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Johnny Kauffman

Innkeepers in Tom Jones and Fielding's Challenge to Economic Transition

Henry Fielding's novel Tom Jones, published in 1749 England, appears within an

historical context marked by transition in which economic, social, and moral structures were

being contested and renegotiated. The development of a national transportation network

catalyzed the nation's transition, providing the energy and infrastructure necessary for urban

expansion and the commercial development to which it was inextricably linked. Paul Langford

describes the more profound implications of England's transition in A Polite and Commercial

People: England 1727-1783, as he writes that the national transport network:

in addition to its economic effects, was perceived to have social and cultural consequences...The rapid growth of towns, and especially the suburban expansion of the metropolis, gave rise to debate about the social and moral repercussions of urban change....The traditional economy of the open-field village, and the old sense of harmony which bound together hierarchical communities, seemed to be vanishing together. (Langford 389)

Tom Jones played a role in the debate going on within England at the time about the

consequences of urban expansion and commercial development as its main characters travel

throughout the country, utilizing the national transportation network and sleeping in the inns that

played a necessary role in its operation and development. In an attempt to demonstrate the

negative moral and social implications associated with urban expansion and commercial

development Fielding describes the inns and their innkeepers as acting in total opposition to his

own conceptualization of virtue, and the virtue upheld by the novel.

This attempt is representative of Fielding's broader ethical project of novel writing. In

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Martin Battestin's book The Moral Basis of Fieldings Art; A Study of Joseph Andrew, he writes,

The theory of good nature and the message of good works that inform [Fieldings] novels and

their heroes comprise an ethic of social amelioration (Battestin 152). For Fielding this abstract

concept of good nature is equated with virtue. A good natured and virtuous man is motivated

for charity by benevolent and social affections and has an inherent empathetic disposition

(Battestin 65). Within Tom Jones, Tom represents the epitome of virtue. Mrs. Miller goes as far

as to tell him he is infinitely too good to live in this world, in response to his forgiveness of

Blifil which exhibits a high level of benevolence and empathetic disposition (Fielding 857,8).

The inherent disposition of the innkeepers, however, stand in stark contrast to the qualities of

virtue that Tom exhibits. Their motivation for charity and empathy is solely a result of their

economic self-interest, making benevolence or social affection impossible. As Fielding places

the innkeepers in the lower class he also defines their inherent disposition by economic self-

interest, and eliminates the possibility of virtuous judgment or behavior.

Fieldings creation and critique of the innkeepers as lower class, economically self-

interested individuals lacking virtue, demonstrates his position in relation to the negative

morality associated with urban expansion and commercial development. His attempt to

exemplify the negative social and moral impact of urban expansion, and the shift from virtue to

economic self-interest that is exhibited by the business practices of the innkeepers, relies on

narrative devices and characterization that produce a link between economic class and virtue.

For Fielding, an individual lacks virtue if their judgments and actions are determined by

economic self-interest. Economic self-interest eliminates any possibility of benevolent charity,

and if an individual attempts to improve their economic class they cannot maintain an empathetic

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disposition. However, because of the link which the devices and methods of characterization

Fielding utilizes create, he actually affirms economic status as the fundamental principle

determining virtue within eighteenth-century English society. The innkeepers act in accordance

with this fundamental principle, and as they are questioned for their attempts to improve their

economic standing, and their claim to virtue, Fielding not only upholds the importance of class

within English society, but eliminates the possibility that the innkeepers improve their position

within this class structure. Fielding's efforts for social amelioration, then, fall short in their

attempt to effectively instruct society in regard to the moral and social implications associated

with urban expansion and commercial development.

Fielding's location of the innkeepers within the lower class confronts the historical

patterns of the period. When speaking about the innkeepers he scrutinizes, Fielding associates

them, as well as their actions and judgments, with the lower sort of people (Fielding 356).

However, in his chapter titled The Eighteenth-Century English Inn: A Transient 'Golden Age'

included in The World of the Tavern: Public Houses in Early Modern Europe, John Chartres

writes that although innkeeping clearly reflected the entire range of business enterprise

characterizing Britain in the later eighteenth century, in general it was located high in the

business hierarchy (Kumin 215,6). In addition Langford points out that When contemporaries

talked of the 'middle sort', they generally had in mind a wide range of incomes and a great

variety of occupations, a group including innkeepers and other individuals involved in the

commercial mechanisms of the national transportation network (Langford 62). During the first

half of the eighteenth century, many alehouses (inns without beds) were converted to inns in

response to increased demand as a result of the development of the national transportation

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network (Kumin 212). Tom Jones was published in 1749, during this development process, the

moment in which inns were moving toward the place of prominence that they held within the the

business hierarchy at the end of the century. The hospitality industry was booming and

innkeepers were representative of the growing affluence and influence of the middle class a

social phenomenon that was widely recognized (Langford 59). Fielding, however, as he writes

Tom Jones, only recognizes the flow of the innkeepers into the middle class by challenging the

morality of this flow and restricting the innkeepers movement within the economic class

structure. Fielding's divergence from historical patterns exhibits his utilization of a connection

between economic status and virtue in order to demonstrate that the innkeepers lack virtue.

Rather then creating a text of social amelioration which is critical of the moral repercussions

associated with urban expansion and commercial development, Fielding, in Tom Jones, betrays

his own conceptualization of virtue.

The vital role that innkeepers and inns played within the processes of urban expansion

and commercial development allows for Fielding to target the social repercussions associated

with these processes in both the mechanisms and individuals to which these processes were

inextricably linked. Inns and innkeepers played a key role in the national transportation network

which was central to urban expansion and commercial development throughout England.

Chartres writes that The growth of the complexity and rationality of England's urban system

was a powerful force in developing road transport, which was itself heavily dependent upon the

infrastructure of the inn (Kumin 206). The market for the inn had expanded and for much of

this period of expansion, the provision of the key infrastructure for road transport was provided

by 'volunteer' innkeeper capital (Kumin 206). In her chapter titled English Inns, Taverns,

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Alehouses and Brandy Shops: The Legislative Framework, 1495-1797 also included in The

World of the Tavern: Public Houses in Early Modern Europe, Judith Hunter points out that inns

not only provided food, drink, and beds for travelers, but most innkeepers were also postmasters,

and in the towns where they were established they had a virtual monopoly on providing post

horses for travelers (Kumin, 80). Inns were a fundamental mechanism of the transportation

system, not only bringing commerce to small villages and towns, but functioning as an important

commercial system in themselves.

Historically, inns were often locations in which business was conducted, reflecting

national commercial development. Some inns even included storefronts within them,

transforming the inn into an indoor marketplace (Kumin, 220). The scrutiny of the business

practices of inns within Tom Jones, however, does not focus on the trade taking place within

them, but rather directs its attention to the characteristics and business practices of innkeepers.

These innkeepers represent a morally corrupt business atmosphere, one in which profit, and not

virtue, dictates judgment, decision, and action, in regard to both lower and upper class guests.

This dictation is illustrated as Fielding describes the landlady's rules, which must be followed

because she is absolute governess in these regions, meaning both the inn and the transportation

network to which it is linked (Fielding, 372). The landlady's rules, also the maxims which

publicans hold to be the grand mysteries of their trade, are solely economically motivated:

The first is, if they have anything good in their house (which indeed very seldom happens) to produce it only to persons who travel with great equipages. Secondly, to charge the same for the very worst provisions, as if they were the best. And lastly, if any of their guests call but for little, a double price for everything they have; so that the amount by the head may be much the same. (Fielding, 372)

As these rules are associated with the entire trade of innkeeping they exhibit a lack of virtue

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associated with the structure of the travel industry and the commercial development and urban

expansion that it facilitated. They remain, however, the rules of the landlady, the absolute

governess of the entire travel industry, setting up Fieldings denunciation and disparagement of

innkeepers and the inns they rule. As Fielding describes the innkeepers as economically self-

interested, and therefore lacking virtue, they become the target of his critique of the negative

social and moral repercussions associated with urban expansion and commercial development.

As Fielding places the innkeepers in the lower class, he also exhibits the manner in which

economic status dictates virtuous action and judgment, even though his placement of the

innkeepers within the lower class is an attempt to demonstrate the negative qualities of the link

between economic principles and virtue. The innkeepers are characterized by economic self-

interest which overrides all understanding, perception, or actions of virtue. This economic self-

interest is not legitimized because of the innkeepers's poverty, instead, is is described to be an

expression of the inherent dispostion of individuals within the lower class. The landlady of the

inn that Tom sleeps at while he is marching with the soldiers he encountered in Hanbrook, serves

as a prime example of an innkeeper Fielding places in the lower class, and demonstrates to be

completely motivated by economic self-interest, a universal characteristic of individuals in her

economic position. Although she is first very caring for Tom, she inaccurately perceives him to

be wealthy because of his appearance and manner. When she discovers he has very little money

in his purse:

she flung out of the room; for the lower sort of people are very tenacious of respect; and though they are contented to give this gratis to persons of quality, yet they never confer it on those of their own order without take care to be well paid for their pains. (Fielding, 356)

In this passage Fielding describes a universal characteristic present in all lower-class people, a

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group in which the landlady is included. Lower-class people expect some type of economic

compensation for any empathy they enact. From other lower-class people this means direct

payment, and from the members of the upper-class it means social capital, which had direct

economic implications for eighteenth-century English innkeepers, especially in smaller towns.

One of the main concerns of the innkeepers in Tom Jones is the name and reputation of

their inns. As a result of this concern, a necessary economic one, the lower-class innkeepers

kindness to their upper class guests cannot stem from their benevolence or social affections, as

Fielding suggests it should, but is justified as a necessity for the innkeeper to maintain a

reputable name for their inns. In 1729 annual licensing sessions were held in the local division

of the alehouse, where it might be reasoned, their character and standing. (Kumin, 70). If an

inn developed a disreputable name during this time its license could be quickly revoked, leaving

its innkeepers without a way to make money. The upholding of an inns name, however, was not

an easy task, because very little privacy was present in eighteenth-century English towns and

villages (Sharpe, 95), explaining why the landlady of the Upton inn, would by no means have

admitted any conversation of a disreputable kind to pass under her roof and drove all whores in

rags from within the walls (Fielding, 431,2). Fielding mocks the Upton landlady as she

frantically acts out of economic necessity, her compassion toward Mrs. Waters drastically

shifting once she discovers her to be of the upper class, a way in which the landlady's economic

self-interest is demonstrated.

The landlady's participation in the business of innkeeping makes it impossible for her to

interact with Mrs. Waters virtuously, that is, in a manner in which her actions are not motivated

by her economic self-interest. As Fielding mocks the actions and perceptions of the landlady he

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restricts her to her place within the lower class and points to her class as the reason she

misjudges Mrs. Waters and acts so rashly. When a half naked Mrs. Waters and Tom arrive at the

Upton inn the landlady acts fast to get them out and protect the good name of her establishment

(Fielding, 432). She ridiculously attacks them with a broom, beginning a humorous battle

(Fielding, 433). The ridiculousness of the landlady's economically self-interested behavior is

solidified as a sergeant recognizes Mrs. Waters, illustrating her location in the upper-class

(Fielding, 436). Once she has discovered her upper-class status, the landlady says to Mrs.

Waters:

if I had known your ladyship to be your ladyship, I would as soon have burnt my fingers as have affronted your ladyship; but truly where gentry come and spend their money, I am not willing that they should be scandalized by a set of poor shabby vermin, that, wherever they go, leave more lice than money behind them; such folks never raise my compassion...(Fielding, 438).

Because of her business relationship to Mrs. Waters, had the landlady known she was of the

upper class she would have acted differently towards her. The landlady only cares about treating

Mrs. Waters well and keeping her from being scandalized in order to make money. In addition,

she has no compassion for the lower class because they have little money to pay her, and threaten

her ability to make money from the upper-class. The landlady is trapped in her lower-class

position as an innkeeper, because any attempts she makes to improve her economic status lack

virtue, and thus, bring her back in line with the universal lower-class characteristic of a lack of

virtue that Fielding describes.

Once again, the landlady of the inn that Tom sleeps at while he is marching with the

soldiers he encountered in Hanbrook serves as an example, in this instance, of the way Fielding's

critique of the innkeepers' morality enforces the economic class structure within society and

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limits the movement of the innkeepers within this structure. Fielding subtly establishes the

landlady's actions as inherently guided by economic self-interest, representative of the universal

lower-class characteristics that Fielding describes. He utilizes ambiguity, and creates a

conceptual space in which the landlady's inherent disposition and economic self-interest function

simultaneously as the reason for her actions and perceptions. The landlady receives fifty pounds

for helping Northerton escape from the inn without his commanding officer noticing, an act

motivated by compassion (Fielding, 343). However, Fielding labels the fact that the landlady

received fifty pounds as another particular which might possibly have some little share in the

reason for her action (Fielding, 343). By first describing the landlady's act as purely one of

compassion, and later questioning this compassion, Fielding links economic self-interest and the

landlady's inherent disposition. This connection is further emphasized, once again in ambiguity,

as Fielding expresses his uncertainty surrounding the landlady's choice to drink with the soldiers.

He is not sure if she made this choice because of the natural activity of her disposition, or from

her fear for her plate (Fielding, 344). The landlady's actions in her freeing of Northerton, and

drinking with the soldiers, are both an expression of her inherent disposition as a member of the

lower class and a result of her economic self-interest.

Fielding's description of Mrs. Whitefield, although in opposition to the other innkeepers

described in Tom Jones, because of her positive characteristics, demonstrates the same link

between inherent class disposition and virtue that affirms the importance of economic class

within society and indicates Fielding's failure to achieve his task of social amelioration within

the novel. While Fielding contains the other innkeepers in their lower-class positions by

eliminating the possibility that they improve their economic situation virtuously, Mrs.

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Whitefield's lack of desire to change her position within the class structure is a reflection of her

inherent virtuous, upper-class disposition. Fielding writes, She seems perfectly contented with,

and resigned to, that state of life to which she is called; and this resignation is entirely owing to

the prudence and wisdom of her temper (Fielding, 373). Mrs. Whitefield is happy to maintain

the economic status of innkeepers that Fielding's critique calls for, a direct reflection of her

inherently virtuous disposition as a good-natured women (Fielding, 374). The fact that Mrs.

Whitefield is named demonstrates her privilege within the text in relation to the other innkeepers

that Fielding describes, because it defines her as a particular individual whose disposition and

virtue are not solely determined in relation to what is inherently derived from her class, but exist

autonomously within her character. She has an identity more complicated than her economic

class. The anonymity of the lower-class innkeepers furthers their inability to rise in economic

class. They are not individuals separate from their economic class, but solely function as

representations of inherent lower-class disposition and economic self-interest.

It is clear in Tom Jones that Fielding uses the inns and innkeepers as one of the novels

battlegrounds for the debate about the social and moral repercussions of urban expansion and

commercial development within eighteenth-century England in which Fielding attempts to

assert his own conceptualization of virtue (Langford, 389). Fielding's descriptions of the

innkeepers, or lack of description, as he keeps the lower-class innkeeper anonymous, lacks both

the empathy and benevolence so important to his conceptualization. Just as the innkeepers take

advantage of their guests in order to further their own self-interest, Fielding manipulates his

lower-class characters in such a way that they become simplified pawns whose only purpose is to

demonstrate his critique of the moral and social repercussions associated with urban expansion

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and commercial development. Historically, these processes improved the lifestyles of many

innkeepers. The intense focus of Fielding's critique on the innkeepers not only challenges the

reorganization of the economic class structure exhibited by the innkeepers historically improving

conditions, but targets the innkeepers themselves for the role they played in this reorganization,

as well as England's transition as a whole brought about as a result of urban expansion and

commercial development.

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Works Cited

Battestin, Martin C. The Moral Basis of Fielding's Art; a Study of Joseph Andrews. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 1959. Print.

Fielding, Henry, John B. Bender, and Simon Stern. Tom Jones. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.

Kumin, Beat A., and B. Ann Tlusty. The World of the Tavern: Public Houses in Early Modern Europe. Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate, 2002. Print.

Langford, Paul. A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727-1783. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1989. Print.

Sharpe, J. A. Early Modern England: A Social History 1550-1760. London: E. Arnold, 1987. Print.