£500 in 1840 =
Life in 1840
In 1840, United Kingdom's average annual wage was approximately £26. This means £500 represented roughly 1000 weeks of average earnings — a luxury purchase. To put this in perspective, a loaf of bread cost approximately £0.03 and typical monthly rent was around £0.7.
What you could buy
These calculations are estimates based on United Kingdom's Consumer Price Index (CPI) data from Bank of England Millennium Dataset; ONS CPI/RPI series; Clark (2005) cost-of-living index. Pre-1914 uses Bank of England 'A Millennium of Macroeconomic Data' (Broadberry et al.). Napoleonic inflation 1800–1815 and Victorian deflation 1815–1896 reflected. Results may differ from other inflation calculators due to methodology differences. See our Methodology and Sources pages for full details.