16.6. Necessary Corrections

The above calculations show us what happened to the standard wage levels for the head of the family, from 1770 to 1860.

They are not useful to demonstrate what happened to the living costs per family member, because they do not take into account income from other family members, and the wages are calculated per earner and not per food consumer.

The necessary changes are:

• for the agricultural labourers’ families, add the summer wage difference, the harvest month bonus, extra pay for task work, income from boys’ work, women’s income from spinning, women’s income from working in the fields, and present the total amount per family per week;
• for the agricultural labourers’ families, add the women’s income from spinning up to 1810, and present the total amount per family per week.

The “model” for the agricultural families is as follows:

1. of the number of adult male workers in the basis data per year, 80 % are men of 20 years or more;
2. we suppose that exactly these men are heads of family, and thus this figure gives the number of families;
3. the extra income for the man is made up of: 4 months summer wage, 10 % more than the winter wage, one month harvest wage at double rate, task work at different percentages during our period;
4. for each family, there are proportionally 10 % young men of 16 to 19, who earn a full wage;
5. 30 % of families have a son from 12 to 16 years, who earns 30 % of the father’s basic wage;
6. starting from 1770, and decreasing to zero in 1820, 80 % of the wives earn 3 shillings a week from spinning;
7. starting from 1840, 30 % of the wives work in the fields at 40 % of the man’s basic wage;        
8. the income of little girls from spinning is negligible;
9. the income of little boys working in the fields is negligible.

The corrections to the income of the agricultural family give the following figures:

	Average wage	Average wage	Weekly wage	Bushel wheat
	Shillings week	without spinning	Shillings	Shillings
	Family		Man
1770	13.5	11.1	6.5	5.3
1775	13.7	11.3	6.6	6.2
1780	14.0	11.9	7.0	3.8
1785	13.3	11.9	7.0	5.1
1790	13.8	12.6	7.4	6.7
1795	16.2	15.2	8.9	9.1
1800	16.7	15.9	9.3	13.8
1805	17.3	17.0	10.6	10.9
1810	18.4	18.2	11.3	12.9
1815	19.5	19.4	12.1	8.0
1820	18.9	18.8	11.7	8.2
1825	17.5	17.5	10.9	8.3
1830	16.7	16.7	10.4	8.0
1835	16.4	16.4	10.2	4.6
1840	17.4	17.4	11.0	8.3
1845	15.1	15.1	9.5	6.3
1850	15.2	15.2	9.5	5.0
1855	17.3	17.3	10.9	9.3
1860	17.5	17.5	11.0	6.8

Wages, expenses, and real wages for agricultural families, with spinning in the eighteenth century:

	Wages index	Expenses index	Real Wages
	Agr Lab	Agr Lab	Agr Lab
1770	100.0	100.0	100.0
1775	101.3	105.5	96.0
1780	104.1	85.8	121.4
1785	98.9	97.4	101.6
1790	102.5	112.2	91.3
1795	120.0	139.1	86.3
1800	123.6	175.2	70.5
1805	128.4	161.6	79.5
1810	136.0	179.5	75.8
1815	144.8	150.6	96.1
1820	180.0	148.6	121.1
1825	129.8	147.1	88.2
1830	123.8	129.8	95.4
1835	121.5	108.3	112.1
1840	128.6	153.9	83.6
1845	111.9	129.2	86.6
1850	112.3	111.0	101.2
1855	127.9	162.4	78.8
1860	129.4	139.3	92.9

a

Thus we see that the agricultural families had a slightly lower real wage in 1860 than in 1770. If we cancel the effect of including the women’s spinning in 1770, the increase in real wage would be about 15 %.

COMPARISON 1770 TO 1860 AGRICULTURAL WORKERS TOTAL FAMILY, WITHOUT SPINNING 1770 = 100  WAGES                158 EXPENSES          139 REAL WAGES     114

COMPARISON 1770 TO 1860 AGRICULTURAL WORKERS TOTAL FAMILY, WITH SPINNING 1770 = 100  WAGES                130 EXPENSES          139 REAL WAGES        94

Total agricultural and non-agricultural 

The average nominal earnings of the families, agricultural and non-agricultural, with the above changes, are:

	Shillings week	Shillings week	Shillings week
	Agr Lab	Non Agr	All Occupations
1770	13.5	10.1	11.5
1775	13.7	10.4	11.7
1780	14.0	11.0	12.3
1785	13.3	11.5	12.3
1790	13.8	12.5	13.1
1795	16.2	15.1	15.5
1800	16.7	15.4	15.8
1805	17.3	16.0	16.5
1810	18.4	16.6	17.2
1815	19.5	16.5	17.4
1820	18.9	15.5	16.5
1825	17.5	15.7	16.2
1830	16.7	15.7	16.0
1835	16.4	16.0	16.1
1840	17.4	16.0	16.4
1845	15.1	16.3	16.0
1850	15.2	16.7	16.3
1855	17.3	18.4	18.1
1860	17.5	19.7	19.2
1770-1815	144.8	163.3	151.3
1815-1860	89.4	119.3	110.3
1770-1860	129.4	195.1	167.0

Pounds per Year                           

The above calculation with the new assumptions, gives the following comparison against the Feinstein data:

POUNDS PER YEAR, PRESENT STUDY, 

REDUCED BY 10 % FOR LOST WORKING DAYS

	Average wage	Average wage
	Pounds pa	Pounds p a
	Present study	Feinstein 1866 42
1770	26.9	18.0
1775	27.4	18.2
1780	28.7	19.4
1785	28.0	19.5
1790	30.7	21.1
1795	36.2	25.7
1800	37.0	31.4
1805	38.6	35.0
1810	40.3	37.3
1815	40.7	36.0
1820	38.6	33.0
1825	38.0	31.1
1830	37.4	30.1
1835	37.7	30.1
1840	38.3	32.6
1845	37.4	32.4
1850	38.2	32.4
1855	42.5	37.7
1860	45.0	38.2
1866		42.0
1770-1815	1.52	2.00
1815-1860	1.11	1.06
1770-1860	1.68	2.13

a

As was to be expected, the average wage over all occupations in the earlier years shows a considerable increase against the Feinstein data. This is due to the income from the wives’ spinning activities, and the income from the husbands’ task-work.

The numbers also show that the standard of living shortly before the Industrial Revolution was not low, as was supposed by Feinstein.   

	Wages index	Expenses index	Real Wages
	All occup	All occup	All occup
1770	100.0	100.0	100.0
1775	101.8	107.7	94.6
1780	106.9	96.2	111.1
1785	106.7	103.4	103.2
1790	114.2	113.4	100.8
1795	134.9	135.7	99.3
1800	137.8	183.9	75.0
1805	143.8	170.8	84.2
1810	150.0	191.5	78.3
1815	151.7	167.1	90.8
1820	143.8	161.2	89.3
1825	141.5	157.5	89.8
1830	139.3	136.2	102.3
1835	140.4	118.8	118.2
1840	142.5	154.5	92.3
1845	139.4	134.4	103.7
1850	142.1	121.5	117.0
1855	158.1	161.4	97.9
1860	167.7	147.9	113.4

a

COMPARISON 1770 TO 1860 AGRICULTURAL PLUS NON-AGRICULTURAL WITH CORRECTIONS 1770 = 100  WAGES                168 EXPENSES          148 REAL WAGES     113

Again, the averaging of the agricultural and non-agricultural figures does not give us any new insights.