This fascinating thread is moving so quickly this comment may be too late, but I think perhaps too much has been made of the factory/weaver status differences in different versions. It is well within British social habits for neither to have had a higher status, but both to be looked down on by the other. A weaver's parents may well look down on a mere factory maid: the evidence that she dresses like a queen shows only the higher pay available in the factories, but her contemporaries probably did think themselves better than the old-fashioned weavers.

I'm sure you can think of modern equivalents.