Victorian ideals valued respectability and restraint. One was to be polite and courteous and dutiful, not pushy or overbearing.
The Fabian Society was a group aiming for a moral remaking of Britain according to a socialist model, but they were much more refrained and respectable in their approach than Marxists who sought revolution. Founded in 1883, the Fabian Society sought change by gradual means, not through violence or agitation. They took their name from the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, who was nicknamed "Cunctator" ("delayer") for his use of delaying tactics rather than a direct attack in confronting the army of Hannibal in the Second Punic War.
