BS: Money Question

Subject: Money Question
From: Fiolar
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 08:46 AM

In the poem "The Deserted Village" written by Oliver Goldsmith in 1770 there is a line describing the salary of the village preacher as follows - "And passing rich with forty pounds a year." What would be the equivelant in today's currency? (pounds or dollars).

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: GUEST,Paul
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 08:53 AM

£3,440.75 according to this site...

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: Fiolar
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 09:49 AM

Thanks Paul. He obviously wouldn't be "passing rich" today then.

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: Ringer
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 09:53 AM

Which is obviously completely misleading, because £3440pa today would be unlivable-on and certainly not "passing rich".

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 09:55 AM

You have to allow for cost of living as well as currency fluctuation -- they are not identical at all.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: The_one_and_only_Dai
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 10:00 AM

Any ideas on the purchasing power of that amount at the time?

As an aside, Charles I gave every man in England with property over £40 a knighthood... (thereby making them liable for some tax or other) just to put the amount in perspective

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: Bert
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 11:18 AM

But that site compares purchasing power which is quite a different thing from salary. Also an average person today has a standard of living that would have been considered extremely rich in 1770.

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: GUEST,Paul
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 11:33 AM

Exactly Bert,

Not many cars to run, holidays to take, CD's to buy, electricity bills to pay etc. etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: 53
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 08:02 PM

how much would that be in us dollars? BOB

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: kendall
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 08:05 PM

The last I knew, the pound was equal to $1.45.

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: MMario
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 08:50 PM

Elsewhere on the web it is stated that 1 pound in "late victorian" times was the equivilant to about $200 dollars today. Using the web site above to calculate inflation from 1770 to 1880 and then applying the $200/pound and converting back to pounds gives about 9359 pounds as being the equivilant of the 1770 amount of 40 pounds. a little fudging around with the year of "late victorian" can give as high as 11,000 pounds as the "today" equivilant of the 40 pounds.

I suspect in it would be much higher in actuality.

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 08:55 PM

I think the site's a bit off in terms of real value translations. I have seen other references in period literature where someone with an annual income of tens of pounds was considered well set up. So it doesn't make sense to compare it to a scrimping salary in today's terms -- although the richness of fare today does offset things a bit. If all you had to provide was roof, food and decent clothes and a horse or two and perhaps a valet or batsman... dunno -- memory fails! :>)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: curmudgeon
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 09:25 PM

To put in a perspective understandable to many, if not most, an advertisement, possibly apocryphal,, of 18th Century London went... Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence.

Therefore, price the cheapest bottle of rotgut gin you can find. Divide its price by the number of ounces it contains. Then estimate the number of ounces it would take to get you drunk; multiply times the per ounce price and that should give you the equivalent of a penny in modern terms..

Forty pounds contains 9600 pennies which would allow you to get blind drunk slightly more than thirteen time a day every year..

I'll drink to that -- Tom

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 10:37 PM

Following Bert and Paul, it's not just the standard of living that's different, it's the culture. We often spend money because we want to, not because we need to. We buy for reasons of of fashion, taste, appearances, comfort, etc. - something I believe only wealthy people formerly were capable of doing with any regularity.

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: 53
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 10:40 PM

you know your liquor. BOB

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 03:55 AM

"a little fudging around with the year of "late victorian" can give as high as 11,000 pounds as the "today" equivilant of the 40 pounds"

Well that's my annual income then. 200 years ago I'd be titled gentry, today I'm barely above the acceptable standard of living for London (London weighting - an increment for those who work in the sprawling metrolopis where the cost of living is higher), but still almost £2.00 per hour above the present minimum wage.

Maybe these re-enactors have got something about wanting to go back in time....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: Terry K
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 04:48 AM

Ah, those were the days, gin at tuppence a shot - I could get the wife pissed for ten bob.

Cheers, Terry

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: Gervase
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 06:24 AM

Trouble is, these retro-calculators never work. The biggest change in the 'value' of things is the cost of labour - something that has soared over the past century.
£40 an hour is not unusual for a skilled craftsperson these days, wheras in the days of indentures and sweated labour, hourly work could be reckoned in pennies.
Which is one reason why our lives are now full of mass-produced, machine-made gewgaws, and why decorative plastering, woodwork and other craft skills are only within the reach of the super-rich or those who can do the job themselves.
And, at the risk of total thread-creep, anyone who hasn't read The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell has missed one of the great inspirational books on the real value of money and labour. I just wish some of the present UK government had read it!

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: curmudgeon
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 09:16 AM

Jeri's quite right. Not only were people unburdened by the desire to acquire, there just wasn't that much to buy. Of course the very wealthy could indulge in new wigs, silks and satins, imported wines, rich foodstuffs and the like, but for the ordinary folk, there were few needs aside from tthe basics.

Very few people had more than one suit of clothes, beer and plainer victuals were not expensive, nor was lodging.

As for the late Victorian era, Sherlock Holmes observed that a client, with an investment of 400 pounds was quite well off.

Isn't capitalism swell? Tom

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: M.Ted
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 01:06 PM

Here, in the Colonies, about that time, a fairly well to do land owner might spend as little as 10 pounds in a year, given to understand of course, that most food was grown and processed on the farm. Even still, this was an amazement to those who visited from England.( as was the great amount of food that was consumed at mealtime).

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 02:02 PM

I have a brother-in-law who teaches economics at a British university. I have discussed this kind of problem with him, and he says, the only logical way to make comparisons between different eras is to choose some object or commodity which has kept the same intrinsic value over the years. In other words, something which satisfies people today in the same way it did then.

His favorite standard is a pint of beer!

So the question becomes, how many pints could you buy with £40 in 1770, and what would it cost to buy the same number of pints today? That will be your answer.

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: The_one_and_only_Dai
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 11:45 AM

This is the 'pair of shoes' test, isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 12:17 PM

Perhaps we have to compare to modern technological countries. I understand that there are countries today where many people live off the land. The average annual income would be well under £100. In these places £3,440.75 would meke one quite well to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Money Question
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 12:18 PM

Above should read non-technological countries.