Walford's County Families is the short title of a work, partly social register, partly "Who's Who", which was produced in Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries, initially under the editorship of Edward Walford. It served as a guide or handbook to the British upper classes and landed gentry (in this case referred to in the title under the term, county families, for which see county family). Its coverage encompassed many of the most important rich, aristocratic or politically powerful of the people of the period, thereby serving to document to an extent the "cream of society", sometimes referred to loosely as Britain's upper ten thousand.
From edition to edition, the title of the annual volumes making up the series varied: the 1899 edition, was, for example, called Walford's County Families of the United Kingdom, or Royal Manual of the Titled and Untitled Aristocracy of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.
Volumes in this series are also sometimes referred to simply as Walford or Walford's. According to the British Library catalogue, the works bearing this title were published from 1860 to 1920.
Famous quotes containing the words county and/or families:
“Anti-Nebraska, Know-Nothings, and general disgust with the powers that be, have carried this county [Hamilton County, Ohio] by between seven and eight thousand majority! How people do hate Catholics, and what a happiness it was to show it in what seemed a lawful and patriotic manner.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Being dismantled before our eyes are not just individual programs that politicians cite as too expensive but the whole idea that society has a stake in the well-being of children down the block and the security of families on the other side of town. Whether or not kids eat well, are nurtured and have a roof over their heads is not just a consequence of how their parents behave. It is also a responsibility of society—but now apparently a diminishing one.”
—Richard B. Stolley (20th century)