“He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s daughter. So far, we are equal.”
“True. You are a gentleman’s daughter. But who was your mother? Who are your uncles and aunts?”
The English society in the Regency looked like a pyramid:
Royalty
The royal family, basically one extended family which also encompasses some of the nobility.
Nobility
300 or so titled families, i.e. Duke/Duchess, Marquess/Marchioness, Earl/Countess**, Viscount(ess) and Baron(ess).
Landed Gentry
“Approximately (in 1803) 540 baronets, 350 knights, 6000 landed squires and 20,000 gentlemen” totalling 1.4% of the population, ~27000 families (numbers of nobility and gentry from: Thomas Keymer, Rank, in Jane Austen in Context, ed. Jane Todd, Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Clearly, there are distinctions within this class as Lady Catherine points out. She and her sister are daughters of an earl Fitzwilliam, and their brother is Col. Fitzwilliam’s father. Note that both the “respectable, honourable, and ancient -- though untitled -- families” the earl’s daughters married into have names of French origin: Darcy (D’Arcy) and De Bourgh. Presumably this means the families have come over not long after the Norman conquest (1066 and all that) which would make them properly ancient by 1800.
The estate (a word now more associated with last will and testament situations) will usually have included a house, park, farmland often worked through a ‘home farm’, possibly a village (which is why Mr Bennet can threaten to not allow officers in the village, although he probably wouldn’t be able to enforce it), hunting and shooting rights and possibly the advowson. In return the head of the family would be expected to look after tenants and the poor, possibly settling disputes as justice of the peace. The incomes associated with estates are rental income (from farmland etc.).
People who have made enough money can purchase an estate and become ‘landed’, which is what Sir William Lucas and Mr Weston have done and Mr Bingley aspires to. These would become available as current owners have no heirs or fall into financial difficulty. However, in the same way that everyone knows anyone’s income, their ancestry would be known, so purchasing an estate was no magic bullet to respectability.
Genteel professions
These are the professions deemed suitable for the younger sons of the gentry, i.e. those not inheriting an estate. The distinction is that for genteel professions, technically one wasn’t paid, but got a stipend, dividend or some sort of living in kind. Marrying rich was definitely prudent as the income did not support the lifestyle to which one had become accustomed.
Army and Navy officers: one needed to buy and sell these jobs, which meant a lump sum was required to start, and more lump sums to rise in the ranks. From what I’ve read (see further reading below) it was somewhat easier to get by on merit alone in the Navy, especially if your career happened around a war, than in the Army. But note that a Navy Lieutenant is considered an unsuitable match for Miss Frances Ward (£7000) or Miss Anne Elliot, whereas a Captain with a fortune is fine.
The Church required a University degree and to ‘get ordained’ or ‘take (holy) orders’. One could then be presented as the next incumbent of a living when it falls vacant, a process called ‘advowson’. The advowson of a living was part of some (but not all) manors. This is why Mr Collins is so lucky to have met Lady Catherine just when the living of Hunsford fell vacant - if she hadn’t presented someone within a certain time, the church would have nominated someone instead. The presentation was also what was promised to Wickham by Darcy the Elder, but what makes it valuable is the income associated. This will be a separate post at some point.
Here it all becomes a bit fuzzy. The law ranged from barristers in London, who could be very influential, to the country attorney Mr Phillips (who started as a clerk in Mrs Bennet’s father’s practice), Similarly, the wholesale dealing of cloth and other goods was considered genteel enough, even if you lived ‘within sight of [one’s] own warehouses’, but retail selling of anything was not.
Common trades
The apothecary, shopkeepers, tradespeople such as dressmakers, tailors, cobblers and shoemakers, richer farmers like Robert Martin in Emma. These trades would employ have a variety of apprentices, shop boys, maids-of-all-work and the like.
Working class
Think labourers, assistants, servants and the poor. Possibly the only class that generally would be servants/employees rather than employ them.
—-
The lines between these classes can be rather blurry, and the class thing was* as much a state of mind as a matter of income. People could work their way up from middle class through genteel professions to buy an estate and become gentry (Sir William Lucas, Mr Bingley, Mr Weston), or inherit an entailed estate (Mr Collins). Marriage to an heiress could make your fortune (Willoughby, Mr Elton, Lady Bertram, Mrs Bennet).
On the flip side of the coin, fortunes could be lost. Younger sons of the nobility and landed gentry would take genteel professions (Col. Fitzwilliam, Col. Brandon, Edmund Bertram) The death of a husband could mean financial ruin for the widow and daughters (Mrs Dashwood, Mrs Bennet’s fears, Mrs and Miss Bates). Poor financial management could cause a serious reduction in circumstances (Sir Walter Elliott, Tom Bertram to some extent). And poor marriage choices could take you from reasonably affluent to dire straights (Lydia Wickham, Frances Price nee Ward).
There were no real safety nets, although being considered genteel to start would give some respectability even if circumstances deteriorated. For example, the late clergyman’s wife and daughter Mrs and Miss Bates in Emma, are still considered fit company for Emma and her father and Mr Knightley. And Mrs Dashwood, Elinor, Marianne and Margaret are still suitable companions to Lady Middleton.
* The class thing still is a state of mind to some extent in modern-day Britain.
* Huh, funny. Count is a word in English but seems to apply only to mainland European nobility, cf Count of Monte Cristo, Count Dracula. Clear French root. I wonder if Earl is from the Anglo-Saxon, like cow. One googly aside later: yes, earl came from ‘eorl’ or chieftain (Scandinavian ‘jarl’ and was in feudal English more like a duke. The female form never developed so
Further reading:
A gentleman’s Daughter
Thomas Keymer, Rank, in Jane Austen in Context, ed. Jane Todd, Cambridge University Press, 2005)
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