When Queen Victoria’s mother and husband died in quick succession, the result was a significant expansion of public education in England. That’s the conclusion of what is easily my favorite economics paper of the year so far, from Marc Goñi of the University of Bergen in Norway.

The 1860s were a high point for assortative mating within the English elite. The peerage “was likely the most exclusive elite ever to exist,” […] The mechanism for maintaining that small ultra-elite group was the London Season — a series of balls where the eligible offspring of the peerage would meet and match. […] When the Queen went into mourning, the Season was effectively canceled for three successive years (1861–1863). As a result, posh rich daughters failed to meet posh rich men, and married commoners instead. Peer–commoner intermarriage rose by 40%; titled women married husbands 44 percentile ranks poorer. Such marriages caused real harm to the daughter’s brothers and even fathers. Her brothers were 50% less likely to enter parliament; her family’s prestige fell […] Constituencies that were no longer represented in parliament by the local peer were much less likely to oppose the introduction of state education — which eventually became law in the 1870s