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).
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, the
feminine form is viscountess.
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 place when they would enjoy a place in the formalized structures of the systems of hereditary peerages, neither a counts nor a viscount was an inheritable title, the 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. 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, Lord Melbourne (1779–1848; UK prime-minister 1834 & 1835–1841) once giving a potted explanation of their origin to Queen Victoria (1819–1901; Queen of the UK 1837-1901), pointing out that the titles viscount or marquess “were not really English (and) that dukes and barons were the only real English titles”.
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 enjoying a little tautological joke. 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.
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 that the volumes in civil
aviation were a fraction of 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.
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 at the Cargoliner or Merchantman depending on the operator. Very popular in both Europe and Africa, the
freighters continued to fly until 1996.
In the mid-1960s, General Motors were at their most optimistic, the long post-war boom at its apex and it was, if not indulgent, at least receptive to the ideas of its overseas divisions, Opel (the FRG (West Germany), Vauxhall (UK) and Holden (Australia), then clustered in a unit called General Motors Overseas Operations (GMOO). Computers were by then widely used in the industry in the 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.
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.
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 the high power and torque generated by the engine, the great benefit of which was maintaining in all circumstances the wheels in a true 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 Seville, using a long-wheelbase version of the Chevrolet Nova (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.
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 local laws required local production. In late 1967, the proposal for a Viscount platform was vetoed and the programme cancelled.
The existing Viscount (introduced in 1966 and a tarted-up
version of the cheaper Cresta) thus continued in production until 1972, it’s
place at the top of the range assumed by the Ventura, a tarted-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.
