Green’s Dictionary of Slang

social climbing, pursuing aristocratic connections.

1799		Sporting Mag. Dec. XV 124/1: There is a species of hunting, which, though little known outside the precints of the university, is yet very much practised in it [...] I allude to the diversion of Tuft-hunting.
1846		Exeter & Plymouth Gaz. 29 Aug. 4/5: Tuft-hunting is snobbish.
1857		Leeds Times 12 Sept. 3/6: Mind, if you are fond of tuft-hunting that you do not mistake the tutor for the young lord.
1866		Mansfield School-Life at Winchester College (1870) 23: Here there is no tuft-hunting — wealth and rank have little influence.
1871		Carlisle Patriot 1 Sept. 3/2: Scotch Tuft-Hunting. Even in the quiet retreat of Roseneath the Princess [...] did not altogether escape the persecution of snobbishness.
1885		in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads V:1 99: Although ready for toad-eating, and tuft-hunting after half-nobles.
1897		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 1 June 2/3: Jubilee Tuft-Hunting. [...] There has been a rush for Jubilee tufts [...] a gentleman believed to possess great influence [...] has been ‘approached’ in behalf of no fewer than 500 gentlemen anxious for knighthoods.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 10 Sept. 4/2: Not since the diminutive Dook of York dropped in here has the class which abases itself to rank indulged in such transports of tuft-hunting.
1943		Western Morn. News 27 July 2/5: Others were unashamedly gold-digging and tuft-hunting.