I bet you didnt know that

Water John

Maybe they were doing a Liam Lawlor on it. Stretching a postcode to give property a better address, to increase its value.

New Home

Jane Austen characters' incomes

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY 1810 2013 (real value) 2013 (prestige value)
John Dashwood's income £6,000 £371,460.00 £5,326,200.00
Willoughby's income after marriage £3,100 £191,921.00 £2,751,870.00
Mrs Dashwood's and daughter's income £500 £30,955.00 £443,850.00
Edward and Elinor Ferrar's income £850 £52,623.50 £754,545.00
Colonel Brandon and Marriane's income £2,000 £123,820.00 £1,775,400.00

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE 1810 2013 (real value) 2013 (prestige value)
Mr Darcy's income £10,000 £619,100.00 £8,877,000.00
Mr Bingley's income £5,000 £309,550.00 £4,438,500.00
Mr Bennet's income £2,000 £123,820.00 £1,775,400.00
Annual cost of Mr Bennet's daughters £500 £30,955.00 £443,850.00

MANSFIELD PARK 1810 2013 (real value) 2013 (prestige value)
Mr Rushworth's income £12,000 £742,920.00 £10,652,400.00
Edmund and Fanny Bertram's income £700 £43,337.00 £621,390.00

EMMA 1810 2013 (real value) 2013 (prestige value)
Emma's inheritance £30,000 £1,857,300.00 £26,631,000.00
Mrs Elton's fortune £10,000 £619,100.00 £8,877,000.00

PERSUASION 1810 2013 (real value) 2013 (prestige value)
Sir Walter Elliot's fortune (for inheritance by his daughters) £10,000 £619,100.00 £8,877,000.00
Wentworth's fortune £25,000 £1,547,750.00 £22,192,500.00
Anne and Wentworth's potential fortune £28,300 £1,752,053.00 £25,121,910.00

NORTHANGER ABBEY 1810 2013 (real value) 2013 (prestige value)
Catherine Morland's dowry £3,000 £185,730.00 £2,663,100.00

Fourier

That's cool New Home, did you do it yourself?

New Home

Nope, I wish! Source here.

I was reading Pride and Prejudice, and I found a line where it said that Wickam's gambling debts amounted to £10,000 at least, and I was curious to find out to how much that was in today's money. I was wondering if adding a zero or two would have been enough - obviously not!

IvyTheTerrific

Mr Bennet was a whinger so, he had plenty of money after his daughters' costs were removed!

dxhound2005

In Costa Rica the streets have no name, or had no names until recently.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-latin-america-29093133/costa-rica-introduces-postal-address-system

Franz Von Peppercorn

New Home wrote: »

Jane Austen characters' incomes

....

The thing is, except for Darcy (effectively an earl) they weren’t the 19C super rich.

New Home

IvyTheTerrific wrote: »

Mr Bennet was a whinger so, he had plenty of money after his daughters' costs were removed!

I'm still curious as to how much Lady Catherine De Bourgh would be worth.

IvyTheTerrific

New Home wrote: »

I'm still curious as to how much Lady Catherine De Bourgh would be worth.

At least as much as Mr Darcy, I would imagine.

New Home

I thought more, considering how much Mr Collins was gushing over Rosings. And she was "old money".

MikeyTaylor

BaZmO* wrote: »

I suppose the reason it stands out is that all the Northside postcodes have odd numbers with the Southside postcodes being even.

Part of Dublin 20 is on the northside

Franz Von Peppercorn

To put New Home’s stats in perspective - Jane eyre (written a few years later than Austen’s characters) earned £15 a year as a teacher and £30 a year as a governess. The latter was a generous wage and probably about median. She also had room and board as a Governess which was important, as both were expensive relative to wages.

Which brings another point. In comparing eras do we compare median income to median income, or look at purchasing power?

For instance if Jane Eyre was earning the median as a governess then we could multiply by approximately 900 to get the relative position in society today; in the U.K. the median is ~27K. So someone on £30 in janes era is middling as is someone on £27K today.

If on the other hand you compare what people can buy (using items available then and now) someone on £27k today is much better off than Jane. If she did have to buy food and pay rent on her 30 pounds she would have eaten meat very rarely. If I recall chickens were a week’s wages approximately.

I think that’s what the prestige figure was showing in NH’s list. The money’s worth relative to the median or average.

Anyway her characters were all prosperous by the standards of most of society even if they felt poor. Remember they had servants, mostly, while Jane Eyre was a servant herself, albeit a high status one.

(I didn’t google these figures so I may edit later. I think they are approximately right).

Edit:

My 900 ratio looks right. John Dashwood's income of £6,000 was compared to a modern equivalent of £5,326,200

5326200 / 6000 = 887

New Home

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

To put New Home’s stats in perspective - Jane eyre (a few years later Austen’s characters) earned £15 a year as a teacher and £30 a year as a governess. The latter was a generous wage and probably about median. She also has room and board which was important, as both were expensive relative to wages.

Which brings another point. In comparing eras do we compare median income to median income, or look at purchasing power.

For instance if Jane was earning the median as a governess then we could multiply by approximately 900 to get the relative position in society today; in the U.K. the median is ~27K. So someone on £30 in janes era is middling as is someone on £27K today.

If on the other hand you compare what people can buy (using items available then and now) someone on £27k today is much better off than Jane. If she did have to buy food and pay rent on her 30 pounds she would have eaten meat very rarely. If I recall chickens were a week’s wages approximately.

I think that’s what the prestige figure was showing in NH’s list. The money’s worth relative to the median or average.

Anyway her characters were all prosperous by the standards of most of society even if they felt poor. Remember they had servants, mostly, while Jane Eyre was a servant herself, albeit a high status one.

(I didn’t google these figures so I may edit later. I think they are approximately right).

Edit:

My 900 ratio looks right. John Dashwood's income of 6,000 was compared to 5,326,200

5,326,200 / 6000 = 887

"Prestige Figure" refers to the actual spending power at the time of the income shown.

[...] costs such as the employment of servants, and all the other trappings of aristocracy, were much cheaper relative to income in 1803. In terms of spending power, Darcy would have been able to buy more with what he had. So his income, and in particular his financial power and influence, might be more faithfully translated using a measure that takes into account changes in GDP per capita, as well as the far greater gap between rich and poor that existed in the early 19th century. That figure works out at around £12m per year[...]

[...]the "prestige value" [is] what [the figure] was worth compared to per capita GDP, or the average of how much most other people had[...]

So, the first column shows the figures back in the 1800s, the second column shows that amount converted into "today's" money, and the last column shows the actual buying power in "today's" money of the original amounts.

bodhrandude

I bet you knew that its not hens that smell but their poo.

New Home

bodhrandude wrote: »

I bet you knew that its not hens that smell but their poo.

Nope, it's chickens, too.

Capt'n Midnight

bodhrandude wrote: »

I bet you knew that its not hens that smell but their poo.

An there was me thinking it was the nostrils at the base of their beaks.

dxhound2005

Just over 100 years ago Vienna was the sixth biggest city in the world by population, behind London, New York, Paris, Berlin and Chicago.

Now with roughly the same population, it does not make the top 150, probably not even the top 200. All to do with the relative stagnation of population growth in Europe, compared to the rest of the world.

Big Nasty

Oh, Vienna

ohnonotgmail

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Just over 100 years ago Vienna was the sixth biggest city in the world by population, behind London, New York, Paris, Berlin and Chicago.

Now with roughly the same population, it does not make the top 150, probably not even the top 200. All to do with the relative stagnation of population growth in Europe, compared to the rest of the world.

Big Nasty wrote: »

Oh, Vienna

Prime opportunity to reply with "This means nothing to me" missed.

Wibbs

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Just over 100 years ago Vienna was the sixth biggest city in the world by population, behind London, New York, Paris, Berlin and Chicago.

Now with roughly the same population, it does not make the top 150, probably not even the top 200. All to do with the relative stagnation of population growth in Europe, compared to the rest of the world.

The first city to reach one million inhabitants was (likely)Rome around 50 BC. London didn't get to those numbers until the early 1800's. IIRC Dublin didn't pass the one million mark until the early noughties?

New Home

I thought Dublin (city) reached it in the early '90s. The whole county was 1.5 million by then, too, I'm almost sure.

Skylinehead

Speaking of Rome, Greece was in the Roman Empire longer than it.

mzungu

In 1980, a gigabyte of storage would have set you back a whopping $437,000. In 1990 it would have cost you a good deal less....but still expensive $9000. In 2000 it was a reasonable $11 and today it's $0.004.

pleas advice

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

An there was me thinking it was the nostrils at the base of their beaks.

terrible

Gloomtastic!

New Home wrote: »

I thought Dublin (city) reached it in the early '90s. The whole county was 1.5 million by then, too, I'm almost sure.

There are more people buried in Glasnevin Cemetery than are alive in Dublin today.

BaZmO*

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

There are more people buried in Glasnevin Cemetery than are alive in Dublin today.

Belfast City Cemetery is cross denominational and the Protestant and Catholic sides are separated by a wall that runs below ground.

Professor Moriarty

BaZmO* wrote: »

Belfast City Cemetery is cross denominational and the Protestant and Catholic sides are separated by a wall that runs below ground.

In case the corpses start fighting.

BaZmO*

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

In case the corpses start fighting.

When hatred runs deep.

SimonTemplar

With the new predator movie in cinemas, it might be interesting to know that the idea of the first Predator movie back in 1987 came from a joke that was going around Hollywood in the mid 80s. After Rocky 4 was released in 1985, people were joking that there were no more opponents on Earth for Rocky to fight so if a fifth movie was made, he'd have to fight an alien. Screenwriting brothers James and John Thomas were inspired by that joke and wrote a screenplay based on it which became Predator.

Ipso

Van Damme originally played the predator but the ended up changing the design.