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The Language Of ‘Class’ In Early Nineteenth-Century England

In: Essays in Labour History

Author

Listed:
  • Asa Briggs

Abstract

The concept of social ‘class’ with all its attendant terminology was a product of the large-scale economic and social changes of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Before the rise of modern industry1 writers on society spoke of ‘ranks’, ‘orders’, and ‘degrees’ or, when they wished to direct attention to particular economic groupings, of ‘interests’. The word ‘class’ was reserved for a number of people banded together for educational purposes2 or more generally with reference to subdivisions in schemes of ‘classification’.3 Thus the 1824 edition of the Encyclopœdia Britannica spoke of ‘classes of quadrupeds, birds, fishes and so forth, which are again subdivided into series or orders and these last into genera’. It directed its readers to articles on ‘Animal Kingdom’ and ‘Botany’. By 1824, however, the word ‘class’ had already established itself as a social label, and ten years later John Stuart Mill was to remark:

Suggested Citation

  • Asa Briggs, 1960. "The Language Of ‘Class’ In Early Nineteenth-Century England," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Asa Briggs & John Saville (ed.), Essays in Labour History, chapter 1, pages 43-73, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-15446-3_5
    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-15446-3_5
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