"The Tradesman that does not love his business will never give it due attendance." -- Daniel Defoe, The Complete English Tradesman, 1727
England's middle classes, the "middling sort", began their rise to prosperity with the booming import trade of the seventeenth century. Their commercial and professional successes cemented their role as England's economic engine in the eighteenth century, when their increasing wealth and disposable income allowed them to enjoy the delights of the polite world. As they did so, they became not just suppliers of luxury goods and new leisure experiences, but consumers as well. The Georgian leisure industry and middling leisure culture grew up together, and each fed on the other's success.
England's middle classes, the "middling sort", began their rise to prosperity with the booming import trade of the seventeenth century. Their commercial and professional successes cemented their role as England's economic engine in the eighteenth century, when their increasing wealth and disposable income allowed them to enjoy the delights of the polite world. As they did so, they became not just suppliers of luxury goods and new leisure experiences, but consumers as well. The Georgian leisure industry and middling leisure culture grew up together, and each fed on the other's success.