A season’s entry to the 28 dress balls being held in the 1815 season cost 14 shillings per person, a gentleman’s annual subscription to the reading and card room cost a guinea and a lady’s subscription to the card assemblies cost five shillings. Tea on ball nights cost an additional sixpence.
But what was a guinea? Was it worth more than 14 shillings? Was sixpence really the trivial sum that I assumed it to be? And how much would this be in today’s money?
Regency money
The main denominations were pounds, shillings, and pence.
There were 20 shillings in a pound. Pounds were denoted by “£” or sometimes by “l”, standing for libra—a pound weight in Latin; shillings were denoted by “s”.
There were 12 pence or “d” in a shilling. The “d” stood for a denarius, a small Roman coin.
A crown was worth five shillings; a half-crown, two shillings, and sixpence.
The value of a guinea varied according to the price of gold, but by 1815, its value was fixed at 21 shillings.
This tells us that a gentleman’s annual subscription to the card room cost half as much again as a single person’s entry to all the dress balls for the season, but gives no indication of what amount this was in today’s money.
The cost-of-living index
When Regency prices or incomes are quoted in books, a second figure is often included representing the amount ‘in today’s prices. This comparative amount is typically based on the retail price index (RPI). The RPI, or cost-of-living index, compares the cost of purchases of a typical household in 1815 with the cost in 2015. It is possible to get an idea of what something would have cost in today’s money by using this measure.
The RPI gives us the following values:
Subscription to the dress balls: 14s = £46.76, equivalent to a mere £1.67 per ball!
Gentleman’s annual subscription to the card and reading room: 1 guinea = £70.14.
Subscription to the card assemblies: 5s = £16.70.
Tea: 6d = £1.67.
Though interesting, these results are not as helpful as they could be, because they do not give any indication as to whether these sums were within a person’s means or not.
What was the real cost?
To include a measure of affordability, it is necessary to look at relative earnings. This is important because average wages today are higher than in 1815. For example, a teacher in 1815 would have earned about £51. (3) Using the RPI calculator, this would be £3,410 in 2015. However, the relative salary of a teacher in the UK today is much higher than in 1815, with a starting salary in excess of £22,000 (4).
The MeasuringWorth website uses average earnings to calculate an alternative relative value. Compared to an average 2015 salary, the relative values are now:
Subscription to the dress balls: 14s = £511, equivalent to £18.25 per ball.
Gentleman’s annual subscription to the card and reading room: 1 guinea = £767.80.
Subscription to the card assemblies: 5s = £182.80.
Tea: 6d = £18.28.
So how much did a Regency ball really cost?
A subscription to the dress balls at the Upper Rooms in Bath in 1815 cost 14 shillings, equivalent to 6 pence per ball. This represents about £1.67 in today’s money. However, I believe that the average earnings indicator can give us the best idea of the real cost, and this measure gives us a price of about £18 per ball. This seems surprisingly inexpensive, though the price is doubled when you include the cost of tea.
However, two things should be borne in mind. Firstly, this price was only available if you took out a subscription for the season; a ticket to a single ball for a non-subscriber cost five shillings, equivalent to a massive £182.80! The second is that the relative earnings calculator is based on average earnings. How affordable these things really were would have depended on an individual’s personal circumstances.
