FC

The Urban Game - Background Information

Background Information on 18th Century Rural England

  • Year & Setting: 1700, rural England; significant changes expected over the next century.

  • Village Life: Villages typically consist of 200-400 people, characterized by a traditional, slow-paced life.

    • Most of the population rural areas (75%), with London's population at ~750,000 by 1750.

  • Family Structure: Integrated economic and social units; all members, including children, contributed to work.

  • Living Conditions: Small homes with poor ventilation; families shared sleeping quarters, sometimes with livestock.

  • Life Expectancy: About 40 years; early marriage was common, and women often died in childbirth.

  • Social Structure: Non-rigid hierarchy; poor farmers predominantly, few middle-class, some aristocrats.

    • The economy is reliant on land ownership for sustenance and trade.

  • Marriage customs: Arranged for economic stability; men often waited until inheriting land to marry.

    • Primogeniture: The Eldest son inherits the land; younger siblings may receive cash or wait for inheritance.

  • Occupation: Mainly farming; commons land available for communal use; many farmers owned хоть small plots.

  • Transportation & Trade: Dirt roads limited trade; most individuals never travelled beyond 25 miles from their birthplace.

  • Fuel Sources: Firewood and coal; many villages had coal mining operations employing locals during winter.

Before and After Industrialization

People earned a living by:

Before industrialization: working in fields, at home, in an adjoining workshop, selling food, or coal mining

After industrialization: working in factories, mines, Stores, schools, farms, etc.

The tools used were usually:

Before industrialization: homemade [by hand]

After industrialization, produced by factories

People travelled by:

Before industrialization: Dirt road, which was a hard way of transportation.

After industrialization: Railroads, Bridges, Canals and trains. veVeryew dirt roads

Work hours were determined by:

Before industrialization, social status or they worked from Sunrise to sunset

After industrialization: 6 am - 9 pm. Long hours

The roles of children were to:

Before industrialization, sons followed. Their fathers [are working on farms]. Daughters followed their mother [ doing chores ]

After industrialization, work in factories and mines

Clothing and food were made by:

Before industrialization: Homemade [ by hand]

After industrialization, made by people in factories

Sources of power included.

Before industrialization: firewood and coal.

After industrialization: Smoke, gas, and coal

Other changes:

Before industrialization, People married in their teens.

After industrialization: Jails, pubs, Hospitals, pollution, etc

Why England

Population: Large population looking for work.

Why is this important? A lot of people are willing to work, and allowing these people to make more money for the economy.

Source of fuel: Abundance of coal and iron

. Why is this important?: Makes more machines and more technology

Shipping of Goods: Access to harbours, oceans, rivers, and waterwaysWhyy is this important? Having a solid way to ship goods can lead to earning money, trading is open, and it is easier than going by road.

Expanding economy: wealth from agriculture = investment in manufacturing equipment

. Why is this important? Having money in order to make money also expands the industry.

Banking system: developed banking systems = Loans

Why is this important? The bank makes a profit, the country gets money, good for the economy.

Political stability: England had a stable Constitutional Monarchy. Why is this important?: More stable and organized. Peaceful Society

Agriculture

vocab:

Arable: Land suitable for growing crops

Fallow: plowed and harrowed but left untouched for some time to restore its fertility

Parliamentary Enclosure: Process primarily between 1750-1850, where land previously held as open fields was enclosed and privatized by enclosing/separating them with hedges and ditches

Tenan t Farmer: cultivates land they don't own, instead paying rent

Commons: Open field systems, people could farm, and graze livestock

Selective Breeding: humans breeding animals/plants with particular traits to improve the Size and weight of animals, which resulted in cheaper / more food

Sickle: a hand tool with a curved blade and a short handle, used for harvesting grain or cutting grass. Replaced by Scythe

Scythe: Similar to Sa ickle, but had a longer blade and handle

Video Notes: What two things needed to happen for Britain to have an industrial revolution ?:

- Population growth and a greater amount/proportion of the population to be able to leave farming to work in factories

Describe how the population changed after 1700:

From 5.7 million to 16.6 million. Farming became more productive.

How did farmers change the way they planted land? The

Land was suitable for growing crops, so they left certain land fallow to recover nutrients. Crop rotations allowed for more arable land.

Why were clover and turnips ideal crops?

Turnips were ideal for animals to eat, and their feces [poo] could be used as fertilizer for the soil. Clover helped nitrogen transfer the nitrogen from the atmosphere to the Soil.

What was the Enclosure Movement?:

Major agricultural movement, suggesting that instead of owning small strips of land, people could own bigger, privately owned farmland. Small farmers lost their land, and there was a loss of common land. But there was population growth and higher food production.

Describe the agricultural innovations and now impact fos the new technology.

Some impactful innovations were crop rotation, selective breeding. Also, new tools like the seed drill and enclosed farming were very impactful. These changes allowed more efficient farming and produced more food with less labour. This allowed food to be cheaper, and made the population grow because more people had moved to cities to work in factories.

Agriculture Inventions

The Seed Drill 1701 Inventor: Jethro Tull

impact:

  • Mechanical seeder that prepared the soil, planted the seeds at the correct depth and spacing in rows, and covered the seeds with soil. [harrowing]

  • Originally a hand machine, but eventually it was replaced by animal-drawn machines that could plant several rows at once

REPLACED:

  • Broadcasting: using hands to scatter after the soil was prepared.

  • This was wasteful, not all the seeds rooted, and animals could eat the seeds

  • planting seeds by hand

Norfolk Four-Course System 1730s

Developed by: Charles "turnip" Townshend

impact:

  • No longer leave land fallow

  • increased production and amount of arable land

REPLACED:

3 field rotation: First year: I crop

2nd year: another different crop

3rd year: follow

Selective Breeding 1760's

Developed by: Robert Bakewell

impact:

  • Livestock Stock separated into males from females, selecting animals with positive traits

  • They "Culled" [killed] those that were seen as "inferior”

  • Rented out "Studs" to other farmers = animal husbandry

  • animals produced were more productive [ wool, meat ], lowering the cost of meat

REPLACED:

Livestock were free to breed, producing random Stock

Industrial Revolution Notes

The Cottage Industry People

  • le made goods in their homes

  • Production: Small Scale

  • Labour: Intensive

  • Mostly cloth and wool for clothing

DRAWBACKS

  • slow and inefficient

  • couldn't keep up with the population

Flying Shuttle 1733

Inventor: John Kay

  • produced wider cloth

  • I weaver instead of 2

Spinning Jenny 1764

Inventor: James Hargreaves

  • Many spindles of thread spun at once [8 times ]

Water Frame 1769

Inventor: Richard Arkwright

  • water powered

  • could spin 100+ spindles at once

Power Loom 1793

Inventor: Edmund Carlwightwater-powered and quicker production of cloth

Cotton Gin 1785

Eli Whitney

Harvested cotton faster than the manual method

Water Wheels

Problem 1: You had to be close to a water source

Problem 2: In winter, the water froze. In the summer, the water dried up

Solution: Steam Power

The Steam Engine

  • Started the year 62

  • In 1678, Thomas Savery built a Steam engine to draw water out of mines, with Limited success

  • 1700's Thomas Newcomen improved on Savery's model. Still couldn't power machines

  • 1769In, Jones Watt's engine increased power and efficiency.Which can be used in machines and transportation

Roadways

  • Turnpike trusts: private / semi-private organizations that would collect tolls and maintain roads

  • 18 ZO's " mcadamization" of roads - more accessible

  • John Mcadam

  • Roads were several layers, sloped away from the middle of the road, and were tarred

  • canals: man-made waterways

  • more efficient than roads

  • cheaper to transport

  • Railways: Started to develop in 1801

  • By 1829, the first steam-engine locomotive was designed

  • 1830 first railroad that used a steam engine travelled from Liverpool to Manchester

  • Perishable goods could now be transported without spoiling