The English Character

Thoughts on 'The English Character', the third chapter of England: An Elegy, by Roger Scruton

The gatekeeper at Wellington Arch, London, 1953, the photo was taken by Charles Hewitt. The picture comes from the excellent Forgotten History UK Channel on Telegram, see t.me/forgottenhistoryuk

Facile pronouncements aiming to reduce British identity to values abound. Amid what many see as continuing Balkanization occasioned by mass immigration and “diversity”, the legacy media talking heads ignore the fact of Britain as an entity emerging from its founding ethnicities. These types seek to reduce Britishness to an abstract set of vague rules or ideals rooted in presentism. They say anyone can subscribe to this consumerist product called ‘‘British values’’ and, by magic, an individual is made as British as anyone else.

‘‘Democracy”, ‘‘equality’’, ‘‘tolerance’’, and‘‘the rule of law’’, are frequently asserted as British values. Some even include “diversity” in this list. To my knowledge, the British values brigade has never been able to explain how accepting these ideals would make someone British.

By their logic, the Duke of Wellington, who opposed the Reform Act in 1832, was not as British as a migrant who pays current ideas some lip service. Wellington did not hold views on democracy and equality that prevail today.¹

Those who claim tolerance as a British value fail to say how this tolerance differs from tolerance practiced by people in other nations. People who regurgitate this phrase should justify the merits of importing people from places where tolerance of the kind they encourage is not in evidence.

Anyone in this country can choose to comply with laws in Britain. A scenario where someone of British ethnic descent becomes Chinese because they adhere to Chinese law or custom is unimaginable and ridiculous. Values arguments do not explain how acceptance of systems equates to membership of the group that gave rise to them. Many liberals claim that adopting a set of values amounts to a kind of transformation where an initiate sheds their foreign identity to assume another nationality. This is bunkum. 

Diversity is ‘the condition of having or being composed of differing elements’.² Nationality is about group distinctiveness and the commonalities that mark people as belonging to a collective. Defining a group by the differences of its members is a grand nullity. Values do matter, but they do not fully represent a people.

Although we hear the usual bromides in the cause of broadening what stands for British identity, English identity has not been subject to such a project to the same degree. Yes, similar tactics against Englishness are used from time to time, but it is not English passports that are given away. We do not have an English parliament governed under an English state. No one passes a test to become a citizen of England. It was not an English empire that ruled the world. For these reasons, England and Englishness occupy a somewhat centrifugal space when it comes to mainstream discussions on British identity. It's worth remembering that while ties of kinship and history between the peoples of Britain are ancient, the British state is not an ancient project.

The question of character is more helpful in understanding national identity than the rather incurious preoccupation with values. A study of the character of any one of the constituent peoples of Britain can provide insight into their commonalities and differences. An argument for a singular British character is not easy to maintain due to the differences between the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish, even though there is much that binds these peoples'. In his chapter, The English Character, in England: An Elegy, Roger Scruton considers what distinguishes the English.

Scruton provides a survey of other works on this subject. Charles H Pearson (National Life and Character, 1893) predicted that the distinctive parts of the English character would disappear under the impact of socialism. The state would replace the family as the guardian of social reproduction, and a habit of dependency would extinguish ancient values. Scruton accepts the accuracy of Pearson’s main predictions. He notes the dismissal of the work as inconsequential and racist because of its distinction between people of higher and lower breeds. Pearson's work did cause a stir that led to other writings. Ernest Barker (National Character and the Factors in its Formation, 1927) traces the still-living virtues of the English to geographical, institutional, and cultural sources. Arthur Bryant (The National Character, 1934) argues that the Englishman is distinguished by an intense ‘at-oneness’ with his environment.³ Bryant traces this to race, geography, and climate. W Macneile Dixon (The Englishman, 1931) ‘emphasises the ideal of the gentleman and the aristocratic style which rises above adversity with so little apparent effort’.⁴ E.M Forster (Abinger Harvest, 1936) suggests that the Englishman is essentially middle class, solid, cautious, and efficient, though with an undeveloped heart and a lack of imagination. J.B Priestley (The English, 1973) identifies the essence of Englishness as the habit of depending on instinct and intuition rather than abstract reasoning. Stanley Baldwin (The Englishman, 1940) ‘emphasises self government, and the virtues of compromise and considerateness which supposedly made it possible’.⁵ George Orwell (The Lion and the Unicorn, 1941) ‘finds his paradigms of Englishness among the old working class, with their grumbling acquiescence in arrangements which they did not choose and their unflappable stoicism in emergencies’.⁶

The picture is from countryhouselibrary.co.uk

Scruton says some of the best works on the English character are by foreigners. 'The English were recognised not only by themselves but by visitors and travellers as a distinct human type.'⁷ This point is crucial, and such recognitions serve as a forceful riposte to the bad faith actors who gainsay the reality of a distinct English people. Scruton cites a range of twentieth-century authors. They agree the English were kind and remote in their mutual dealings; this was owed partly to human institutions and ‘partly to the cool, dull, uniform weather of their country'.⁸ At the outset of this discourse, Scruton is touching on the English reserve, a trait that features regularly in his book.

Karel Capek detected an ingrained etiquette and a contrasting freedom. He uses the adjectives ‘hard’, ‘conservative’, ‘loyal’, ‘kind’, ‘hospitable’, ‘courteous’, and ‘trustworthy’ to describe an ‘uncommunicative’ English people who ‘cannot get out of their skin’.⁹ George Santayana noted a preference of the English for the country over the town; this perception evokes the phrase ‘England’s green and pleasant land' and brings to mind a sense of home and belonging. Like Capek, Santayana detects a tendency towards detachment offset by hospitality. He finds the Englishman ‘travels and conquers without a settled design, because he has the instinct of exploration’.¹⁰ Such an assessment recalls J R Seeley’s famous words on the expansion of the British Empire: ‘We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind.’¹¹ Santayana claimed that ‘Never since the heroic days of Greece has the world had such a sweet, just, boyish master,’ as the English.¹² Scruton recognises an idealised version of the England he knew from the works he cites.¹³

Most who have written of the English have been ‘favourably impressed’ and Scruton reasons things held against the English are virtues, such as ‘the coldness which is reserve’, ‘the hypocrisy which is compromise, the snobbery which is decorum and the stubbornness which is also pride’.¹⁴ The English refusal to display feeling understood by Nirad Chaudhuri is to Scruton, ‘a lack of self regard’.¹⁵

Scruton understands England changed over time, and he states the English character he describes emerging in the twentieth century has started to dwindle and melt away. His conception of this English character is ‘less sure of itself, less belligerent, more quiet, sad and poetical’. It relates by genealogy and temperament to the freeborn Englishmen of the Civil Wars, the ‘stubborn’ and ‘peaceful’ yeoman farmer celebrated by Macaulay, and the ‘stuffy suburban bourgeois of Galsworthy’.¹⁶ Despite Scruton’s justified pessimism, some of the elements he highlights are still present in the English today.

Sruton writes of a people averse to affection. He contrasts a more sober English temperament with the behaviour of other Europeans, offering the ‘volatile humours of mediterranean people’ as an example.¹⁷ The English manner of greeting differs from that practiced by some other Europeans. Scruton does not mention this, but there is a marked distinction between continental welcomes that can involve kissing on the cheek and the far more detached and less physical English salutations.

If a schoolchild feels that the luxuriant range of pronouns he or she, him/her, or they/them can choose from are too restrictive or staid, they might announce that they are a wolf before this realisation is acclaimed by their “teacher”

English custom is given to form. Formal clothes, modes of address, meetings, respect for offices, minutes, and agendas. Scruton detects a degree of relaxation that comes with this, noting loosely worn uniforms. 

During solemn deliberations, there is often ironical laughter. On the matter of humour, it is worth noting the wryness that English people can show in their everyday dealings; this does not appear to be as common among other groups.

The disposition to form fed an adherence to institutional rituals. Scruton ascribes a sceptical but real respect for ceremony to an empiricist tendency that trumped abstract principles¹⁸ ‘Tradition and example are far more reliable than abstract argument; rituals and ceremonies, because they exist without an explanation, they are far more likely to contain the truth of things than any intellectual doctrine. This attitude led to spontaneous preference for monarchical over republican government, and for aristocratic titles over professional degrees. It also led to a habit of understatement: the important things, it was assumed, went without saying.’¹⁹

In May 2023, the respect for ceremony Scruton detects was in evidence during the coronation of Charles III. The monarchy was met enthusiastically by the English public. Although much support of the Royal Family might seem kitsch, the bunting, the tacky flags, and the costumes some wear, to note some examples, royal occasions bring a national community together. For many, the monarchy is the institution that best epitomises the Burkean pact between those living, those dead, and those yet to be born. Even though people might not articulate their allegiance to the monarchy in such terms, the Royal Family finds support largely on account of the heritage and peoplehood it embodies. On its own, intellectual doctrine cannot account for sentiment and love of kin.

The Royal Family are immensely popular in Britain, notwithstanding the Windsors' many flaws, including the lack of reserve shown by some of the family. Many who criticise them for an absence of noblesse oblige and condemn them as little more than a bunch of liberals with baubles may still see the value of keeping them at a time when national identity is under siege.

An image from the funeral procession of Elizabeth II on 19/9/2022, the photo is from telegraph.co.uk

Scruton regularly cites reserve as a virtue. The trait is diminishing. Just take the touchy-feely hysterics and tendency toward unwarranted animation that people often display nowadays. You may have encountered this when hearing someone exclaim after their friend informs them of some not very important thing, like a meal with another ‘‘foodie,'' a new outfit, or something seen on TV. The antics seen on some American sitcoms, often the exaggerated crowd noise and hysterics, Friends comes to mind, may go some way to explaining how this behaviour has seeped its way into society in England.

Since England: An Elegy (2000), social media has grown exponentially; this technology allows people to broadcast their private lives to the world. The encouragement of “likes” and “hits” can feed unrestrained behaviour.

Today, more discussion around mental wellbeing takes place than was the case twenty-four years ago; this is healthy for motivating people not to suffer in silence during difficult times, but the constant focus on diagnosis and therapy often invites the gaining of attention and status by revealing one has some ailment or other. Such a culture was unknown to the England Scruton grew up in, and it discourages the reserve and restraint commended by the author.²⁰

Although the English reserve may be less apparent than in previous times, this quality can still distinguish the English from other groups. It can be detected when appraising the state of auditory life in England. Step inside a bus or walk down a high street in a large city in this country, and you will likely bet met by an array of discordant tones. You may hear people shouting into their phones during what they regard to be a typical conversation. Of course, English people can be loud and obnoxious, and there is a ‘lad culture’ not appreciated by all, but in general, it is fair to say that during usual day-to-day events, the English are usually less obtrusive than those from many other nationalities. In today's hyper-diverse society, the English can demonstrate too much forebearance when encountering difference.

Scruton judges an English sexual reserve to be ‘an attempt to safeguard possessions more valuable than pleasure’, like chastity, marriage, and family. Judging by the general culture today, this reserve has largely dissipated. As the role of Christianity in Britain diminished over recent decades, rates of marriage have declined. ‘In the 30 years from 1992 to 2022, overall numbers of marriages had decreased by 20.8%.’²¹ Family breakdown and less traditional family structures are becoming more commonplace. The ideal of a family unit that dominated in Scruton’s youth, comprised of a man and woman with progeny understood to be boys and girls, is readily demonised. We are told the designations parent 1 and parent 2 are just as valid as those of mum and dad and that men can give birth. If a schoolchild feels that the luxuriant range of pronouns he or she, him/her, or they/them can choose from is too restrictive or staid, they might announce that they are a wolf before this realisation is acclaimed by their “teacher”, as occurred in Scotland recently.²²

It's not just a case that the building blocks of a healthy society have come under considerable strain; Britain is subject to an institutional capture where subversion and insanity have free rein. Notwithstanding our maddening times, most British people still favour the traditional nuclear family and find common ground with Scruton's views on the subject. Much of the media may give the impression that more people are hard-left or “progressive” than is the case.

An English repression extended to all areas where ‘pleasure might overwhelm discretion’. The English were not a joyless people but anxious not to care about pleasures more than they should. Scruton argues this informs the English cuisine, which he terms one of England’s ‘least celebrated triumphs’. ‘Ingredients were systematically deprived of their flavour’ so that ‘everything tasted the same and manly stoicism prevailed over sensory enjoyment’.²³ As I have argued recently, English food is made more for satisfaction than enjoyment. Its traits align with a temperament discerned by those who have studied the English, particularly in its moderate and understated character; this moderation is evident in the manner English meals eschew excesses of sweetness and spice. The connection Scruton draws makes sense. A full exposition on the link between English food and the English character would have enhanced the work.

While it is common to hear British food deprecated by liberals who swoon at the thought of the latest foreign offering, when it comes to eating out, English food does not carry with it the same risk as other options. It is doubtful that you have ever spent the best part of the early hours of the morning on your toilet seat because of a roast dinner from the local pub. A more unlikely scenario is being able to defecate through the eye of a needle after a happy helping of steak and ale pie. The refrain of a ‘‘dodgy Chinese’’ to refer to illness induced by a Chinese takeaway is common in England. In the Only Fools And Horses episode Yesterday Never Comes, Derek Trotter speaks of suffering from "Gandhi's revenge’’ when remembering a bad curry.²⁴ Some may find it a bit dull, but a reasonable amount of flavour and the very unlikely prospect of physical depletion are two factors in favour of English food.

The image is from thenudge.com

Scruton argues that repression led the English to value privacy and no freedom higher than the freedom to close a door. ‘The Englishman’s home was not just a castle, but an island of ‘mine’ in an ocean of ‘ours’. The English saw their country as home and the land as their entitlement, hence they could not be content without a piece of it.’ English individualism is understood to date back centuries, Scruton touches on this in his acknowledgement of the Englishman’s attachment to his property.²⁵ The idea of English people considering the land as their entitlement is anathema to the ruling elite and the liberal consensus. The current power structure actively opposes the view that the English have a claim to land; this is made clear through the "nation of immigrants’’ canard and the ‘‘far right’’ and "racist’’ slurs habitually used against those who oppose mass immigration, even when such opposition does not assert the justified principle of self-determination. How we have reached this state of affairs without catastrophic military defeat cannot easily be explained. The English entitlement to their land, as appreciated by Scruton, is heretical to an order that extols diversity as the foremost value of the twenty-first century.

The English attitude to the household led to the proliferation of suburban houses in the countryside. Scruton laments this. He traces the development to the Industrial Revolution. Priestley warned against the destruction of the landscape, and other writers opposed ‘the unsightly spread of exurbia’. Priestley died in 1984; one can only wonder what he would think of what remains of the English countryside today and the continued building on green land.²⁶ Scruton’s account of the erosion of the countryside is striking when read in light of ongoing events. His concern is for the buildings English householders occupy. In the year 2000, when his work was published, the Labour government elected in 1997 was in the early stages of attempting to normalise current levels of immigration into Britain. In 2024, towering apartment complexes accommodate an unnatural rise in the population. As England’s green and pleasant land continues to recede, one imagines not many of the new builds will go to English people, whose prospects of owning a home are currently unfavourable. When Priestley and others Scruton cites registered their regret at the loss of the countryside, at least the encroachment on the natural world was offset somewhat by the reality of homes provided to a more naturally growing population than now is the case. Scruton references the English practicing gardening as a way to ‘establish an inalienable right of possession to the plot of land that was theirs.’²⁷ Those of the boomer generation might have hoped for a home with some green space. Alas, the verdant dreams of millennials and zoomers are less likely to be realised. Population levels keep rising as more dwellings are made in buildings that ascend ever closely to the sky, far away from any garden…

I want to cover some of the remaining subjects of this chapter; this work will continue in a second part.

My next piece or the one after will be for paid subscribers. I feel it’s fair that those who have supported The Heritage Site in this way should receive some exclusive content.

1. Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Reform Bill". Encyclopedia Britannica, 28 May. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/event/Reform-Bill. Accessed 21 November 2024: Rory Muir, Wellington, Commentary for Volume 2, Chapter 22: Opposing the Reform Bill (November 1830–June 1832), https://lifeofwellington.co.uk/commentary/chapter-22-opposing-the-reform-bill-november-1830-june-1832/, 2013, 2015, accessed: 21/11/2024

2. “Diversity.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diversity. Accessed 16 Nov. 2024.

3. Roger Scruton, England: An Elegy, 2000, 43-44

4. Ibid, 44

5. Ibid

6. Ibid

7. Ibid

8. Ibid, 45

9. Ibid

10. Ibid, 46

11. John Seeley. In Ratcliffe, S. (Ed.), Oxford Essential Quotations. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 16 Nov. 2024, from https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-ed5-00009260.

12. Scruton, 46

13. Ibid, 46

14. Ibid, 46-47

15. Ibid, 48

16. Ibid

17. Ibid

18. Ibid, 49

19. Ibid, 50

20. Ibid, 48

21. Office for National Statistics (ONS), released 20 June 2024, ONS website, statistical bulletin, Marriages in England and Wales: 2021 and 2022 , accessed: 16/11/24

22. https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/school-pupil-identify-wolf-animal-persona-allowed-teachers/#:~:text=A%20school%20pupil%20has%20been,belonged%20to%20a%20different%20species, accessed: 17/11/24

23. Scruton, 51

24. British Comedy Guide, Only Fools and Horses, Series 3, Episode 4 - Yesterday Never Comes, https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/only_fools_and_horses/episodes/3/4/, accessed: 19/11/24

25. See this study on English individualism for more information. White, S. D., & Vann, R. T. (1983). The Invention of English Individualism: Alan Macfarlane and the Modernization of Pre-Modern England. Social History, 8(3), 345–363. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4285278

26. Wikipedia contributors. "J. B. Priestley." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 17 Nov. 2024. Web. 21 Nov. 2024.

27. Scruton, 52