Value of money 1895

[Ogrodnicka]

I'm trying to find out how much 38 shillings would have been worth in 1895. My great grandfather worked as a slipper maker / boot & shoe maker. He had a shop and also employed workers in his workshop. In 1895 he appeared in court charged with employing too many workers in his workshop and was faced with a fine of 38s or 5 days' imprisonment. I'd like to find out how much this fine would have been at that time in relation to his earnings. He was a master slipper maker for a time, then went into retail boot & shoe manufacture. Could anyone help me with where to look to find out what his earnings might have been or average earnings at that time? Or, how much did it cost to feed a family in those days? I've looked at websites that give a money conversion but I'm still not really sure what that fine would have meant to him. He had a wife and young family to support and several businesses. He would not have wanted to spend time in prison, but could he afford the fine? Can anyone help point me in the right direction? Many thanks, Ogrodnicka

[philipsearching]

If you try this link http://www.victorianlondon.org/finance/money.htm - click on family budgets and scroll down the page you will find an extract from Arthur Sherwell's "Life in West London" (1897) which suggests a cost of around £2 (forty shillings) to sustain a poor family of 6 for a week.

Hope this helps
Philip

[Rockford]

Hi Ogrodnicka,

This may or may not help put things in perspective, but in 1892 one of my relations was earning 5 shillings a shift as a coal miner in Lanarkshire, so 38 shillings would have been about a week's wages for him.

This site gives some other comparisons:

http://www.victorianweb.org/economics/wages2.html

Thanks

Rockford

[hallmark]

£1.9  = £228

http://inflation.stephenmorley.org/

[youngtug]

From the book "People of the Abyss" writen/ published 1902/3;

When I learned that in Lesser London there were 1,292,737 people who received twenty-one shillings or less a week per family, I became interested as to how the wages could best be spent in order to maintain the physical efficiency of such families.  Families of six, seven, eight or ten being beyond consideration, I have based the following table upon a family of five—a father, mother, and three children; while I have made twenty-one shillings equivalent to $5.25, though actually, twenty-one shillings are equivalent to about $5.11.

Rent       $1.50    or 6/0
Bread       1.00    “ 4/0
Meat        O.87.5  “ 3/6
Vegetables  O.62.5  “ 2/6
Coals       0.25    “ 1/0
Tea         0.18    “ 0/9
Oil         0.16    “ 0/8
Sugar       0.18    “ 0/9
Milk        0.12    “ 0/6
Soap        0.08    “ 0/4
Butter      0.20    “ 0/10
Firewood    0.08    “ 0/4
Total      $5.25     21/2

[maddys52]

I always use the currency converter on the National Archives website (although it only converts to 2005 money, so if you want to be really accurate you need to adjust for inflation since then.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency/default0.asp#mid

[jbml]

Relative value of money is always a tricky one ... and I always find it best to contextualise it rather than index it.

Siegfried Sassoon, before the First World War, had an unearned income of £450 a year, which was insufficient to enable him to live as a gentleman and hunt 5 days a fortnight through the winter, but not by all that much (see Memoirs of a Foxhunting Gentleman). A modern equivalent would, I guess, be a private income of about £50,000 a year.

38 shillings, or just under £2, was therefore a little under half a percent of this. So, say, about £250.

That's not far off Hallmark's figure; and Rockford's contextual figure of a week's wages for a miner also feels about right (thus miner earning equivalent of £13,000 a year ... seems about right ... never was a well-paid occupation).