british history chapter 4

• Prosperity


  Entrepreneurial spirit led to some of the profits of industry and trade going into overseas developments, succeeded and capital came back to Britain
• Middle class


  • Manufacturers and merchants benefited most from prosperity
  • Owners of thriving businesses and those who contributed to control of trade and industry, formed part of growing, prosperous middle class
• Prosperous middle class


  • Could afford furniture, house, domestic servants, carriage
  • Limited size of families through birth control, educated children privately, ate well and could afford medical attention
  • Considered reward for hard work
• Wages of working classes


  Fluctuated according to economy, middle classes didn't
• Increased wages, rural wages lower than industrial workers wages
• Industrial wages rose by around 50% between 1850 - 1875
• Prices rose by 20%, wage rise only around 30%, increased spending power
• Working classes


  • Better off, soap and matches, fresh food brought by transport
  • Factories produced cheaper goods targeted at better off working families
  • 1850 Factory Act introduced half day on Saturday, seaside or countryside
• Class division


  Categorised in relation to status and degree of economic influence, varied groups within each class, limited social mobility
• Classes


  • Aristocracy and lesser ranked landowning gentry (upper class)
  • Middle class (merchants, manufacturers, professionals, shopkeepers etc)
  • Lower class (those who laboured with their hands such as craftsmen, miners)
• Industrious classes


  Increasing desire to challenge their position
• 1832 Reform Act
• Upper classes


  • Relied on inherited wealth through land, income from land rents, large influence
  • Industrialization increased wealth because of mineral deposits, coal and iron ore in their land to capitalise on
• Industrialisation


  Brought change to social structure, manufacturers, merchants accumulated wealth and challenge the upper class, imitate them
• Upper middle class, some aristocracy


  • Gradual progress
• Middle class


  • Made up fifth of population, earning £100-£700, laboured with minds, legal and clerical work
  • Could afford domestic servant, 1871 - 1.4 m had domestic servants
• Working classes


  • 1850 - four fifths, manual labour, lack of homogeneity
  • Rural areas poorly paid agricultural, urban diversity semi/fully/ unskilled craftsmen
• Working class


  Those who maintain themselves with work, poor don't maintain
• Mid Victorian Boom did not solve poverty, still unemployment, bad working conditions, young workers, no education couldn't read or write
• Slum districts in house in towns and cities, insanitary
• Strongly laissez faire, nevertheless, social improvements introduced through limited government intervention in public health legislation, factory legislation and state education
• Little security if job lost. The skilled may have set money aside in the Post Office Savings bank introduced by Gladstone in 1861, sometimes ended up in workhouses or poor relief
• Figure declined with Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834
• Regional division


  • England was dominant centre of UK
  • England ruled Wales until 1536
• Strong national identity, others had to work hard for theirs
• National identity and the preservation of old traditions and language important for Scotland, Ireland and Wales but about 1870, languages under threat
• • Railway network did not connect to Highlands of Scotland, crofting families left behind golden age of agriculture
  • Rents high during depression led to Crofters' War
• Farm workers in south-east Scotland wage was higher
• • Central and southern Scotland flourished with industrialisation e.g. Glasgow, textiles, engineering
  • Glasgow and Edinburgh were third and fifth wealthiest cities in Britain
• • Ulster were modern industrial development, Belfast renowned for textiles and engineering wages were high
  • Rural areas economy was weak
• • South Wales industrial developments around coal fields, religion provided national identity
  • By 1850 - nonconformist, three quarters were Church goers
• • Coal and iron ore allowed industry to develop in the North, South remained agricultural
  • Some counties like Shropshire and Cornwall suffered depopulation as wages were low and would be higher in towns
  • Easier because of transportation
• Increased mechanisation reduced need for labour, demand in urban industry