Victorian Money - How much did things cost?
As today, prices varied according to quality of goods and intended consumer. The prices below are meant to provide a basic guide but should not be relied upon as 'the' price for any particular goods or service. Prices apply only to my area of expertise - London!
Remember:-
£1 (also shown as 1l.) was 20 shillings.
1 shilling (1s.), was 12 pence. Also often known as a 'bob', as in "I paid six bob for this",
Thus there were 240 pence (20 x 12) to every pound.
Other Victorian words to do with currency:-
1 guinea was £1 1s. (or 21 shillings) - ie. a pound with an additional shilling.
1 crown was five shillings. (and half-crown two and a half shillings, of course)
A half-sovereign ten shillings.
1 farthing was a ¼ penny.
Prices given as weekly rate for easy comparison, though rent of a whole house was generally annual or possibly for the summer 'Season' if in the West End.
Bear in mind that most Victorian houses were rented - ownership was not commonplace; also that area of London dramatically affected price.
Also note dates of source vary.
| RENTED HOUSING | Cost (weekly) | Source | SOURCE a) Murray's Handbook to London As It is, 1879 b) The Surburban Homes of London, 1881 c) Dickens's Dictionary of London, 1879 d) Cruchley's London, 1865 e) London Labour and the London Poor, 1851 f) Life in West London by Arthur Sherwell, 1897 g) Illustrated London News on "Model Lodging", 1846 |
| A furnished house in the West End | 5 to 25 guineas | a | |
| 'Elegantly furnished rooms' in West End | 4 to 15 guineas | a | |
| An unfurnished house in Holland Park (wealthy suburb, Kensington area) | 7 to 10 guineas | b | |
| A sitting room and bedroom in Pimlico (well-to-do suburb) | 1 to 4 guineas | a | |
| A house in suburban Walthamstow (a railway commuter suburb, NE London) | 10 to 40 shillings | b | |
| Three rooms in Soho (relatively poor but central London district) | 14 to 20 shillings | f | |
| House on Shaftesbury-park model housing estate, built for working men and their families in Battersea (varied with size of house, from five rooms through to eight) | 7s. 6d. to 11s. | c | |
| Single room in Soho (relatively poor but central London district) | 6 to 8 shillings | f | |
| Single room for "mechanic" (manual labourer) in lodgings | 3 to 6 shillings | g | |
| Two rooms in Peabody Model Housing | 4s. 9d. | c | |
| Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes model housing estate, two room cottage | 3s. 6d. | g | |
| HOTELS | (per night) | Source | |
| Bed & Breakfast, with Dinner and 'attendance' at the Midland Grand Hotel | 14s. | c | |
| Bed & Breakfast at a City boarding-house | 3s. | d | |
| Bed in shared room in 'low lodging house' | 1-4d. | e |
wages given per annum unless otherwise specified
| CLERKS | |
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SOURCE a) The Great Metropolis by James Grant, 1837 b) Tempted London, 1889 c) His Recollections and Experiences by Edmund Yates, 1885 (writing on 1840s/1850s) |
| LAUNDRY WORK | |
|
"four or five days a week, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., with three-quarters of an hour for dinner and half an hour for tea."
|
SOURCE |
| MANUAL LABOUR | |
|
SOURCE a) Letter to the Morning Chronicle by Henry Mayhew, 1849 |
| MANUFACTURE | |
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SOURCE a) Letter to the Morning Chronicle by Henry Mayhew, 1849 b) Toilers in London, 1889 c) Some Habits and Customs of the Working Classes, 1867, by Thomas Wright |
| ODD JOBS | |
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SOURCE Down East and Up West by Montague Williams, 1894 |
| SERVANTS | |
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SOURCE a) Dickens's Dictionary of London, 1879 b) Cassell's Household Guide, c. 1880s |
| SHOP ASSISTANTS | |
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SOURCE a) Choice of a Business for Girls by Emily Faithfull, 1864 b) Letter to the Morning Chronicle by Henry Mayhew, 1849 c) Tempted London, 1889 |
| SHOPS AND STALLS | |
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SOURCE Letter to the Morning Chronicle by Henry Mayhew, 1849 |
| TAILORS AND CLOTHING - note that weekly wage for piece-workers was not constant and depended on how much work came your way; many working from home also had to pay for their materials, such as the garter-maker quoted below | |
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SOURCE a) Letter to the Morning Chronicle by Henry Mayhew, 1849 b) Life in West London by Arthur Sherwell, 1897 c) Toilers in London, 1889 |
| TEACHERS | |
|
SOURCE Cassell's Household Guide, c. 1880s |
| TELEGRAPH CLERKS (FEMALE) | |
|
wages per annum for government telegraphists:-
wages per annum in private 'receiving-houses' (generally shops)
|
SOURCE Cassell's Household Guide, c. 1880s |
| TRANSPORT | |
|
SOURCE Edmund Yates, The Business of Pleasure, 1879 |
From CASSELLS HOUSEHOLD GUIDE
Recommended budgets for the middle class:-
We will suppose that the family consists of the father, mother, and three children, and commence with incomes of £500, and £400, and £300 a year. These may be divided as follows:-
Expenditure of an Income of £500 a year.
£ s d Rent, rates, taxes, and cost of locomotion 72 10 0 Housekeeping (provisions, coal, gas, servants' wages, laundry, and wear-and-tear) 250 0 0 Clothing 62 10 0 Education 32 10 0 Insurance, medical attendance, and savings 62 10 0 Incidental expenses 20 0 0 [-Total-] £500 0 0 . . . . FROM the housekeeping, taken at £250, for an income of £500 a year, the following deductions may be taken as a pretty fair allowance
Servants' wages. £14 per annum, or £1 3s. 4d. per month, for a general servant; and £12 per annum, or £1 per month, for nurse or housemaid 26 0 0 Gas 8 0 0 Coals and Coke 12 0 0 £46 0 0 Leaving a balance of £204 for housekeeping.
Before disposing of this £204, however, there is still another point to be considered, and that is the summer holiday. In these modern days a yearly visit to the seaside or to the country is regarded as one of the necessities of life. Men and women draw upon their strength until it is almost exhausted, and then trust to a periodical enjoyment of fresh air, rest, and change to reinvigorate them and furnish them with health and energy for another year's work. But how is it to be paid for? The answer is evident to all; it must be taken from the half of the income apportioned to housekeeping.
By this arrangement the amount set aside for housekeeping could be continued through the year; that is, the expenses would be supposed to be the same as usual wherever the family might happen to be. Therefore it would be necessary only to deduct from the £204 as much as would pay for travelling expenses and lodgings. For these £20 might well be deemed sufficient. The amount should either be put aside in a lump sum if the income be received yearly or quarterly, or it should be taken from the weekly income and put every week in the Post-Office Savings Bank, there to remain until the occasion for which it is needed shall arrive.
We find, therefore, that after deducting this additional £20 from the £204 we have a balance of £184, or an average sum of £3 l0s. per week, for housekeeping There is a small surplus, but this may be left for security, as it is not well to draw the line too closely.Expenditure of an Income of £400 a year.
Rent, rates, taxes, and cost of locomotion 60 0 0 Housekeeping 200 0 0 Clothing 50 0 0 Education 25 0 0 Insurance, medical attendance, and savings 40 0 0 Incidental expenses 25 0 0 [-Total-] £400 0 0 Expenditure of an Income of £300 a year.
Rent, &c. 40 0 0 Housekeeping (provisions, coal, gas, servants' wages, laundry, and wear-and-tear 150 0 0 Clothing 35 0 0 Education 20 0 0 Insurance 35 0 0 Incidental expenses 20 0 0 [-Total-] £300 0 0 . . . It maybe objected to this item that people in possession of £500 or £400 a year would be justified in living in houses worth more than £50 or £40 a year rent. This might be true with families where there are no children to educate, and where there was no attempt made to save money. Hundreds of families with this income live in better houses and let prudence go. But in this we think are wrong. It is true the style of a house determines to a great extent the estimate which will be formed of the respectability, class, credit, or means of the occupier. A great curse of our modern civilisation, however, is the constant competition which is carried on as to appearances. People will do with inferior food and dispense with comfort, in order to appear better off than they really are. Society would be a different thing if each man would adapt his mode of life to the actual state of his purse, rather than to his neighbour's supposed opinion about it. In numberless homes a saving might be effected if people would but rid themselves of the fancied necessity for maintaining false appearances.
There is a way of paying rent and of saving at the same time which is frequently adopted by the prudent and thrifty; and that is to join a building society, and buy the house one lives in. Well-managed building societies are a great boon to economical people. They have been the means of inducing numbers of people to save who never would have done so without them. Many a man who is now comfortably off, who has a nice little sum safely invested, and who enjoys all the advantages belonging to that condition of things, owes his position to the fact that he was once induced to join a building society. By the arrangement thus made he paid his rent monthly instead of quarterly, soon gained the pleasant consciousness of having saved a little money, and after a time found that the house he lived in was his own.
From Arthur Sherwell's LIFE IN WEST LONDON (1897)
Family budgets of the poor
It may not be uninteresting, at this point, to supplement the figures already given by a statement showing how the wages so precariously earned are spent. And for this purpose I have selected certain typical weeks in the domestic life of a worker of a somewhat lower class than the one just referred to, but who may be taken as a fair representative of a large number of tailors in the West - a sober, respectable man, working quietly at home and receiving occasional assistance from his wife, but unable to obtain a regular supply of work.* [-* It may be stated at the outset that many of the workers in the tailoring trade-good, bad, and indifferent alike-live for a large part of the year in a chronic state of bankruptcy, pledging one week's earnings (in the slack seasons, several weeks' earnings) to eke out another.-]
The family consisted of the man and his wife, and four children (all of them too young to be wage-earners). At [-112-] the beginning of April 1895, following upon a winter of exceptional severity, the man found himself several pounds in debt to landlord, baker, pawnbroker, etc., while several of the children requited boots and underclothing.
For the week ending April 20th, 1895, the entire earnings of the family amounted to £2 3s. 9d.; the household expenses were as follows:
s. d. Rent (including 2/- off arrears)
13 0 Baker's a/c for bread (including 1/- off arrears)
3 9 Groceries for week
2 6½ Paid for washing (in consequence of wife working at trade)
2 9 Joint of meat (to last three days)
2 7½ Meat, for remaining 4 days
2 3 Vegetables for week
3 0 1½ cwt. coals (at 1/4 per cwt.)
2 0 Butter for the week (1 lb)
1 0 Sundry household requisites, soap, soda, etc.
1 0 Oil
8 Insurance and Club money
1 4 Hire of machine
1 6 Fair of boots for child
2 11 Total expenditure (for six persons)
£2 0s. 4d. Balance of income over expenditure
3s. 5d. Total
£2 3s. 9d. The absence of any item of expenditure for beer or other alcoholic drinks is noteworthy. Moreover, with the exception of one item of 2/11 for boots for one of the children, there is no mention made of clothes, the cost of which, [-113-] for a family of six persons would necessarily be great.* [-* it is said to have averaged, in this case, 7/- per week: but this is probably excessive. Judging by ascertained returns in other trades, the sum of 4/- per week would probably be a fairer estimate.-] Nor - to mark only one other omission - is there any mention made in the above list of necessary expenditure for wear and tear in household utensils, furniture, etc., and other incidental expenses which are common to all households, and inevitable where there are young children. I have tried to secure a rough estimate of such expenditure, but it is difficult to determine it with anything like accuracy, inasmuch as various sums were given to the wife at irregular intervals; such, for example, as £1 on one occasion for new bedding, and a further sum at another time for sheets, pillow-cases, etc. I shall certainly not be overestimating this source of expenditure, however, in fixing it at a minimum sum of £2 per annum.
Now it will be interesting to compare this statement, which refers to what in this man's case was a fairly good week, with other similar statements, having reference to the same family, for certain weeks in the slack season. These statements will be of special value as showing the nature and extent of the economies that are forced upon the people in times of slackness.
For the week ending January 5th, 1895, the wages of the family amounted to 15s. 8d. The expenditure for the same week was as follows:
s. d. [-114-] Rent (half a week only)
5 6 Boots for children (three pairs)
10 9 Meat (frozen mutton) lasting 4 days
2 3 Groceries
2 6 Coals
2 0 Vegetables
1 0 Bread
2 9½ Hire of machine
1 6 Insurance and club
1 4 Oil
8 Dinner for Thursday (six persons)
10 Dinner for Friday (six persons)
6 Meat tea Saturday (no dinner)
9 Sundries
1 3 Total
£1 13s. 7½d. Deficiency (excess of expenditure over income) 17s. 11½d. This was met by the man pawning his best suit for £1 For the week ending January 26th, 1895, the wages of the family were absolutely nil. This, although exceptional in the case of a good worker, is by no means uncommon among workers of a lower class.
In this week, therefore, the expenses, of necessity, had to be cut down to the barest minimum. In the first place, nothing could be paid for rent, hire of machine, Sick Benefit Society, or Insurance. The landlord stormed, and forcibly reminded the man and his wife that he was neither a Relieving Officer, nor a relative, and had nothing to do with their troubles, but, nevertheless, the rent could not be found.
The expenditure for the week was as follows:
[-115-] Saturday Tripe cuttings for Sunday's dinner (six persons)
3½d. Saturday Potatoes and parsley for Sunday's dinner (six persons)
2½d. Monday Dinner (2 bloaters)
2d. Tuesday No dinner
Wednesday (pledged pair of blankets for 4/-)
Wednesday Stew for dinner
9d. Wednesday Paid coal man 2/- owing to him
(as he refused otherwise to send in any more coal, and family had no fire)2s. Thursday Dinner (potatoes and dripping)
4d. Friday No dinner
Saturday Dinner (haddock and butter)
4d. Bread for week
2s. 3d. Tea, Sugar, and Milk for week
1s. 5½d. Oil
3d. Sundries
9d. Total expenditure for week
8s. 9½d. Of this sum 4/- (as will be seen above) was raised by pawning a pair of blankets (this in the depth of the winter!).
Let me conclude with the particulars of one more week. I select the week ending February 9th, 1895.
For this week the entire wages of the family amounted to 8/7. The expenditure was as follows:-
Rent (part of a week)
7s. Meat for Sunday, etc. (3 lbs of salt beef at 2½ per lb.)
7½d. Tea, Sugar, and Milk
1s. 7d. Vegetables
6d. Oil
6d. Coals
2s. Bread
2s. 6d. Meat, vegetables, etc. for a stew (six persons)
9d. Soap, soda, and other sundries
6d. Potatoes and Lard (a "baked dinner")
4d. Total expenditure for the week
16d. 3½d. [-116-] Total deficiency on the week (i.e., excess of expenditure over income) 7/8½.
For three days the family lived upon bread and tea. Nothing, it will be noticed, could be paid this week for hire of machine, Sick Benefit Club, or Insurance; nor is anything included for medical attendance incurred by the illness of one of the children. The deficiency was covered by the man pawning his overcoat. * [-* It will be noticed that in the three weeks of which I have given particulars (and which, among the class of workers referred to, are by no means so exceptional as may be supposed), the man had been compelled to pawn an overcoat (the only one he possessed), a suit of clothes, and a pair of blankets, and this in the face of the worst rigours of an exceptionally hard winter.-]
"COST OF LIVING" section from 'Homes and Habits' by Mrs. C. S. Peel from Early Victorian England, 1830-1865, ed. G.M.Young, Oxford University Press, pub. 1934
We learn something of the cost of living in the early part of our period from the Cook's Oracle and from a new edition dated 1824 of A New System of Practical Domestic Economy founded on Modern Discoveries and from the Private Communications of Persons of Experience, printed for Henry Colburn, New Burlington Street.
Both of these books were published before 1830, but the information they contain was applicable for a number of years after. The Cook's Oracle family consisted of three in the parlour, two maids, and a man, and allowance is made for a dinner-party once a month, the table of expenses being 'for people living in a small way' in a household 'where there is plenty of good provisions, but no affectation of profusion'. -
Meat . . . . . . . . £65
Fish and poultry . . . . . . £25
Bread . . . . . . . £18.
Butter and cheese . . . . . . £25
Milk . . . . . . . £7
Vegetables and fruit . . . . . 20
Tea, coffee, sugar . . . . . . £15
Table ale . . . . . . . £25
Washing . . . . . . . £20
Coals . . . . . . . . £30
Candles and soap . . . . . . £20
Sundries and forgets . . . . . £50
[total] £320
Deducting coals, washing, and table ale - £75 - that leaves £245, which is practically £4 15s. a week or roughly 16s. per head for food and cleaning materials.
The estimates of household expenses given in A New System are always planned for a man, his wife, and three children, and those in Part I are referred to in the pages devoted to the life of the poor.
In Part II, beginning with an income of £150 per annum, the man becomes a gentleman, and when his income rises to - £250 per annum, his 'wife' becomes his 'Lady'. On £400 a year the family enjoy the services of two maidservants, one horse, and a groom. On £700 they keep one man and three maidservants and two horses. On £1,000 they blossom out into an establishment of three female servants, a coach-man and footman, a chariot or coach, phaeton or other four-wheeled carriage and a pair of horses. On £5,000 a year the [-105-] establishment has grown to thirteen male and nine female servants, ten horses, a coach, a curricle and a Tilbury, Chaise or gig. We give in full the estimate for incomes of £250 and £1,000 a year.Income, £250 per Annum
Family-A Gentleman, his Lady, Three Children, and a Maid Servant.
Provisions and other Articles of Household Expense. Weekly Annual £ s d £ s d Bread and Flour for six persons - 1s. each 6 0 Butter - 3½lb. at an average of 1s. per lb., 7d. each or 6d. a day 3 6 Cheese - ¼lb. each, 1½lb. at 10d. - 2½d. each 1 3 Milk - 3d. each 1 6 Tea, Coffee &c. - 5 oz. Tea at 8s. per lb. 2 6 Sugar &c. - 4½lb. at 8d. - 6d. each 3 0 Grocery - including Spices, Condiments, &c. 6d. each 3 0 Butchers Meat - 18lb.
at 7d. per lb. . . . . . 10s. 6d.Fish &c. (6d. per day) 3s. 6d. 2s. a day 14 0 Vegetables and Garden-Fruits - 6d. each 3 0 Beer and other Liquors - 1s. a day 7 0 Coals and Wood - 3¾ chaldrons of coals a year at 48s. - 91 and Wood, 15.s 3 9 Candles, Oil, &c. - say 6½dozen Candles a year, at 7s. per dozen - 2lb. a week 1 2 Soap, Starch, &c. (8 dozen Soap a year at 7s. per dozen), nearly 2lb. a week, and Starch, &c. - 2d. a day 1 2 Sundries - for cleaning, scowering, &c. 9 Total for regular Household Expenses
2 11 7 134 2 4 Extra for Entertainments, Medicine, and other Incidents 7 11 2 Total for Household Expenses
141 13 4 Clothes (Gent, £15, Lady £12, Children £10) 36 0 0 Rent, Taxes, &c 25 0 0 Education, Extra and Private Expenses 10 10 0 Maid-Servant 16 0 0 Total Expense 229 3 4 Reserve, 1/12th 20 16 8 Amount of Income 250 0 0
The family consisting of a Gentleman, his Wife, and three children; with an establishment of three Female Servants, a Coachman and a Footman; in all Ten Persons - a Chariot or Coach, Phaeton, or other four-wheel Carriage, and a pair of Horses.
Expenses of the House, weekly £ s d Bread and Flour - for ten persons, at 1s. each 10 0 Butter - ¾ lb. each - 7½ lb. at an average of 1s. per lb. 7 6 Butcher's Meat - ¾ lb. per day each, or 52 ½ lb at 6d. per lb. (2s. 7½d. each) . . . . £1 6s. 3d. Fish, Poultry, &c. (9d. a day) . . . . . . 5s 3d. 1 11 6 Carried Forward
2 9 0 [-106-] Beer or ale - 1 quart each per day or 17½ gallons at 8d. (1s. 2d. each) . . . . . 11s. 9d. Other Liquours - 1s. 4d. per day . . . . 9s. 4d. 1 1 0 Cheese - ½ lb. each per week, or 5lb. at 9d. (4½d. each) 3 9 Garden Fruits and Vegetables - (9d. each) 7 6 Grocery of all kinds (except Tea and Sugar) including Spices and Condiments (9d. each) 7 6 Sugar - ¾ lb. each per week or 7½ lb. average, 8d. per lb. - 6d. each 5 0 Tea, Coffee, &c. (Servants finding their own Tea, &c.) 5 0 Milk and Eggs - (4½d. each) 3 9 Total for Provisions, weekly, being £266 10s. per annum
5 2 6 Coals and Wood - Four fires - 2½ chaldrons of Coals each fire, on an average all the year round, or 10 chaldrons, at 45s. - £22 10s. - Wood at the rate of 7s. to each chaldron of Coals, or 17s. 6d. to each fire, per annum, £3 10s. - 2s. 6d. each fire per week 10 0 Candles, Gas, Oil, &c. - equal to 10 lb. Candles per week, on an average, all the year round, viz. 2 lb., moulds at 10d. and 8 lb. stores at 8d. - (1s. per day) 7 0 Soap, Starch &c. for washing - 6 lb. Soap, at 8d. - 4s. Starch, Blue, Mangling, &c. 1s. 3d. (9d. per day) 5 3 Sundries for Cleaning, scowering, &c. (about 4d. per day) 2 3 [total]
6 7 0
Household Expenses, per week, £6 7s. . . . £330 per annum or 33 per cent.
Extra for Entertainments, £20 per annum . . . . or 2 per cent.
Medicine, Medical Attendance and other Incidental Expenses . £10 per annum . . . . or 1 per cent.
Carried forward £360 per annum . . . . or 36 per cent.Distribution of Income.
£ s d 1. Household Expenses (brought forward)-36 per cent. 360 0 0 2. Servants, Horses, and Carriages, 22 per cent., viz. Coach or Chariot (as per Appendix, Table II) 40 0 0 Two Horses (as per Appendix, Table I) 65 17 0 Two Male Servants, viz. Coachman Wages 24 0 0 Livery 12 0 0 Duty 1 11 0 [Total]
37 11 0 Footman and Groom Wages 22 0 0 Livery 11 17 0 Duty 1 11 0 [Total]
35 8 0 Three Female Servants, viz. Cook 16 0 0 House-Maid 14 14 0 Nursery-Maid 10 10 0 41 4 0 [Total]
220 0 0 220 0 0 3. Clothes, Haberdashery, &c. 12 per cent. - viz.: The Gentleman 4 per cent 40 0 0 Lady 5 per cent. 50 0 0 Three Children 2½ per cent. 25 0 0 Haberdashery 0½ per cent. 5 0 0 [Total]
120 0 0 120 0 0 [-107-] 4. Rent, Taxes, and Repairs - 1 2 per cent. 120 0 0 5. Extra Expenses - 8 per cent.-viz.: Education 4 per Cent. 40 0 0 Pocket Expenses 2 20 0 0 Private Expenses 2 20 0 0 [Total]
80 0 0 Total Expense, per annum
900 0 0 6. Reserve, or Saving, for Contingencies, 10 per cent 100 0 0 Total Income
1000 0 0
Note.-Instead of a Coach or Chariot and a pair of Horses, with a Coachman, and another Man-Servant, as above-mentioned; a Curricle, Gig, or other two-wheeled Carriage with three Horses, a Groom, and a Footman, may be kept at about the same expense.The cost of living for the upper classes who do not depend so much upon bread as do the poor, did not vary very much during the thirties and forties, but by 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, it had fallen considerably. Beef and mutton were then 7½d. and 8½d. a lb., butter 1s. 2d. lb., oysters, the best natives, 7d. a dozen, and Mrs. Beeton, who gives the average prices of her dishes, notes that in 1861, soles were 1s. to 2s. the pair, pork 9d. lb., veal 8d. to 9½d., bacon 10d. to 1s. primest cuts, calves' heads 5s. 6d. to 7s. each, large fowls 2s. 6d., rabbits 1s. to 1s. 6d., wild duck 4s. to 5s. a couple, partridges 2s. to 4s. 6d. the brace, pheasants 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. each, quails 1s. 3d. to 2s. and snipe 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. each. On the other hand, the servant problem was beginning to make itself felt. The establishments of 1830 have begun to contract. Mrs. Beeton suggests that on an income of £1,000 a year a cook, two housemaids, and a man servant may be kept; on £750 a cook, housemaid, and boot-boy; on £500 a cook and housemaid; on £300 a maid of all work; and on £150 up to £200 a maid of all work or a girl for the rough work. A nursemaid may be added when the income exceeds £350 'or an elder daughter if old enough, good enough and careful enough may mind the young ones'.
We may put the matter thus. In early Victorian England a family in good society could live more or less comfortably on £800-£1,000 a year. About 1850 a lady with daughters writes: 'Young people of good position may marry comfortably on £500 a year and expectations, anything from £500 to £1,500 is considered a possible, sufficient or comfortable income.' Mrs. Eleanor Bold was thought to be left quite unnecessarily well off with one child and £1,200. A beneficed [-108-] clergyman with house and garden free could do on £300 to £400. In the Line an officer might start married life on £200 to £400. But it would not have been a comfortable life, and the curate or poor parson who had to do with less must have been very uncomfortable. We shall see that on £100 a year it took some contrivance to keep a working family of five.