The Titles in Wigmore Hall's Booking Form
I was booking a concert at Wigmore Hall in London when I noticed something unusual in the booking form: the title dropdown was extremely long.
It didn’t stop at Mr, Ms, and Dr. It included military ranks, aristocratic titles, religious titles, diplomatic titles, and several titles I had never seen before.
Some examples:
- Air Chief Marshal
- Dowager Viscountess
- Monsignor
- The Right Hon.
- Wing Commander
- H.R.H.
- Estate of
The suffix field is similarly extensive, combining academic degrees, honours, and post-nominal letters.
Why so many titles?
Wigmore Hall has been around since 1901. Over that time, it has dealt with performers, patrons, donors, diplomats, clergy, military officers, and members of the aristocracy.
Many of the entries are forms of address that are still used in Britain.
“Wing Commander,” for example, is an RAF rank. “The Right Hon.” is a style used by certain senior politicians and members of the peerage. “Monsignor” is an honorific used for some Catholic clergy. “Dowager Viscountess” refers to the widow of a viscount who retains the title after it passes to a successor.
Some entries are harder to classify. “Estate of,” for example, isn’t a title at all. This suggests that the field is used for more than choosing how to address a person.
The list may simply reflect the types of records the booking system has needed to handle over time.
The country list is odd too
The address form contains another unusual list. Both “Okinawa” and “Ryukyu Islands” appear as separate entries in the country or region field.
I don’t know the source of this data, so I can’t say why both entries exist. The list could come from an old address database, or it could combine data from several sources.
Either way, “Ryukyu Islands” is an unusual entry in a current address form.
We usually associate legacy software with old code or infrastructure. But lists of titles, countries, regions, and other categories can also remain in a system for years.
Removing an entry can be difficult. Existing customer records may use it. Another system may expect it. In some cases, nobody may know why the entry was added in the first place.
As a result, a dropdown can contain information from several generations of a system.
This is the English version of the original Japanese article.