more than a cheerleader -although I am told she also went to a prestigious University and even boarded there -which is a sign of REAL wealth in Saltzburg for sure.

Have a great day and thanks for your time

Hi there - I know money does not mean class or gentry - but this Lady Bullock / Lupton and her VERY high ranking husband -Sir Christopher.....a second cousin to Michael Middleton's grandmother Olive middleton (nee Lupton).......the whole family would have known each other etc etc...... this is surely "gentry" in anyone's country
 
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Having the 2nd cousin of ones great grandmother marry someone who received a knighthood doesn't exactly enhance ones family tree. Catherine is not even a descendent of this person. Also my guess is that similar distant relationships to people who had knighthoods or kinships to minor nobility could be found in a lot of English families who are today of working or middle class families. It certainly does not make one a member of the gentry/aristocracy.
 
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Having a second cousin of ones great grandmother marry a person who was knighted does not not make Catherine's family gentry or aristocratic. Catherines family do not even descend from this person.
How many threads have you posted this in anyway?
 
Dear Tony from Austria

As allready explained - the british 'class-system' has diffrent definitions, than our continental ones. For us class has a lot to do with education & working background - not so much in England - it's all about birth in the right family.

Therefor you cannot translate english upperclass to german Oberschicht ;) maybe the same words, but another meaning.
 
tonyferen said:
You are losing me a bit now!! If you look at the wikipaedia site we found out that Kate's great gandfather , great great grandfather and great great great grandfather were all solicitors !!!! As you say Money isn't equal to class . But, in Europe 4 generations of highly educated men / women (this lady Barbara Bullock / Lupton was a Cambridge graduate too!!!)......Very impressive and hard to top.

I am thinking is your backround this impressive

If YES - LUCKY YOU!!!!

I am pretty convinced that the Middleton line is essentially "gentry" - despite Kate being not much more than a cheerleader -although I am told she also went to a prestigious University and even boarded there -which is a sign of REAL wealth in Saltzburg for sure.

Have a great day and thanks for your time

Hi there - I know money does not mean class or gentry - but this Lady Bullock / Lupton and her VERY high ranking husband -Sir Christopher.....a second cousin to Michael Middleton's grandmother Olive middleton (nee Lupton).......the whole family would have known each other etc etc...... this is surely "gentry" in anyone's country
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Tony, it wouldn't be considered "gentry" in Austria or Germany. I can trace my descent back to Charlesmagne due to my great-grandmother's family - she was noble woman from Austria who married a rich businessman from Bohemia. My grandmother was well educated for her time and married into the educated bourgeoisie and of course my father went to university, as did I. But there is no way my family would be considered "gentry" back then or nowadays.
 
It's in her Papa's blood

Hi Katryn,
I can see that you have , as they say , a " most distinguished" background yourself. But did your great grandmother have a 2nd cousin that was a "Sir" and still, as reported , gets discussed in politics/history classes in Australia ( a damn British colony!!!). Sir Christopher (and Lady Bullock) were a real high flighers for sure.

It is these connections we think that gives Kate an edge over other clever, pretty cheerleader women.
It is in her families blood (her Papa's) after all maybe......
 
Sorry but a great grandmother who had a sir as a second cousin? That's a big stretch. I doubt Catherine even knows who this guy is.

Why do you keep calling her a cheerleader? She isn't. You've posted this in numerous threads, have you some personal connection with this story that you wish to highlight because it doesn't mean a lot.
 
Three generations of lawyers makes the Middleton family nothing more than solidly middle class in the UK.

I think tonyferen is trying to suggest that the Middletons have been somehow disingenuous, or deliberately misleading in trying to suggest that Kate is from a much lower class than she actually is.

The Middletons have always been open about their backgrounds. Kate's father is from professional middle class stock, hence he attended fee-paying schools. Her mother, on the other hand, is definitely from working class Northern stock, hence the fact that they lived in a council flat and Carole went to an ordinary state school.

There's nothing shocking here at all.
 
In so many ways I agree with you about the ordinariness of Catherine; this connection does seem in so many ways a "stretch" as you say . But WHY did the story get off the ground?

I just don't get it. Do you think the British journalist that wrote it is bit simple minded? Or ignorant as to the relative unimportance of a "Sir " and "Lady" in a persons family history -even if surnames are the same (ie Middleton / Lupton). Especially if they are only a 2nd cousins thrice removed.

That's just boring family reunion stuff I guess really.

Does the British journalist not see that - do you think?

I suppose the "Sir" involved is not a "celebity" like Kate's other VERY VERY VERY distant "cousins" ...eg-

I used to love reading about how Ellen "Degenerate" was an 12th or so cousin to Kate - that was like -WOW she is a famous American!!!

Now I am not so sure

We ARE sure that Kate looks like a cheerleader though. Legs for it...
Enough now - back to her pretty looks and legs - not blood!!!!
Goodmorning to you all
 
If you look carefully at the blog that the article was posted on, it's the Guardian's blog called The Northerner. It's specifically run by and for people in the North of England. Northerners feel that they're often a bit overlooked by the South East of England, so to be able to say that the future Queen is descended from Durham miners is a bit of a point of pride to them.

Kate's paternal ancestors' role in the development of Leeds, one of the great Northern cities, is also of interest to them.

Anything to do with Kate is interesting for the British press, they even write articles about her going to Tescos. An additional interest here, is that Kate's second cousin thrice removed's husband is the only civil service permanent under-secretary to be essentially sacked. The question about how just or unjust that sacking was is interesting to political anoraks.

A smaller point is also that in the UK at the moment, there's an ongoing debate as to whether senior civil servants should continue to be automatically knighted when they reach a certain position and length of service. Sir Christopher was knighted, as is the custom given his position within the civil service, but he was then sacked, which suggests that the automatic knighthood is indefensible.
 
EIIR said:
Northerners feel that they're often a bit overlooked by the South East of England, so to be able to say that the future Queen is descended from Durham miners is a bit of a point of pride to them.
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Being from the North, I disagree with this assessment. I have never meant anyone who feels overlooked by the South. The 'battle' between the North and the South is nothing but nonsense, nobody could care less. Battles between counties on the other hand are interesting, we all know who the winner of that is.
 
:previous:

I have to disagree. We only have to look at the recent London Olympics as proof of some northerners' issues with London and the south more generally. There was lots of talk about London getting all the money and the transport investment while the north got none. People in Manchester were resentful of the fact that their bid to hold the Olympics received much less support from the powers that be than London's did.

The south is richer than the north, with lower unemployment (on the whole) and better transport etc. The concentration of the media (BBC, ITV, national newspapers) is also an issue for northerners in my experience.

I've spent time around a lot of Manc Manchester United fans and their disdain for the south is something else. They feel that the south and London especially, are at the top of the tree to their disadvantage.
 
If you walk around the north, not just Manchester, you'll see that the ordinary people couldn't give a fuss about the south. They're happy with themselves. The people who complain, don't tend to be the ordinary man on the street, they tend to be the high up nobody's who want more for themselves rather than the north.

I think this is the kind of article that illustrates your point, not just for the north and south of england but the whole country.

London 2012 Olympics: North-South divide exists on whether games will benefit whole of UK - Telegraph

You only had to look at the news during both games to see that money was spread equally enough, and of the biggest triumph for the north was that the Olympic Cauldron was formed in Harrogate.

I've never heard anyone complain about things being based in the capital as a problem, it's pretty much common sense. Didn't some of the BBC just move to Salford?

When it comes down to it, if you're happy in your own life, you've got enough money for yourself there's nothing else to care about. Whether Catherine comes from the North or not makes no difference to anyone.

Only so far we can link this to Catherine so we may have to end our discussion soon.
 
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If someone wants more background on Kate's family, I would recommend reading Claudia Joseph's book on Kate. It goes into detail on both sides of her family. Michael's side are wealthy middle class lawyers and Carole's is working men and women who escape the coal pits to move south to London rise out of poverty to home ownership.
 
Duke-of-Earl said:
I like Pippa. She comes across as sporty and outgoing, a fun person to be around. She receives no money from the tax-payer so IMO, she can party 24/7 for all I care.
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Yeah, that's my impression, too.

Actually, the Middletons have always impressed me. They're very comfortable in their skin and are circumspect and supportive, from all accounts in my recollection. They don't seem interested in any weird social "inner circle" silliness and have, as far as I can tell, just gone about their business as they always have. The seem to be the perfect in laws - there but not there.

What benefits might have befell them from their daughter's marriage can hardly be considered ill gotten - all in law parents gain something from a good marriage, no? Pippa's book deal, the increased volume their business may or may not do, etc. - well ... yeah. That's a natural by-product and is morally neutral.

Pippa always seems like a nice girl, actually. I never pay attention to clothes so I haven't a clue if she dresses well or what she does socially at all - but when I have seen her with Catherine, she always seems appropriate to the activity.
 
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