Regency Reader Questions: Late Regency Era Working Class

Regency Reader Question
I’m very curious about the respectable working class in the late Regency era or after-Regency “long Regency”. What did they do, and what did they earn and what lifestyle did that provide? And what were their social mores, methods of courting, rules of etiquette, etc. (I see plenty about the wealthy and have seen some references to the working class being less restrained, but little detail). I also really want to know what the (non-servant) semi-skilled jobs were, and what were the professions of the men housemaids and the like were likely to marry? I know it’s a lot to ask – answers to even one of these would be lovely.

Thank you for being a Regency Reader, and the questions!  It is a lot to unpack, so my answer will be fairly high level with some resources for further reading.

In the 19th Century about 80% of the population of the UK was considered working class (middle class = at least one servant) (Life in the 19th Century; https://www.hierarchystructure.com/19th-century-england-social-hierarchy/). The common types of working class work included: labor (farm, factory, servant), skilled/semi skilled (seamstresses, miners, sweepers, coach maker, cabinet maker, etc.), and sales jobs (costermonger, barrow man, etc.).  There is some research to suggest women may have been underreported across these professions throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries (Manco, 2020) so it although some professions seem gendered, and may have been predominantly male, it was still likely there were women doing various work.

The income, freedoms, and conditions of these different jobs varied wildly.  Labor work tended to pay less, but did not require extensive training or literacy.  Coach makers could earn a sizeable income, more than some middle class clerks, and other transportation work with the onset of railways would also offer other viable working class opportunities including porter, driver, conductor, etc. (The working classes and the poor | The British Library (bl.uk)).  By the 1840s, the “rural exodus” of young men and women leaving the countryside to seek their fortune in the metropolis reached its peak (Pellegry, 2016).  This followed the trends of industrialization, which we have posted a bit about.

Women venturing to urban areas usually found their way initially into domestic service, at least temporarily, as the first step towards financial independence (Pellegry, 2016).  Some began dating in earnest with the hopes to be married and improve their situation (Pellegry, 2016).  As the Regency era gave way to the Victorian era, rites of courtship would carry increasing importance for the working class as they not only aimed to mimic upper and middle classes, but as the relative anonymity/lack of family support in London required women in particular to be more circumspect (Pellegry, 2016).

There are not great records of etiquette/courtship rites among the working classes, but we can surmise that walks or other outdoor dates (perhaps even tea or a meal) were commonplace, particularly on days off.  With most days off being Sunday, it is also conceivable that an appropriate date might have been to attend church together. People in service would have been required to maintain secrecy about their dating/engagement lest they be fired (Pellegry, 2016). People in service rarely stayed in service once they married (Pellegry, 2016), so its natural to assume women would have been mostly interested in suitors with some independence that they might be able to transition from service. Other types of workers would have more flexibility, and may have found real benefit to combining households.

Work was rapidly, during this era, transforming into a resemblance of what we know in the Western world today.  With those changes, including increased literacy and education, the working class would have more access to information that would shape their behavior, like etiquette guides.  The Victorian era in the UK would also see a rash of reform legislation that would have a profound impact on the working class.

Here are some Victorian sources with more information on the British working class:

Engels, F. (1892). The Condition of the Working-class in England in 1844. United Kingdom: S. Sonnenschein & Company.

Ludlow, J. M. F., Jones, L. (1867). Progress of the Working Class, 1832-1867. Kiribati: A. Strahan.

Wade, J. (1833). History of the Middle and Working Classes: With a Popular Expositon of the Economical and Political Principles which Have Influenced the Past and Present Condition of the Industrious Orders. United Kingdom: E. Wilson.

Wright, T. (1867). Some Habits and Customs of the Working Classes. United Kingdom: Tinsley Brothers.

More contemporary sources:

Cooper, L. (2022). ‘By her Labour’: Working women in Victorian Oxford 1851-1891.

Grimaldi, V. L. Single, Unwed, and Pregnant in Victorian London: Narratives of Working Class Agency and Negotiation. Madison Historical Review, 14(1), 3.

MacDonald, A. E. (2021). From Spinster to Career Woman: Middle-Class Women and Work in Victorian England by Arlene Young. Victorian Review, 47(2), 308-312.

Manco, C. (2020). City Women in the 18th century, followed by an interview with Dr Amy Erickson (Robinson College, Faculty of History, Cambridge University), Curator of the exhibition. Exhibition review—London, 21 September 2019–18 October 2019. Miranda. Revue pluridisciplinaire du monde anglophone/Multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal on the English-speaking world, (20).

Michie, H. (2020). In Bed with the Victorians: The Life-Cycle of Working-Class Marriage.

Pellegry, F. Courtship and the Failure of Engagement Rituals among Isolated Working Women in Late Victorian London: A case-study based on the London Foundling Hospital archives, 1875-19011.

Vincent, D. (1980).  Love and death and the nineteenth-century working class.  Social History, Volume 5, Issue 2, pp. 223-247.