The object of the present work is to record the family particulars, military and civil services, distinctions, public employments, professional and commercial pursuits, and general personal information in regard to that large section of the community who dwell at the “West End,” and in kindred localities.

Hitherto books of the same character have been restricted to the titled and territorial classes; excluding as a rule those whom education and intelligence—tested by their professional and commercial pursuits—have rendered equally deserving of honourable and gratifying mention, forming as they do the bulk of what is termed good society.

To supply this deficiency is the intent of the present publication, which aims, as already suggested, at being a handbook to the nobility and gentry of London—the term gentry being understood to include logically those to whom the title of gentleman has been accorded by common consent—those as a rule whose vocation in life does not debar them from admission to our West End Clubs.

To the work, as a whole, we have given the title of “Aristocracy of London,” as a compliment in the first place to that titular and hereditary element to which alone the word “Aristocracy” has been hitherto assumed to belong, and next as a tribute to that other intellectual and commercial element to which, in a wider sense, it may be equally allowed to apply; as a homage, in short, to that eminence of rank and that eminence of intelligence which, combined, impart their tone to our educated classes, and necessarily to the reflex of these, the present publication.

On the special interest which a work such as the “Aristocracy of London” must possess in the eyes of our oligarchic public—to say nothing of its indispensable utility to every person moving in society—it is needless here to dilate: the numerous personal books, peerage and other, which have preceded it in popular estimation, constituting at once our reason and apology for endeavouring to achieve comprehensively that which has hitherto been attempted in fragments only.

For the sake of convenience the “Aristocracy of London,” will be divided into eight parts, to be annually revised and corrected, namely:1.—The Aristocracy of Kensington.

2.—The Aristocracy of Notting Hill and Bayswater.

3.—The Aristocracy of Paddington and St. John’s Wood.

4.—The Aristocracy of Portman, Cavendish, and Russell Squares, &c.

5.—The Aristocracy of Hyde Park and May Fair.

6.—The Aristocracy of St. James and Belgravia.

7.—The Aristocracy of Brompton and Chelsea, &c.

8.—Miscellaneous and Supplementary.

The first of these parts, the “Aristocracy of Kensington,” is now presented to the public. While rendering the contents at once available by a copious index to the nearly 800 notices which the body of the work contains, we have adopted the novel and attractive plan of ranging the information we have been able to acquire under the heads of the streets, and according to the numbers or appellations therein of the houses at which the various parties reside—thus at once illustrating the street and the individual. It must not, however, be assumed that those persons whose names are not included in the following pages are therefore not entitled to appear. Omissions and errors, the results of deficiency of information, are inseparable from a work of this character, especially in the first issue. Future editions will enable us to be more copious and doubtless more accurate. At the same time, we cannot deny that the work, as it stands, contains the “cream” of those who dwell in the Kensington District, so far at least as we can judge from the numerous replies we have received to our applications, showing a ready and courteous disposition to communicate information on the part of those generally, it is to be inferred, who had any to offer. This friendly co-operation we heartily and gratefully acknowledge, and we trust that those whom our enquiries have accidentally not reached, will enable us to make the amende in our next edition.

It only remains for us to announce that the “Aristocracy of London” will be followed, in due course, by the “County Aristocracy,” in a series of parts, each in itself complete, devoted to the “Aristocracy of the Empire.”

9, Adelphi Terrace,
1863.