Gentlemen occupation during the Regency/Victorian era?

Question

What did gentlemen do to make money during this era? I mean, in those historical romance novels, the gentlemen don't seem to have a job at all!! So how do they get their money? For example, Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice was rich....but didn't appear to have a job. The same goes for Mr. Rochestor in Jane Eyre!

So, how did these gentlemen get their money? Or, what kind of jobs did men have during those era?

Answer 1

Mr Rochester and Mr Darcy were land owners and would have obtained their income from rents from land - usually from tenant farmers. Much money was inherited and gentlemen lived on 'trust funds', i.e. income from capital they couldn't touch as it was to be kept for future generations. There are many instances of stories where the hero is concerned that he will not get his inheritance - he has to keep an aged Aunt happy, for example - think Wilde's 'The Importance of Being Ernest'. There is literature showing that this kind of parasitic lifestyle went on, at least until the 1920s and 1930s - think the Jeeves and Wooster series and all the idle layabouts in those book inhabiting 'The Drones Club' (the very name being chosen to indicate males who had no useful job in society)

Part of the problem was a class thing. 'Gentlemen' didn't work - at least not in 'trade' which was anything to do with manufacturing, selling etc. This did cause a problem for large families. Often the money would not stretch to maintain several sons. The eldest would get the 'trust fund' - see above, and the younger ones would go into the Army or Navy (probably buying a commission), the Church (many C of E priests in the 19th century weren't really interested in the cure of souls in their parish but in things like collecting butterflies or birds eggs) or the Law. Many younger sons also went into the service of the Empire - in India, for example, and many died young from contracting trpoical diseases.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

It's very simple If you were rich and had more than one son.

The Eldest Inherited the land and money the second when into the church (Church of England of course) and the Youngest was bought a commission in one of the good regiments(The Guards) in the Army.

Upper middle class was similar but the second son worked as a clerk in a law firm, Counting house (a Bank) or in one of the trading companies and spent their lives overseas. The East India Company youngest got a commission in either a regular unit (Not the Guards) the Navy or one of the Private armies that were around at that time like the East India Company, or after the Mutiny the Indian Army.

the Middle and the trades were trapped learning a trade or enlisting in the military as NCO's or petty and Warrant officers or in the Merchant Marine as officers.

The poor were the poor usually they were the trash that made up the army rank and file and crews of England's war and merchant ships.

Not a pretty life unless you were on the top.

I know this from recorded Family History. It was the same in the US.

Answer 4

The romantic novels from the era you speak of were all about rich land and business owners. The men had inherited huge estates of land and/or industrial businesses from their fathers. Before income taxes, minimum wage laws and laws providing protections for the injured, unemployed and children, "Robber Barrons" made quick money because labor was cheap. These romantic characters inherited businesses that were so profitable they sustained themselves with little effort by the owners.

But with the exception of authors such as Charles Dickens, the novels from that time period do not generally look at the majority of people who worked for pathetically low wages that barely kept a roof over their heads and food on their tables.

But many of them do have women from economically poor backgrounds obtaining jobs as governess, where she ends up living happily ever after in rich splendor with the estate's heir. wishful thinking on the part of the readers who read romance novels to escape the reality of their every day lives.

Answer 5

If they weren't landowners, it was the law or the church.
Commerce and industry would make money but it wasn't gentlemanly unless it had been in the family for longer than a generation. Brewing was considered more gentlemanly because of its associations with agriculture.
It was probably just snobbery that kept rags-to-riches millionaires out of High Society, but it had a point, as several of them were (and are) little better than criminals.