Late 19th Century Wages & Living (Artist, Journalist)

[bremoisaho]

Writing a story that is set in London in 1891. One of my MC's is an artist who has recently graduated from The Royal Academy of Art and after a bump from The Times, is showing at the recent viewing.

What kind of wages would he be making?
How much would a painting typically cost?

MC2 has just made Principle Journalist at The Times, and is also living

Comments

[jayb111]

A single young man probably wouldn't live in a flat, unless he could afford, and wanted the bother of, a manservant to look after it and him. He'd be more likely to rent a room or rooms in a house and have his meals prepared by his landlady, as in Sherlock Holmes. In fact, the Sherlock Holmes stories are a very good guide to life in London for single men in the 1880s and 1890s.

Chelsea was an area popular with artists.

A painting could sell for whatever you wanted, depending on how successful you wanted him to be. There was quite a lot of work available for commercial artists at the time, too - book and magazine illustrations, advertising - if he couldn't earn enough from original work.

Don't take anything about the Regency/Jane Austen's era as in any way a guide to the late Victorian period. Even 'the Victorian period' is too general. Things changed hugely between the 1830s and the 1890s.

[bremoisaho]

A single young man probably wouldn't live in a flat, unless he could afford, and wanted the bother of, a manservant to look after it and him. He'd be more likely to rent a room or rooms in a house and have his meals prepared by his landlady, as in Sherlock Holmes. In fact, the Sherlock Holmes stories are a very good guide to life in London for single men in the 1880s and 1890s.

I had originally planned MC1's flat to be similar to Sherlocks (rented, and all that jazz). I had considered the possibility for MC2 but I thought maybe he would have been too wealthy to want to rent, but you have a good point about having to take care of it. He will most likely be renting now!

[alextiefling]

Even the wealthy rent flats; freehold or long-term ownership of central London flats is too much hassle for non-specialists. I expect that even Lord Peter Wimsey doesn't own the flat on Piccadilly outright, although it may form part of a portfolio owned by his family.

[nineveh_uk]

Indeed Peter Wimsey doesn't own the Piccadilly flat. It says specifically somewhere that it's a service flat in a new block (and it isn't family, because Bunter finds it).

Even when he gets married the London house is leasehold or rented.

/has far to good a memory of Wimsey trivia!

[jayb111]

I had originally planned MC1's flat to be similar to Sherlocks
Holmes and Watson didn't live in a flat, they lived in rooms. Not self contained, just part of a private house that the occupier had decided to rent out. No kitchen, as Mrs Hudson would prepare meals in her kitchen. Bathroom, if there was one, possibly shared with other tenants, or with Mrs Hudson. Toilet might have been outside in the yard, and again shared with other occupants of the house. (221B has four storeys and a basement -Mrs Hudson could have let out rooms on each storey and lived in the basement herself).

A rented room or rooms in someone else's house was the normal way of life for young, and not so young, single people until well after the Second World War.

[marycatelli]

Some painters were able to support families in prosperity. Others -- well "starving artist" was not hyperbole at the time.

[syntinen_laulu]

Don't take anything about the Regency/Jane Austen's era as in any way a guide to the late Victorian period. Even 'the Victorian period' is too general. Things changed hugely between the 1830s and the 1890s.

Right. In fact "Naughty Nineties" would be a better search term!