MIDDLING SORT TO MIDDLE CLASS

 

1. Definitions of Middling Classes

Income ranges

• servant - a few pounds a year plus board
• journeyman, small tradesman - ,8-,35 a year
• 50 a year necessary to maintain basics of middling class
• lifestyle
• 40 a year level at which liability to pay the poor rate
• London - c. 2-3% in 1798 in the upper income bracket (av. ,200 a year)
• 16-21% in the middling bracket - ,80-139 a year
• remaining 75% a diverse body of small shopkeepers, smaller independent artisans, wage labourers and the unemployed

Numbers

• The urban population of England grew from 850,000 in 1700 (17% of pop) to 2.38 mil. in 1801 (27.5% of pop.)
• [Definition of urban - towns over 5,000]
• 2/3 of growth occurred outside London- were c. 170,000 urban middling people in 1700 and c. 475,000 in 1801 - leaves out all those in villages and smaller county towns
• Compare to numbers in gentry - were c. 1,000 families in upper gentry, 2,000 in lesser gentry - & c. 10,000 in group calling themselves gentlemen

 

2. Divisions

• Appetite for social status
• Gentlemen and merchants
• Regional divisions
• Polite society and the rest

 

3. Consumer Goods for the Middle Classes

• Taxes: poor rates, house and window taxes and especially stamp and excise duties; new carriage and coach taxes, plate tax, servant taxes.

 

4. Professions

• Apothecaries and lawyers
• Mobility
• Genteel poverty

 

5. Business

 

6. Credit and Debt

• Wholesale credit - 6 months - a year
• Retail credit - 3, 4, 6 months
• Debt - Courts of Conscience
• Bankruptcy laws - 1706 - could only be declared if debtor owed more than ,100 to a single creditor 1-2% of population declared bankrupt annually

 

7. Religion

• Dissent
• Societies for the Reformation of Manners
• Evangelicalism

 

8. Commercial Education

• In 1500 c. 1% of women and 10% of men could read and write - by 1800 c. 40% of women and 60% of men were able to do so. The men who read were mainly from the gentry, the professionals, government officials, retail traders and skilled tradesmen.
• Among women - domestic servants had rates much lower than 40% - but women in the needle trades c. 70% - shopkeepers, midwives and
• Schooltreachers were 80-100% literate
• Accounting and book keeping
• The Dissenting Academies