Liza Picard The Victorian Middle Classes British Library
Liza Picard, « The Victorian Middle Classes » (British Library) • “A junior clerk in a City firm might have earned less than £ 100 a year. The chairman of the Board might have been paid £ 1, 000. But they shared one vital distinction; they were both members of the 'great middle class'. They worked with letters and figures, wore morning coats, stiff white collars and top hats. A skilled engineering workman might earn more than a clerk, but he worked with his hands – he was irredeemably a member of the lower classes. ”
« The Victorian Middle Classes » (British Library) • “ 19 th-century Britain saw the growth of what we would now call ‘white collar’ workers: people paid to oversee, administrate and annotate financial or legal transactions ordered by heads of business. With Britain’s simultaneous manufacturing and trading boom, the number of clerks in commercial industries grew enormously. The 1841 census records only 20, 000 commercial clerks in Britain, but by 1871 the number of ‘clerks, accountants and bankers’ had grown to 119, 000. As the word clerk suggests (it is Old English for ‘lettered person’, via ‘cleric’), the job was mostly transcription. A letter from a manager would have to be copied and recopied by hand until there were enough to send to all involved parties; likewise every invoice and account ledger. ”
The professions • Downton Abbey (1912) • Matthew Crawley (1885 -1921) • Lawyer • Son of a doctor
Clergy VS Industrial middle class Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South (1855) Margaret Hale: daughter of a parson Richard Thornton: industrialist
Rural middle class Victorian Farm (approx. 1880) episode 1 https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=4 ap. IM 4 l 0 la. Y (23: 25 29: 00)
A new-found political power
The 1832 Reform Act
The 1832 Reform Act and its effects • redefined constituencies (many « rotten boroughs » disenfranchised) • increased the number of individuals allowed to vote from 478 000 to 813 000 (i. e. from 3% to 7% of the overall British population, but 1 adult in 5 in England) • nationalised and modernised British politics • admitted the urban middle class to political life
Tom Richey, “The Reform Act of 1832 (Political Reform in 19 th Century Britain - Part 1)” • https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=jvpgq. Fdj. V 8 o
Conclusion
The middle class • Appeared in the 19 th century • Work for a living, but no physical labour • Wide range of incomes • 1832 as turning point • Importance of middle-class values
Albert, Victoria and their nine children, 1857.
References • Liza Picard, « The Victorian Middle Classes » (British Library) https: //www. bl. uk/victorian-britain/articles/the-victorian-middleclasses
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