The small People

[Scott]

Tolkien himself came from a fairly prestigious or "posh" family. I always took his typecasting of heroes as more noble people to only be a natural byproduct of this. A person writes what they know. Besides, how noble would a simple nobody sound as the hero? Yes, Sam was a simple nobody, but he wasn't really the main focus, now was he. As it was mentioned before, Tolkien was writing something that was supposed to have been from history, not the dreams of the oppressed. Not trying to sound mean, but I don't think that Tolkien wanted his heroes to be like the back alley loiterers who helped along the industrial revolution he so passionately disliked.
And as for Beregond... he was even of a pretty high status. Because he was a part of Minas Tirith's high guard, we can deduce that he had Numenorien blood coursing through his veins.
Time is cut short, and so too is this post, but I'll probably expand later.
Scott