Reply to Sherlock Holmes: is he upper or middle class?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What's an aristocrat versus upper class?[/quote]

In Holmes' day?

The aristocracy was a subcomponent of the upper classes and the most prestigious component. They were the titled upper classes, people who had hereditary titles and their families. The earls, lords, dukes and marquesses and the baronets.

The upper classes was a bigger group that included the aristocracy, plus the landed gentry, and the very rich families in trade. They overlapped and intermarried. Within this group there were gradations. The gentry, for example, could be divided into upper, middle and lower gentry. Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice was of the upper gentry, he is effectively a non-titled aristocrat in that he had a large estate, a fortune, an illustrious family and family connections to the titled aristocracy, so he would be accepted by them as one of theirs. He'd actually be richer than may titled lords. The Bennets, on the other hand, were further down the gentry ranks and distant from the aristocracy in their eyes and that level of the gentry rarely intermarried with the aristocracy (Holmes likely would be from a gentry origin comparable to the Bennets).

Towards the end of the 19th century the rise of the industrial wealth changed the parameters somewhat as it added a new dimension to the upper classes.

In those days the pecking order among the aristocracy and gentry and other parts of the upper classes was clear cut. These days it's far less so.[/quote]

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