Industrial Britain 1745–1901

The towns and cities

HintWork stopped being about land and became about machines, so families followed the jobs.

The whyIn 1750 most Britons lived rurally; by 1851 more than half lived in urban areas. Britain was the first society in history where that was true.

coal

HintThe black rock that burns far hotter than wood, and Britain had plenty of it near the surface.

The whyCheap, plentiful fuel is a large part of why the change started here. Steam engines, iron smelting and gas lighting all depended on it, and canals then railways moved it cheaply.

James Watt

HintA unit of power is named after him, and he went into business with Matthew Boulton in Birmingham.

The whyHis separate condenser stopped the cylinder being cooled and reheated on every stroke, which cut fuel use dramatically and made the engine practical for factories.

Steam engines did not need flowing water

HintThe old mills had to sit where a fast current turned their wheel; the new machines carried their own source of motion.

The whyOnce power came from burning fuel, factories could cluster near the coalfields and near workers instead of on riverbanks. That is why Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield grew so fast.

Cholera

HintIt spread through sewage-tainted drinking supplies, and John Snow traced one outbreak to a Soho pump.

The whySnow removed the handle of the Broad Street pump in 1854, showing the disease travelled in the drinking supply. That evidence eventually drove the great sewer-building schemes.

The Factory Act

HintIt banned under-nines from textile mills and, crucially, sent paid inspectors round to check.

The whyIt capped 9 to 13 year olds at 48 hours a week and required two hours of schooling a day. Earlier laws had said similar things but had nobody to enforce them.

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway

HintIt linked a great port to the cotton town it served, and Stephenson's Rocket won the trials to run on it.

The whyWithin twenty years Britain had thousands of miles of track. Railways forced towns onto one national clock, carried fresh milk and fish into the cities, and invented the day trip.

The Atlantic

HintThe ocean between West Africa and the Americas, crossed on the middle leg of a three-sided voyage.

The whyBritish ships carried goods to West Africa, enslaved people to the Caribbean and the American colonies, then sugar, tobacco and cotton home. Well over a million people died on the crossing itself.

1807

HintIt ended the buying and shipping of enslaved people, but not slavery itself; that took another twenty-six years.

The whyThe Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 freed enslaved people across most of the empire. Rebellions in the Caribbean and Black British campaigners such as Equiano mattered as much as Wilberforce in Parliament.

The East India Company

HintA private trading business with its own army, which began by buying cloth and spices and ended up ruling millions.

The whyA commercial firm holding tax powers and soldiers is one of the strangest facts of empire. After the rebellion of 1857 the British government took over directly, beginning the period called the Raj.

Peterloo

HintJournalists coined it by joining the name of the field to a famous battle four years earlier.

The whyCavalry charged a crowd of around 60,000 at St Peter's Field and about eighteen people died. The bitter nickname mocked Waterloo: soldiers charging their own people rather than an enemy.

About one in five

HintThe Act moved seats to the new cities but kept a property qualification, so most working men were still shut out.

The whyFurther Acts in 1867 and 1884 widened it again, yet no woman could vote in a general election until 1918. Every extension had to be argued and campaigned for.