ABSTRACT
Recently, Carole Shammas has reinterpreted food expenditure data (see Table A l.l). She begins by citing Gregory King, David Davies, Eden, Nield, and Purdy:
Table A l.l Percentage of English household expenditure devoted to diet1
All households Poorest category
of household 1695: All English families 60.7% 74.1%
1787-93: English agricultural labourers 72.2% 70.1% 1794-96: English agricultural & urban
labourers 74.3% 69.0% 1836: Manchester working class 55.0% —
1841: Manchester working class 69.3% —
1837-38: English agricultural labourers 72.2% -
While noting that the largest of the known samples was 127 families, and that therefore the statistical base is slender, Shammas argues that since these surveys were intended to point to crises of subsistence, and since they tended to exclude various miscellaneous expenditures, they themselves are probably too high; she concludes that, for all the labouring classes, the probable proportion represented by diet was between 50 per cent and 60 per cent.2 Komlos has countered that by ignoring income features (not working on Sunday, etc) Shammas understates expenditure on diet, which should be about 75 per cent, close to Phelps Brown and Hopkins, and Gilboy, and identical to
Tucker. Shammas has defended her estimate.3 The issue becomes more muddled if payment in kind is taken into account. However, whether 50 per cent or 75 per cent or 80 per cent is the better estimate, the calculations in all cases show the predominant importance of diet within total expenditure (a similar range of from 60 to 80 per cent, for a French ‘model’ family of the period, is cited by Olwen Hufton4).
