Social Classes During The Victorian Era

During the Victorian Era in England, people were divided into three social classes: The Aristocracy, or the Upper class, the Middle class, and the Working class. Ninety-five out of a hundred people were in either the “middle” or “working” social class. The Aristocracy was essentially made up of the politicians, company owners, and nobility. Unlike the Middle class or the Working class, these people did not work for a living. Their wealth came from ancestors’ land or money inheritances. The Middle class was made up of all the men of profession, such as merchants, doctors, engineers, bankers, etc. The Working class was the lowest rank of people in England. This was the peasants, paupers, the poor and sick, servants, and very low-income families.
Aristocrats associated with aristocrats.
These people were very wealthy, and their lives revolved around entertainment, social gatherings and balls. Not much thought was given to the lower classes by the Aristocracy, and many times, if thought was given, it wouldn’t be favorable. Both men and women in the upper class were educated to some degree—women not as much in academics as in art. Someone in the Upper class could demote to a lower class if he wasn’t wealthy enough to be an aristocrat, but if you were born in a lower class you couldn’t move to a higher social class. People of the Middle class were lawyers, doctors, teachers, merchants and clergy. Mainly, they were the skilled workers. Occasionally an extremely successful person of the Middle class-like Charles Dickens- would be received by, and possibly be allowed to socialize with, the Upper class, but could not actually become an aristocrat. That was a social standing you could only be born into. People in the Victorian era could sometimes marry outside their own class, but it wasn’t
common. The Working class, also called the Lower class, was the lowest status a person could have. This category was divided into two groups: the unskilled workers, like servants, and then the peasants, paupers, and single mothers. Often Aristocrats employed the unskilled workers as servants, but usually these people lived on the street or in cramped, dirty apartment buildings. Lots of children, orphans or very poor kids, roamed the streets as pickpockets and thieves. Some more fortunate kids got odd jobs, or became newspaper boys, selling newspapers on street corners or at railroad depots. The people of England, being divided into drastically different groups, lived radically different lives, and they rarely poked their noses into the business or lives of classes other than their own. Because there were so many more middle and lower class citizens than aristocrats, the Upper class basically had their own lives apart from the other classes. They didn’t mix as much as the lower two classes did because they didn’t work. But although all the people in England were so different from each other, they got along and it was a relatively peaceful era.