The Levellers, the Labouring Classes, and the Poor

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 24; pp. 15 - 29
• Main Author: Rees, John
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newcastle Upon Tyne Northumbria University, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences 01.01.2020
• Subjects: 17th century; Apprenticeship; Households; Manual workers; Patriarchy; Social classes; Society; Wages & salaries; United Kingdom > UK; England
• ISSN: 0954-0970

The patriarchal structure of the fundamental economic and social unit of seventeenth-century society precluded such notions. King's estimates show about 2.5 million people in the middle class and a similar number in the working class. There has been some considerable debate about the accuracy of King's figures, but one important investigation, by Peter Lindert and Jeffrey Williamson, suggest King actually underestimated the size of the middling sort and overestimated the size of the labouring classes.6 Lindert and Williamson looked at twenty-six local censuses and burial records from forty-one parishes in order to try and get a more accurate picture than King provided. [...]the England revealed in Lindert and Williamson is, compared to King's picture, 'less agricultural and more industrial [...] the rich have got richer, the poor are fewer, and the middle groups more populated'.