UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS

Upstairs, Downstairs is an award-winning television series made in the early 1970s that tells the story of one British family from 1903 to 1930 in 68 hour-long episodes. The family upstairs, the Bellamys, is a wealthy titled family involved in politics; the servants downstairs take care of them. When the series starts, Queen Victoria has been dead a couple of years, and her oldest son is now King Edward VII. This episode takes place in early 1909, and it’s about the King visiting the Bellamy household for a dinner party.

Historical points

Manchester United: With Manchester United you can clearly see that the British were interested in football like always, but it’s not very important in this chapter. It just makes us clear that the British have been interested in football since 1910 and probably before that too.

King Edward VII: A very important historical point of this chapter was the King Edward VII because practically the whole chapter was about him. He was king of the United Kingdom and emperor of India from 1901 until 1910. From this episode we can learn that he was the most important person during that time because the family was very excited to have him eat dinner with them although his mother Queen Victoria though he was a young foolish man.

Hierarchy: I think this is the most important point of the chapter because in the whole episode how there hierarchy everywhere. First of all, the ones that lived upstairs had a higher position that the ones that lived downstairs. Then, there was the noble hierarchy, where the King was in the highest position and just below him the Lords. This episode shows how the hierarchy was at that time because there has always been different ways of hierarchizing people.