My wife’s 7 x great grandfather John PERRETT (c1680-1750) left a number of properties and parcels of land to his children, and also £16 15s of ‘mony, goods and chattles’ (sic) as follows:
- Waring apparel and pocket money – £5
- The goods in y Kitchen – £2 10s
- The goods in y Buttery – 15s
- The goods in y Brewhouse – £1
- 3 beds and other goods in the kitchen – £7 10s
Twelve years earlier, my own 7 x great grandfather George DEAN (c1669-1738) also left a number of properties and parcels of land, as well as cash bequests totalling £190 to his 4 children.
As family historians, what conclusions might we draw from this information?
‘Record survivorship bias’
An instinctive reaction might be that to conclude that both my wife and I are descended from wealthy and privileged ancestors. But remember, absent any inter-marriages within our ancestral lines, we each of us have 256 couples who are our 7 x great grandparents. Wills are only likely to have been made by the better off, and, moreover, it’s only the more wealthy within this group who are likely to have detailed specific bequests. A more typical Will of the period might simply say it was ‘sworn under £100’ which gives us no real indication of the wealth of the deceased. Many of my ancestors would have been far too poor to consider leaving a Will.
Property ownership and values
Both of our ancestors left property and land. Today around 65% of households own their own home (albeit, in many cases, with the help of a mortgage). One hundred years ago this figure was around 25% (source: figure 1.1 in this Government report https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/461439/EHS_Households_2013-14.pdf). Travel further back in time and in the eighteenth century it simply wasn’t possible for the vast majority to own land, it was all held by or on behalf of the Crown. Our 6 x great grandparents, aunts and uncles were left property and land, but they would also have become responsible for paying the rent.
The present day value of historic amounts of money
What then can we say about the amounts of cash our ancestors left? John PERRETT’s Will gives us a little more clue than George DEAN’s in that it tells us that £16 15s is the value of the petty cash and goods in what looks like a fairly substantive property – one with enough room to make butter and brew ale.
As a family historian I come across many approaches used to attempt to compare amounts of money over different time periods. From my old day job I’m also aware of many of the issues with the data (e.g. inconsistencies throughout and the paucity of historic information) and methodologies (layers of assumptions that need to be made the further back in time you go and changes in the composition, and mathematics of calculating, indices over time).
So just tell me what you think!
Because it is complicated I’m going to jump to setting out my case for the conclusion I’ve reached as to the best way to think about the question from the perspective of a family historian. And therein lies an important point. What exactly is the question we’re trying to answer?
I think that most commonly the question we’re really trying to answer is along the lines, ‘How much money would I need to hold in my hand today in order to feel as well-off as my ancestor would have done at the time they received their bequest?’ This comparison needs to include allowance for three things. First, prices have gone up; secondly, wages have gone up more as industrialisation as helped us produce more with the less; and thirdly, there is now more that we need to buy in order to feel as wealthy – John and George did not have mobile phone contracts to pay for, cars to run or expect to take foreign holidays.
This leads me to the relative income approach described in more detail and calculated using http://www.measuringworth.com. On this basis John’s £16 15s has a present day worth of around £45,000 and George’s £190 of cash bequests are worth around £540,000.
Other approaches
If we just used an index of prices then the two bequests would be around £3,000 and £33,000 respectively.
The £3,000 figure for John’s Will might look like a more realistic figure for the value of some petty cash, three beds, some pots and pans and some old clothes. But what this fails to capture is just how valuable those possessions were in those days, or, equivalently, how unusual it was to have so many of them. Looked at another way, the £16 15s was enough to equip a large house with all the required mod cons. My approach is saying that the £45,000 is a better modern day equivalent of this than £3,000.
Some final thoughts
The more you use and think about these methods the more it helps build you understanding of our social and economic history.
Perhaps you could relate past amounts to the price of a loaf of bread or a pint of beer … but then you might need to understand and consider the history of taxation and price controls that have applied to these.
Perhaps you could relate past amounts to average wages … but then you might need to understand how these averages have been calculated – for example, how does your chosen index treat those who are not in work or are working part time?
Between 1850 and 1900 prices hardly changed whilst wages and ‘relative income values’ doubled. The primary driver here was industrialisation which allowed us to make more with less, but without electricity in homes, cars or planes etc there wasn’t much more a household ‘needed’ to spend money on. In fact it’s only really since the second half of the twentieth century that the data for relative income values suggests that we’ve needed more and more money in order to feel as wealthy. Questions as to whether we really ‘need’ this additional stuff and whether the position is sustainable, to quote Douglas Adams, ‘hang in the air the way bricks don’t’, but are most definitely beyond the scope of this piece and this blog!
Your thoughts and questions
Let me know your thoughts and questions relating to the above. I’m particularly interested in helping anyone think through any family history puzzles relating to financial matters.
Bibliography and resources
- Clark, Gregory. 2011. Average Earnings and Retail Prices, UK, 1209-2010. Available at https://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/ukearncpi/earnstudynew2017.pdf
- Crosby, Alan. 2009. How to Convert Old Money Values. Who do you think you are [magazine], April 2009, pp58-60
- Fouquet, Roger & Pearson, Peter. 2006. Seven Centuries of Energy Services: The Price and Use of Light in the United Kingdom (1300-2000). The Energy Journal. 27. 138-178. http://10.2307/23296980.
- http://www.measuringworth.com
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