4) Society and social changes
During the middle years of the nineteenth century, Britain’s economic success raised the standard of
living for a significant proportion of the population, but left many in poverty.
Class and regional division
Class Division
A class system was a prevalent feature of mid-nineteenth century Britain. The term ‘class’, which came
into use during the early nineteenth century, categorised people in relation to their status in society and
the degree of their economic influence. The generally accepted view is that there were three main
classes (upper, middle and lower) and that there were varied groups within each class. There was
limited social mobility between classes but although this was changing, most people accepted their
allotted position within society, which would suggest there were clear defining lines between the
classes. In reality the lines were blurred and the criteria upon which social class was based were a
matter of debate. Most definitions of class referred to occupation, acquired capital or inherited wealth,
income or earnings, as well as value, tastes, aspirations and experiences. A simple view of class division
is outlined here:
The aristocracy and the lesser ranked landowning gentry comprised the upper class.
The middle class came between the upper and lower class and covered a whole range of
occupations and interests: merchants, manufacturers, professionals, service providers, shopkeepers,
clerks, better-off tenant farmers, as well as less prosperous smallholders.
The lower class was increasingly referred to as the working class and defined as those who laboured
with their hands to make a living, such as craftsmen, factory operatives, miners and agricultural
workers.
In 1867, economist and statistician Dudley Baxter (1827-75) worked out the relative size of each of the
three main classes in England and Wales, based on occupation and income. Baxter’s findings are shown
below:
Class Annual Income No. of people in % of income % share of total
income group earners income
Upper £5000 and over 4,290 0.3 23.4
Upper £1000-£5000 25,250
Middle £300-£1000 90,000 0.9 11.2
Middle £100-£300 510,300 5.2 14.4
Middle 1,422,860 14.5 15.1
Upper and Middle 2,052,650 20.9 64.1
Other income 7,785,360 79.1 35.9
recipients i.e.
, working classes
Activity: What does the above table tell you about social classes in Britain in the mid nineteenth
century? Support your answer with evidence.
In 1851, Henry Mayhew, a journalist and social researcher, published his study of the social divisions of
the population, which focused on the lives of the poor in mid-nineteenth century London. Rather than a
division into the three social groups – upper, middle and working class – his classification was broadly in
terms of people’s relationship with work. Mayhew placed all those who worked for a living in the same
social class, whether employer or employee, as, for both groups, work was a necessity and industrialists
initially regarded their profits as earned income and comparable to a wage. His assumption was a
‘common bond of interest’ by the industrious classes against the leisured landed class, who lived on
inherited wealth. He also assumed that there was an increasing desire by the industrious classes to
challenge their position, beyond the provisions of the 1832 Reform Act. Mayhew’s classification fails to
take account of the fact that by the 1850s, there was a significant number of industrialists who were
already so wealthy they were able to buy land and style themselves as landed gentry, and there was
already a blurring of the dividing lines between the social classes.
A more common view is that the main division was between the working classes and those who
considered themselves above them – the middle and upper classes. The problem with this
interpretation is that, as mentioned below, there were innumerable divisions within the working classes
in terms of occupation and status.
The upper and middle classes
The upper classes relied on inherited wealth, which came through their possession of land. Their
substantial incomes were derived from land rents; up until the mid-nineteenth century these rents had
maintained their economic superiority and allowed a perpetuation of the land-based political system,
which they were able to control. Although they made up a fraction of the population their influence was
immense; they dominated every aspect of the social, political and economic life of the country.
Industrialisation provided opportunities for further wealth creation as some of them were able to
capitalise on the extraction of mineral deposits, such as coal and iron ore, lying under their land.
Industrialist turned landed gentry
Sir Robert Peel (father of PM Robert
Peel) became a successful and
wealthy factory owner. He bought a
large estate and country residence,
Drayton Manor in Staffordshire, was
created a Baronet in 1800 and thus
gentrified his family.
, Industrialisation, however, had brought much more significant change to the existing social structure;
successful industrialists, manufacturers and merchants had accumulated wealth on an unprecedented
scale ad were able to challenge the economic superiority of the upper classes and imitate their culture
and tastes. The more financially successful middle class were regarded as upper middle class and some
were even accepted into the aristocracy. Although several key political figures of the Victorian era, like
Peel and Gladstone, had middle-class origins, the political progress of the middle classes as a whole was
a gradual one, not completed until the early twentieth century.
By the 1850s, it is estimated that the middle class, most of whom were town-dwellers, made up
between a fifth and a quarter of the population. There was a broad spectrum of occupations and
incomes and so a lawyer – earning £700 a year, owning a large detached house in a smart suburb of
Liverpool or Bristol, sending his sons to private school and having four live-in servants – and a clerk – in a
shipping office in either town, earning £100 a year and affording none of the other advantages – would
both be perceived to be middle class. It might be difficult to identify their common characteristics,
except that an annual income of £100 was regarded as the cut-off point between the middle and
working classes; that they both laboured with their minds rather than their hands; and that both legal
work and clerical work were regarded as high status occupations than any form of manual labour, even
that of a highly skilled craftsman. The broader definition of middle class was those who could afford to
keep a domestic servant. In the 1871 census, there were 1.4 million domestic servants, and this offers
some sort of guide to the number of middle class households in Britain.
The working classes
By 1850 approximately four fifths of the occupied population earned their living through manual labour.
These workers and their dependants comprised the working classes. Beyond the common factor of
earning a living through the work of their hands, however, there was a lack of homogeneity within the
working class, which makes it perhaps more accurate to use the plural ‘working classes’ to describe
them. In the rural areas they were mainly poorly paid agricultural labourers, but in the urban areas there
was a greater diversity of occupational activities and a consequent variation in the status, habits and
wage-level of the workers. There were skilled craftsmen, semi-skilled and unskilled workers and a sizable
gap between the skilled and unskilled labourer; the former considered themselves superior to the latter.
Theodore Hoppen points out that there were ‘occupational hierarchies at individual workplaces’, so that
for example among Thames riverside and dock workers ‘ship workers looked down on shore workers
and permanent labourers despised casuals’.
According to a contemporary source produced in 1867 by two middle-class socialists, J.M. Ludlow and
Lloyd Jones, ‘the true working class’ were defined in the following way:
‘The terms “working class”, “working men”, will be taken as meaning those who work, chiefly with their
muscles, for wages and maintain themselves thereby. It is not, indeed, intended to deal with “the poor”.
i.e. those who may work, but cannot habitually maintain themselves.
During the middle years of the nineteenth century, Britain’s economic success raised the standard of
living for a significant proportion of the population, but left many in poverty.
Class and regional division
Class Division
A class system was a prevalent feature of mid-nineteenth century Britain. The term ‘class’, which came
into use during the early nineteenth century, categorised people in relation to their status in society and
the degree of their economic influence. The generally accepted view is that there were three main
classes (upper, middle and lower) and that there were varied groups within each class. There was
limited social mobility between classes but although this was changing, most people accepted their
allotted position within society, which would suggest there were clear defining lines between the
classes. In reality the lines were blurred and the criteria upon which social class was based were a
matter of debate. Most definitions of class referred to occupation, acquired capital or inherited wealth,
income or earnings, as well as value, tastes, aspirations and experiences. A simple view of class division
is outlined here:
The aristocracy and the lesser ranked landowning gentry comprised the upper class.
The middle class came between the upper and lower class and covered a whole range of
occupations and interests: merchants, manufacturers, professionals, service providers, shopkeepers,
clerks, better-off tenant farmers, as well as less prosperous smallholders.
The lower class was increasingly referred to as the working class and defined as those who laboured
with their hands to make a living, such as craftsmen, factory operatives, miners and agricultural
workers.
In 1867, economist and statistician Dudley Baxter (1827-75) worked out the relative size of each of the
three main classes in England and Wales, based on occupation and income. Baxter’s findings are shown
below:
Class Annual Income No. of people in % of income % share of total
income group earners income
Upper £5000 and over 4,290 0.3 23.4
Upper £1000-£5000 25,250
Middle £300-£1000 90,000 0.9 11.2
Middle £100-£300 510,300 5.2 14.4
Middle 1,422,860 14.5 15.1
Upper and Middle 2,052,650 20.9 64.1
Other income 7,785,360 79.1 35.9
recipients i.e.
, working classes
Activity: What does the above table tell you about social classes in Britain in the mid nineteenth
century? Support your answer with evidence.
In 1851, Henry Mayhew, a journalist and social researcher, published his study of the social divisions of
the population, which focused on the lives of the poor in mid-nineteenth century London. Rather than a
division into the three social groups – upper, middle and working class – his classification was broadly in
terms of people’s relationship with work. Mayhew placed all those who worked for a living in the same
social class, whether employer or employee, as, for both groups, work was a necessity and industrialists
initially regarded their profits as earned income and comparable to a wage. His assumption was a
‘common bond of interest’ by the industrious classes against the leisured landed class, who lived on
inherited wealth. He also assumed that there was an increasing desire by the industrious classes to
challenge their position, beyond the provisions of the 1832 Reform Act. Mayhew’s classification fails to
take account of the fact that by the 1850s, there was a significant number of industrialists who were
already so wealthy they were able to buy land and style themselves as landed gentry, and there was
already a blurring of the dividing lines between the social classes.
A more common view is that the main division was between the working classes and those who
considered themselves above them – the middle and upper classes. The problem with this
interpretation is that, as mentioned below, there were innumerable divisions within the working classes
in terms of occupation and status.
The upper and middle classes
The upper classes relied on inherited wealth, which came through their possession of land. Their
substantial incomes were derived from land rents; up until the mid-nineteenth century these rents had
maintained their economic superiority and allowed a perpetuation of the land-based political system,
which they were able to control. Although they made up a fraction of the population their influence was
immense; they dominated every aspect of the social, political and economic life of the country.
Industrialisation provided opportunities for further wealth creation as some of them were able to
capitalise on the extraction of mineral deposits, such as coal and iron ore, lying under their land.
Industrialist turned landed gentry
Sir Robert Peel (father of PM Robert
Peel) became a successful and
wealthy factory owner. He bought a
large estate and country residence,
Drayton Manor in Staffordshire, was
created a Baronet in 1800 and thus
gentrified his family.
, Industrialisation, however, had brought much more significant change to the existing social structure;
successful industrialists, manufacturers and merchants had accumulated wealth on an unprecedented
scale ad were able to challenge the economic superiority of the upper classes and imitate their culture
and tastes. The more financially successful middle class were regarded as upper middle class and some
were even accepted into the aristocracy. Although several key political figures of the Victorian era, like
Peel and Gladstone, had middle-class origins, the political progress of the middle classes as a whole was
a gradual one, not completed until the early twentieth century.
By the 1850s, it is estimated that the middle class, most of whom were town-dwellers, made up
between a fifth and a quarter of the population. There was a broad spectrum of occupations and
incomes and so a lawyer – earning £700 a year, owning a large detached house in a smart suburb of
Liverpool or Bristol, sending his sons to private school and having four live-in servants – and a clerk – in a
shipping office in either town, earning £100 a year and affording none of the other advantages – would
both be perceived to be middle class. It might be difficult to identify their common characteristics,
except that an annual income of £100 was regarded as the cut-off point between the middle and
working classes; that they both laboured with their minds rather than their hands; and that both legal
work and clerical work were regarded as high status occupations than any form of manual labour, even
that of a highly skilled craftsman. The broader definition of middle class was those who could afford to
keep a domestic servant. In the 1871 census, there were 1.4 million domestic servants, and this offers
some sort of guide to the number of middle class households in Britain.
The working classes
By 1850 approximately four fifths of the occupied population earned their living through manual labour.
These workers and their dependants comprised the working classes. Beyond the common factor of
earning a living through the work of their hands, however, there was a lack of homogeneity within the
working class, which makes it perhaps more accurate to use the plural ‘working classes’ to describe
them. In the rural areas they were mainly poorly paid agricultural labourers, but in the urban areas there
was a greater diversity of occupational activities and a consequent variation in the status, habits and
wage-level of the workers. There were skilled craftsmen, semi-skilled and unskilled workers and a sizable
gap between the skilled and unskilled labourer; the former considered themselves superior to the latter.
Theodore Hoppen points out that there were ‘occupational hierarchies at individual workplaces’, so that
for example among Thames riverside and dock workers ‘ship workers looked down on shore workers
and permanent labourers despised casuals’.
According to a contemporary source produced in 1867 by two middle-class socialists, J.M. Ludlow and
Lloyd Jones, ‘the true working class’ were defined in the following way:
‘The terms “working class”, “working men”, will be taken as meaning those who work, chiefly with their
muscles, for wages and maintain themselves thereby. It is not, indeed, intended to deal with “the poor”.
i.e. those who may work, but cannot habitually maintain themselves.
