For the landowning nobility the late nineteenth century would have seen their agriculture suffer in the face of competition from North American and Russian farms. British agriculture was in fact entering a period of distress and decay and rural areas suffered considerable depopulation. Income from their produce and rents declined.

The Liberal Party had grown out of the Whig party, which had an impeccable aristocratic lineage. However, Gladstone's adoption of Irish Home Rule in 1886 witnessed a Whig exodus to the Conservative Party. The Liberal Party now seemed dangerously radical to the peers who crossed the floor. Lord Salisbury, the Conservative leader, welcomed them with open arms. This realignment was something he had argued in favour of for some time.

Overwhelmingly they would of been Anglican. Anglican theology emphasised a hierarchical society. For example, one verse of the 19th century Anglican hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful proclaimed:

The rich man in his castle, The poor man at his gate, God made them high and lowly, And ordered their estate.

Attitudes to the lower orders would have varied. Lord Shaftesbury became known as the "Poor Man's Earl" for his relentless efforts to secure by legislation the amelioration of the conditions of factory workers. Conservative peers would often berate the Radicals (the Manchester School) for their economic ideology of laissez faire and the working conditions in urban factories (some Radical leaders were manufacturers).

For landowning peers, supporting Factory Acts (limiting working hours) could hit the Radical/Liberal manufacturing interest in retaliation for the Liberal agitation to repeal the protectionist Corn Laws (which benefited landowners). Of course benign, paternalist legislation would have been in the tradition of noblesse oblige that would not have changed the social hierarchy (which they would have vehemently opposed).

Recommended: F. M. L. Thompson, English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century (London: Routledge, 1963).