pewdom en · NOUN
Etymology
From pew + -dom.
Meanings
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(historical, uncountable) The system according to which certain people or certain social classes were allocated particular pews in the local church.
[…] that the people who we say have been driven away, and kept away, from the church by pewdom, do go and build Dissenting meeting-houses. The supporters of these are not the very poor, nor the working classes, […]
1879, Authorised Report of the Church Congress, page 113:[…] and it was from the middle class that this system of pewdom took its rise.
1886, The Parliamentary Debates, page 939: