Viscount

Viscount (pronounced vahy-kount)

(1) In the peerage of the UK, a nobleman ranking below an earl and above a baron.

(2) In medieval Europe, the deputy of a count.

(3) In historic English use, a sheriff.

(4) In the 華族 (Kazoku) (Magnificent/Exalted lineage), a rank in the hereditary peerage (1869-1947) of the Empire of Japan (1868-1947), the system emulating the English structure.

(5) In the UK and some European countries, a secondary title of the higher ranks of nobility, used by the sons of the primary title holders (and in Europe, sometimes by the younger brother of a count).

(6) In lepidopterology, any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Tanaecia (other butterflies in the genus are earls & counts).

1350–1400: From the Middle English viscounte, from the Anglo-French & Old French visconte (which in modern French became vicomte), from the Medieval Latin vicecomitem, accusative of vicecomes, the construct being vis- (vice) (deputy) + comes (a Roman imperial courtier or trusted appointee, source of the modern “count” (although the word originally meant "companion").  The title is called a viscountcy and the feminine form is viscountess.  In the peerage system, the symbol is “V” the abbreviations are “Vis” & “Visc” and the contractions are “Visct” & “Vte”.  Viscount, viscountess, viscountship, viscountcy & viscounty are nouns and viscountal, vicecomital, vicontiel & viscomital are adjectives; the noun plural is viscounts.

The first counts were created during the Carolingian Empire (800-888; the first epoch of the aggregation which became the Holy Roman Empire which would endure until 1806).  The functions undertaken by the counts varied greatly according to the military and economic demands to their region but they were essentially governors with both administrative and military responsibilities.  Viscounts (ie vice (deputy) counts) were appointed to assist the counts; although the office carried with it no authority, the viscounts exercised powers delegated by the count, often serving as magistrates administering justice in minor civil and less serious criminal matters.  Unlike later places when they would enjoy a place in the formalized structures of the systems of hereditary peerages, neither count nor viscount was an inheritable title, kings having no wish to create centres of independent political or economic power; the counts and viscounts were to remain dependent on the king and remained in office only at his pleasure.  By the late tenth century, the title of viscount spread to areas under Norman rule, this time exercising the delegated authority of their duke and as early as the mid 1200s, at least some viscountcies had become hereditary.

Malay Viscount (Tanaecia pelea) butterfly, Hala Bala, Narathiwat, Thailand, photographed by Peter Ericsson with Canon EOS 7D Mark II (left) and Lindsay Lohan in Positano Embroidery Print Maxi Dress in latte & white, illustrating the classic Viscount coloring, rendered by Vovsoft as pen drawing (right).

As a rank in British peerage, it dates from 1440, initially a royal appointment as sheriff but as in France, evolved into a hereditarily title but so intricate is the UK's order of precedence even Victoria (1819–1901; Queen of the UK 1837-1901) who had recently assumed the throne felt compelled to ask her prime-minister (Lord Melbourne (1779–1848; Prime Minister of the UK 1834 & 1835-1841) about peers who would attend the coronation ceremony, noting in her diary: "I spoke to Ld M. about the numbers of Peers present at the Coronation, & he said it was quite unprecedented.  I observed that there were very few Viscounts, to which he replied 'There are very few Viscounts,' that they were an old sort of title & not really English; that they came from Vice-Comites; that Dukes & Barons were the only real English titles; — that Marquises were likewise not English, & that people were mere made Marquises, when it was not wished that they should be made Dukes."

Marquess entered the system from the Old French marchis (ruler of a border area), from marche (frontier), from the Middle Latin marca (frontier), the significance of that to the English peerage being that the border of a Marquess’s lands were those which bordered potentially hostile territory and the holder, responsible for defense, was thus more important to the Crown that those whose holding lay behind the lines.  The aristocrats without the responsibility of border security were styled as barons, viscounts or earls although Melbourne chose not to burden Victoria with the etymology of earl.  Count was from the Old French conté or cunté (denoting a jurisdiction under the control of a count or a viscount (the modern French comté)) but, after the Norman conquest, the Norman French title count was abandoned and replaced with the Germanic “eral”, the entirely speculative but pleasing suggestion being the unfortunate phonetic similarity with “cunt” although the wives of earls continued to be styled “countess”; perhaps the patriarchy of the time were displaying some typical male humor.  Earl was from the Middle English erle & erl, (a strong man) from the Old English eorl, from the Proto-Germanic erlaz (related to the Old Norse jarl, the Old High German & Old Saxon erl), from the Proto-Germanic erōną & arōną (related to the Old Norse jara (fight, battle)), from the primitive Indo-European h₃er- (related to the Latin orior (to rise, get up), from the Ancient Greek ὄρνυμι (órnumi) (to urge, incite) and related to the Avestan ərənaoiti (to move), the Sanskrit ऋणोति (ṛṇóti) (to arise, reach, move, attack.  Earl also ultimately displaced the unrelated ealdorman (alderman) which, in Anglo-Saxon Britain, was applied to those men enjoying political ranking second only to the King; over the centuries, the Danish eorl was substituted and that evolved into the modern earl.

Vickers Viscount ZK-BRD of New Zealand’s National Airways Corporation (NAC) on first publicity flight, 1957.

The Vickers Viscount was produced between 1948-1963 by the British concern Vickers-Armstrongs.  One of a number of the products which emerged from the specifications and design requirements laid down by the many committees the British government established after 1942 to plan for the post-war world, it was medium-range turboprop civilian airliner, the first of its type.  A versatile design and sufficiently robust to operate in environments with severe climatic variations and rough airstrips, it was sold to operators around the world, attracted to its comfort (a pressurized cabin then quite a novelty), speed and low running costs.  By the time the last was delivered in 1963, 445 had been sold, an impressive number given the volumes of airframes in civil aviation were a fraction of in service today.  For decades a reliable workhorse with an enviable safety record, the last Viscount wasn't retired from commercial passenger service until 2009, over sixty years after the first flight.

Vickers Vanguard G-APEL of British European Airways (formed in 1946 as the British European Airways division of BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation), 1964.

In the late 1950s, Vickers would take the Viscount's fundamental design and render it as the larger, faster Vanguard, the rationale being that in the short-medium range, hundred-seat sector, there would continue to be a market for turboprop airliners, their lower operating costs off-setting their speed disadvantage.  That proved not to be the case and in the sector jets prevailed while the turboprops found a role, which endures to this day, in smaller airframes.  The Vanguard entered service in 1960, the timing especially unfortunate as it coincided with the newest generation of jet-airliners better suited to the rapidly expanding short and medium haul market in what was by them the rapidly expanding field of civil aviation.  Consequently, only a few dozen Vanguards were built but they proved as durable and practical as the Viscount and most were converted to freighters and re-christened (as Cargoliner or Merchantman depending on the operator).  Tough and versatile, the freighters proved popular in both Europe and Africa and remained in service until 1996.

General Motors and the Viscount

GMOO (General Motors Overseas Operations), 1956. 

For many reasons, globalization has become a political issue and one of the paradoxes of the process is there are few issues more "local" than globalization, partly because, as an "issue", globalization really is a construct with a meaning which can vary depending on the purposes of whoever might be finding it a useful tool.  Globalization was something which evolved over several centuries and had achieved a remarkable footprint until interrupted by World War I (1914-1918) and because of (1) the political and economic difficulties of the inter-war years (1919-1939) and (2) the more regulated financial system constructed in the mid-late 1940s, it wasn't until late in the twentieth century that a kind of "Globalization 2.0" emerged.  That's what became so controversial (to both the left and populist right) and although an economic construct, it's now one of the theatres of the culture wars.  However, for most of the twentieth century there were many "mini-globalizations" and the worldwide structure of GM (General Motors) was an example of what came to be known as corporate "multi-nationalism", something which attracted many critiques and the corporations became sensitive about the connotations the word had come to attract: In the 1970s the Ford Motor Company's Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) explained the arrangement was better thought of as "internationalism".  Quite how that was different he never made clear and few were fooled.

GM Viewing Auditorium.

In the mid-1960s, with the long, post-war boom at its apex, GM was at its most optimistic and, if not indulgent, was at least receptive to the ideas of its overseas divisions, Opel in the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany), Vauxhall in the UK and Holden in Australia, then clustered in a unit called GMOO (General Motors Overseas Operations).  Computers were by then widely used in the industry for production and inventory processes but in the pre-CAD (computer aided (or assisted) design), styling and design was still something done by hand and for final evaluations, full-scale models were rendered in clay or fibreglass.  As part of design process, GM maintained an indoor “Viewing Auditorium” and outdoor “Viewing Terrace”, opened in 1956, where the full-scale models were assessed, often parked next to cars which were either competitors or sometimes just for inspiration.

Vauxhall FD Viscount (FWD) design proposal (D-68927 22 Mar 1966).

One model considered for release in 1969 was a new platform for Vauxhall’s large range, including the top-of-the-range Viscount.  Two radically different proposals were pursued, one with front wheel drive and, as the sessions at the auditorium progressed, increasingly over-wrought styling cues from some of the more lamentable of the era, including rear-wheel spats (technically called fender skirts), the attraction of which some of Detroit’s designers could not for decades shake.  Fortunately, the economics of the approach couldn’t be made to work and attention turned to the second proposal which was to base the Viscount on the German Opel KAD (Kapitän, Admiral, Diplomat) range.

Opel Diplomat design proposal D-77114 in the GM Viewing Auditorium, 15 December, 1968.

The Opel KADs range was really rather good and what ended up being released in 1969 as the range-topping Diplomat even had what was then still something of a novelty in Europe: a V8 engine, Opel plucking the 327 cubic inch (5.3 litre) small-block Chevrolet from the GM parts bin.  Augmenting this was a de Dion rear axle, a non-independent but usefully sophisticated arrangement uniquely suited to torquey US V8s, the great benefit of which was in all circumstances ensuring the rear wheels remained in parallel.  By the standards of the age it was a good car but it never succeeded in creating the perception it was a competitor for the Mercedes-Benz models at which it was aimed, nor the bigger BMWs which were moving increasingly up-market.  After the first oil-crisis in 1973, it was considered for US production as a smaller Cadillac but for a number of reasons, the project proved abortive, it being prohibitively expensive to integrate the German body-engineering into Detroit’s production system.  Cadillac instead created the first generation Seville (1976-1979), using a long-wheelbase and much modified version of the Chevrolet Nova's platform (itself based on the Camaro) which was sufficiently well-executed to hid its origins to all but the most knowledgeable.  It was expensive but well-received and probably only a de Dion rear end would have improved the thing.

Vauxhall FD Viscount design proposal D-77841 in the GM Viewing Auditorium, 30 June 1967.

The KAD platform would have been suitable for what Vauxhall envisaged as the Viscount’s market position but the economics of adapting it to right-hand drive and using Vauxhall’s existing 3.3 litre (201 cubic inch) straight, in addition to the styling changes deemed necessary meant, given the anticipated sales volumes, profitability was never likely.  It was a different time and the UK was not then a member of the European Economic Community (EEC 1957-1993 which evolved into the modern European Union (EU); it was in English speaking countries also known as the European Common Market (usually just as the “common market”)) and UK laws required local production.  In late 1967, the proposal for a Viscount platform was vetoed and the programme cancelled.

Vauxhall PC Viscount, 1967.

As a separate platform, the Viscount project never proceeded even to prototype stage but the name did live on.  The Viscount introduced in 1966 was a gorped-up (gorp is what the industry used to call bling) version of the cheaper Cresta) and it remained in production until 1972, it’s place at the top of the range assumed by the Ventura, a gorped-up version of the smaller Victor.  Vauxhall would not return to the executive car market until later in the decade when, with the UK now in the EEC, the economics of platform-sharing with Opel became viable.