The rule of thumb I've found best is to take 1 "Regency pound" and think of it as $100 (well, that was a few years ago - maybe it's $110 or $120 now). So 200 pounds then is the same as $20,000 now, which you can live on, but not in anything like luxury (and not in a high-priced area).
The official inflation-based indices give numbers which are so absurd they only reduce what little confidence I have in those indices, and comparing average incomes then and now is like trying to relate units of distance to units of mass.
The official inflation-based indices give numbers which are so absurd they only reduce what little confidence I have in those indices, and comparing average incomes then and now is like trying to relate units of distance to units of mass.