Dandy rats at play: the Liverpudlian middle classes and horse-racing in the nineteenth century

In his pioneering history of horse-racing Wray Vamplew stated that ‘There is no hard evidence that the middle class attended race meetings. Certainly the respectable middle class would not go racing’.1 More recent work by Mike Huggins has challenged this view,2 and this study seeks to throw further light on the debate by looking at the involvement in racing and betting of the Victorian middle classes in Liverpool. It will also consider whether the ostensibly ‘respectable’ middle classes may in reality have been indulging in some decidedly unrespectable activities in their leisure time.