The pound in their pockets

Currency
Before decimalization of British currency in 1971, the pound sterling was subdivided into twenty units called a shilling (abbreviation s); each shilling was subdivided into twelve units called a penny (abbreviation d); a farthing was ¼d. A sovereign (abbreviation sov.) was a gold coin nominally worth £1; a guinea was 21s.

Between 1850 and 1900 the purchasing power of £1 was broadly equivalent to £40 in today's money. Thus a case of Château Flotis which James Fiddaman was selling for 21s in 1872 cost the equivalent of £42. James' estate was valued at almost £8,500 in 1884, equivalent to £340,000 today, making him a wealthy man but by no means a millionaire.
Incomes
The upper and middle classes around 1870 included about two million income earners. Of these, about two hundred thousand had more than £300 per year; fewer than eight thousand had more than £5,000 per year. The vast majority, with pretensions to respectability and incomes of less than £300 per year, were shopkeepers, small businessmen, schoolteachers, clerks and shop assistants. Anything from £500 to £1500 per year was considered a comfortable income and a young, mid-Victorian, middle class couple might marry comfortably on £500 a year and expectations. In 1861 Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management suggested that £1000 per year would support a cook, upper housemaid, nursemaid, under housemaid, and a man servant while £150 or £200 per year was sufficient only for a maid-of-all-work and a girl occasionally. Lower grade clerks on £100 per year struggled to maintain their social position.

Mrs Beeton's book also indicated the annual wages which the mistress of the house might expect to pay to servants. A housekeeper received anything from £20 to £45, a cook £12 to £40, an upper housemaid £10 to £20, and other maids £4 to £14. A valet or butler might command between £25 and£50 per year, a coachman £20 to £35, and a stableboy or page £6 to £14. The variations reflected the class of the household, differences between town and country, the servant's experience and length of service, and also the extent of any allowances for livery or extras such as tea, sugar and beer.

Between 1860 and 1890, wages changed remarkably little although there were significant variations between town and country and from one region to another. At Lynn, a labourer who was fortunate enough to be in work would have earned 3d or 4d per hour, 20s a week for a ten hour day and six day week. The rate for a boy was considerably less, perhaps no more than 1d or 2d per hour. Bricklayers, carpenters, masons, and smiths commanded a rate of about 6d per hour, corresponding to 30s a week, while engineers could earn 50s a week. The weekly pay of a police constable was about 20s. Pilots in the port of Lynn averaged about £60 per year.
Costs of living
A middle class family with an income of £200 per year would have spent around £75 on housekeeping and £20 or so on renting a house. The poorer citizens of Lynn were able to rent a house in Pleasant row or Begley's buildings for between £6 and £8 per year, including water rate, while the poorest lived in the yards, such as Atto's, where two dozen houses were let at weekly rents of 1s 8d for a single room, 2s 6d if furnished, and 2s 2d for a two roomed cottage. Once or twice a year, they had to pay about 6s to empty the stinking cesspits which served the privies in the yards.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, a pound of butter cost about 10d, a dozen eggs 7d, a pint of milk three halfpennies and a two pound loaf 2d. Meat was the major component of most diets and cost about 10d per lb.. In the early 1850s, the Lynn poor were able to buy sheep breasts and shoulders at 4½d per lb. from Robert Porter, a wholesale butcher, who killed many hundred sheep each week and sold the best cuts to London.