Research On The Economic Status Of British Aristocracy In The Middle And Late 19th Century

The traditional British aristocracy is closely connected with land,which is the fundamental guarantee of wealth,status and power.In the era of agricultural prosperity,land has the incomparable stability to other wealth.In addition to the inherent advantages of large-scale property ownership,while the British aristocracy often owns a lot of land,so in the early19 th century,the aristocracy has always been the richest class in the whole society.However,the British aristocrats were not merely conservatives.They also actively participated in some non-agricultural economic activities during the industrial revolution,thus earning a lot of profits.They are the elites both of land and wealth.However,since the 1870 s,Britain experienced a 20-year agricultural crisis.The simultaneous occurrence of economic crisis and agricultural depression,the impact of bad weather and the competition of foreign cheap agricultural products have caused the price of British local agricultural products to fall,and the aristocracy can’t make ends meet.In addition,in the same period,the investigation documents on the land concentration indirectly triggered a wide range of peasant resistance movements.Under the effect of multiple pressures,land rental income decreased,land value fell,and the proportion of agriculture in GDP further decreased.Land is no longer the safest form of wealth holding.In order to solve the economic dilemma,the aristocracy began to take measures such as cutting down their spending,putting down their status to marry wealthy American women,engaging in new jobs,soling real estate in the situation of necessity and so on.The economic pillar on which the aristocracy lived for thousands of years was shaken.As the importance of the land is declining,the intimate bond between the aristocracy and the land is gradually broken.With the enhancement of the middle class’ s economic strength,the growth of the working class and the improvement of the two party system in Britain,since the1880 s,more and more landless people began to become aristocrats and participate in political life,thus changingthe composition of the traditional aristocrats with land as the core,and the boundary between the aristocracy and the common people became increasingly blurred.Due to economic pressure,many nobles no longer perform their traditional responsibilities and obligations,which leads to the crisis of paternalism,and the social influence of nobles gradually declines.With the development of social democratization in the middle and late 19 th century,the political status of the aristocracy was also declining.Generally speaking,compared with the early 19 th century,the British aristocrats in the middle and late 19 th century were not so rich and influential,and their economic status was declining.