Social class in the United Kingdom
[3] Since the advent of industrialisation, this system has been in a constant state of revision, and new factors other than birth (for example, education) are now a greater part of creating identity in Britain.
Opportunities resulting from consistent economic growth and the expanding British Empire also enabled some from much poorer backgrounds (generally men who had managed to acquire some education) to rise through the class system.
The historian David Cannadine sees the period around 1880 as a peak after which the position of the old powerful families declined rapidly, from a number of causes, reaching a nadir in the years after the Second World War, symbolised by the widespread destruction of country houses.
However, their wealth, if not their political power, has rebounded strongly since the 1980s, benefiting from greatly increased values of the land and fine art which many owned in quantity.
Meanwhile, the complex British middle classes had also been enjoying a long period of growth and increasing prosperity, and achieving political power at the national level to a degree unusual in Europe.
In particular the great financial centre of the City of London was open to outsiders to an unusual degree, and continually expanding and creating new employment.
Living standards certainly improved greatly over the period, more so in England than other parts of the United Kingdom, but the Industrial Revolution was marked by extremely harsh working conditions and poor housing until about the middle of the 19th century.
The social grade classification created by the National Readership Survey over 50 years ago achieved widespread usage during the 20th century in marketing and government reports and statistics.
On 2 April 2013 analysis of the results of a survey,[31] which was conducted by the BBC in 2011 and developed in collaboration with academic experts, was published online in the journal Sociology.
Occupations represented include medical radiographers, aircraft pilots, pharmacists, natural and social science professionals and physical scientists, and business, research, and administrative positions.
[43] Members of this class include about 6% of all cleaners, 5% of all van drivers, 4% of all care workers, 4% of all carpenters and joiners, 3% of all caretakers, 3% of all leisure and travel service occupations, 3% of all shopkeepers and proprietors, and 2% of all retail cashiers.
[47] Evidence could not be found through field research to support the notion of an ‘underclass’ with a separate sub-culture amongst the long-term unemployed, yet it has become a key word in the British lexicon due to the essays that the American New-Right sociologist Charles Murray was invited to write in 1989 for the Sunday Times.
[49] The BBC journalist Mark Easton felt that, in the justificatory responses he heard in the aftermath of those riots, it would be easy to concur with the politician Iain Duncan Smith's 2008 theory of "an underclass" that exhibited "creeping expansion".
Many would go on to work in semi-skilled and unskilled jobs in raw materials extraction/processing, in assembly and in machine shops of Britain's major car factories, steel mills, coal mines, foundries and textile mills in the highly industrialised cities and pit towns and villages in the West Midlands, North of England, South Wales and the Scottish Lowlands.
Some dropped out altogether and joined the black market economy, while a few managed, often through geographic fortune of other industries in the local area, to ascend to the lower middle class.
However, since the early-2000s, there has been a trend for many call centres to close down in the UK and outsource their jobs to India and other jurisdictions, as part of cost-cutting measures.
A fictional example of a mid-century skilled working man, from the literary traditional of the working-class novel, is Arthur Seaton, in the novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.
A lathe operator at a bicycle factory, he regards his father's apparently subservient generation with contempt, and at the close of the novel (made explicit in the film version) plans to buy his own home.
[60] Researchers today sometimes equate NRS social grade C1, "Supervisory, clerical and junior managerial, administrative and professional",[61] with "lower middle class".
The only Mosaic 2010 geodemographic type where the proportion of residents in NRS social grade B was rated as "high" in the 2010 index was "People living in brand new residential developments".
A lesser status historically directly relevant to the upper middle class is that of squire or lord of the manor; however, these property rights are no longer[77] prevalent.
Although such categorisations are not precise, popular contemporary examples of upper-middle-class people may include Boris Johnson,[78] Catherine, Princess of Wales,[79][80][81][82] David Cameron,[81][83], Theresa May and Matthew Pinsent (athlete).
Use of RP by people from the "regions" outside the South East can be indicative of a certain educational background, such as public school or elocution lessons.
However, Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles III, and some other older members of the aristocracy are now perceived as speaking, or having spoken, in a way that is both more old-fashioned and higher class than "general" RP.
Arthur Balfour, a 19th-century politician and an aristocrat, gave a large financial donation for the production of the English Dialect Dictionary, compiled by the working-class Joseph Wright.
[89] Historically and still today, the traditional upper class is identified as the aristocracy, and social climbers tend to aspire for their descendants to be eventually absorbed by it.
The peerage consists of Peers of the Realm (i.e., holders of the substantive aristocratic titles Baron, Lord of Parliament, Viscount, Earl, Marquess or Duke) and, arguably, their wives and immediate families.
Britain is unique in the fact that it is possible to acquire social nobility - a kind of noblesse d'apparence - solely by demonstrating social standing and an appropriate lifestyle, and thus, the rank of gentleman can be accorded to a non-armiger not holding a traditionally ennobling office, something that generally has been made impossible on the Continent at the end of the Middle Ages.
They are incorporeal hereditaments just like hereditary peerages, baronetcies and coats of arms but can, unlike them, be freely bequeathed to an appointed heir or even sold.
However, other commentators point out that feudal titles were often bought, sold or exchanged throughout their history by those seeking to elevate their status, and recent developments simply allow the tradition to continue.
