Walford's County Families is the short title of a work, partly social register, partly "Who's Who", which was produced in Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries, initially under the editorship of Edward Walford. It served as a guide or handbook to the British upper classes and landed gentry (in this case referred to in the title under the term, county families, for which see county family). Its coverage encompassed many of the most important rich, aristocratic or politically powerful of the people of the period, thereby serving to document to an extent the "cream of society", sometimes referred to loosely as Britain's upper ten thousand.
From edition to edition, the title of the annual volumes making up the series varied: the 1899 edition, was, for example, called Walford's County Families of the United Kingdom, or Royal Manual of the Titled and Untitled Aristocracy of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.
Volumes in this series are also sometimes referred to simply as Walford or Walford's. According to the British Library catalogue, the works bearing this title were published from 1860 to 1920.
Walford's County Families of the United Kingdom, or Royal Manual of the Titled and Untitled Aristocracy of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland; Catalogue of the British Library.
See also: Burke's Landed Gentry in the article Landed gentry