ABSTRACT
'It matters not at what class you begin, or however low in the social scale, you will find that every man has somebody beneath him.' So wrote Samuel Smiles, the best-selling mid-Victorian social commentator, in his book on Thrift (1875). The Victorians and Edwardians made no attempt at reticence about social and economic differences. Railway trains were divided into three classes of accommodation; church and chapel seating was often segregated into rented pews and free pews 'for the poor'; and public houses were divided into public and saloon bars.
