What does it take to persuade people to embrace etiquette in their daily lives? In this insightful conversation with William Hanson, a distinguished etiquette expert, author, and Executive Director of The English Manner, we explore the dynamic intersection of respect, modern manners, and persuasion. Hanson, renowned for his ability to bring etiquette into the 21st century, has mastered the art of making civility approachable and relevant in today’s fast-paced world.
As Hanson shares, “Etiquette is respect.” He believes that at its core, etiquette fosters better relationships and understanding among individuals, something the world could greatly benefit from. His philosophy extends to persuasion as well: “The best way to persuade someone into a way of thinking is by living the brand and being the brand,” a principle he embodies both in his professional and personal life.
In this interview, Hanson reflects on his career milestones, from teaching etiquette globally to his engaging social media presence, which demonstrates how modern manners can be seamlessly woven into everyday life. He candidly addresses misconceptions about etiquette, emphasizing that it need not be intimidating or outdated. Instead, Hanson argues that etiquette is about leading by example and consistently demonstrating kindness and respect.
Whether you are an aspiring etiquette professional, a fan of good manners, or someone simply curious about the role of civility in modern life, this conversation offers thought-provoking insights into how etiquette can positively impact both personal interactions and the society at large.
Interview by Sorina I. Crisan – Matthey de l'Endroit, PhD
Q1. How do you define etiquette, and how does it differ from protocol?
Answer: Etiquette is about how we interact with other people, and it is context specific. For example, the etiquette observed in the United Kingdom may differ from that in Japan. While there are overlaps, the nuances vary. Even within the UK, behavior appropriate in Buckingham Palace might not be suitable in a pub. Etiquette consists of guidelines that are generally correct, but sometimes, to be truly well-mannered—which is always more important—you may need to break the rules.
Protocol, on the other hand, is stricter and less flexible. It is often used in diplomatic or governmental contexts, dictating things like the order of speeches or the placement of flags. While related, protocol has less room for interpretation compared to etiquette.
Etiquette is my field, and although some people regard it as outdated, I firmly disagree.
Q2. What is The English Manner, and how did you become involved with it?
Answer: The English Manner, in its current form, was founded in 2001 by my friend and colleague, Alexandra Messervy. Her background includes two tenures with the Royal Household of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Later, Alexandra worked at one of the UK’s last remaining finishing schools, Lucie Clayton.
At that time, Lucie Clayton had not updated its curriculum, focusing on things like flower arrangements and getting in and out of cars gracefully—skills that, while important, did not reflect the broader needs of modern life. The company decided to pivot toward becoming a business school, leaving finishing and etiquette behind. Alexandra, who had been a consultant tutor there, saw the continued demand for etiquette training. She negotiated to take over that part of the business, and thus, the English Manner was born—a consultancy building on the best aspects of Lucie Clayton while modernizing the approach.
I joined the English Manner in 2008 and was thrilled to take over ownership in 2019.
Q3. How did you start teaching etiquette?
Answer: My path to teaching etiquette was quite unconventional. As a child or even a young adult, I did not envision this as a career. My late grandmother sparked my interest in the topic when she gave me an etiquette book for Christmas when I was around 12 years old. I found it fascinating and started reading more, but it mainly remained a hobby.
When I was around 16 or 17, my school asked if I could help teach younger students how to set a table. I thought it sounded fun, so I started to teach etiquette each Tuesday, and discovered I enjoyed it. Then some local groups near my school heard about this and began inviting me to speak on the topic, and it slowly grew from there.
While studying English at university, Alexandra from the English Manner reached out. She had read about me and wondered if I had considered etiquette as a career. As a result, by the time I graduated from university, I was already working for her part-time, and it soon became my full-time career.
Q4. Did media coverage play a role in your involvement with the English Manner?
Answer: Yes, I suppose it did. Alexandra learned about me through articles published in the Daily Telegraph and Tatler, which happened to appear in the same week when she called me. That timing was very fortunate—both publications are influential in the UK, with Tatler also having an international reach. I sometimes wonder if the timing had been different, would Alexandra have noticed me as much? We will never know, but I was lucky it happened as it did.
Q5. Can you share a memorable experience from your etiquette career?
Answer: I was very lucky because I was already teaching etiquette, having just left university. Then, around 2011, I worked for some members of the English aristocracy on a temporary basis as a freelance etiquette consultant. They needed someone to fill in for an upcoming event, and my colleague, who was working there, suggested me.
We had Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, come for lunch. I learned so much in that one week—more than I have at any other time in my career. That week was incredible.
Hilariously, I did not actually know what was going to happen until I arrived. My colleague casually said, “Oh, the reason we needed you is because the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh are coming for lunch in three days.” I thought, “Okay, great, good!”
In many ways, it was a blessing because I didn’t have time to overthink or worry.
Q6. How does one stay composed in high-pressure situations, such as the one you just mentioned?
Answer: Some people naturally think better on their feet than others, but the key is preparation. If you truly know your subject and are clear on what is expected of you, then you will be fine.
Q7. How many staff are typically involved in running a high-level event like that?
Answer: I was working in a castle. It is not a private home in the way you or I might imagine, but it is still a private home, just on a much larger scale, with many staff members.
For that particular lunch, there were around 20 people involved overall, but when it came to the meal itself, the team was much smaller. We had the butler, myself as the under-butler, and four other members of staff—so about six of us were serving the lunch.
We were hosting 30 guests, and having six of us for the meal seemed about right.
Q8. How precisely timed are events involving the Royal Family, and how does that affect the meal planning?
Answer: We were allocated 48 minutes by Buckingham Palace for a three-course lunch because, at 1:48pm, Her Majesty stood up, left the room, left the building, got into a helicopter—we were in the north of England—and went to meet the Prime Minister, David Cameron, I think, at the time, for the weekly audience.
Q9. Did your experience at the castle remind you of the series Downton Abbey?
Answer: What was so odd is that I was sort of watching it—it was the year after Downton Abbey started—and I had not watched series one yet. I love Downton Abbey now; I do not know why it took me so long to start watching it.
I remember thinking, while I was living in this castle, “This is the perfect time to start watching Downton Abbey.” And I loved it. It is such a good program—great stories, beautifully acted, beautiful costumes.
So during the day, I would live Downton Abbey, and at night, I would watch Downton Abbey. It became this all-consuming experience. It was probably a bit much, really—I should have taken a break from it—but it was great.
Q10. Have you ever considered writing about your experiences?
Answer: Nothing has been written about that experience yet, but who knows what might happen in the next couple of years. The trouble is, when you are working in that type of environment, you sign documents agreeing never to talk about it.
Now, of course, if I happened to write a fiction book with a little bit of similarity to certain things—well, what a coincidence that would be!
Q11. How many books have you written so far and how has your writing process and style evolved over time?
Answer: My fifth book, Just Good Manners, came out in September 2024 in the UK and will be released in the US in May 2025. It is 77,000 words, written just by me, and is both a useful reference book and one you can read cover to cover—not all in one sitting, but in a steady progression. It is humorous but also has a serious message.
My first two books are tiny in terms of word count—the first one is about 20,000 words, and the second is 22,000—so they are really just glorified pamphlets (order here).
Book three, Protocol to Manage Relationships Today (2020), is a totally different kind of book. It is about 60,000 words and was written for Amsterdam University Press. It is an academic book, very straight, with no jokes. It is meaty, a great resource, and has done really well. In contrast, books one and two, were fun, gift-style books—joke, joke, joke—with a serious message underneath. They were part of a very successful series here in Britain.
Book four, Help I Sexted My Boss (2023), was a companion to my podcast, which has the same title, and is very lighthearted. It has some take-home content and was co-written with my friend and podcast co-host Jordan North.
The writing process for all five books has been completely different. In the midst of all this, just before we did the Help I Sexted My Boss book, my colleagues and I also wrote the Train the Trainer Manual. That is our Grade One handbook, which is not available for purchase, as it is only for our Train the Trainer students. This book was a collaborative effort, it is an instructional textbook and not a commercially available book.
For Just Good Manners, I had two and a half months to write it, which is not a lot of time. My publisher, who I adore, did not give me much wiggle room. If I could do it again, I would probably ask for a bit more time. But having just done the audiobook—reading it back after months—I am very pleased with it. It is a nice book. I even made myself laugh at jokes I had forgotten I had written.
Since for my last book the deadline was tight, it was very much, “I sit at a desk, and if I have not written 3,000 words today, I have failed.” Other things—like writing blogs for The English Manner website or news articles—give me a bit more flexibility because those are usually 800–900 words, and I can write a little here, a little there.
To conclude, I do not really have a set writing style, as it depends on the project.
Q12. Who did you dedicate your latest book to, and why?
Answer: It is dedicated to my grandmother, who gave me that first etiquette book when I was a child. Other than the podcast book last year—which would not have been appropriate to dedicate to her, as I felt she would not have wanted that—this is the first book where I have been able to include a dedication to her.
It is also the book most similar in tone and style to that first book she gave me. There was never any question about who I would dedicate it to.
Q13. Can you tell us more about your grandmother and how she influenced your choice of a career in etiquette?
Answer: My grandmother on my mother’s side was called Kay. Granny was a bit like Maggie Smith’s character in Downton Abbey, Violet Crawley, in that she had opinions and was not afraid to share them.
She was incredibly traditional—not in an oppressive way, but she liked things done correctly. To the point, actually, where she stopped speaking to a contingent of my family—some relatives in the north—because they did not send her a change-of-address card when they moved. Even though their telephone number stayed the same, Granny’s attitude was, “I don’t know where they live, so I cannot phone them.” Until they got in touch to let her know their new address, she did not speak to them. And, honestly, I quite like that. I quite admire it.
You could say she was being incredibly stubborn, but she was from a generation where you moved, and without the internet or email, you just sent a change-of-address card. That was normal then. Of course, people do not really do that now.
Q14. How close were you to your grandmother growing up?
Answer: They only lived half an hour away from where I grew up, so they often picked us up from school if my parents were away. My father worked away a lot, and my mother would sometimes accompany him. Other times, we would stay with my grandparents for sleepovers because we loved staying with them. They would also stay with us at Christmas.
Actually, all my grandparents lived very close to us, and we were a very close family, so I was able to spend a lot of time with her.
Q15. How much of your interest in etiquette do you attribute to your upbringing?
Answer: All my family are very polite and lovely people. There is no one rude in my family. My parents—my father in particular—probably knew more about etiquette than most people and still does.
When my parents hosted dinners for their friends, starting from when I was about eight, I would often be asked, “Do you want to answer the door, take people’s coats, show them through, and offer them an aperitif?” That sort of thing.
And that was before I was ever given an etiquette book. So, my parents should get a lot of credit for making me who I am—or blame, depending on how you look at it.
Q16. Shifting to the topic of social media: What are your thoughts about it and how do you see its impact on etiquette?
Answer: If we could go back 20 years and not press the button to invent certain social media platforms, I probably would be a strong advocate for that, because I think a lot of negative stuff has come from social media.
However, it is not all doom and gloom—there is loads of positive stuff, too. For example, I have made several really good friends as a result of social media. When Twitter started, in 2010 and 2011, I met on that platform some of my closest friends that I still have today, and this was back when people actually made friends on Twitter. I mean, can you imagine that now? So, it is not all bad.
I find that social media has such a vast reach. I use it to do short tutorials, which is something I only started in the summer of 2023. One of my colleagues, Myka Meier, has used social media for years, and for ages, I said, “I cannot do it because Myka does it so well, and I do not want to look like I am copying her.” But Myka often demonstrates with finger wagging or gestures, and there is no speech—just music. That is so clever because if you are in Burkina Faso and do not speak English, you can still understand what Myka is saying. Then someone said to me, “William, all you need to do to be different is speak.” It was so obvious, but I had not thought of it.
And the reach of these videos is incredible. I was on holiday in Chicago recently, and people came up to me on the street—where nobody knows me in America, particularly—and said, “I love your videos.” That has happened pretty much anywhere I have gone since July 2023. People might not know who I am, but they know what I do. I like to think I am not doing silly dance routines or makeup tutorials—I am doing something I genuinely believe is useful. And if using social media helps people, if it makes just one person nicer, then I have done something.
Q17. How do you persuade people to embrace etiquette in their daily lives?
Answer: Whether it is my social media videos, or things like the Chelsea Handler interview, or TV appearances, I would like to think that how I persuade people is by demonstrating and living the brand. I would hope that if people meet me in real life—whether they come to one of my classes or just see me walking down the street—I am basically the same person they see on social media.
There are people, etiquette professionals included, who are very different from how they present themselves online and how they are in real life. I think the best way to persuade someone into a way of thinking is by living the brand and being the brand.
So that is my way to persuade people—being an advocate for etiquette by demonstrating it consistently. It is about, “Do as I say, and do as I do,” rather than, “Do as I say, and not as I do not.”
Q18. Why do you think etiquette often carries such a negative perception?
Answer: I think, as we said at the start, etiquette is such a loaded word, and people seem to have this preconceived idea about what it is.
For example, my publisher, who I adore, did not want “etiquette” anywhere on the front cover of the book. That is why the book is called Just Good Manners, and “etiquette” does not appear on the cover at all. Initially, I was very sad about that, but I completely see their logic.
Etiquette does not need to be as complicated or as difficult as some people may think. Obviously, if you are going to study to be an etiquette tutor, for example, you do need to know an immense amount. But that is the same in any subject—it is like an iceberg. You have to know so much that informs what you are teaching, but what you share may only be the small tip of it above sea level.
To be an expert, you need to read as much as you can, study etiquette books, be critical of other people’s behavior—not necessarily out loud, but in your head—and reflect on your own habits.
Ultimately, etiquette is respect. And I think you only have to open a newspaper, turn on the television news, or read a news app to see what is going on in almost every country to realize that the root cause of so many problems is a lack of respect between party A and party B.
I am not saying, “Oh, well, if everyone read an etiquette book, all our problems would disappear.” But if respect were more on the agenda, I imagine there would probably be at least one less problem in the world.
Q19. As we conclude the interview, what final words would you like to share about etiquette? And do you have any advice for junior professionals interested in pursuing a similar career to yours?
Answer: What etiquette is not—and I think this is why people are put off—is attending an etiquette class or reading an etiquette book where someone from a supposed higher class is shouting, berating, or talking down to someone from a lower class or with less knowledge. That approach will never persuade anyone to be nice to one another. Sadly, the representations of etiquette in the media, particularly in Britain 10 or 15 years ago, often reflected that dynamic, and it is part of why etiquette has such a bad reputation.
Historically, etiquette in its modern sense was formalized by Louis XIV as a way to keep people in their place. But things evolve—Louis XIV lived a long time ago, and etiquette has changed since then.
If you want to persuade someone of the value of etiquette, shouting at people or making them feel small is not the way to go.
And now, thanks to technology—even when we are sitting in two different countries—I can teach people from all over the world. While I have always taught etiquette to international audiences in London, at the start of my career, we did not have online training. Now, with the internet and the ease of international travel, I am able to work with people globally at the drop of a hat.
#Interview #PersuasiveDiscourse #Etiquette #Manners #Professionalism #Writing #Skills #SocialMediaEtiquette #CareerAdvice
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William Hanson
Etiquette Expert & Author
Executive Director of The English Manner | U.K.
*Note: This interview was recorded on August 20, 2024, and has been edited for clarity, ease of readability, and length.
**Illustrations by: The profile and main article photos included in this interview were made available by William Hanson.
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