Class structure in the Victorian era?

Answer 1

Victorian society can be split up into three classes: upper, middle, and lower. The upper class consisted of the nobility, or the peerage, such as dukes, earls, and viscounts. They were often related to the royal families of Britain and Europe, and their society was distinct and separate to the other two classes - certain expectations had to be met by everybody. Most of these 'aristocrats' did not have a profession, as their families had sufficient funds to live in affluence. However, many were captains of industry, especially mining and ship building.

The middle class consisted of rich families who were respectable, but lacked a "title", such as a dukedom, and often had skilled professions, such as a doctor, or a teacher. At the beginning of the Victorian times, they were a small proportion of the population. However, the effects of the Industrial Revolution meant that more people could be defined as 'middle class', because of improvements in education and more opportunities to pull yourself out of the slums, and make a lot of money, of course.

The lower class (working class) were made up of the rural and urban poor, who had often low skilled, dangerous, dirty and boring jobs (often all four) that they had to take because of the lack of education. A handful could actually be defined as 'lower middle class', but because they often lived in terraced housing areas, they were defined as working class.

There was also a class below the working class - paupers. They lived in extreme poverty, often because of old age, unemployment, illness or strained resources. This class of people were the targets of Philanthropists in the 1890s, who wished to reduce the alarming rates of poverty in Britain.