Noel Symington and Roderick Spode

As we have seen, Market Harborough's very own Mosleyite, Noel Symington was a scion of the soup branch of the family. It is, for literary reasons, a great shame he did not hale from the corsetry side of the Symingtons.

Any reader of P.G. Wodehouse will be familiar with Roderick Spode, Earl of Sidcup and leader of the Black Shorts. And that reader will know that Spode once made a living as the founder and proprietor of Eulalie Soeurs", a famed designer of ladies' lingerie.

Wikipedia takes up the story:

Spode had long attempted to keep his ownership of the business a secret, though Jeeves discovered the fact in the Junior Ganymede Club's official Book, where one of Spode's former valets had inscribed it.

In The Code of the Woosters, this discovery allowed Bertie to threaten Spode with public embarrassment and prevent being coshed: as Bertie says, "You can't be a successful Dictator and design women's underclothing. One or the other. Not both."

Indeed, whenever Bertie mentions the name "Eulalie" throughout the book, Spode instantly becomes meek and acquiescing.

Somehow, mentioning soup and table creams would not have had the same effect.