Reading the Regency

The Cost of Living - Part 1

"Oh! the lace, child! are you mad?" said her mother, catching hold of both her hands. "Your beautiful lace, my dear love—do you know how much it cost?"
[Chapter 16, The Parent's Assistant; Or, Stories for Children, by Maria Edgeworth]

In the twenty-first century, it can be hard for us to judge what money in the early 19th century was worth unless we also know what it could buy.

Some items in Regency England were surprisingly cheap. Today we think of anything handmade as being a luxury item that costs more, such a man's suit from a Saville Row tailor, or bespoke furniture created by a local carpenter. Yet, at the beginning of the 19th century, almost everything was made by hand and labour costs were low.

One of the best barometers of price was the humble loaf of bread, and its fluctuating price had more of an effect on the poor than on the wealthy. The poor, particularly those living in towns or cities, often did not have access to an oven to bake their own bread, so relied on buying bread from the local baker. The better off had ovens and servants to make their own fresh bread, so were only affected by changes in the price of flour or wheat. The cost of bread made up a higher proportion of a working class family's expenses compared with a wealthier family:

"In Monmouthshire, the total annual expense of a man, his wife, and nine children, is £30 14s, of which £23 8s are for bread alone. In Northamptonshire, a man, his wife, and five children, spend £13 in bread out of £27 16s 2d. A family of eight, in Oxfordshire, consume bread to the amount of £27 6s, though their whole outgoings are only £35 2s. Another family, also in Oxfordshire, of five persons, out of £22 15s spend £16 18s in bread."
[The Question of the existing Corn Laws, by Charles H. Parry, pub. 1816]

Between 1795 and 1813 the average price of a quartern loaf of bread (4lb 5oz in weight) in London went up and down. Its lowest price was 8d per loaf in 1798, but by 1800 it was 17½d, in 1802 it fell to 10d. In 1805 a loaf cost 14¾d but had dropped to 11¾d in 1807, rising to 18½d in 1813. As wages tended to stay the same, or could even drop when times were hard, this difference often represented a huge increase in a family's daily expenses.To put the size of the quarten loaf into perspective, at the Royal Military Asylum, which housed orphaned children of soldiers, each child received 1/20th of a quartern loaf with their breakfast and dinner.

In 1812, some of the wages for workers in the north had fallen so low that they were living off oatmeal, potatoes and a little milk, because bread was too expensive. In contrast, many wealthy members of society had disposable income, and it was to them that businesses addressed their advertisements, enticing them to spend their money on luxuries.

You didn't have to be working class to be affected by increasing prices. Hester Pelozzi, former socialite and diarist, at the time widowed with an income of £800 a year, wrote to a friend from Bath in February 1801:

"To your enquiries how things are going here, my reply is, never so bad. Fish, flesh, and fowl, all are double price, and tho' we live as retired as 'tis possible, the little red book you remember of marketing expences goes on worse and worse. Even Laura Chapel is raised one third, and the journey hither cost double what it used to do. ... Mr. Roach or Roche told us yesterday that he and his son paid £200 for 5 weeks eating and sleeping at York House: his servants at board wages all the while. Tea alone stood them in six shillings o' day."
[The Intimate Letters of Hester Piozzi and Penelope Pennington, 1788-1821, pub 1913 by Oswald G Knapp]

If you haven't yet read the post on Pounds, Shillings and Pence, or need a refresher on the currency of the time, it may be helpful to read that first.