Changes in 18th and 19th Century Britain & Their Impact

What changes took place in the 18th and 19th century Britain?

Learning Objective

  • To be able to describe and evaluate significant changes from the 18th to 19th century.
Success Criteria
  • Gold: Assess the impact of the changes.
  • Silver: Explain the changes that took place.
  • Bronze: Describe the changes that took place.

Prior Learning Review

  • Recall past lessons and identify related words to create the longest word with the highest value (Scrabble-style activity). Example: Silk (S=1, i=1, L=1, K=5) = 8 points.

Explanation of Historical Events

  • Expulsion of the Jews (1290):
    • Ordered by Edward I.
    • All Jews were ordered to leave England in return for Parliament granting him additional taxation for his war with France.
    • Over 3000 Jews left England.
  • “Evil May Day” (1517):
    • A xenophobic riot in 1517.
    • Protest against foreigners living in London.
    • Apprentices attacked foreign residents due to an inflammatory speech made by the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1516.
  • Draining of the Fens (1630s onwards):
    • Cornelius Vermuyden led the Flemish effort to drain the Fens from the 1630s.
    • By 1642, 40,000 additional acres of land had been drained and turned into highly fertile farmland.

Act of Unity of 1707

  • Unified England, Scotland, and Wales under the same leadership from London.

Migration During the Industrial Revolution (c.1700 – c.1900)

  • Focus of the lesson: migration during the period c.1700 – c.1900, also known as the Industrial Revolution.

Impact of Industrial Revolution on Migration

  • Britain became the first industrialised nation.
  • Factories offered new jobs and investment opportunities.
  • Construction of houses, docks, mills, canals, and railways required workers, many of whom were migrants.
  • Britain built the largest empire, resulting in forced migration of black Africans to sugar plantations in the West Indies.
  • Migrants were more accepted if they contributed to British life and prosperity.
  • Many migrants faced poverty, persecution, and prejudice due to their race or origin.

Key Changes in 18th and 19th Century and Impacts on Migration

  • (Activity to fill in tables with key changes and their impact on migration).

Factors Influencing Migration

  • Population change
  • Developments in transport
  • New ideas about religion
  • New ideas about ‘Science’
  • How the country was run
  • Different attitudes to migration
  • Developments in communication
  • Attitudes towards the poor
  • Attitudes towards women
  • The British Empire & Slavery

Homework

  • Explain why migrants were attracted to Britain during the Industrial Age (c.1700-c.1900). Consider:
    • Industrial Revolution
    • Attitudes to Workers

Economic and Industrial Revolution

  • Before 1700:
    • Goods made by hand in small workshops and homes.
    • Machines powered by water, animals, or hand.
  • After 1700:
    • Britain became the first nation to go through the Industrial Revolution.
    • Goods were made in factories located in rapidly growing towns and cities, requiring many workers.
    • Large-scale production using huge machines powered by steam, operating 24 hours a day.
    • Machines were powered by steam which made the production of goods quicker, cheaper and more reliable.
    • By 1850, Britain’s factories produced two-thirds of the world’s cotton cloth.
    • Britain was known as the ‘workshop of the world’.
    • Export of goods led to economic boom.

Changing Ideas: Religion

  • Before 1700:
    • Tension and conflict between Catholics and Protestants across Europe.
  • After 1700:
    • Britain remained a Protestant country, providing stability.
    • Religion became less central in people’s lives (40% church attendance).
    • Religious beliefs still motivated social reform (improving living/working conditions, ending slave trade).
    • Jews allowed to become MPs from 1858.
    • The 1829 Catholic Emancipation Act gave Catholics the same rights as Protestants, encouraging Irish migration.

Changing Ideas: Science

  • Before 1700:
    • Most people believed that God was responsible for much of what happened on earth.
  • After 1700:
    • Increased belief in science based on facts rather than religious superstition.
    • Progress in medicine, healthcare, physics, and chemistry.
    • The Enlightenment emphasized science over religion.
    • Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and ‘Survival of the Fittest’ led to misuse by racists to justify imperialism and the slave trade.
    • Darwin argued that stronger species survived over time.
    • Some people wrongly used his theory to suggest that certain races of people were superior (better) than others.
    • Some racists used this idea to justify their ideas that Britain had a right to conquer places like Africa and support the Slave Trade.

Population Growth & Urbanisation

  • In 1700:
    • 85% of people lived and worked in the countryside (small towns).
  • By 1900:
    • 85% lived in urban areas.
    • Migration from countryside to towns for factory, port, and mill jobs (urbanisation).
    • Growth of industrial towns like Glasgow, Birmingham, Leeds, and Manchester.
    • Urban population grew from 5 million in 1700 to 32 million by 1900.
    • New docks and ports in Liverpool, London, Cardiff, and Bristol for exports and slave trade.
    • Increased life expectancy due to better medical care, sanitation, and food.
    • Population grew from 10 million in 1700 to 40 million by 1900.

Parliament & Democracy

  • Medieval England:
    • Monarch had sole control.
  • Early Modern Period:
    • Monarchs began to share power with Parliament.
    • Rare to challenge the monarchy or parliament.
    • Only 5% of the population could vote.
  • After 1700:
    • Gradual increase in public say in government.
    • 1819: 80,000 people gathered in Manchester demanding the vote; peaceful protest met with violence (18 killed).
    • 1832: Great Reform Act gave the vote to some middle-class men (factory owners).
    • By 1884: More working-class men were given the vote.

Changing Attitudes

  • Before the 1700s:
    • Government not responsible for ordinary people's lives.
    • Poverty seen as a result of bad choices.
  • After 1700:
    • Reformers pushed for reduced working hours, increased education, and safer workplaces.
    • Attitudes to migration changed based on origin; prejudice against those with different cultures, religions, or skin colours (‘alien’).

Changes in Europe

  • The French Revolution (1789):
    • Ordinary people rose up against the French monarch Louis XVI.
    • The violent events in France frightened politicians in Britain who feared the British public might do the same to them.
    • They began offering more support to working class people in an attempt to prevent rebellions.
  • French Revolutionary Wars (1803-15):
    • Napoleon Bonaparte began the French Revolutionary Wars (1803- 15).
    • Napoleon was defeated by combined British and German forces at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
    • The fighting led to the displacement of many people in Europe.

Transport & Communication

  • Before 1700:
    • Slow transport: foot, horse and carriage, small boats.
  • Industrial Period:
    • Steam engine powered machines and railways.
    • Railways covered the country by 1900, for goods and people.
    • Canals, railways, and roads allowed people to travel around the country quickly.
    • Steam-powered ships made the world faster and easier to move around; linked Britain with its empire (Canada, Australia).
    • Development of transport led to quick and easy communication.
    • 1840: Penny Post launched (one penny for letters nationwide).

Changes for Women

  • Before 1700:
    • Women's lives centred on home and children.
    • Poorer women worked in small workshops or farmed land.
    • Husband controlled wife’s belongings and earnings.
  • By the 1700s:
    • Working-class women worked in factories, gaining independence.
    • Arguments for equal rights and education.
    • The Married Women’s Property Act (1870) allowed women to control their own earnings and their own property after they had married.
    • By 1900, some women began to fight for the right to vote.

The British Empire

  • Before 1700:
    • England started to discover other parts of world such as the New World – America.
  • After 1700:
    • Expansion of empire through colonisation.
    • Growth of the empire helped Britain’s economy with goods being brought in to Britain from across the world and goods from Britain sold abroad.
    • Opportunity for people from the colonies to migrate.
    • By 1800, Britain ruled one fifth of the world’s land and a quarter of the world’s population.
    • 1763: Canada became a British colony.
    • 1788: Australia became a British colony.
    • 1840: New Zealand became a British colony.
    • 1858: Britain took complete control of India.
    • From 1881 onwards, Britain gained more land in Africa.

The Slave Trade

  • 1700s: height of the slave trade. Sugar from the slave plantations made many British merchants very rich and port cities such as Liverpool and Bristol very prosperous.
  • By 1750, Britain sold more Africans into slavery than any other country in Europe as part of the trade.
  • $3.5$ million Africans were transported across the Atlantic to work in the sugar and cotton fields in the Caribbean and America.
  • The Slave Trade was abolished in 1807 and Slavery itself in 1833. After this point, some came to England as it was seen as a better alternative than America which continued to practice slavery in areas.