… category, which was also reflected in wide-ranging educational backgrounds. The merchant straddled traditional social classes and the rise of the merchant was part of the expansion of the ‘middling sorts’. Cultures of commerce and … to marry a London draper who acted like part of the landed gentry. 3 . Peter Earle, The Making of the English middle class: Business, Society, and Family Life in London, 1660-1730 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), p. 15. I … category, which was also reflected in wide-ranging educational backgrounds. The merchant straddled traditional social classes and the rise of the merchant was part of the expansion of the ‘middling sorts’. Cultures of commerce and …