Taken from Best Upper Crust Jokes by Edward Phillips (1974)
Don’t see much of Chauncy de Pugh these days, old boy .’
‘ No—he’s become a tremendous snob since he succeeded to the title.’
‘What’s that go to do with it ?’
‘ Well, he refuses to travel in the same car with his chauffeur’.
Noticing that his friend had a very handsome-looking red setter with him, the first nobleman said, ‘ I say, old chap , you’ve got a new dog!’
Yes, relied the second, ‘ I got him for the wife, actually.’
‘By jove, said his friend. ‘ That was a damned good swop.’
Did you hear the one about the very rich aristocrat who bought his son a slum?
He wanted him to have the things he’d missed when he was a child.
A prospective Tory candidate for Parliament was addressing a constituency meeting and was being continually interrupted by a Socialist heckler.
‘ Let me ask you a question’, shouted the heckler.’ Have you ever earned a penny by the sweat of your brow?’
‘Certainly not, answered the nobleman. ‘Our family never perspire ‘.
Remind you of a certain member of the Royal Family ?
Did you hear the one about the neighbourhood that’s so high-class, when the children write rude words on garden walls, they’re in Latin ?
Remind you of a certain former Tory MP ?
An old lady was explaining her duties to the new maid.
‘ Now from time to time’, she said, ‘ you will have to help the butler upstairs’.
‘ Oh, that all tight, ma’am, said the maid’. ‘I like a drink myself occasionally’.
An English nobleman registered at an hotel in Mexico. The receptionist, looking at the register, said pleasantly in English, ‘Ah—-you are a foreigner.’
‘Certainly not’, said the nobleman. ‘I’m English !’
‘Jane, I want you to go down to the library and get me a copy of a book called How to stay Young and Beautiful, said the Duchess of Bradford.
‘Right away, mum’, answered the maid. ‘Shall I tell them it’s urgent?’
First club member: ‘Heard you buried your wife last week, old man.’
Second club member: ‘Had to, old chap—she was dead, you know ‘.
I seem to recall that Major Gowan said something very similar in an episode of Fawlty Towers.
During the latter part of the nineteenth century a very strait-laced Duke married one of the celebrated Gaiety Girls. So weeks after the wedding, he was scandalised to see a life-sized portrait of his new wife, completely nude being displayed in a Bond Street art gallery.
‘ Don’t worry about it, sweetie-pie, said his wife soothingly. ‘ He did it from memory .’
A very thin beggar stopped a very fat dowager in Bond Street and said, ‘ Could you spare a few pence, ma’am—I aint’ad nuffink to eat for a week.’
‘ Good gracious’, said the lady, ‘ I wish I had your will-power!’
The new young maid had been cleaning the oven when the master of the house walked in.
‘I say, Mary, you’re pretty dirty, aren’t you?’ he said.
‘Yes, sir’, replied the maid.’ ‘And I’m even prettier clean’.
Mrs Newly-Rich had bought a large farm with extensive grounds in an exclusive part of Surrey. One of her friends from earlier days came to pay her a visit and was being shown round the poultry yards.
‘ And do all these hens lay eggs ?’, she asked
‘They do, yes, replied Mrs Newly-Rich, ‘ but they don’t have to, you know. We can afford to buy them now.’
Sir Hugh, youngest son of a very noble family, was on a hunting expedition in India. He had no luck at all until the very last day, when a magnificent tiger appeared in from of the party and stared at them benignly. After a while it wondered off into the jungle.
‘Excuse me sir’, said the guide. ‘ Why did not you shoot?’
‘ O, I couldn’t, old boy’, said Sir Hugh.’ The dashed fellow didn’t have the right expression for a rug.’
Two brothers, members of a very ancient and noble English family, hated each other all through school and college. After graduating, they went their separate ways, one into the navy and the other into the church. In the course of time, the first brother became an admiral and the second a bishop.
They didn’t meet for many years but one day by chance, they spotted each other on the platform at Waterloo. The admiral was in full dress, having just come from an investiture at Buckingham Palace; the bishop, grown fat and pot-bellied, was attired in his usual walking- out dress of frock and gaiters.
They stated at each other for a moment, pretending not to recognise each other , then finally the bishop said, ‘I say, stationmaster, is the 6.15 for Bournemouth running on time this evening ?’
‘ Yes, madam, ‘ replied the admiral, ‘ but is it wise to travel in your condition ?’
Lady of the House:’ Was that a man’s voice I heard in the kitchen last evening, Mary?’
Maid: ‘ Er—yes, mum.’
Lady of the House: ‘Who was it?’
Maid: Er—my brother, mum’
Lady of the House: ‘What is his name?’
Maid: ‘ Please mum—I think it’s Cyril.’
Two bright young members of the upper crust were honeymooning in a select quarter of a small town in southern Greece. One morning at breakfast, the groom said, ‘I think we should be moving on dear, I hear that the locals are expecting an earthquake here within the next day or two.’
‘But surely, darling’, said the bride, ‘those things are confined to the poorer quarters of the town?’
An elderly society lady was taking her early morning constitutional in her wheelchair. As they approached one of the far corners of her considerable estate, she said to her manservant, ‘ James, what are those two young people doing over in that hedge?’
‘Er–making love, milady,’ said the manservant discretely.
‘ Good heavens,’ said her Ladyship. ‘Does that sort of thing still go on?’
A retired colonial governor met his former batman by chance one evening, and after a few drinks, persuaded him to come and work for him again as his personal valet.
‘It will be just like the old days,’ said the old man’ It’ll all come back to you in no time’.
So the man agreed and it was arranged that he would start work that very day. The next morning, promptly at 7.30, he entered the governor’s bedroom with a cup of tea, which he placed carefully by his master’s bedside.
Then he walked to the other side of the bed, shook the governor’s wife and said in a whisper, ‘ Wake up miss—it’s time to get back to the village.’
The mistress of the house was interviewing a young man for the post of chauffeur.
‘ And what is your name, young man?’, she asked.
‘ William, madam’‘ I don’t mean your Christian name—I usually address the staff by their surnames’.
‘I’m sorry, madam. My surname is Darling’.
‘Well, William, I think you’ll be suitable for the job.
An American lady on holiday in England visited one of the stately home noted for its fine garden.
‘My, what beautiful lawns!’, she exclaimed. ‘We have very large lawns at my home back in Connecticut but they’re nothing like these . Just what do you have to do to get a lawn so perfect?’
‘ Well,’ replied the Duke whose home it was. ‘The first thing you have to do is to start about three hundred years ago.’
To be continued…
R. M. Healey
Cartoon by Anton