A Curious Glimpse into the Peculiar World
of Cucumber Sandwiches
Compiled by director Tamara Harvey

“It is customary in good society to take some slight refreshment at five o'clock.” (Algernon)
High tea in England, which is still served in grand hotels and country houses,
traditionally consists of tea, cucumber sandwiches (white bread with the crusts removed, a little butter, cucumbers and a dash of salt and pepper), bread and butter, muffins and an assortment of cakes and scones. This custom is explained in the Etiquette of Good Society: “Now that dinners [lunches] are late and that ‘teas proper’ are postponed in consequence to such an unnatural hour as ten p.m., the want is felt of the old-fashioned meal at five, and so it has been reinstated, though not in quite the same form as before.”

“Charming old lady she is, too. Lives at Tunbridge Wells.” (Jack)
An expensive inland watering-place in Kent fashionable since the 17th century and much favoured at this time by the upper classes.

“If it wasn't for Bunbury's extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn't be able to dine with you at Willis's to-night.” (Algernon)
Willis's was a fashionable restaurant in King Street, near the St. James Theatre where The Importance of Being Earnest received its premiere on February 14, 1895. It was much frequented by Wilde.

“In the second place, whenever I do dine there I am always treated as a member of the family, and sent down with either no woman at all, or two.” (Algernon)
Guests assembled upstairs in the drawing room before dinner, and each gentleman was appointed escort to a lady for the evening — he was "sent down" to the dining room with her.

“That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French drama has been propounding for the last fifty years.” (Jack)
The plays of Dumas Fils, Scribe, Augier and others were enormously popular and influential in Britain but considerable alteration was necessary to suit them to British attitudes; their treatment of sexual misconduct was considered far too liberal and frank.

“What is your income?” (Lady Bracknell)
“Between seven and eight thousand a year.” (Jack)
At this time, a working man would be lucky to earn 20 shillings a year. £1000 a year “represented considerable worldly success, though not great wealth, and placed a man, economically speaking, well towards the top of the middle classes.” (W. J. Reader, Professional Men: The Rise of the Professional Classes in Nineteenth-Century England, 1962, p. 202). Jack's income is therefore a considerable fortune.

“I am a Liberal Unionist.” (Jack)
“Oh, they count as Tories.” (Lady Bracknell)
Liberal Unionists were those who had split from the Liberal Party over the 1886 bill for Home Rule in Ireland, but the term is used here as a pseudonym for “I have no politics.” The Conservative Party was, and still is, known as “The Tory Party” and has traditionally been the political party of choice for the upper class. Margaret Thatcher was a Tory Prime Minister.

“In the cloak-room at Victoria Station.” (Jack)
The cloak-room was the left-luggage office. Victoria Station is the railway station in London from which one travels to Brighton and Worthing, which are both
seaside towns in the county of Sussex.

“Well, let us go to the Club?” (Algernon)
Gentlemen's clubs were concentrated in the area around Pall Mall and St. James and were, to many bachelors, a home — “they lived there, lunched there, dined there and occasionally died there.” (Ralph Neville and Charles Edward Jerningham, Picadilly to Pall Mall, 1908, pp. 200–201.)

“Well, we might trot round to the Empire at ten?” (Algernon)
The Empire Theatre of Varieties in Leicester Square was one of the best-known music halls in London, and its promenade at the back of the stalls was notorious as a rendezvous for prostitutes.

“But I must not disturb Egeria and her pupil any longer.” (Rev. Chasuble)
Egeria was a Nymph in Roman legend who taught King Numa Pompilius the principles later enshrined in the city's laws. She was associated with law-giving, discipline and Diana, goddess of chastity. Miss Prism's first name, Laetitia, means “joy or happiness” in Latin.

“The chapter on the Fall of the Rupee you may omit. It is somewhat too sensational.” (Miss Prism)
In 1873, the value of the Indian rupee began to fall, at one point reaching half of its pre-1873 value of two shillings. In 1893, the Indian government chose to close the mints in an attempt to stop its fall.

“Uncle Jack is sending you to the colonies.” (Cecily)
At this time, active service in the colonies — farming in New Zealand or Australia and even mining and general pioneering in North America — was often used as a means of reforming a wayward youth. Emigration was particularly useful for playwrights, who often used it in melodramas either to get rid of a character or to suddenly introduce one.

“A Maréchal Niel?” (Cecily)
A yellow noisette rose, introduced into England in the 1860s.

“Merriman, order the dog-cart at once.” (Jack)
A carriage used mainly for quick journeys, deriving its name from its original use as a lightly-made sporting vehicle with a box for carrying pointers.

“The announcement will appear in the Morning Post on Saturday at the latest.” (Gwendolen)
For many years this newspaper was the chief source of fashionable gossip and the proper place to announce engagements and marriages.

“Oh! About a hundred and thirty thousand pounds in the Funds. That is all.” (Jack)
Consolidated Funds were government stocks which yielded an unspectacular but dependable income.

“Untruthful! My nephew Algernon? Impossible! He is an Oxonian.” (Lady
Bracknell)
An Oxonian is one who has been educated at Oxford.

“Indeed, I have just been informed by the pew-opener that for the last hour and a half Miss Prism has been waiting for me in the vestry.” (Rev. Chasuble)
A pew-opener was a person employed to open the doors of the private church pews for their occupants.

“A few weeks later, through the elaborate investigations of the Metropolitan police, the perambulator was discovered at midnight, standing by itself in a remote corner of Bayswater.” (Lady Bracknell)
Bayswater was at the time a fashionable district just to the north of Kensington Gardens — the park which would become J. M. Barrie's setting for Peter Pan a decade later.

In the summer of 1894, Oscar Wilde went on holiday with his family to the seaside resort of Worthing, which lies about eighty miles from London on England's south coast. That summer, The Worthing Gazette, a local newspaper, ran a story entitled “A Baby in a Hamper,” describing an incident that seems to have been the inspiration for Jack Worthing's humble origins and thus the beginning of The Importance of Being Earnest — the play that would be Wilde’s last, and in the view of many, his most masterful.