18th and 19th century Britain

• Britain was the first country in the world to have an industrial revolution
• The industrial revolution had a tremendous impact on people moving within Britain as well as people migrating to Britain
• Towns and cities


  • They grew rapidly due to urbanisation
  • The number of people living in towns grew from under 5 million in 1700 to approximately 32.5 million in 1900
  • This was because of the rapid growth of work available in factories as a result of industrialisation
• Transport links


  • They were improved, involving roads, canals and railways
  • It became easier and quicker to take raw materials to factories and finished goods to the docks
  • The new docks in Liverpool, London, Glasgow, Hull and Bristol were the busiest in the world as trade links grew and developed
• Agriculture


  • Enclosure of fields meant that better crops were grown and high-quality meat and wool were produced
  • This met the needs of the growing towns for more food, even though fewer people were needed to work the land
• Demands from the growing towns and cities led to wider representation in Parliament as middle-class and by the end of the century, working-class men were able to vote and vote secrecy
• Laws passed by Parliament showed a gradual change in attitudes to, for example, the transatlantic slave trade and slavery
• People felt freer to express different attitudes to the ways in which society should be run and to demand their civil liberties (their rights to, for example, free speech)
• Transatlantic slave trade


  • By 1750 Britain sold more black Africans into slavery in the Caribbean than any other European nation
  • 3.5 million black Africans were transported across the Atlantic in British ships
  • They were sold into slavery on sugar and cotton plantations in the Caribbean and the southern states of America
  • The ships returned to Britain with cargoes of sugar, cotton, tobacco and rum
  • As enslaved people laboured in brutal conditions, slave traders became very rich
• Britain used its empire as a source of raw materials and a market for its manufactured goods, which often destroyed local industries, for example the Indian cotton industry
• Reasons for migration to Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries


  • Some people were forced to migrate while others made a deliberate choice to do so
  • All believed they would lead better lives in Britain
• Irish migrants


  • It was usual for Irish people to cross to England or Scotland to work for a few weeks where they could earn more money than in Ireland
  • In the 1840s and 1850s, thousands of Irish people migrated to England and Scotland to flee poverty and starvation in search of a better life
  • Many settled in Liverpool and Glasgow as they were the nearest ports to Belfast and Dublin
  • Many regarded Britain as a "stop-over" on their way to America or Australia, but hundreds found they couldn't afford the fare to travel further, so they stayed in Britain
  • Rural occupations such as spinning and weaving had collapsed in Ireland because of English competition
• Migrants from the British Empire and beyond


  • When English families returned to Britain from India, their Indian servants often chose to go with them to keep their jobs
  • Indian students migrated to study at British universities, many studying Law
  • Some Indian princes came to Britain as they preferred the way Britain was ruled
  • The East India Company recruited sailors (lascars) from India, China, Malaya, Somalia and Yemen to transport their goods to Britain
• Jewish migrants


  • They came to join existing Jewish communities in Britain
  • Although anti-Semitism still existed, there was increasing tolerance in Britain, especially compared with the persecution Jews faced in the Russian Empire
• Italian migrants


  • Agriculture in Britain was prosperous compared to that in Italy
  • Britain was peaceful and less dangerous than Italy, which was at war and had outbreaks of typhus and cholera
• German migrants


  • Britain had greater freedom for political thinkers to express their ideas and greater opportunities - was free from government interference for skilled people
  • Britain was peaceful compared with the warfare between German states
• Migrant experiences in industrial Britain

  • Most Irish migrants settled in urban cities and took on unskilled work as few had the skills needed for factory work
  • Irish navvies (labourers) did dangerous work building railways
  • Irish migrants faced prejudice as they were Catholics living in a Protestant country and worked for lower wages than the English
  • European migrants, such as Germans and Italians, were generally well regarded as they contributed to the economy
• Role of the media

  • Newspapers publicised the judgement of Lord Justice Mansfield (1772) that slavery could not legally exist in England
  • Paul Reuter, a German migrant, started the London-based Reuters News Agency in 1851 which sold international news to British newspapers
  • Newspapers publicised the plight of Mary Seacole, a Jamaican nurse, which led to a fund-raising gala that raised a substantial amount of money
• Black Africans, some of whom had been enslaved, helped persuade the public and MPs that the transatlantic slave trade and slavery itself should be abolished, and in 1807 Parliament voted to abolish the transatlantic slave trade
• Migrants from Africa, Asia and Europe had a tremendous impact in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. They brought change to many different aspects of British society, including culture, trade and industry, politics and the urban environment.
• Black Africans, some of whom had been enslaved

  • Helped persuade the public and MPs that the transatlantic slave trade and slavery itself should be abolished
  • In 1807 Parliament voted to abolish the transatlantic slave trade, and in 1833 to abolish slavery in the British Empire
• The ideas of German migrants Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

  • Had a significant impact on the way people believed society should be organised
  • Their Communist Manifesto outlined how industry and property should be owned and run by the community- they believed this would make society fairer
• Migrants became involved with Chartism

  • A national movement that wanted working-class representation in Parliament
  • Feargus O'Connor, an Irish Protestant, edited the Northern Star, a radical newspaper that supported the Chartists
  • William Cuffay, whose father had been enslaved in the Caribbean, became chairman of the London Chartists
• Irish navvies

  • Played a huge part in making Britain's economy successful by digging canals and constructing railways
• Migrants who owned and ran shops, banks and businesses

  • Michael Marks, a Polish Jew, owned a stall in Leeds market in 1884 and by 1900 Marks & Spencer had shops in all Britain's major towns
• Migrants employed in and helped some industries thrive

  • Many Eastern European Jews worked in the clothing trade
• Migrants' culture


  • Had an impact beyond their own communities
  • Chinese, Indian and Jewish restaurants and cafes added variety to people's diets
  • The music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, the son of a black African father and his English wife, was enjoyed by many and helped to break down racial prejudice
• Liverpool had prospered from the transatlantic slave trade. Traders, who had made fortunes from plantations worked by enslaved people in terrible conditions, invested in the city.
• The transatlantic slave trade ended in England in 1807 and slavery ended in the British Empire in 1833. Merchants began importing and exporting a wide range of goods instead.
• The port of Liverpool in the 19th century

  • Liverpool faced the Atlantic Ocean and so Liverpool merchants traded mainly with America, importing raw materials and exporting finished goods
  • Raw cotton was Liverpool's main import. It was needed to meet the demands of the growing number of spinning and weaving mills in nearby Manchester. About 80% of Britain's cotton imports came from the USA, mostly through the port of Liverpool
• The Irish community in Liverpool


  • Irish navvies built the docks and thousands of migrants worked on them afterwards as dockers and warehousemen
  • After the 1840s Irish businesses opened. Irish pubs gave advice and support to new arrivals
  • By 1851, over 20% of the population of the city was Irish (83,000 people). Most of them lived in poor, run-down districts of the city-areas where disease flourished
  • Irish people who fell ill were looked after by the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. In 1847, 60,000 caught typhus, a disease associated with filthy living conditions. Huge sheds by the docks were used to isolate those with the disease and restrictions were put on Irish migrants coming in to Liverpool
  • Most Irish migrants were Catholics. In 1870 there were 8 Catholic parishes in the city. By 1916, there were 24
• Sailors in Liverpool


  • Many lascars (Indian sailors) stayed on in Liverpool once the ships had docked. Some carried on working as sailors for other shipping companies; others took what work they could find and so set up lodging houses. Many married English women
  • From the 1850s, Liverpool merchants began trading in silk and tea from Shanghai and Hong Kong. One Chinese sailors stayed on in Liverpool, setting up businesses, shops and cafes. They gained a reputation for hard work. Soon, Liverpool had the largest Chinatown in Europe. Many married English women. They became well known for the support they gave their families
  • Increasing trade with Africa brought African sailors to Liverpool. Many were hired by shipping companies because they were willing to work for lower wages and in worse conditions than other sailors
• Many people were prejudiced against the Irish migrants and crime was often blamed on them. In 1850 half of the 6,000 people brought before the magistrates were Irish.
• Jewish migrants in London


  • In the late 19th century, a large number of Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe and Russia arrived in Britain, facing persecution at home and seeing Britain as a safe place
  • Whitechapel and Spitalfields were areas in the East End of London where most of the new Jewish migrants headed. Here there were already established Jewish communities but living and working conditions were poor
  • Jewish community leaders established a 'shelter' where migrants could stay for a number of 14 days. They were given two meals a day while they found other accommodation and work
  • Many Jewish people found work in sweatshops, where they worked long hours in poor conditions for little pay. They produced a range of clothing from cheap to expensive
  • The new migrants spoke little if any English. Jewish leaders introduced a crash course in the English language and customs. This would help the new migrants integrate yet allow them to retain their Jewish heritage
  • The Jewish Free School was important in educating London's Jewish children in their new way of life
• Sweatshops in London


  • There was unemployment in the East End and the arrival of thousands of Jews looking for work created a tense situation
  • Many English people living in London believed that Jews working in sweatshops were taking work away from them
  • Trade unions had worked hard to establish basic working conditions, however, sweatshop owners ignored them and produced goods more cheaply than properly regulated factories
  • All sweatshops were illegal, wherever they were run in England. Not all sweatshops were owned by Jews but the ones in Whitechapel were. This made it particularly difficult to shut them down. This was because the owners only spoke Yiddish (a language spoken by Jewish people in many parts of the world), which the police did not. So there was a communication problem
• There was so much violence targeting Jewish people that the police were afraid to patrol the streets alone in some areas. Parliament set up two committees of enquiry into anti-Semitism.
• When five women were murdered by a man nicknamed 'Jack the Ripper', some blamed the Jewish community. There was a suggestion that the knives of Jewish ritual slaughterers had been used, but this was not true. Graffiti blaming Jewish people was found near the bloodstained apron belonging to one of the victims, but the connection to the murder could not be proved. The murderer was never caught and anti-Semitism continued to increase.
• East India Company


  Formed in 1600 to trade in the Indian Ocean, eventually ran vast areas of India with its own army and administrators
• British government ruled India in what was called the British Raj


  1858
• Empire


  Abandoned by Germans when free