The next class were the gentry. Their family heads had land and were often Justices of the Peace. They were sometimes members of the House of Commons. The oldest son took over from his father, while the other had to find a living such as in the church, law, medicine, or trade. They usually lived in mansions.
The old yeoman class was disappearing due to their selling their land to larger landowners. Farming on a large scale was more productive.
The next class were the "middling sort". In this class were merchants, lawyers, substantial tenant farmers, smaller freeholders, millers, innkeepers, in town traders, shopkeepers (who now kept their wares inside and lived on the second floor), middlemen, clothiers, ironmongers, goldsmiths, grocers, linen drapers, apothecaries, school masters, clerks and civil servants, and customs and excise men. The town people lived in town houses of two stories plus an attic.
The last class were the manual workers. These were wage earners or independent craftsmen, farriers, rural smiths (who shod horses and made stair rails, window-bars, torch extinguishers, lamp irons, bells, bolts, hinges, locks, and fire-grates), sawyers, carpenters, joiners, wheelwrights, nail makers, brick makers, plumbers (made lead cisterns, kitchen sinks, rain-water heads, drain pipes and lead flats for houses and ornaments), thatchers, spinners (silk, flax, hemp, wool, hair), dyers, wool combers, weavers, shoemakers, hat makers, belt and buckle makers, dressmakers, milliners (hats, caps, bonnets, cloaks, hoods, muffs), feather workers, button makers, lace makers, steel pin makers, brewers, cutlery makers, soap makers, candle makers (made from beeswax, fallow, mutton-fat, or beef-drippings), comb makers, barber/hairdressers (shaved, cut hair, made wigs and braids, and let blood), curriers, leather workers, carpet weavers, paper makers, tin-plate makers, printers, enamel workers, braziers and coppersmiths (made kettles, saucepans, canisters, milk pails, lanterns, candle boxes, candle sticks, and lamp lighters), basket makers, jewelers (made rings, perfumes, match boxes, buckles, and tops of canes), watch and clock makers, type founders, letter cutters, trunk and chest makers, cabinet makers, saddlers, coach body builders, coach carriage makers, shipwrights, rope makers, and sail makers. These workers typically worked in their stone or brick houses in a rural setting, with gardens, a cow, a horse, pigs, and poultry around them on 2-6 acres. They now ate wheaten bread instead of rye bread, much meat and cheese, and drank tea. These people also worked in the harvesting of grain. Some consolidation of work was starting. For instance, the weaver, who had furnished himself with warp and weft, worked it up, and brought it to market himself was being displaced by weavers who worked under supervision for one merchant in a town on looms the merchant had acquired. Many women and children were so employed. It was not unusual for a man to work 13 hours a day for 6 days a week. Real wages were higher than at any time since the mid-1400s. The wage earners were well above the subsistence level as long as trade was good. Working men could now afford leather shoes and white bread. But eventually, as the employer came to realize how dependent the weaver had become on him, wages tended to fall. In 1757 a Gloucester weaver, with his wife to help him, could earn, when work was good, from 13s. to 18s. a week. A few years later, he could only earn about 11s. A woman spinner earned 10-15d. a day in 1764, but 3-5d. in 1780. In the same period, men's wages fell from 17d. to 10d. a day. Only certain workers, whose special occupation needed greater skill, e.g. the wool-combers, whose wool was longer and of better quality than carded wool, and shearers, were better paid. In 1770, wool combers made 13s. a week; their wage was about the same all over the country because they traveled form town to town in search of work and always supported each other. Also in 1770, Newcastle miners earned 15s. a week, Sheffield cutlers 13s.6d. a week, a Rotherham blacksmith 13s. a week, a furnace keeper at Horsehay about 12s. a week, a Staffordshire potter from 8-12s., a Witney blanket weaver or a Wilton carpet weaver 11s. or more a week, a Manchester cotton weaver from 7-10s. a week, and a Leeds cloth weaver about 8s. In this class also were ploughmen, cowmen, dairymaids of the bigger farms. They had cottages of wood, clay, and straw, with clay floors and low ceilings, and a divided ground floor. A few had homes built of stone, covered with slate or thatch.
Wages of industry were higher than those of agriculture. In 1770, a day laborer earned 5-6s. a week in winter and 7-9s. in summer (without board or lodging). In the short harvest time, he could earn 12s. a week.
Lastly were the mass of the population of London: hordes of laborers who depended on casual employment and could be dismissed at will.
About half the population had no resources but their labor, which was usually unskilled and lowly paid. In good times they had just enough to feed themselves.
The gap between rich and poor became greater. Marriage remained a main way to wealth. Also, one trained in the law could aspire to have a successful career in high political office, which also brought wealth. But there was less social mobility than in the previous century and many landed families were consolidating their position. They expected their oldest son to take and preserve the family estate. Industrialists who had made a fortune for example in steel, cotton, coal mining, porcelain, and merchants who wanted to turn themselves into landed gentlemen found it very difficult to buy such estates. Old dissenter families, Quakers in particular, who were highly esteemed as businessmen, as industrialists, and as model employers were excluded from the Anglican landowning society. Rich tradesmen, artists, actors, and writers found it difficult to buy substantial houses in the small market towns and countryside because of an entrenched hierarchical atmosphere there that didn't exist in London. The only gentlemen who were in household service were librarians, tutors, or chaplains. They ate with the family and did not consider themselves servants. Servants were kept more at a distance. By the 1750s the servant class was clearly defined. Their quarters were moved to the basement of the house and they ate together in the kitchen. But some householders still had special occasions when everyone would eat together in the dining room, with the servants at one end of the table. In 1767 about one tenth of the population in London had servants. Even bricklayers and milk sellers had a servant. Most families had just one servant. Most wives employed some other woman or child to help in washing and scouring or in the minding of the children.
London had grown beyond the locations of its walls around the City. London stretched ten miles along the Thames, and was three miles wide in the center. On the east of the City was the port and industry. The west side ended at Hyde Park and Regent's Park and was residential. In 1710 it was still possible to shoot woodcock in Regent Street. In 1750, Westminster Bridge was opened. In 1760, the City walls were taken down to ease congestion. The typical London house, usually brick, was on a rectangular plan and had a basement to utilize all the space possible. There were pictures on the walls which were now more covered with damask, brocade, silk, and wallpaper hung and plain paint than by wood wainscoting. On the first floor was a front hall or parlor and a back parlor. One of these parlor rooms was the most important room, where the family entertained or spent leisure time. In it were sofas, armchairs, and stools of mahogany or white gilded wood. They were upholstered with damask or needlework. Imported mahogany was replacing as a favorite the walnut that was usually used instead of oak. Much wood was inlaid with a variety of woods. There was also a carved tripod table, china table, card table, and perhaps bookcases and/or tea-table. Furniture with original designs made by the cabinet-maker Chippendale was available. His genius was in combining various motifs into one harmonious design. Cabinet makers had to keep abreast of his standards and to imitate them to conform with their customers' orders. Cabriole legs with claw and ball feet came into fashion with Queen Anne about 1712. Between windows were tall mirrors. There were pictures on the walls. From 1760, glass chandeliers hung from the ceiling to reflect candlelight coming from standing candlesticks or glazed hanging lanterns with brass frames. The fireplace had an elaborate mantel. The fire was kept going all day. It was lit by a tender box, which was unreliable. An iron fire-back was behind the fire. The firewood was placed on andirons. Fire grates were used from about 1712. At a corner of the building was added a closet. On the second floor was a dining room, continuation of the closet below, and a drawing room, dressing room, or bedroom, and perhaps a study or music room with harpsichord. The dining room had a fireplace, curtains over the windows looped up at the cornices, one or more mahogany tables, a set of mahogany chairs with leather or hair- cloth seats fixed with brass nails (perhaps with some sort of metal springing), two mahogany sideboards with marble tops, cupboards or shelves or cabinets with displays of china porcelain, a wine-cooler, a dumb-waiter, and a folding leather screen. The china, which was displayed, was mostly imported, but there was some English china. Later, there was famous Wedgwood stoneware and pottery with bright, unfading glaze, or with dull black and red surfaces, biscuit ware of pale green, blue or purple, upon which white designs stood out like cameos. They came from the pottery factory at Staffordshire founded by potter Josiah Wedgwood in 1769. There were silver and pewter plates and serving pieces, silver candlesticks, and silver knives, spoons, and two and three pronged forks, glass salt-cellars from 1724, and fingerbowls from which one rinsed one's mouth or cleaned one's fingers after dinner which were made of glass from about 1760. On the third floor were bedrooms and a nursery. In the bedrooms, there was a high bed with curtains, canopies, piles of blankets and pillows, and stairs; wardrobe; chairs; a wash hand stand; chests of drawers; writing bureau; dressing table with a couple drawers and a mirror; swing standing mirror; tin rush candle canister; and night commode. Children and servants slept on low wooden bedsteads. Walls were stucco, a form of cement that could be sculpted, or paneled or hung with silk and printed paper. Servants, such as the page and footmen, slept in the attic and perhaps in the kitchen or cellar. There was a wood staircase for the family and a back staircase for the servants. The floors and staircases were protected with carpeting. Servants had no right to free time or to holidays. The kitchen was in the basement or in a covered shed in the back. It had an open fire and a tin oven. The cold water tap over the stone sink could supply cold water from a cistern in the basement or hand-pumped to a roof cistern through wooden pipes at very low pressure at stated hours for a fee. There was a wash shed in back. Water pumped from the Thames into underground pipes was thus distributed to householders three times a week. Some water came from a well or spring, rain, and street water sellers. Water carriers were still employed at set fees. Water was kept in lead cisterns. The wealthy had basement cisterns filled by a commercial company. The free public conduits of water were out of use by 1750. The front door of the house had two strong bolts on the inside and a heavy chain. The windows could be shuttered and barred. There were sash windows with cords and brass pulleys. At the back of the house was a garden and perhaps a coach house or stables. The latrine was usually not in the house, but somewhere in the back garden area. Under it was a brick drain leading to a public sewer or to a cesspool. Smelly gases arose from it. Sometimes people gathered such waste up to sell to farmers returning home in an otherwise empty wagon. In 1760, patented inside toilets began to be used. A watch-maker named Alexander Cummings patented in 1775 the water-closet, which had a stink trap u-bend behind which, after flushing, water resided and prevented the back-flow of noxious sewer gas. Its pans and overhead cisterns were made in pottery. They were supported by wood structures. There were better cements for building. Chinese porcelain, embroidery, and lacquer-work were popular. Landscaping to reproduce an idealized country scene replaced formal gardens. Furniture and landscaped gardens were often done in a Chinese style. Foreign trees were imported.
Many of the well-to-do now lived in districts without as well as within the city limits. Many streets east of the City were named after the governing families whose estates were there. Their mansions had interior columns, archways, marble halls and fireplaces, carving, gilding, rich colors, and high ornamented ceilings. They each had a picture gallery, a library, stables with coachmen, grooms, and stableboys, and a still-room for concocting liquors and cordials such as cherry brandy, sloe gin, and elderberry wine. Medicine and scents were also developed in the still-room. Washing was in done wash bowls held by wooden stands wood and in a built-in bathtub. Hot water usually had to carried up to it, but bathtubs with hot and cold running water were known. In these mansions, there were many private parties and balls. The standard for politeness here was high and gentlemen were expected to keep their tempers. This came about because impoliteness could easily lead to a quarrel and then a duel. The pistol was replacing the sword as the weapon of choice for duels. Good manners developed for all occasions, with much less swearing and less rudeness. By gentlemen's agreements, men did favors for each other without a monetary price, but with the expectancy of a favor in return. The love of one man for another was recognized as the highest and noblest of human passions. People of high social standing left their country estates to spend the winter season in their townhouses in London with its many recreations such as receptions, routs, levies, masquerades, balls, dinner parties, clubs, pleasure gardens, theaters, shops, shows, taverns, and chocolate and coffee houses. Coffee houses provided Turkish coffee, West Indian sugar and cocoa, Chinese tea, Virginia tobacco, and newspapers. They were frequented by learned scholars and wits, dandies, politicians, and professional newsmongers. Men of fashion often engaged in wagers and gambling at their clubs and coffee houses. There were wagers on such matters as the longevity of friends and prominent people, fertility of female friends, wartime actions, and political matters. Carriage by sedan-chair was common. Gentlemen often had valets. In 1776, Buckingham House was bought as a palace for the royal couple.