How did 18th century British people support themselves?

[goubi]

I just finished reading Pride and Prejudice and one burning question is how did the Bennets support themselves financially? The father was not working, the mother was not working, the daughters were not working, but they still had servants and a butler?

[kev67]

Did they have any tenant farmers? Another possibility was that they were living off the interest from a large amount of capital at the bank. A £10,000 sum in the bank would give an annual income of £400, given an interest rate of 4%.

[Ecurb]

On today's market, a pound of silver is worth about $300 (U.S.). So by that measure, Darcy had an income equivalent to $3 million a year -- rich even today. The "landed gentry" made their money from rents -- which is why the Bennets would become impoverished when Mr. Bennet died and Mr. Collins inherited the property. Elizabeth's Uncle Gardiner worked as a lawyer, which led Miss Bingley to mock him for being "working class". Bingley's income was 5000 Pounds -- equivalent in silver to $1.5 million. Sevants came cheap - room and board and a few pounds a year. In an agricultural society, cash income was not as necessary as it is today.

India had not quite kicked in as a major source of wealth for Brits in the 18th century. However, in Mansfield Park, Sir Thomas sails off to Antigua to look after some business interests. We can assume that he owned a plantation, growing sugar or some other cash crop. He probably also owned the slaves that worked the plantation, and when he returns Fanny asks him about the institution of slavery, which was controversial in England.

[OrphanPip]

According to the National Archives of the UK a pound in 1800 had the equivalent worth of 36 pounds today. I think that calculation would be based on a price index inflation calculation, not that I have the knowledge of economics to really assess how accurate this information is. Ecurb's calculation is interesting, but I think what matters is how much a pound would buy in 1800 more than what a pound of silver would be worth on current commodity markets in contemporary currency. Also, most people of Bingley or the Bennet's class would be using credit (a wealthy person in the city would likely pay for their food and drink expenses at the end of a month in a lump sum) and paper money for their purchases, and they'd only keep a few coins for small expenses.

So, someone like Bingley had an income of around 160k GBP, or 268k USD. However, it is also important to consider the purchasing power at the time. As Ecurb said, cost of labour was significantly lower than today, much like how 160k would go much further in Costa Rica than it would in the UK.

For an interesting comparison, I was recently reading a Frances Brooke novel from the 1770s and in it a newly married couple worry that their 500 pounds a year would only afford them a modest house with a handful of servants and a single carriage, but they couldn't afford new furniture. So, that gives you the idea of the limits of what 500 pounds could buy you in a year.

Also, Mr. Bennett is a landowner so presumably his money comes from tenants. The novel reports his income as 2000 a year, while his wife had a dowry of a lump sum of 4000 pounds. Depending on how the marriage contract was drawn up, that 4000 pounds may have been spent or kept in reserve to provide an annual income, or it could be tied to an inheritance or dowry for any possible offspring of the match.

[goubi]

On today's market, a pound of silver is worth about $300 (U.S.). So by that measure, Darcy had an income equivalent to $3 million a year -- rich even today. The "landed gentry" made their money from rents -- which is why the Bennets would become impoverished when Mr. Bennet died and Mr. Collins inherited the property. Elizabeth's Uncle Gardiner worked as a lawyer, which led Miss Bingley to mock him for being "working class". Bingley's income was 5000 Pounds -- equivalent in silver to $1.5 million. Sevants came cheap - room and board and a few pounds a year. In an agricultural society, cash income was not as necessary as it is today.

India had not quite kicked in as a major source of wealth for Brits in the 18th century. However, in Mansfield Park, Sir Thomas sails off to Antigua to look after some business interests. We can assume that he owned a plantation, growing sugar or some other cash crop. He probably also owned the slaves that worked the plantation, and when he returns Fanny asks him about the institution of slavery, which was controversial in England.

Well I just read this part:"Mr. Bennet's property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year...", I guess it means that the Bennets lived off their tenants then, no? But two thousand a year is not bad at all if Mr. Bingley only makes five thousand a year. Why were the Bennets so looked down upon by Miss Bingley?

[goubi]

According to the National Archives of the UK a pound in 1800 had the equivalent worth of 36 pounds today. I think that calculation would be based on a price index inflation calculation, not that I have the knowledge of economics to really assess how accurate this information is. Ecurb's calculation is interesting, but I think what matters is how much a pound would buy in 1800 more than what a pound of silver would be worth on current commodity markets in contemporary currency. Also, most people of Bingley or the Bennet's class would be using credit (a wealthy person in the city would likely pay for their food and drink expenses at the end of a month in a lump sum) and paper money for their purchases, and they'd only keep a few coins for small expenses.

So, someone like Bingley had an income of around 160k GBP, or 268k USD. However, it is also important to consider the purchasing power at the time. As Ecurb said, cost of labour was significantly lower than today, much like how 160k would go much further in Costa Rica than it would in the UK.

For an interesting comparison, I was recently reading a Frances Brooke novel from the 1770s and in it a newly married couple worry that their 500 pounds a year would only afford them a modest house with a handful of servants and a single carriage, but they couldn't afford new furniture. So, that gives you the idea of the limits of what 500 pounds could buy you in a year.

Also, Mr. Bennett is a landowner so presumably his money comes from tenants. The novel reports his income as 2000 a year, while his wife had a dowry of a lump sum of 4000 pounds. Depending on how the marriage contract was drawn up, that 4000 pounds may have been spent or kept in reserve to provide an annual income, or it could be tied to an inheritance or dowry for any possible offspring of the match.

2000/yr is hardly bad, no?

[kev67]

2000/yr would have been a huge income compared with an average English family's. Charles Dickens' father earned £80 a year and that was still more than most.

[Lokasenna]

Some critics have read Mansfield Park as having an implicit condemnation of slavery - it is at least true to say that the novel strongly implies that part of the wealth of the Bertram family is derived from overseas slave work, and that it is clearly not a comfortable topic of discussion.

[Ecurb]

I'll grant that my estimate (based on the price of silver) is high -- but the National Archives estimate (36 pounds) is surely low. Accuracy is not possible: labor was cheap, but goods were often expensive. Clothing (for example) was hand tailored. Furniture was hand-made. Efficient manufacturing was in the future. A reasonable estimate would be that a pound in 1800 was worth $70-$100 (or 50-70 pounds) in today's money.

Darcy kept two houses, a giant estate at Pemberley and a town house in London. I don't know how many servants he employed in each house, or whether some of his footmen travelled with him to London, but I'll guess that he must have had 20 full-time servants at Pemberley, and another 5-10 in London. An income of $500,000 a year today would hardly suffice to pay the salaries of 25-30 full-time employees.

The Bennets were not poor. They were rich, compared to most people in England, and 2000 pound per annum was a good income. However, because the estate was entailed to Mr.Collins, the Bennet girls were not rich. I'm trying to remember, but I think Elizabeth would get no dowry, and would eventually inherit 600 pounds (presumably from the 4000 pounds her mother brought to the marriage). 600 pounds might be $60,000 in today's money -- but that's not enough to live on for long.

Austen makes several references to slavery. In Emma, Jane Fairfax whines that the plight of governesses is as miserable as that of slaves (which I always saw as a terrible character flaw in the supposedly Little Miss Perfect Fairfax, an opinion with which I suspect Jane Austen concurred). In Mansfield Park, Sir Thomas is a distant, unloving father as well as a slave owner. Certainly Sir Thomas's desire to marry Fanny off to the highest bidder may be compared to slavery (although any claim that it is equally oppressive would be pathetic, Miss Fairfax!).

[mona amon]

Umm...what's wrong with comparing exploitative employment where the employee doesn't have much choice to walk away, to slavery? I do it all the time! Rochester does it in Jane Eyre, "You will give up your governessing slavery at once!"

[kelby_lake]

Umm...what's wrong with comparing exploitative employment where the employee doesn't have much choice to walk away, to slavery? I do it all the time! Rochester does it in Jane Eyre, "You will give up your governessing slavery at once!"

Rochester is far from a model man though!

[Ecurb]

Of course there is nothing wrong with comparing exploitave employment to slavery -- so great a thinker as Karl Marx did exactly that. Nonetheless, the comparison should be fair instead of constituting self-serving whining. Here's the quote (Jane Fairfax is speaking first):

"Excuse me, ma'am, but this is by no means my intention; I make no inquiry myself, and should be sorry to have any made by my friends. When I am quite determined as to the time, I am not at all afraid of being long unemployed. There are places in town, offices, where inquiry would soon produce something -- offices for the sale, not quite of human flesh, but of human intellect."

"Oh! my dear, human flesh! You quite shock me; if you mean a fling at the slave-trade, I assure you Mr. Suckling was always rather a friend to the abolition."

"I did not mean, I was not thinking of the slave-trade," replied Jane; "governess-trade, I assure you, was all that I had in view; widely different certainly, as to the guilt of those who carry it on; but as to the greater misery of the victims, I do not know where it lies.

Miss Fairfax is whining that she might have to get a job, instead of marrying Frank Churchill. However much "misery" that horrible eventuality would inflict on her, though, I somehow doubt it would equal the misery she would know were she shipped off to the sugar plantations in Antigua as a slave.

[goubi]

Umm...what's wrong with comparing exploitative employment where the employee doesn't have much choice to walk away, to slavery? I do it all the time! Rochester does it in Jane Eyre, "You will give up your governessing slavery at once!"

I noticed that your avatar is from Witch Hunter Robin

[mona amon]

Of course there is nothing wrong with comparing exploitave employment to slavery -- so great a thinker as Karl Marx did exactly that. Nonetheless, the comparison should be fair instead of constituting self-serving whining. Here's the quote (Jane Fairfax is speaking first):



Miss Fairfax is whining that she might have to get a job, instead of marrying Frank Churchill. However much "misery" that horrible eventuality would inflict on her, though, I somehow doubt it would equal the misery she would know were she shipped off to the sugar plantations in Antigua as a slave.

Oh OK, I thought it was the latest political correctness thing. You never know these days.

I noticed that your avatar is from Witch Hunter Robin

Yes, Amon from Witch Hunter Robin.

[togre]

Back to the OP, I recall in Pride and Prejudice there being a conversation about the carriage horses being needed on the farm. Mr. Bennett responds "They are needed more often than I can get them." That would imply some relationship with the tenants more reciprocal than merely collecting payments. Gaskell's Wives and Daughters, aside from being a good read in and of itself, has more concert aspects of how the genteel made their money.