Title: What Was It Like to Live in 18th-Century England? - Ancestry Blog
Headings: What Was It Like to Live in 18th-Century England?
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Content: Fashion was important in upper society: Upper-class women wore stays, which were bodices with strips of whalebone, and hooped petticoats under their dresses. Men wore knee-length “breeches” with stockings, waistcoats, and frock coats over linen shirts, as well as buckled shoes. Three-cornered hats were popular, too—and wigs. Schools were not compulsory, but many upper-class boys attended school, and some girls from well-off families did, too. Girls were educated more in “accomplishments” like embroidery and music than in academic subjects. Some “charity schools” started to provide an education to lower-class children. Tea drinking became popular in the 1700s among both the rich and the poor. Poor people ate rather plain and monotonous diets made up primarily of bread and potatoes; meat was an uncommon luxury.