In 1829, when Sir Robert Peel was Home Secretary, the first Metropolitan Police Act was passed and the Metropolitan Police Force was established in London. The task of organising and designing the "New Police" undertaken at 4 Whitehall Place. The back of this location opened on to a courtyard which, as a popular anecdote would have it, had once been the site of a residence owned by the Kings of Scotland (or, alternatively, a Scottish Embassy), and was therefore known as "Scotland Yard". These headquarters were removed in 1890 to premises on the Victoria Embankment known as "New Scotland Yard." In 1967 further removal took place to a larger and more modern headquarters building at Broadway, S.W.1, which is also known as "New Scotland Yard".
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/uk/mps/index.html
Algernon: "Then your wife will. You don't seem to realise, that in married life three is company and two is none"
Jack: [sententiously] "That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years."
Algernon: "Yes; and the happy English home has proved in half the time."
Wilde meant the word "corrupt" in two senses: To Jack, a conventional moralist and rather priggish, French drama was corrupt because it treated extramarital relationships (kept off the British stage of the time by the Lord Chamberlain's censorship) as normal. But to Jack's author, and his colleagues, French drama was aesthetically corrupt: The nonmarital sexual affairs in French plays, like their platonic equivalents in British adaptations or imitations, served merely as building blocks in the contrived structures of the "well-made play," which left little room for the realities of human behavior.
http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-04-29/theater/alan-ayckbourn-s-conquests-leaves-everyone-marginally-more-miserable/
"I feel bound to tell you that you are not down on my list of eligible young men, although I have the same list as the dear Duchess of Bolton has. "
...actress and singer Lavinia Fenton (1708–60), who starred as the heroine Polly Peachum in the original and wildly successful 1728 production of The Beggar's Opera. After it closed, Miss Fenton left the stage to become the mistress of Charles Paulet, 3rd Duke of Bolton (1685–1754). In this role she is said to have been a delightful and accomplished companion, and a model of discretion. She bore the Duke three illegitimate sons, all of whom did well in the army, navy and the church. When the Duke's estranged wife died in 1751, the Duke married Lavinia and she became Duchess of Bolton.
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=6615
"Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a Liberal Unionist."
The Liberal Unionists were a British political party which split away from the Liberals in 1886, and had effectively merged with the Conservatives by the turn of the century, the formal merger being completed in 1912. Their principal leaders were Lord Hartington and Joseph Chamberlain.
http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Liberal:Unionist:Party.html
"Oh, they count as Tories."
a member or supporter of a major British political group of the 18th and early 19th centuries favoring at first the Stuarts and later royal authority and the established church and seeking to preserve the traditional political structure and defeat parliamentary reform
http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tories
"Never met such a Gorgon...I don't really know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one."
In Greek mythology a Gorgon is a monstrous feminine creature whose appearance would turn anyone who laid eyes upon it to stone...The Gorgons are monstrous creatures covered with impenetrable scales, with hair of living snakes, hands made of brass, sharp fangs and a beard. They live in the ultimate west, near the ocean, and guard the entrance to the underworld.
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/g/gorgons.html
"A Marechal Niel?"
It was named after a French general, the Minister of War of Napoleon III.This yellow rose likely has more history to it than any other of the 19th century. It was one of the first truly deep yellow, repeat blooming yellows, and much adored as such. http://www.rdrop.com/~paul/noisettes/marechal.html
"A misanthrope I can understand-womanthrope, never!"
a person who hates or distrusts humankind
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misanthrope
"Only relatives, or creditors, ever ring in that Wagnerian manner."
of, relating to, characteristic, or suggestive of Wagner or his music, stage operas, or theories
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Wagnerian
Wagner formulated an idealist view of opera, where all the facets of the production assumed equal status, the orchestra itself playing a significant role. His operas did not comply with the former rigid traditions, but the lietmotif idea allowed for continuous and flexible development throughout the production. It is fair to say that some find certain aspects (including the duration) of Wagnerian opera to be overblown and tedious. However no-one can deny that there are moments of hair-raising intensity.
http://www.mfiles.co.uk/composers/Richard-Wagner.htm
"And I don't care a twopence about social possibilities."
A British coin worth two pennies
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/twopence
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