lass is a complex term, in use since the late eighteenth
century, and employed in many different ways. In our context
classes are the more or less distinct social groupings which at
any given historical period, taken as a whole, constituted
British Society. Different social classes can be (and were by
the classes themselves) distinguished by inequalities in such
areas as power, authority, wealth, working and living
conditions, life-styles, life-span, education, religion, and
culture. Early in the nineteenth century the labels "working
classes" and "middle classes" were already coming into common
usage. The old hereditary aristocracy, reinforced by the new
gentry who owed their success to commerce, industry, and the
professions, evolved into an "upper class" (its consciousness
formed in large part by the Public Schools and Universities)
which tenaciously maintained control over the political system,
depriving not only the working classes but the middle classes of
a voice in the political process. The increasin