HIERARCHY AND SOCIAL STATUS

Historical Dramas

SHERIANNA ROUF

WHAT WAS THE CLASS STRUCTURE OF VICTORIAN AND EDWARDIAN BRITAIN?

Victorian society can be split up into three classes: upper, middle, and lower. The upper class consisted of 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. 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 being a doctor or a teacher. The lower class also known as the 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 they had. 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.

The Edwardian era was a period during which the British class system was very rigid. Economic and social changes created an environment in which there was more social mobility. Changes included rising interest in socialism, attention to the plight of the poor and the status of women.

SHERIANNA ROUF

WHAT DIFFERENCE WAS THERE BETWEEN MASTERS AND SERVANTS?

The masters had control over the servants telling them what duties to perform. The masters were of a higher social class (upper or middle class) to the servants who were working class. The masters wore more expensive and better quality clothes than the servants.

SHERIANNA ROUF

WHAT POSITIONS WERE AVAILABLE TO SERVANTS?

In families, servants had many positions and even had their own ranking system. Head butlers, or stewards, were considered higher in ranking than the rest of the servants. The head butler would have managerial responsibilities over the other servants of the home. In the middle, there were valet's, which were the personal assistants to the gentleman, who would clean his clothes, assist him in dressing and in shaving. The lady's maid had similar duties for the woman of the home, mostly assisting in dressing and requiring nimble fingers for the numerous buttons and hooks. Women were dependent on their maids, as performing a task as menial as dressing themselves would not be viewed as proper for a lady of status. The lowest servants would be the footman and housemaids, whose duties involved mostly cleaning, scrubbing, and polishing silver. The size of the home determined how many footmen and housemaids would be employed. In the beginning of the Victorian era, laundry maids were common, which is believable that with all the garments worn, especially by the lady of the house, that a person could be employed just to wash the family's clothes. By the end of the century laundry maids were less common with the advent of professional laundries. If a family owned a stable, a staff of servants including a coachman, a groom, and a stable boy were required.

SHERIANNA ROUF

WHY WAS A HIERARCHY SYSTEM USED?

Servants were very important to the social construction of the middle and upper classes in Victorian England, for the obvious reasons that they allowed the ladies and gentlemen of the household time to participate in social activities and flaunt their wealth and status. Women with many servants could stay in bed during pregnancy and had a better likely-hood of surviving childbirth whereas, women of lower classes were forced to continue a lifestyle of rigorous chores to maintain the household (19th Century Medicine). In all, the importance of servants reached beyond their literal duties to a societal level, vital in maintaining the class structure and levels of status which Victorian society was so accustomed.

SHERIANNA ROUF

WHO HAS POWER IN THIS SYSTEM, AND WHO HAD CONTROL?

The upper class have the most power over this system since they tell the servants what to do in the house but more specifically, due to the hierarchy the eldest upper class people of the house have the most power because theyre the oldest who are more dominant and controlling of the young. The working class had almost no political power.

SHERIANNA ROUF