Miss Jane Austen... In Real Life

Friday 22 January 2010
Letter #2, To Cassandra, from Steventon, “What a good-for-nothing-fellow Charles is to bespeak the stockings – I hope he will be too hot all the rest of his life for it!” – Jane Austen, Thursday January 1796

This note is in reference to a statement she made in letter #1. We discussed it on 20 December 2010.

http://allthings-jane-austen.blogspot.com/2009/11/letter-1.html

Apparently, she asked Charles to buy her silk stockings and then she spent all her money on white gloves and pink fabric, so she could not pay him back for them.

Her wit! and poor Charles. He must have been pretty amiable for her to ask, and him to agree, to buy the silk stockings in the first place. He did it, and then to be scolded for it! J

Let’s see if we can figure out how much those silk stockings would have cost.

In an expense account listing for President George Washington in 1796 there are listings for Mrs. Washington for:

$ 3.00 for gloves
$17.50 for 5 pair of silk stockings
.85 for cotton stockings

It seems they paid the girl who helped in the kitchen 45 schillings, which equaled $8.63.

So, and someone correct me if I am wrong. It has been a very, very long time since I was in a math class,

Divide 17.50 x 5 = 3.50, so, $3.50 if she had bought them in America, but…

If 45 schillings equaled $8.63, that would mean each schilling would equal about 19 cents, so, 3.50 x .19 = .665.

After all of that, the stockings would have cost just about 7 schillings.

And, just for fun and curiosity sake, if Mr. Darcy made 10,000 pounds a year, and 1 schilling = .19, and 20 schillings equaled 1 pound,

If we convert pounds to schillings, 10,000 x 20 = 200,000 schillings x .19 = 38,000?

So, Mr. Darcy made $38,000 a year in 1796 equivalents? It does not seem like that much does it, but when you take into consideration that a family making above 4,000 pounds a year in Jane Austen’s time enjoyed unlimited comforts: servants, carriages, horses, a second home, etc. And remember, Mr. Bingley only made 5,000 pounds a year, so …

To put it a little more into our perspective, Mr. James Heldman estimated that the pound in 1810 would equal $33.00 in 1988, so Mr. Darcy’s 10,000 pounds would have been worth $330,000.00 in 1988.

Mr. Edward Copeland estimated that in 1989 the 1810 pound would be closer to $80.00, so that would increase Mr. Darcy’s income to $800,000.00 a year.

And, Mr. Gene Ruoff said the 1810 pound, in 1991 would be closer to $200.00. So, good heavens, Mr. Darcy, it does look like you can afford Pemberley after all, at $2,000,000.00 a year.

I have not yet had my coffee, but I think this is right.

I wonder if Jane would have asked for the .85 cotton stockings she would have been able to afford it all and Charles would have been saved the trouble of being “too hot for all the rest of his life for it.”