Is UK still obsessed with class?

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Is this an ancestor or a relative of one of your ancestors? The reason I ask is how their family line led to you if they died in an Australian prison?

The vast majority of British convicts were arrested and sent to Australia for minor petty crimes, Usually stealing a loaf of bread to avoid starvation or being unable to pay debts. Poverty created an underclass whom the British establishment wanted to conveniently offload out of Britain. In addition to poor cockneys (I assume this is the lineage your ancestor descended from?) there were thousands of Irish who were shipped off the US and to Australia as both convicts and free settlers.

Migrants coming to Australia in the 1800s were drawn from the British underclass
In the 1940s-60s - drawn from the British working class
Since the 1980s though, modern British migrants we get from the UK tend to be middle class.

Either way the children from all three classes become "Aussies" within one generation.

Back in university I met a chap who was on his own and I struck up a friendship with in a campus coffeehouse. He was in arts school part-time and had just come out of drug rehab. When I asked it turned out it was one of the most expensive drug rehab places in Melbourne (a mansion set in the rolling hills outside of the city). I was curious how he spent his time in Melbourne (when he wasn't studying fine arts) and it turned out his father had purchased an antiquarian book store in the centre of Melbourne (it reminded my of one those weird shops in Diagon Alley in Harry Potter). I spent many hours in his book store sipping tea and it transpired his book store sold maybe one book every 2-3 weeks. I was confused, if it wasn't making a profit? but it turned out his father didn't care.

Turned out this chap's family were landed gentry in England who sent him to Australia for drug treatment. He eventually finished arts school and then moved to a Buddhist retreat and became a monk. I lost touch with him before googling his name and discovered he was back in England and running his own art gallery (his paintings were very dark and gothic), wearing a suit and tie in photos and back in his families good books. Ahhh the life of the upper class in Britain

He was a relative of an ancestor rather than a direct link. I wasn't quite sure how to phrase that though.

The prisoner in question was Irish. When my ancestors later moved to England, they were what you'd consider to be Scousers rather than Cockneys.

Oh! from Liverpool! they are actually hilarious/funny

Where i live several of the bridges have iron plates set into the stonework that warn potential vandals that the punishment for damaging the bridge is 'transportation' - that being the euphemism for imprisonment in Australian penal colonies.

Cool! explains something called the "Larrikan spirit" that pervades Australian society
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrikin

Yes. "An Australian is an Irishman...who got caught".

Fair go governor 4/5 of the first convicts were English. The rest were made up of Scots/Irish.

Last edited by cyberdad on 05 Feb 2024, 4:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ah yes, good spot. I've often wondered if i vandalised one of these bridges I'd be sent to Australia. I could use a holiday.

I recall a WP member from Britain a few years ago who had made the claim that one particular British athlete, despite being a millionaire today, was still a working class boy because he had been born in the working class. I told her, from an American perspective, this athlete was not working class any longer, but a millionaire.
In another case, I was watching a documentary on the so called "Video Nasties," which were movies in Britain deemed to be too violent or perverse for public consumption. In the case of one particularly bloody slasher movie, it was quoted (and I'm doubtlessly paraphrasing here) "A normal person could watch this without being influenced to become violent, but a working class person might."
From what little I know (and I admit, my perception of the British class system might be based more on stereotype), it does seem that who you are in Britain is dependent on who your family is and always will be.

JR Tolkien either intentionally or unintentionally introduced class based bias in his characterisation of hobbits, trolls, dwarves and elves,
Hobbits - rough uncultured rural farm folk who were also charming with a good sense of ribald humour
dwarves - stout, uncultured working class who spent their entire lives in the mines and lived for fighting, drinking and merriment
High Elves - tall, blonde, educated, spiritual and refined - skilled in many arts, crafts and sciences - the elite
Trolls - representing the foreign hordes at England's doorstep

Idk I think it might depend on the individual sometimes although social mobility is a thing within the class system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility

There is a social mobility thing at play here. If you're working class originally, you don't get to become upper class no matter how much money you make. You can buy a massive estate with a mansion and a stables and a boating lake and you'll still never be allowed 'in the club'. That's just how it is here. There's old money and new money.

Equally though, working class people who've 'done good' often wear their working class origins as a point of pride, which is why the Beatles can claim it and whatever British athlete that person was talking about might still consider themselves working class. Working class people might want to become wealthy but many would be offended if you suggested they were upper class.

It's a bit like the rappers in the US who have millions of dollars but still 'keep it real' with their street background.

They call them working class heroes I think

In contrast ...here in the US we are all convinced that we are future millionaires. Even the "working class".

That difference explains much that is ...great about America... and much that is not so much.

For example: the 2016 presidential election. Each of us, even the poor in the US, are convinced that we will someday be rich enough to give to the Clinton Foundation...because each of us has a degree...from Trump University!