United Kingdom

Less is known about Massie’s 4th, 5th, and 6th social categories than about the landowning classes. And much less is known about small merchants, tradesmen, professionals, artisans, and labourers in Wales and Scotland than about their English equivalents. Most historians believe that the middle-income groups were increasing in number in the mid-18th century. Professional opportunities in law, medicine, schoolteaching, banking, and government service certainly expanded at this time. In the town of Preston in Lancashire, for example, there was only one attorney in 1702; by 1728 there were 17. Growing prosperity also increased job opportunities in the leisure and luxury industries. Urban directories show that there were more musicians and music teachers and more dancing masters, booksellers, caterers, and landscape gardeners than in the 17th century. And there were more shops. Shops had expanded even into rural areas by the 1680s, but in the 18th century they proliferated at a much faster rate. By 1770 the new town of Birmingham in Warwickshire had 129 shops dealing in buttons and 56 selling toys, as well as 35 jewelers. Not for nothing would Napoleon Bonaparte later describe Britain as a nation of shopkeepers.

Urban development

The centre of this commercial culture was the city of London. As the only real national metropolis, London was unique in its size and multiplicity of functions. By 1750 it contained more than 650,000 citizens—just under one in 10 of Britain’s population. By contrast, only one in 40 Frenchmen lived in Paris in this period. The Hague held only one in 50 of the inhabitants of the Netherlands, and Madrid was the home of just one in 80 Spaniards. Some of these great European capitals had no resident sovereign. Many others, such as Vienna and St. Petersburg, were grand ceremonial and cultural centres but effectively isolated from the economic life of their national hinterland. London was different. It was not only the location of the Court and of Parliament but also the nation’s chief port, its financial centre, the home of its printing industry, and the hub of its communications network. Britain’s rulers were brought into constant proximity with powerful economic lobbies from all parts of the nation and with a large and constantly fluctuating portion of their subjects. Britons seem to have been more mobile than their fellow Europeans in this period, and then as now many traveled to the capital to find work and excitement. Perhaps as many as one in six Britons spent a portion of their working life in London in the 18th century.

London easily dwarfed the other British towns. In 1750 its nearest rival, Norwich, had fewer than 50,000 people. Nonetheless, the provincial towns, although functioning on quite a different scale from that of the metropolis, were also growing in size and importance at this time. In 1700 only 10 of them contained more than 10,000 people. By 1750 there were 17 towns with populations of that size, and by 1800 there were more than 50. As towns grew, they became better organized and safer, more pleasant places to live in. Because more stone was used in buildings, the risk of destruction by fire began to lessen. Towns acquired insurance companies and fire engines to protect their citizens. Supplies of clean water improved. Urban planning and architecture became more sophisticated and splendid, and the results can still be seen today in towns like Stamford in Lincolnshire or Bath in Somerset. These provincial centres developed cultural lives of their own, with new theatres, assembly rooms, libraries, Freemason lodges, and coffeehouses. By mid-century there were at least nine coffeehouses in Bristol, six in both Liverpool and Chester, two in Northampton, and at least one in most substantial market towns. Such establishments supplied their customers with newspapers and a place to gossip as well as with liquid refreshments. They also often served as a base for clubs, debating societies, and spontaneous political activity. Schools grew in number, in both the towns and the surrounding countryside. In just one English county, Northamptonshire, the local newspaper press advertised the establishment of more than 100 new schools between 1720 and 1760.

Change and continuity