Brewer's: Young England

A set of young noblemen and aristocratic gentlemen who tried to revive the formality and court manners of the Chesterfield school. They wore white waistcoats, patronised the pet poor, looked down upon shopkeepers, and were altogether Red-Tape Knights. Disraeli has immortalised their ways and manners, but scarcely a caput mortuum of their folly now remains.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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