Part 3

• Industrial Britain 1800-1900- Economy

  Population growth: 16.3mil (1801) to 41.6 (1901)

  • Increased industrialisation- Britain no longer an agricultural economy
  • Cities grew fast Manchester 89k to 7000k
  • Rapid urbanisation led to overcrowding
  • Working hours long, factories dirty and noisy
• Industrial Britain 1800-1900 - communication

  • Railway- expansion, people and goods transported faster and cheaper
  • Newspapers to distribute nationwide, people were informed and more literate
  • 'Penny post' sending letters
  • Telegraph 1837 - long distance sent quickly
• Industrial Britain 1800-1900 - Government

  > Parliament dominated by whigs and tories

  Whigs - Political power belonged to the people and that the monarch was only in power because of an unwritten contract with the people

  > Religious toleration and supported the calls for economic and political reform

  Tories - Supported the monarch and opposed change to the constitution

  > Supported established church and opposed religious toleration

  Whigs became liberal

  Tories became conservatives
• Industrial Britain 1800-1900 -religion and ideas

  Liassez faire

  > Government don't interfere in how people lied or ran their businesses

  > Importance of self-help

  Social responsibility

  > Government had a moral duty

  > Everyone's duty to help the less fortunate

  > Social reformers motivated by their religious beliefs
• Why were there demands for voting reform 


  > Votes made publicly - corruption

  > MPs were unpaid, so only the rich could afford to stand

  > constituency boundaries out of date
• Rotten boroughs

  • 88 of the 406 consistencies had fewer than 50 voters
  • Villages with seven voters had two MPs
  • Local landowners influenced the election
  • Pocket boroughs bought and sold
• Conservatives

  • they believed the system should not be changed

  Radicals

  • Campaigned for electoral reform and universal male suffrage (one man one vote)
  • Radical newspapers widely distributed
  • Hampden clubs, debated political reform
  • Spa fields riots in London 1816
• Peterloo Massacre 


  16 august 1819 60k-80k

  > St Peter's field, Manchester demand reforms and hear radical speaker Henry Hunt

  Local migrates asked the military to arrest Hunt and disperse the crowd

  > Cavalry charged into the crowd with swords drawn

  > 15 people killed, hundreds injured
• Six Acts

  • Response to peter loo to crack down protest
  • limited public meeting to 50 people
• What caused the reform 1832

  • 1830 - Lord Grey (whig) became prime minister wanted reforms
  • Riots in London, Birmingham, Derby, Nottingham, Leicester, Exeter and Bristol
  • 300k of damages in Bristol , 12 people died
• 1832 Great reform act

  • 56 rotten boroughs were disenfranchised
  • 67 new constituencies