The concept of keeping a ‘stiff upper lip’ used to be one of the most important things that defined being British.

It means showing courage in the face of adversity and keeping control of your emotions, showing your enemies no fear, and was of particular importance to the British during the 19th Century as their empire expanded across the world.

In 2008 the UK does not have such a great fondness for maintaining its stiff upper lip. The empire is all but gone and immigration to the UK, along with globalisation and years of uninterrupted prosperity, have altered much of its cultural make-up forever.

This has lead to Britain becoming a much more emotional place. People can be seen arguing in public and British TV programmes often show people openly crying and expressing their emotions in a way that would make Winston Churchill turn in his grave.

But behind the tears and tantrums of modern Britain there still lies an undercurrent of mental toughness ready to come out in times of trouble. During a national crisis the British can still surprise themselves in their ability to remain calm under pressure and resolutely carry on in difficult times.

When London was attacked in 2005, despite years of people believing that Britain had lost the iron resolve which made them famous around the world, the response of the ordinary person on the street showed that people still remembered what keeping a stiff upper lip meant.

After years of watching each other cry on television because their bottoms were too big for their trousers, the Brits proved that they still had untapped resources of fighting spirit beneath the designer sunglasses and frothy cappuccinos.

The History

The history of Britain’s stiff upper lip dates back to Britain’s early private educational institutions (public school), such as Eton and Harrow.

The wealthy families of Britain sent their young boys away to live at these schools from as young as 7 years old, where they were taught the strict values rooted in ancient Greek culture, particularly those relating to Spartan and Athenian ‘Stoic’ theories of harsh punishment and iron discipline.

It was at these schools that the boys were bullied, beaten and occasionally buggered, teaching them that might is always right and turning them into the tough officer class that would be sent out to govern in the remotest corners of British Empire. It was a cruel system that created many unhappy people, but in terms of designing a separate caste, capable of taking on the challenges of the Empire, it was very effective.

An example of the ideas underpinning the British ‘stiff upper lip’ can be found in the poem ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling, who was also the author of The Jungle Book, which became a famous Walt Disney cartoon.

Born in India in 1865, at the height of Queen Victoria’s reign, Rudyard Kipling was a Victorian who received his own share of ‘traditional English beatings’ as a child, and his poem ‘If’, written in 1895, sums up the ideas underpinning traditional British values. The fact that ‘If’ was voted Britain’s favourite poem 100 years later shows that having a ‘stiff upper lip’ still means a lot to the average Brit, even if it isn’t obvious to the casual observer anymore.

John Hillman