The Long Eighteenth Century

by Frank O'Gorman

  Were the gentry the victims of the rise of the great estates? There is massive contemporary evidence that they felt the effects of falling prices, rising rents and wartime levels of Land Tax payments. With these trends in mind, Joseph Massie in 1760 calculated that only 480 gentry families had incomes over £2,000 per annum, that 640 had around £1,000 per annum and that 2,400 had £600–£800 per annum, while no fewer than 14,400 had to maintain gentility on a paltry £200–£400 per annum. Massie’s figures are impressive, but overlook the possibility that many of these families had income from other sources – from financial investments, from forestry, from industry or from commercial activities. If they did not, then they were likely to find themselves struggling to keep up appearances.

  As always in these cases, contemporary evidence is not always reliable and the general situation was not straightforward. First, in some parts of the country, in the north-east of England and the Lindsey area of Lincolnshire, in north Wales, Cheshire and Staffordshire and in Devon, it is difficult to see that the gentry declined at all. In such places, the smaller landowners and even professional men prospered at least as healthily as the peers. We should remember that titles descended only to male heirs, and therefore the younger sons of aristocratic families are to be found in the church, the armed services and other professions. At the same time, other family members married into the gentry and the mercantile sector. The aristocracy, then, if not an open caste, were by no means isolated and inward looking. Second, although the gentry may have lamented their declining social and economic standing, there is very little evidence that the middling orders were as yet threatening to challenge, still less to displace them. Some merchants and some professional men prospered sufficiently to purchase small estates, but by the middle of the century, their numbers were limited. Third, it was not the gentry who were the victims of aristocratic consolidation but those beneath them in the social and economic scale, the freeholders, most of whom did not identify themselves as gentry. One estimate suggests that between 1688 and 1790, their ownership of cultivable land in England dropped from around one-half to around one-third. As for the gentry themselves, it is doubtful that as a social group they suffered any drastic decline in their fortunes and certainly not in their numbers. Gregory King identified 4,400 families of baronets, knights and esquires at the end of the seventeenth century. In 1802 Colquhoun calculated their number at 6,890 and their incomes as ranging from £1,500 to £3,000. But we need to add to these a proportion of the ambiguous ‘gentlemen’ whom both authors identify. If we compare king’s ‘Gentlemen’, admittedly a broad and vague category, with Colquhoun’s families of ‘Gentlemen and Ladies living on incomes’ (some of which, of course, would be non-landed incomes) we find an increase from 12,000 to 20,000. Moreover, Colquhoun estimated the average for these incomes at £700 per annum. Overall, then, there must have been something over 15,000 gentry families at the beginning, rising to perhaps 20,000 by the end of the eighteenth century. Indeed, Professor Rule has concluded that there were at least 15,000 such families, ‘less elevated but even more essential components of the rural ruling classes than the aristocracy’.9

  Britain, then, was governed by a landed elite of aristocracy and gentry, both of them robust and wealthy, neither in decline nor in serious difficulty as a social group. Indeed, for most inhabitants of the British Isles, the local family of the ruling order was more inclined to be a member of the gentry than a member of the aristocracy. In this sense, then, the ‘oligarchy’ which governed eighteenth-century Britain extended quite far down into the rural propertied classes. This meant that the ruling order was never a truly coherent body. The interests of land, money and trade, country and town, north and south, could never be thoroughly harmonized. It was their idealization of themselves as ‘the landed interest’ together with the mystique of landed property that perhaps did as much as unity of economic interest to fuse them together. The eighteenth century was awash with literature, painting, architecture and, not least, landscape gardening which idealized its landed elite. Indeed, such cultural factors cemented relations between individuals of widely different economic status in ways that politics could not reach. Furthermore, no great social gulfs existed between the gentry and the urban elite of the middling orders. Upward social mobility into the gentry was possible, although in the first half of the eighteenth century, it remained comparatively rare. The wealthiest merchants and bankers, whether in London or in the provinces, showed as yet little inclination to sink their fortunes into the purchase of a Country seat before the middle of the century. Part of the reason for their hesitation was the high price of land, which increased by 50 per cent between 1680 and 1750, and the relative infrequency with which choice estates came on the market. In any case, they preferred to confine themselves to more modest urban residences and to enjoy the life of the urban patrician class. At the same time, the gentry, too, were beginning to discover the pleasures of urban living.10

  How did this rural elite of aristocracy and gentry command the loyalty of its dependents? The authority of the landlord classes could not be imposed by physical coercion; no police force existed, law enforcement usually resting on the voluntary service of householders in the parishes. The Riot Act, passed in 1715, was unwieldy in operation and absolutely useless for dealing with spontaneous, minor disturbances. If the Riot Act was too cumbersome, then it is likely, in the view of some historians, that the increase in capital offences – from 50 in 1689 to 200 by 1800 – proves that the law was used as an instrument of coercion. In a society that lacked an effective police force, harsh laws and indeed, harsh punishments were deemed to be necessary as a deterrent to the threat of popular disorder. However, the extent to which these draconian statutes were actually enforced was very limited.11

  If authority was to be respected, then power had to be exercised in ways that commanded respect and elicited consent. Here, the relevance of cultural, rather than political, influences, is paramount. To some extent, the sheer grandeur and finery of the great house, the flamboyant carriages and dress of its residents, the vast numbers of servants, the scraping and the bowing, all cultivated an instinctive respect for and acceptance of authority. Hierarchy, and consequently, subordination, was everywhere: in manners, in dress, in speech and even inside parish churches in the shape of reserved pews. The consent that was elicited in this way amounted to more than the consequences of awe and fear. For example, the complex rituals associated with the law, its robes and wigs, its fine and archaic language and the calculated drama of gestures of mercy and clemency, may have had the effect of securing popular acceptance of the legal system, its alleged protection of the rights of the subject and the liberty of the individual. It was not just the law. Many people also experienced the operation of hierarchy at first hand during the rituals associated with parliamentary and civic elections. They plunged into the tumultuous mobbery and clamour of the streets as candidates sought popular endorsement from non-voters and voters alike. They observed, even if they did not participate in, the countless processions and dinners, organized according to status and rank. They watched the canvassing of the candidates and they concluded that favours, petitions and advantages could be wrung out of the upper classes. Through such processes, most people evinced a deference that did much to ensure a general acceptance of inequality and thus a legitimation of the power of the political and social elite in Hanoverian society.

  Consequently, the exercise of power was something more than arbitrary. The sheer force of ritual, culture and manners softened the superiority of the landed elite. If the landed classes believed that they were entitled to protect their property and their power – and none of them doubted it – they also believed that other sections of society had a right to protect theirs. They were still imbued with ideals of service which cannot simply be dismissed as a cynical posture. At the local level, this may be described as the practice of ‘paternalism’: the protection of the community and of the welfare of its inhabitants. In theory
, at least, landowners were expected to treat their tenants with generosity and kindness and to behave with Christian mercy towards them, especially during emergencies or in times of want and difficulty. Although we should avoid sentimentality, we should not underestimate the strength of religious motives in the surviving tradition of Christian benevolence, especially among the provincial gentry, in this period. There were many examples of negligence, non-residence and downright indifference among them, but the tradition of paternalism survived not only in the minds of landowners but also, just as important, in the expectations of their social inferiors. The close involvement of the aristocracy and gentry in the economic and political life of the community was still taken for granted. So, too, was their participation in the religious, social and sporting activities of their people and, to an extent that cannot be measured, in the lives of individual families. The ubiquity of paternalist obligations thus constituted a set of vital social cements in early Hanoverian society.

  Outside England, this settled tradition of paternalism cannot be taken for granted. In Wales, landlords seem to have behaved more arbitrarily than their English counterparts, raising rents with little regard for the ability of the tenants to pay, and even using force to remove tenants opposed to the consolidation of estates. Language and, later in the century, religion played upon the cultural differences between the landowners and their dependents. The Scottish aristocracy had the reputation of being particularly ruthless, its tenants-at-will possessing few legal rights. In Ireland, however, the position was complicated by religion and by national prejudice. Even so, traditions of paternalism were still evident, cooperation between tenants and landlords seemingly healthy. The worst examples of exploitation at the hands of non-resident landowners derive more from nationalist legend than from solid historical research.

  The deference which social inferiors showed towards the aristocracy was, of course, an unequal relationship and assumed always to be so. Yet, it was at the same time a reciprocal or a two-way process. After all, the aristocracy was dependent in many ways upon its social inferiors. It was dependent upon the toil and exertions of its servants. It was dependent, above all, upon the reliability, the industry and the honesty of its tenants for the profitable exploitation of their farms (it was not uncommon in times of dearth for landlords to write off rent arrears). Social inferiors, moreover, were not above manipulating the potentialities of paternalism for their own benefit, making use of its possibilities in the spheres of employment, benevolence and favours. This deferential order was grounded upon inequality and upon dependence, but it was also activated by reciprocal processes which delivered mutual, tangible benefits.

  The economic and social features of the Hanoverian oligarchy, then, were characterized by pronounced and continuing aristocratic supremacy. On closer inspection, however, we find a complex set of relationships, linking that oligarchy into a much larger, mainly rural, ruling order of smaller proprietors which sank its roots quite deeply into the social structure. There is no question that these relationships were unequal and authoritarian. They could only be maintained by the adoption of a complex variety of social and legal strategies, through the active participation of this elite in the life of local communities and through the reasonable fulfilment of paternalist responsibilities.

  Interestingly, the political characteristics of the Hanoverian oligarchy are reasonably consistent with these social and economic features. By any calculation, it was an exclusive and narrow political oligarchy. On Professor Cannon’s definition, the ‘peerage’ remained remarkably stable in numbers during the first half of the century, tending very slightly to increase from 173 in 1700 to 181 in 1760.12 The political powers of the upper house may have been declining, but its members increasingly influenced the return of members of the House of Commons. Peers had some degree of influence over the return of 105 MPs in 1715, 167 in 1747, 207 in 1784, 221 in 1802 and no fewer than 236 in 1807. Aristocrats not only dominated Parliament but also monopolized the highest political offices. Long into the nineteenth century, most members of most cabinets were peers. During the eighteenth century, the number of commoners who sat in any cabinet could easily be counted on the fingers of one hand. Finally, the aristocracy monopolized offices in the central administration of the state, in the army, in the diplomatic service and in the higher reaches of the professions.

  This political elite remained an exclusive oligarchy throughout the century. In spite of the common belief that social mobility enabled members of the bourgeoisie to advance into the peerage, there is very little evidence that this occurred. Of the 257 peers alive in 1800, only 7 had had no previous connection with the peerage. Indeed, of the 229 peerage creations made between 1700 and 1800, only 23 had no previous connections with the peerage. Furthermore, the House of Commons remained an exclusive institution. Already in 1715, 224 out of 558 MPs were the sons of MPs. By 1754 the figure had reached 294. By then about 400 MPs were related in some way to other MPs past or present. Parliament was thus becoming a remarkably homogeneous assembly. Legal requirements established a further set of common identities. Only the wealthy could sit in Parliament. The Property Qualifications Act of 1711 obliged county MPs to possess real estate worth at least £600 per annum, borough MPs £300.

  These figures are particularly valuable, but they focus only upon the peerage and the personnel of the House of Commons. Yet, the influence of the former over the latter should not be exaggerated. Peers may have had some degree of influence over the return to Parliament of a large minority of MPs, but it was not always decisive. Indeed, the influence of the peerage over returns to the House of Commons was, strictly speaking, illegal, and even if the legislation remained a dead letter it was never forgotten.13 In practice, such interference was always deeply resented. In most constituencies, indeed, effective influence was distributed among a number of local, usually gentry, families. Furthermore, it would be a serious mistake to exaggerate the power of the oligarchy over local affairs. As we have seen, the personnel of local government was not exclusively aristocratic.14 Even more significantly, as Paul Langford has revealed, they were, willing for reasons of practical necessity, to transfer responsibility for extensive spheres of administration to members of the middling orders.15 This was achieved by dozens of acts of Parliament which appointed commissioners with responsibilities for new administrative functions which were financed out of local rates. Many of these involved the reform of the Poor Law, street paving and lighting and a variety of other urban improvements. Others were of an essentially commercial character, such as enclosures, canals and turnpike trusts. Yet others were of a charitable character, such as the foundation of hospitals. The point to emphasize is that many of the commissioners established by these acts were individuals with only modest property. For example, the qualification for improvement commissioners was usually between £500 and £1,000 of personal wealth or personal estate; that for Poor Law commissioners was considerably lower. In some towns and in parts of London, the social composition of a parish effectively ensured that responsible officers would be drawn from the lower middling orders of craftsmen, artisans and retailers. But this was not a phenomenon confined to the towns: in rural areas too, commissioners were drawn from the gentry, freeholders of the better or even lesser sort and tenant farmers. Many gentry families identified their interests with those of the aristocracy and were correspondingly willing to accept infusions of personnel from the middling orders. After all, the vast majority of the people of Britain having direct experience of local government experienced ‘politics’ in their local communities rather than within any national context. Effective local government in the parishes of an increasingly complex society required the cooperation of tens of thousands of willing individuals. Indeed, many members of the landed classes had their own interests and priorities on the national stage and were content to cede local supremacy to others. In the counties and the towns they acknowledged the worthiness and ability of members of the middling orders to gover
n. Such cultural transmission, such delegation of functions, is a key characteristic of Hanoverian society.

  THE MIDDLING ORDERS: ENTERPRISE AND DOCILITY

  It is significant that the term ‘middle class’ only came into use as late as the 1780s. The middling orders of early Hanoverian Britain were not aware of themselves as an independent and coherent social unit. Their circumstances and their attitudes were immensely varied, ranging from the near-aristocratic fortunes and lifestyles of some of the clergy, lawyers and office-holders, through the moderately prosperous mercantile sections of town and country, down to the humble craftsmen and retailers. They constituted around 20 per cent of the population, more in some places. They were content to maintain and, where possible, to advance their place within the existing social order. They were not bearers of a new social, such as ‘class’, and they were not the agencies of a new vision of how society should be organized. At this period, Hanoverian society was organized as a finely graded hierarchy of dozens of orders on the basis of family inheritance and tradition, on occupation and on wealth. A more simply defined stratification based on class is not to be found on a national basis until the nineteenth century.