Belgravia: a Victorian fantasy

by Ben Soton

Belgravia: ITV drama series by Julian Fellowes. Stars: Tamsin Greig, Philip Glenister, Harriet Walter.

Starting on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the drama then jumps 26 years to 1841 without the characters having aged more than a day. The series centres around the Trenchards; James Trenchard (played by Philip Glenister), is a merchant and supplier of food to the British army. We should be reminded of Napoleon’s remark about an army marching on its stomach.

The 1840s, the first full decade of Queen Victoria’s reign, was a time when a number of modern bourgeois sensibilities came about. The period saw the development of construction firms employing a variety of tradesmen; previously customers would hire numerous tradesmen on different contracts.

James Trenchard is associated with this new business model. Anne Trenchard (played by Tamsin Grieg) attends an event where the latest fad, ‘Afternoon Tea’, is being held. We are reminded that an advantage of this practice is that you can circulate and can leave whenever you please; not always possible in the case of a formal meal.

It is at an Afternoon Tea that Anne meets Caroline Countess of Brockenhurst (played by Harriet Walter), as someone on intimate terms with the elite of Hampshire society. The Countess’s son, who was engaged to the Trenchards’ daughter, died at Waterloo. Both the Trenchards’ daughter and the Countess’s son are now dead, but it soon materialises that the family has a secret.

The Trenchards live in Belgravia – a part of London’s West End that was developed as a residential area for the wealthy by the Duke of Westminster during the Victorian era. Brockenhurst, however, is just a village in the New Forest, about 15 miles from Southampton, and there has never been a Countess of it.

This historical drama is the product of Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey, ITV’s epic period drama known for showing the ruling class through very rose-tinted spectacles. Fellowes’ depiction of the nouveau riche Trenchards mixing with the likes of Countess Caroline is probably his idea of class-struggle.

In the case of Downton Abbey, whilst depicting the ruling class as quaint or wonderful philanthropists there were some references to the events of the time. These included the First World War, the liberation struggle in Ireland and the death of the Russian royal family. As the 1920s progressed, however, political events seemed to become less frequent.

This drama begins in the 1840s, an era that saw included rapid industrialisation, Chartism at home, famine and unrest in Ireland, and the 1848 Revolutions that swept across Europe. All we get in episode two are brief reference to contemporary Prime Ministers Robert Peel and Viscount Melbourne.

Fellowes, a Tory peer who sits in the House of Lords as Baron Fellowes of West Stafford, sees history from the perspective of the rich with occasional reference to their servants. Events such as those mentioned above are largely incidental and receive only an occasional mention.