Antedating of "Working Class", and 2 from 1747

[Joel S. Berson]

At 2/4/2012 12:23 AM, Geoffrey Nunberg wrote:
>It's an interesting eg -- I ran into one like it
>the other day from a few decades later. But
>surely this doesn't anticipate "working
>class"  in the sense, e.g., that E. P. Thompson
>was talking about in The Origins of the English
>Working Class, which didn't emerge until much
>later. A "Class of people" isn't a social class
>in the important sense of the word -- the status
>arrangements of industrial society -- the concept simply wasn't there then.

I believe the concept of social classes, in
particular economic classes, *was* there then
(early 18th century), just usually with different
terms -- "lower sort", "middle" or "middling
sort".  GBooks has many instances of "lower sort"
before (arbitrarily) 1756.  Progressing backwards:

1756:  The Gentleman's and London Magazine, p.
619:  "If we can render this spirit general among
the lower sorts of people, I make not the least
doubt of its prevailing soon among the rich and
great, because, let a man's rank or fortune be
what it will, he can then no way recommend
himself to the notice of our government, but by
gaining the character of being a brave and excellent soldier."

1709:  Jonathan Swift, "A Project for the
Advancement of Religion, &c.", in Miscellanies
(1733), vol. 1, pp. 135-136:  "For instance,
might not the Queen's Domesticks of the middle
and lower Sort, be obliged, upon Penalty of
Suspension or Loss of their Employments, to a
constant weekly Attendance on the Service of the
Church ; to a decent Behaviour in it , to receive
the Sacrament four times in the Year; ..."

(Someone who was "employed" was of the lower
sort, those who worked, not of the "middle sort",
who were owners of businesses, artisans,
shopkeepers, professionals, etc., who employed others to work.)

1656:  James Harrington's "Oceana" uses "lower
sort" many times.  "Oceana" is "an exposition on
an ideal constitution, designed to allow for the
existence of a utopian republic", where "The
first constituent in Harrington's theoretical
argument states that the determining element of
power in a state is property, particularly
property in land"  (Wikipedia).  I would be
surprised if his "lower sort" was not the lower
economically.  For example, I find "lower sort"
in a discussion of marrying for money, which is
not a problem for the lower sort because they can
"shift for themselves".  (From a 1737 edition.)

Also, "middling sort" can be found widely in GBooks before 1755.

Re E. P. Thompson, whose latest edition is 1968,
there are later historians who put the origins of
the consumer society (for the American colonies
at least; I have not read much about Britain)
much earlier than circa 1740.  Reading colonial
newspaper advertisements of the 1730s evidences
many manufactured goods (imported from Britain),
surely made by a working class.

So I think the question is, "When did 'lower
sort' become 'working class'?", and I hesitate to
discard Fred's discovery.  Particularly since
GBooks turns up an instance not too much later than his 1735:

1747:  "The Mother Tongue ...", translated from
The Père Girard by Viscount Ebrington, M.P. (London: John W. Parker, 1747).
Page 134:  "The great body of the working class
circumscribes its intelligence within the narrow
sphere in which they earn their daily bread. Then
come sensuality and the thirst for gold, which
will not allow man to rise to what is true, and beautiful, and sublime."
Page 229:  "How dare you then despise those
working classes, whose labour and ingenuity
provide for your wants, and procure for you the
comforts of life ? To despise operatives is to
contemn our Saviour, for He worked in the
workshop of His "foster-father, who was a carpenter."

Joel

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