Victorian Times

At the moment I am filling or at least trying to fill gaps in the story. The story is supposed to be a story of redemption of a mean girl turning ito a descend girl. I am aware that mean might be mean nowadays but normal behavior back then. I am aiming for 1880 since men were still at the top of the totem pole but women were slowly moving up beside him. In the 1880ies or was it 1890ies they were even allowed property.

Money
When I read 'Pride and Prejudice 10-15 year ago. I was left aghast when Mr. Darcy's friend who has fallen for Elisabeth's sister and is of upper class breeding is said to have a yearly income of 10,000 pounds and that rumors are that Mr. Darcy has up to 20,000 pounds a year. Since I can't remember the exact numbers it might be that their income has to be halved but even the numbers I remember would make them look like paupers nowadays.
Then I learned that in 2012 you had to multiply the amount by 100 and nowadays by 150. Thus Mr. Darcy would have a yearly income of 3 million pounds. Not poor but still not exactly super rich either.
I read of the Opium Wars but it seems the English are drug addicts. The old Pound Stirling was measured by LSD. Not as for lysergid the mind altering substance but as in pound (L=libre), Shilling (S=solidi) and pence (D=denarii). In addition I learned the meaning of pence and penny. pence = the value while penny is the coin. And there I always thought pence was the penny before the penny.

Parents and kids
Another thing that struck me as odd was the Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Bennet talk of Elizabeth's parents. This year I read 'The weaver takes a wife' and even after marriage she calls him Mr. Brundy while he as a more simple soul calls her 'elen which even might be insulting since she is of aristocratic origin. The question is would it be more proper if he called her Lady Helen? She at one point scolds someone that even after she lost her standing and is Mrs. Brundy now, she still is Lady Helen to him. Her father 'sold' her for 75,000 pounds since he was bankrupt and wealth, title and name would go to his son anyway. Actually he gave her the choice marry him or become a governess or travel companion to an old rich lady since he would not be able to support her anymore because she had scared off all her potential husbands.
At least now I know that children called their parent mama and papa back then. The worst is that a sibling meant competition not 'friend'. I got told that I offered my brother a drink once it was said that I tried to dunk him in the toilet ;)
'Tom and Jerry' was tame compared to us but exterior threads would see us stick together against all odds.

Story setting Class
Aristocracy might be more interesting but Middle class is probably more believable since it's closer to us. The age of the female cast doesn't matter as much since before 21 she is a child anyway and after 21 she is the 'property' of her husband and past 25 she might already be considered a spinster. In addition Aristocracy would be home schooled and a chance encounter after school couldn't happen. 6th form college sounds OK to me but it means at 18 they both are still kids.

Punishment at school
First I wanted to start the story with a weird punishment at school for boys I read about some punishment practiced at American schools during Victorian times where the teacher would make a boy sit beside a girl. It mentioned boys were utterly afraid of cooties. When I checked a dictionary it didn't explain why that might make boys afraid of girls. Nonetheless it sounds like a weird form of punishment especially considering the alternate, the use of a cane.

At the moment I am looking for mean things a girl could do back then.

Any ideas?

If you’re aiming for the later years of the 19th century or the Victorian age then you may not want to use Austen as a source. She was a Regency author. She died in 1817, 20 years before Victoria was crowned.

Yes, Dickens is Victorian (early) along with the Bronte sisters, Anthony Trollope, and Thomas Hardy.

@ Seegee

In the author pages of 'Sheri Cobb South' who wrote 'The weaver takes a wife' I read regency for the first time and assumed it was another word for Victorian times. Now I have to assume it's the pre Victorian time. Actually it's probably a RomCom but it showed me that the author could have done some research since I doubt that around 1800 there were 100 pound notes even brand new ones. When Lady Helen asks her husband for 500 pounds to pay off her brothers gambling debts he doesn't flinch and hands her five new 100 pound notes.


@ thepreacherswife
I got a few ebooks from Thomas Hardy but until now I always shuffeled them to the back.



Too bad I just realized I mixed up times. Since I wanted railways and thought 1870 was the important date but it was even before 1830 that the first raillines were established.I guess 1850 would be the charm.

Regency refers to the late 18th and early 19th century. The term refers to the period where George IV sat in for his father George III, who was mentally incapable. At the time George IV was the Prince Regent. The whole period where the Hanovers were the kings of England is referred to as Georgian, because it started with George I and ended with George IV.

@ Seegee

Is it possible that people counted differenty in Regence or Victorian times ?

By now more than once age is declared like four and twenty for twentyfour or 4+20 instead of 24
Actually the German counting is still that way vier(4)undzwanzig(20) only since German loves long words it's one word not three.
Because of the weird German numbersystem I was a bit baffled ;)
321 = three hundred twenty one or drei_hundert(300)_ein(1)_und(+)_zwanzig(20)
You need to plan ahead in German if you turn speech into numbers

@ Moody
From what little I know, I don’t believe they counted appreciably differently. They did do a lot of in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and twenty four, but if you’re going into that level of detail you’re kind of getting lost in the weeds.

Moody
Cooties is an American term for what in the UK we call nits, which I think you would know as Kopflause. But the word also gets used to mean an imaginary illness that you will catch from someone you don’t like.

@ Seegee
Actually I saw it in a novel and it's the German way of calling numbers it intrigued me.
I always thought the English way was more logical
123 = (English)100+20+3 (German) 100+3+20 you always keep place for the 10
1234 = (English)100ß-200-40-4+20+3 and (German) 1000+200+4+30
It seems funny which means I might use it as part of being different but it's only ambient.

Since I want railways I will go for steampunk or even Dieselpunk to allow dirigibles (I learned that word from Goodgulfs 'Christmas Across The County Line' aka Hazard County. For me it was always Zeppelin not dirigible. It will allow for inaccuracies and people can blame the counting on Steampunk.


@ KatiePie
Thanks for that input. The dictionary said 'Krätze', oh just saw next line Laus (louse and lice as plural) with Kopflaus as example. Since school in England were probably not co-ed it's no use to think about it's use and somehow it doesn't sound right to threaten someone with lice or parasites. That's sick, even for teachers.

Airships are a staple of steampunk. Steampunk is mostly, not always, set in the late 1800’s. Usually England, but I’ve seen it set in the US.