The opulence of the Edwardian rich threw the plight of the Edwardian poor into stark relief. The rarefied worlds of Escoffier and Mewès and Davis, of Selfridges and the Savoy, were far removed from the deprivation that abounded in London, and in every other town and city in the British Isles. In 1906 – the same year the Ritz opened its doors – as many as twelve million men, women and children were estimated to be malnourished and on the verge of chronic hunger.
