How proficient were 19th century British aristocrats in Greek and Latin?

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

In the Victorian sensation novel The Grey Monk by TW Speight, the impostor heir Luigi is forced to study Greek and Latin to appease his baronet "grandfather". Luigi has no talent for classical languages or horseback riding, showing how far removed he is from the "gentleman" ideal. Another 19th century soap opera, Charles Reade's Hard Cash, also tests a character's Latin comprehension as part of the plot.


Were real 19th century aristocrats and gentry in Britain this obsessed with ancient Greek and Latin? Did they generally retain their knowledge of these languages in their adult lives and use them occasionally? Or did they forget them just like an American who took 2 semesters of French in high school to fulfill the foreign language requirement?

 

[Nivek]

Were real 19th century aristocrats and gentry in Britain this obsessed with ancient Greek and Latin?

Yes and not only britain, the whole pan european nobility did was, specially in OLD HRE and france too, only russia who was more obssesed with french culture was different

 

[Thoresby]

Were real 19th century aristocrats and gentry in Britain this obsessed with ancient Greek and Latin? Did they generally retain their knowledge of these languages in their adult lives and use them occasionally? Or did they forget them just like an American who took 2 semesters of French in high school to fulfill the foreign language requirement?

It depends, school curriculums had a higher percentage of their time devoted to classics than modern schools have devoted to anything because the curriculum was so much smaller so at the age of 18 the average upper class school leaver would have a far higher comprehension level than the average US or British student has of any foreign language.
As for retaining it in later life it depends, Greek and Latin occupied a large role culturally and lots of people absolutely read classical literature in its original language in adulthood and presumably retained full use of their education. A larger proportion would use Latin phrases in speech and would be able to puzzle out Latin inscriptions but probably lost the ability to read complex books after a while (like me with German, I can't read Goethe, I can read the newspaper headlines). Finally a lot of people hated having it drummed into them at school, were never very good at it and didn't ever use it again because that was how their brain was wired, even if the were a Duke.