REVIEW: The Honourable Upper Fourth
May. 22nd, 2026 07:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllThe Honourable Upper Fourth: Eveline M. Williams, Cassell, 1929.
I thought this started off promisingly, with interesting characters – one named Hubertine! – and fun slang, but the plot soon started creaking. Sixth form prefect Peggy is catching up with her best friend at the start of the summer term, when she learns that Muriel, the head girl, has not returned to St Catherine’s, and she is called to the headmistress’s study, to be given the job, as her pal Moira had predicted. One of the niggles Peggy has is the Upper Fourth, which has gained its nickname, i.e. the title of the book, as we will learn, because the rest of the school thinks it’s a class of duds. A form of streaming is happening, with academic-minded girls leaving Lower Fourth going straight to the Lower Fifth and being put in for exams. Some of the Upper Fourth are, in fact, as old as the sixth formers, and they’re led by the Cathcart clique, led by Hubertine, who is sometimes called ‘Tina’, a day girl who the prefects have less influence over.
For all that the term ‘snobs’ is thrown in the book, the author is pretty guilty of it, for Hubertine and a few others are – gasp! – nouveau riche, and far too interested in clothes and having fun to swot, try for prizes in various subjects and activities, or worry about the honour of their form or the school. This term, they have a new, stricter form mistress, and a new girl, one Mary Blunt, who turns up in the roughest possible version of the school uniform. When she guilelessly answers a question about her father with a list of animals he looks after, the clique assume he’s a farmer and treat her with froideur. But Mary is good-natured and seems impervious to snubs. She freely admits to not being used to school life – she seems to have spent most of her time in the wilds of Australia – and does not understand the unwritten rules, which are slightly different in the Upper Fourth to the rest of the school.
Her willingness to do a favour, her straightforwardness, which comes up when she accidentally finds out that Hubertine and her lot break bounds to…quelle horreur… meet up with boys (who mainly seem to pay for ice cream for them) and be rowdy, steadily increase her influence in the form. This is why only three of the clique break bounds once again, when one of them is badly worried about a missing piece of jewellery, and their usual short-cut back to school is blocked. Mary comes through for her classmates in more ways than one, and the leaders of the Upper Fourth find that they are worthy of being called ‘honourable’. (And the big reveal that Mary is actually the Honourable Mary Blunt should be no surprise to anyone, because the author is actually a snob, only I suppose she thought she was the right kind of one.)
I thought this started off promisingly, with interesting characters – one named Hubertine! – and fun slang, but the plot soon started creaking. Sixth form prefect Peggy is catching up with her best friend at the start of the summer term, when she learns that Muriel, the head girl, has not returned to St Catherine’s, and she is called to the headmistress’s study, to be given the job, as her pal Moira had predicted. One of the niggles Peggy has is the Upper Fourth, which has gained its nickname, i.e. the title of the book, as we will learn, because the rest of the school thinks it’s a class of duds. A form of streaming is happening, with academic-minded girls leaving Lower Fourth going straight to the Lower Fifth and being put in for exams. Some of the Upper Fourth are, in fact, as old as the sixth formers, and they’re led by the Cathcart clique, led by Hubertine, who is sometimes called ‘Tina’, a day girl who the prefects have less influence over.
For all that the term ‘snobs’ is thrown in the book, the author is pretty guilty of it, for Hubertine and a few others are – gasp! – nouveau riche, and far too interested in clothes and having fun to swot, try for prizes in various subjects and activities, or worry about the honour of their form or the school. This term, they have a new, stricter form mistress, and a new girl, one Mary Blunt, who turns up in the roughest possible version of the school uniform. When she guilelessly answers a question about her father with a list of animals he looks after, the clique assume he’s a farmer and treat her with froideur. But Mary is good-natured and seems impervious to snubs. She freely admits to not being used to school life – she seems to have spent most of her time in the wilds of Australia – and does not understand the unwritten rules, which are slightly different in the Upper Fourth to the rest of the school.
Her willingness to do a favour, her straightforwardness, which comes up when she accidentally finds out that Hubertine and her lot break bounds to…quelle horreur… meet up with boys (who mainly seem to pay for ice cream for them) and be rowdy, steadily increase her influence in the form. This is why only three of the clique break bounds once again, when one of them is badly worried about a missing piece of jewellery, and their usual short-cut back to school is blocked. Mary comes through for her classmates in more ways than one, and the leaders of the Upper Fourth find that they are worthy of being called ‘honourable’. (And the big reveal that Mary is actually the Honourable Mary Blunt should be no surprise to anyone, because the author is actually a snob, only I suppose she thought she was the right kind of one.)
