A really interesting post from Jon Dudley, thanks.

Sorry, it was me who accidently introduced the idea of Mrs Lee going to the pub into the discussion. I was just making the point that not feeling comfortable in an unfamiliar environment worked both ways, and pub and cottage where the ones that were mentioned.

Jon Dudley's comments on both the Coppers' clothing and likelyhood of them not neccessarily being unused to engaging with 'the gentry' are more in line with my readings on the social history of the period (and first hand accounts from a generation later). In fact I have a elderly neighbour who's wardrobe was much as Jon Dudley suggests for the Coppers (and maybe Fred Jordan) until we coaxed him towards the clothing rack in a charity shop (note for non Brits - charity by the givers, not to the buyers).

Bearing in mind the bimodal bourgois-worker view of things behind Harker's philosophy I would speculate on a practical aspect of Jon's "It would have been normal for farm workers, tradesmen or indeed anyone of the ‘working class’ to attend the back rather than the front door - historic and social convention. I suspect in those days anyone who came off the street rather than stepping down from a carriage or having servants ready with clean footware would probably come to the back door rather than mess up the doormat and hall carpet with mud and horse-shit.

@Psuedonymous - you are slacking. You missed commenting on the discrepancy between the scullery (I guess from Mrs Lee's account) or the drawing room (the Coppers). I have have no problem with details drifting in transmission especially if it helps tell the story (it's the folk process ...) . I could go on about the interview process for oral history accounts (on the basis of limited personal experience that doesn't fit with some assumptions made in this thread. One point is - if the intervier of the Coppers already knew about the account of the meeting with Mrs Lee not being in the drawing room, should they have sought confirmation ("So do I understand this properly, it was in the drawing room?") or let it pass. However, as a scholar I think Cole is at fault in not having fully researched the situation before making a sociological interpretation and misleading his readers.