1843 Lottery of Life

Bob Cratchit, the hard working and impoverished Clerk of Ebeneezer Scrooge was justified in his serious consideration of leaving the employ of the miser and taking up another position.

This was not just on the grounds of having to work prolonged hours at a harshly furnished work station and, in the colder months of the year in poor daylight and hearth warmth but with the prospect of his labours and value being acknowledged by the prospect of an additional 2 shillings per week.

According to the 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, Bob Cratchit was on a wage of 15 shillings a week.

This was not actually that far adrift from the national average for an equivalent position as a General Office or Solicitors Clerk. It will have been a struggle on that income with a family consisting of a wife and six children but not an unusual situation to be in for the mid Victorian Era where a large family unit was inevitable what with levels of child mortality and a low life expectancy generally in a tough economic and rather unhealthy environment.

Charles Dickens conveys the fate of the weak and sickly in the Cratchit household in that we are only told the names of four of the offspring with Martha, Peter and Belinda being the siblings of the invalided but nevertheless cheery Tiny Tim. It is as if 30% of the younger members of the family are, in effect, dispensable.

In the recent BBC TV adaptation of A Christmas Carol there is a grounding of the characters and an explanation of their behaviour and motivations in quite a unique way although only really filling in between the lines of Dickens' story and morality tale.

Not to be a spoiler but in the final redemption of Scrooge he visits the Cratchit house and offers, not as in the big screen movie versions a large fowl for the Christmas Meal, medical salvation for Tiny Tim and all the Best Compliments of the Season but rather a lump sum of £500 for immediate payment into the Cratchit account, if indeed they possessed such a thing.

Earlier in the dialogue Scrooge brags about his personal fortune between £600 and £700 in his strongbox in his mansion and so the offer is very much borne out of guilt and self preservation after his epiphany at the hands of successive Spirits over the previous hours.

That sum, whilst perceived to be fairly paltry when compared to today's lifestyle requirements did, in 1843, represent a princely sum- in fact in current pounds sterling this amounted to around £45,000.

To the Cratchit family this windfall was the equivalent of a Lottery win with potential to elevate them from Precariat  into a relatively secure existence. Their present residence will have been rented as outright or owner occupation was unheard of beyond the privileged and upper classes of the Victorian age. It is possible that they had a few rooms in a house shared with a number of other family units and relying upon use of common amenities for cooking, sanitation and laundry. In their new found affluence the Cratchit's could think about renting a whole place for themselves.

The capital sum could give them around 17 years of rental payments towards a typical middle class property with better facilities and a healthier lifestyle. That would certainly see Bob and his missus through to their latter years by which time the four named and two anonymous children will have reached adulthood and employable age to contribute to the running costs of the house as per the expectations of the era.

Presumably Bob would still take up the new job and the uplift to 17 shillings a week would cover standard outgoings such as a daily loaf of bread at around 8 old pence and money could be budgeted for the Christmas Fare of Goose at 7 shillings, Onion, sage and oranges for stuffing at 3 shillings and a traditional plum pudding dessert at 5 shillings for the ingredients.

The £500 may have been a bit of poetic licence by the writers of the recent adaptation but works well in putting the social and economic situation into context and how much of the Victorian population teetered on the edge of survival on a daily basis.