ABSTRACT
Class was important in Victorian Britain to a degree that is difficult for people living in the twenty-first century to comprehend. Wealthy Americans identify themselves as "comfortable", not "upper class"; commentators prefer the more generic "working Americans" to "working class". Victorian Britain was a deeply classed society; everyone was aware of class, admitted that it was a meaningful social reality, and identified themselves as a member of a class. Some upper working-class families had higher incomes than some lower middle-class families, but did not consider themselves middle class. Some members of the aristocracy were happy to socialize with wealthy middle-class people whose incomes were as high as their own, but some scorned them because of their class origins. British society was fiercely hierarchical; hierarchy was one aspect of class, and class was one aspect of hierarchy. Classes were dynamic, not static, and could be inclusive as well as exclusive and went well beyond the economic.
