Key features

• Industrialisation

  After 1750, Britain underwent an industrial revolution. This transformed the country:

  • The invention of steam engines and textile machinery led to mass production in huge mills and factories.
  • Better farming machinery meant more food was produced- Fewer working on farms
  • The coal used to power the new machines was mined on a vast scale.
  • New railways and steam trains were built to transport people and goods around the country. These improved food supply to towns and allowed town-ordinary people able to go to countryside easier
  • New factories caused air pollution
• Britain’s population dramatically increased during this period:

  Industrialisation caused people to move from the countryside to the towns. This was due to two related reasons:

  • changes in farming meant there was less work, with lower wages, in rural areas
  • growing industrial towns in the north, such as Glasgow, Leeds and Manchester, offered new jobs in the factories
• Industrialisation: Working conditions

  Work in Britain’s factories and mines was hard and dangerous:

  • Working hours were very long for the men, women and children who all worked in these settings. In some places, they would work for over 12 hours a day.
  • Accidents were common.
  • The working conditions were smoky and dusty, causing respiratory diseases.
• New ideas:

  • Influence of the church was in decline
  • Literacy rate was improving-more people reading newspapers
  • By 1990- many people accepted Charles Darwin evolution theory
  • 1861- Louis Pasteur published his germs theory- proved that it was germs that caused disease
• People:

  • Social mobility(moving from one class to the other) was improving
  • Big gap between the rich and the poor
  • Middle class was growing and many moved out of town centres to live in the suburbs
  • Working class lived closer to factories often in overcrowded conditions
• Parliament and democracy:

  • 1832- middle-class men were able to vote
  • No women could vote
  • Few middle-class people had any idea about the lives of the working class- Most had a laissez faire attitude( interfering as little as possible)
  • 1867 and 1884- Vote was extended to working-class men- MPs had to appeal to new voters