HOW WOULD OUR POORER ANCESTORS HAVE DRESSED?
To form a clear picture of our ancestors’ daily lives, we must consider their economic position and living conditions. Before modern state welfare provision, many people were what we might term ‘poor’, struggling to meet basic physical needs – rent, fuel, food, light and clothing. The working classes at large could encounter major fluctuations in circumstances, from relative comfort to financial distress and distinct shifts might occur over time within the same household. Typically, when there were several children to feed and clothe, and/or if the breadwinner was out of work, then families would soon become impoverished; however, at periods of full employment and/or when children left home or contributed to the household income, economic pressures might ease. Poverty was not static and ‘the poor’ were not a homogeneous group, but included many, from life-long paupers dependent on aid, to labouring families on low or unpredictable wages, living in penury and experiencing dire need at certain points in their lives.
A combination of meagre wages and large families meant that members of impoverished households generally owned just one set of clothes
A respectable appearance
A person’s outward appearance – their clothes, hair, accessories and general demeanour – demonstrates to others who they
