This chapter examines the paradox that in a society that put a high value on work, those at the top of the social scale were celebrated as a 'leisured classs' with important political and social functions. By the early twentieth century, however, the 'leisured class' were beginning to be called the 'idle rich', and by mid-century they were thought to be a thing of the past. The need for leisure for the well-off, especially 'brain-workers', was, however, a constant theme of commentators in the later nineteenth century, leading to calls for 'a gospel of leisure' to sit alongside 'a gospel of work'. But for those in the higher echelons of the social strata, work in the twentieth century became more demanding, leading an economist in 1970 to write about a 'harried leisure class', those who were money-rich but time-short, a foretaste of work-life balance debates.