This chapter charts Edgar Wilson’s elevation in status and class identity, embodying the book’s main theme, the capacity of expatriate employment to create career opportunities for ordinary Britons, in this case for the impecunious lower middle class. Wilson’s earlier family background, with schoolteacher parents, underlines the precarious position of the ‘middling sort’ in semi-rural districts during dramatic social and economic transformation, but then the role of education and culture in enabling the three sons to achieve professional and business careers. After marrying, and with dismal white-collar stagnation in London, his subsequent experience in Persia depicts a rare picture of life on a remote river port, Ahwaz, in the early years of oil exploration. The tragic loss of his first wife from typhoid left him with two infant sons, a grim price of expatriate social mobility. His transfer to Tehran, mixing with political and diplomatic elites, cemented his rise in status and authority, and brought a new romantic venture. Socially, Wilson had arrived.