Social Classes in England, 1814
January 20, 2008 by Vic (Ms. Place)
From: Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England: From 1811-1901, Kristine Hughes, Ohio, 1998, p 122, ISBN 0-89879-812-4
For more questions and answers about British social classes, click here.
Please note: If you wish to use this image, please give proper credit. The information came from Kristine Hughes; the image was made by me. Thank you.
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This seems to include all the social classes from Regency England to the leading Victorian Age. Can you post the class divisions of only the Regency period?…or am I mistaken, and that these are correctly named during the Regency Era…
These are correctly named. Kristine Hughes referred to the information in Patrick Colquhoun’s Treatise. Kristine uses 1814, while the source book in the link I provided uses 1815. This discrepancy would need to be investigated.
Thank you for your prompt response. I thought the Regency class system was divided into 3 classes: upper (aristocratic), middle class, and lower (poor). If the 8 classes mentioned here are valid, how can I determine which of these encompass classes (and occupations) make up the 3 respective classes. In the following site, I’m getting mixed information about the class system of Regency England–and respective to Pride and Prejudice: http://www.littlecoxwell.com/history/class-system.php
This site says the class was divided into nobility and commoners. Also, it makes reference to Pride and Prejudice as having the Bennets and their class.
I’ve researched many sites and always come up short. Again, thank you for your response.
Yinh, your questions seem to relate to a class assignment or paper you are writing. Since my focus on this blog is to have fun and to write information about Jane Austen and her era in order to make it more comprehensible to the modern world, I feel uneasy setting myself up as an expert in such a highly specialized way. The student asking the question in this link seemed to have the same concerns as you did. Kriswrite from Google questions gave some excellent answers and pointed to several resources. This link already sits in the post, but you might have missed it. It is the best I can do for you, since this detailed answer already addresses all the class levels and places them into three. Good luck!
Again, I appreciate your reply. Yes, you are correct, it is for a school assignment. I’ve been able to simplify the different classes to the upper, middle, and lower class. Actually, I’ve stumbled across that link before, but when it mentioned the Victorian period, I hesitated to even gander at it. Little did I realize, the info is relatively similar to that of the class discrimination found in Pride and Prejudice. My cocerns and questions are cleared.
Thank you for establishing this site, it’s been a pleasure.
You are so very welcome Yinh. The pleasure is mine, actually. I love reading and writing about the Regency era.