Were there two classes in nineteenth century Britain?

An alternative to the vertical relationships of a paternalistic hierarchical society lay in the horizontal solidarities of ‘class’.[1] Richard Dennis, in his study of nineteenth century industrial cities, sums up the problem of class in the following way:

Evidently the road to class analysis crosses a minefield with a sniper behind every bush.... it may not be possible to please all the people all of the time...[2]

What did contemporaries understand by the idea of ‘class’? How many classes were there? What do historians understand by ‘class consciousness’ and how, if at all, does it differ from ‘class perception’? When did a working-class come into existence? Despite all the literature on the subject, the years since the publication of E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working-Class in 1963, have done little to clarify the situation. Answers to the central questions of ‘when?’, ‘how?’ and ‘why?’ have been surprisingly inconclusive. [3]

Many contemporaries interpreted early Victorian society in terms of two classes. Disraeli popularised the idea of ‘two nations’, the rich and the poor.[4] Elizabeth Gaskell wrote of Manchester that she had ‘never lived in a place before where there were two sets of people always running each other down.’[5] Tory Radicals were not alone in using the two-class model. Engels referred to the working-class in the singular and offered a model dominated by two classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, in which other classes existed but were becoming increasingly less important. Marxist historians, E.P. Thompson and John Foster, have also used this model. For Thompson, class experience was largely the result of the productive relations into which people entered. The essence of class lay not in income or work but in class-consciousness, the product of contemporary perceptions of capital and labour, exploiter and exploited. [6]

From the Industrial Worker, 1911

John Foster, in his study of Oldham, South Shields and Northampton, found that 12,000 workers sold their labour to 70 capitalist families. [7] There was a middle-class of tradesmen, shopkeepers and small masters but despite deep divisions in their social and political behaviour they aligned with the working-class on most political issues.[8] The working-class, Foster argues, went through three stages of developing consciousness. It was, first, ‘labour conscious’ when consumer prices ceased to be a major concern for workers and the focus shifted to the levels of their own wages.[9] Then ‘class conscious’ where attempts to resolve industrial and economic problems, initially by a vanguard of skilled workers, became politicised. This can be seen in the 1830s and 1840s in working-class support for the Chartist movement.[10] Political reform was seen as a necessary prerequisite for the resolution of economic problems: only a Parliament elected on the Charter would be prepared to legislate in favour of working-class concerns. Foster argues that the movement was a victim of its own success and that the bourgeoisie was alerted to the threat from the potentially revolutionary masses and adopted a policy of economic liberalisation by conceding some proletarian demands. Foster specifically mentioned the Ten Hour Act 1847 and the offer of household suffrage in 1849. This, he maintained, represented a major tactical victory and led to a ‘liberalised consciousness’ by which the bourgeoisie, aided by growing economic prosperity after 1850, was able to attach important sections of the working population to its consensus ideology grounded in individualism and ‘respectability’.[11] The skilled workers who had previously formed the revolutionary vanguard sold out in the post-Chartist years and became reformist in attitude, accepting the economic situation as it was and working to get the best deal out of it they possibly could.

It is possible to criticise the two-class model in a variety of ways. It assumes a model for change based on conflict or ‘class war’ between two competing classes for economic dominance. It accepts other social groups, but subsumes them within the two-class perspective. It recognises that although a significant degree of ideological homogeneity that may have validity in the vibrant social magma of the industrial factory towns, it has less validity in rural areas and the older urban areas. Diversity of experience within the working population led to diversity of responses.

---

[1] The literature on ‘class’ is immense but theoretical perspectives can be found in Calvert, P., The Concept of Class, (Hutchinson), 1983, Giddens, A., The Class Structure of Advanced Societies, (Hutchinson), 1973 and especially Neale, R.S., (ed.), History and Class: essential readings in theory and interpretation, (Basil Blackwell), 1984.

[2] Dennis, R., English Industrial Cities in the Nineteenth Century: A Social Geography, (Cambridge University Press), 1984, pp. 187-188.

[3] Neale, R.S., Class in British History 1680-1850, (Basil Blackwell), 1983 and Class and Ideology in the Nineteenth Century, (Routledge), 1972, the useful bibliographical essay by Morris, R.J., Class and Class Consciousness in the Industrial Revolution, (Macmillan), 1980 and his ‘The industrial revolution: Class and Common Interest’, History Today, Vol. 33, (5), (1983), pp. 31-35 are good starting points for the period before 1850.   See also, Briggs, A., ‘The language of ‘class’ in early nineteenth century England’, in Briggs, A. and Saville, J., (eds.), Essays in labour history in memory of G.D.H. Cole, rev. edn., (Macmillan), 1967, pp. 43-73 and Jones, G. Steadman, Languages of Class, (Cambridge University Press), 1983. Joyce, Patrick, Visions of the People: Industrial England and the question of class 1840-1914, (Cambridge University Press), 1991 takes the question of language further and questions the veracity of a view of society grounded simply in ‘class’. Other studies include Prothero, I., Artisans  and Politics in Early  Nineteenth-Century London, (Dawson), 1979, Smith, D., Conflict and Compromise: Class Formation in English Society 1830-1914, 1982 and Calhoun, C., The Question of Class Struggle, (Basil Blackwell), 1982. Reid, Alastair J., Social Classes and Social Relations in Britain 1850-1914, (Macmillan), 1992 is the best and briefest starting-point for this period. Benson, J., The Working-class in Britain 1850-1939, (Longman), 1989 is the most recent general survey. McKibbin, R., The Ideologies of Class: Social Relations in Britain 1880-1950, (Oxford University Press), 1990 is an excellent collection of articles. Perkin, H., The Rise of Professional Society: England since 1880, (Routledge), 1989 extends his earlier work in a masterful study. Meacham, Stanish, A Life Apart: The English Working-class 1890-1914, (Thames & Hudson), 1977 and Bourne, Joanna, Working-class Cultures in Britain 1890-1960, (Routledge), 1994 are excellent.

[4] See Disraeli, Benjamin, Sybil or The two nations, (B. Tauchnitz), 1845.

[5] Gaskell, Elizabeth, North and South, (B. Tauchnitz), 1855, p. 48.

[6] Ibid, Thompson, E.P., The Making of the English Working-class.

[7] Foster. J., Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution: early industrial capitalism in three English towns, (Weidenfeld), 1974.

[8] Foster’s view of the petit bourgeoisie and his attempts to explain it away have been criticised by historians such as R.S. Neale who interpose a ‘middling’ class between the middle and working-classes in his ‘five-class model’: Neale, R.S., ‘Class and class-consciousness in early 19^th century England: three classes or five?’, Victorian Studies, Vol. 12, (1968-9), pp. 5-32.

[9] Ibid, Foster. J., Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution: early industrial capitalism in three English towns, pp. 47-72.

[10] Ibid, Foster. J., Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution: early industrial capitalism in three English towns, pp. 73-125.

[11] Ibid, Foster. J., Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution: early industrial capitalism in three English towns, pp. 203-249.

From paternalism to class

For a variety of reasons this paternalist view of society began to break down from the early-nineteenth century. An ‘abdication on the part of the governors’ had been recognised as early as the 1820s though it was Carlyle who popularised it in the 1840s.[1] This process had the following features. The changing focus of the economy away from land and towards manufacturing and service industries led to a gradual decline in the economic power of the paternalist elite and the fabric of state paternalism was gradually dismantled. Paternalism was grounded in reciprocal obligations, like ‘just wages’ and ‘fair prices’, many of which were given a statutory basis in paternalist Tudor and Stuart legislation. From the 1770s this legislation was either allowed to lapse or deliberately repealed. The principles of ‘the free market’ could not accommodate the protectionism inherent in paternalism. The critical issue is whether the notion of the caring landlord existed in reality and how far there was an actual ‘abdication’ or whether it was simply thought that there was an ‘abdication’ by those fighting to retain older values in the face of social and economic change. While there is no doubt that society changed, to view change solely in terms of a shift from paternalistic solidarity to unbridled individualism is too simplistic. Both capitalist practices and vertical antagonism between different groups in society existed before the economic changes of the late-eighteenth century. Nineteenth century society contained elements of both but despite this there remained a widespread belief that there had been a shift from a paternalist to a capitalist society.

Agriculture may have declined relative to other sectors of the economy but the aristocratic tone of British society was still set by the great houses and the large landowners. As J.F.C. Harrison says.

Landed England did not survive unchanged. Had there not been flexibility in coming to terms with the economic realities of the industry state, and a willingness to retreat gradually and quietly from untenable positions of political privilege, landed society might not have outlived the end of the century. In fact it displayed remarkable powers of tenacity and adaptation: it sought to engulf and change some of the new elements in society, though in the process it was itself changed.[2]

Urbanisation occurred broadly outside the paternal net. There is evidence that many people moved to towns because they perceived them as ‘free’ from the social constraints of rural society. In addition, as towns and cities burgeoned in size after 1850 they ceased to be face-to-face societies and became places of anonymity. Changing religious observance, especially declining support for the Church of England and the growth of secularism broke the ‘bond of dependency’ between squire, parson and labourer. The aristocracy and gentry gradually ‘cut’ their lives off from those of their labouring workers. The layout of country houses and gardens that evolved from the mid-seventeenth century demonstrated a move towards domestic privacy.[3] Client relationships became less important as labour became more mobile and became centred in urban communities.

The economic and political power of the landed elite came from their ownership and control of land while for industrial entrepreneurs it came from their ownership and control of manufacturing. For both these elites the nineteenth century saw important changes. First, the emergence of managers as a segment of the economic elite reflected changing rates and channels of social mobility.[4] Education became a more important medium as a channel of recruitment into managerial occupations and consequently the chances of those from working- or middle-class backgrounds of moving into the economic elite improved. The emergence of bureaucratisation, with the clerk as a dominant occupation after 1830 reflects this process. Secondly, the emergence of a managerial sector introduced an important source of potential conflict within the economic elite as a whole. The moral solidarity of the old property-owning elite was undermined. The separation of ownership and control in industry resulted in the emergence of two different roles as individuals moved apart in their outlook on and attitudes towards society in general and towards enterprise in particular. The ‘individualistic’, profit-seeking entrepreneur is contrasted with the managerial executive, whose values stressed efficiency and productivity rather than profits. Such a difference in ideals and values reinforced divergence in styles of life and social contacts. This in turn produced a certain conflict of interests, sometimes leading to open struggles, since the pursuit of maximum returns on capital was not always compatible with safeguarding the productivity and security of the enterprise.[5] Finally, the separation of ownership and control was held to introduce important shifts in the structure of economic power. Within the large joint-stock companies that emerged in the 1850s and 1860s effective power increasingly devolved into the hands of managers and the sanctions held by the ‘owners’ of the enterprise were merely nominal.[6]

This separation of ownership and control is not the only factor that led to the decomposition of the old ruling class. There was a general rise in rates of mobility, particularly intergenerational mobility, into elite positions in many institutional spheres during the late thirty years of the nineteenth century. There was some redistribution of wealth and income after 1850 as levels of ‘real’ wages rose that benefitted those in the lower social classes. Parliamentary reform in 1832, 1867 and 1884-1885 gave initially the middle-classes and latterly the upper working-class a stake in the existing political structure. This needs to be seen in relation to the rights of organisation in the industrial and political sphere for the mass of the population. The growth of trade unions, especially after 1851, the expansion in the range of political pressure groups and the emergence of the Labour Party in the early years of the twentieth century constituted both potential limitations on the power of elite groups as well as perhaps changing the structure of those elite groups themselves.

Harold Perkin characterised the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century as a ‘one-class society’.[7] Only the aristocratic elite could, he maintained, be seen as a ‘class’. This view of a unitary capitalist ruling class certainly did not exist by 1830. Karl Marx viewed the British ruling class as an ‘antiquated compromise’ in which, while the aristocracy ‘ruled officially’; the bourgeoisie ruled ‘over all the various spheres of civil society in reality’. [8] The aristocracy, that Marx thought had ‘signed its own death warrant’ as a result of the Crimean War (1853-1856), proved to be much more resilient in maintaining a strong presence in the Cabinet, Parliament and the Civil Service. The proprietary fortunes and power of the large landowners remained virtually intact until the end of the century and the relatively amicable inter-penetration of aristocratic landowners and wealthy industrialists remains one of the striking features of British society in the latter half of the century.

---

[1] Ibid, Perkin, H., The Origins of Modern English Society 1780-1880, pp. 183-196 discusses this issue.

[2] Ibid, Harrison, J.F.C., The Early Victorians 1832-1851, p. 123.

[3] See, for example, Pollock, Linda A., ‘Living on the stage of the world: the concept of privacy among the elite of early modern England’, in ibid, Wilson, Adrian, (ed.), Rethinking social history : English society, 1570-1920 and its interpretation, pp. 78-96, Meldrum, Tim, ‘Domestic service, privacy and the 18^th century metropolitan household’, Urban History, Vol. 26, (1999), pp. 27-39 and Taylor, William M., ‘Visualising comfort: aspect, prospect, and controlling privacy in The Gentleman’s House (1864)’, in Taylor, William M., (ed.), The geography of law: landscape, identity and regulation, (Hart Publishing), 2006, pp. 65-83.

[4] Pollard, Sidney, ‘The genesis of the managerial profession: the experience of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain’, Studies in Romanticism, Vol. 4, (1965), pp. 57-80.

[5] This was evident in agriculture after 1870: Hunt, E. H. and Pam, S.J., ‘Managerial failure in late Victorian Britain?: land use and English agriculture’, Economic History Review, 2^nd ser., Vol. 54, (2001), pp. 240-266 and ‘Responding to agricultural depression, 1873-96: managerial success, entrepreneurial failure?’, Agricultural History Review, Vol. 50, (2002), pp. 225-252.

[6] Alborn, Timothy L., Conceiving companies: joint-stock politics in Victorian England, (Routledge), 1998, Taylor, James, Creating capitalism: joint-stock enterprise in British politics and culture, 1800-1870, (Boydell), 2006 and Johnson, Paul, Making the Market: Victorian Origins of Corporate Capitalism, (Cambridge University Press), 2010.

[7] Ibid, Perkin, H., The Origins of Modern English Society 1780-1880, pp. 36-38.

[8] Marx, Karl, ‘The Crisis in England and the British Constitution’, in Marx, K. and Engels, F., On Britain, (Moscow State Publishing House), 1953, pp. 410-411.