Paper 10 – Supervision 1
Marton Price – Trinity Hall
Examine the extent to which the advent of urban industrialism heightened the contrasts between rich and poor members of society in England
For this essay I shall define the period of urban industrialism as beginning during the late 18 th century, and ending around 1870, while specifically focusing on the urban landscape, which became such a prominent centre of society during the Industrial Revolution. Firstly, I will describe the pre industrialist and then industrialist urban landscape, especially the industrialist urban city. !econdly, I intend to analyse empirical literature on the sub"ect, focusing on the wor#s of socalled $optimists% who argue that industrialism led to higher wages and &'( per capital, and $pessimists% who say that living conditions did not increase during the industrial revolution. )astly, I shall analyse the problem myself and draw conclusions based on available evidence, such as *hadwic#%s !anitary Report of 18+ and -ngel%s 18++ wor#, $he *ondition of the /or#ing *lass in -ngland.% efore the 18 th century, preindustrialist cities were essentially smallscale settlements based on a residual mercantile economy with rigid social structures originating from medieval feudalism. 2no3, ( 4 (inch, !, 0105 6lthough we have few resources and evidence about the preindustrialist city, !"ober !"oberg g 105 105 gives gives an ideali idealistic stic overvi overview ew of its social social geogra geography phy,, whereby whereby there is a spatia spatiall e3pression of division, with a small elite in the pleasant and e3clusive central core, while lower classes and outcasts lived in surrounding poorly built periphery. In these cities, the elite group controlled religious, political, administrative and social functions, and even wealthy merchants were e3clud e3cluded ed from from these these tas#s. tas#s. 2no3, 2no3, ( 4 (inch, (inch, !, 0105 0105 9ther 9ther histor historian ianss :uestio :uestion n this this centra centrall organisation of the cities and ;ance 1715 puts greater emphasis on occupational clusterings and economic organisation due to craft guilds, proposing $man y centred% preindustrialist cities. /ith the advent of the Industrial Revolution, this social fabric of cities became turned $inside out% as the elite e3changed their location for the suburbs. 2no3, ( 4 (inch, !, 0105 (ower and status were determined by wealth, ownership of land gets divorced from its use and wor#place and home were separated. 6ccumulation of capital did not only become morally acceptable, but became the basis of socioeconomic power < entrepreneurs introduced a materialistic value system to urban affairs. 2no3, ( 4 (inch, !, 0105 his led to the rise of two new social classes, the industrialist capitalists and the uns#illed wor#ers. hese two groups formed the new elite and proletariat that replaced the old order. 6s 'israeli, ritain%s (rime =inister at the time put it> $ we are a country of two nations, between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by differ differen entt breed breeding ing,, are are fed by differ differen entt food, food, are are orde ordere red d by differ differen entt manner manners, s, and are not governed by the same laws l aws ... the rich and the poor.’ poor.’ 'israeli, 18++5 !tatus, based on money, became synonymous with rentpaying ability and new neighbourhoods were created along status divisions. Inevitably, lowest :uality housing became the home of the poorest, crammed in at high densities, leading to growing areas of poor areas ad"acent to factories. 2no3, ( 4 (inch, !, 0105 his was most illustrative in =anchester, as observed by -ngels in his famous wor#, $ The ondition of the !or"ing r"ing lass lass in Englan England.’ d.’ ?e descri describe bed d #unmixed #unmixed wor"ing wor"ing $uarters, $uarters, stretching stretching li"e a girdle, girdle, averaging a mile and a half in breadth.’ breadth.’ -ngels, 18++5 his pattern of concentric @ones, with wor#ing mass in centre becomes typical of many ;ictorian cities. his new city layout could be perceived clearly in )ondon, where *harles ooth described, in his wor# $)ife and )abour of the (eople of )ondon 10A5 + concentric @ones around the unpopulated commercial centre of )ondon, being>
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Paper 10 – Supervision 1 -
Marton Price – Trinity Hall
1st @one> severe crowding and e3treme poverty e3cept in $/est -nd% where there was e3treme affluence nd @one slightly less wealthy in western sector and less crowded and impoverished elsewhere Ard @one inhabited by $short distance commuter% lower middle class5 +th @one e3clusively inhabited by the wealthy.
Bow that we have described the urban landscape of the industrial city, we must visit the original :uestion, whether the Industrial Revolution increased social ine:uality of not. he debate around industrialisation and poverty its nature, e3tent, and i mpact continues to sharply divide historians. In general terms, CoptimistsC argue that industrialisation brought higher wages, and a better standard of living, whereas CpessimistsC argue that the :uality of life for wor#ers deteriorated especially between 1780 and 18D0, with only limited improvements for some s#illed sectors before the 1870s. de (ennington, 0115 For this essay, we can say that whilst industrialisation brought a number of dramatic changes and opportunities, insecurity and the resultant downwards spiral into poverty remained a deeply entrenched problem in industrialist -ngland. ?owever, many ;ictorians had difficulties in e3plaining the causes of such poverty. !ome viewed it as the result of personal misfortune, and at the beginning of the 1 th century, poverty was regarded as the natural condition of the labouring poor masses. In -ngland, from 1780 and into the first :uarter of the 1th century, the poor relief system was under strain with an increasing population and agricultural depressions. he enclosure movements dispossessed a generation from the land and where common land was enclosed labourers lost a number of rural benefits such as gra@ing and fuelgathering rights. de (ennington, 0115 6s I have described above, with the divide between the wealthy elite and the labouring poor growing, by 18A the situation had become so bad that the Royal *ommission was set up to review these issues. 'uring this, the mismanagement and inefficacy of the old (oor )aw was also becoming apparent and =althus%s and entham%s ideas about rapid population growth and utilitarianism respectively advocated the use of rational criteria, underpinned by the principle of Cthe greatest good of the greatest numberC in order to avoid overpopulation and starvation. he combination of these ideas and problems led to the (oor )aw 6mendment 6ct of 18A+ in -ngland and /ales, but the 6ct continued to rely on the parish rate and, set the principles of social policy for the rest of the century and beyond. *hadwic#%s !anitary Report of 18+ was another ma"or milestone in the review of the growing social ine:uality, which was conducted between 18A and 18+1. ?is wor# formed the basis of the 18+8 (ublic ?ealth 6ct. -ngels used *hadwic#Cs wor# for his *ondition of the /or#ing *lass in -ngland 18++5. he Report was an ob"ective wor#, which followed the 18+0 Report of the ?ealth of owns *ommittee. he 18+ Report was sponsored by the (oor )aw *ommission. It sold over A0,000 copies, but did not have the authority of an official document, as it was published in *hadwic#Cs name. It presented four main themes, with a mass of e3amples offered as proofs. he cholera scares of 18A1 and 18A helped with the Report becoming more accepted, and the 18+8 ?ealth 6ct coincided with another outbrea# of cholera. he Report pointed out the correlation between the lac# of sanitation and a5 disease, b5 high mortality rates and c5 low life e3pectancy, but was done without medical #nowledge. /hat is clear from official records is that a high proportion of women were forced to resort to the wor#house not only the Cfallen womenC characterised in some ;ictorian novels but also deserted wives, widows with young children and unemployed servants. ?owever, by the end of the ;ictorian period the largest group of inmates was elderly men, often longterm residents, along with the infirm and young orphans, although many of these youngsters were increasingly sent to Cfoster homesC, a
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Paper 10 – Supervision 1
Marton Price – Trinity Hall
practice which had first been widely adopted in !cotland. ecause the operations of the (oor )aw were so circumscribed and the poor were unwilling to apply for relief, other ways of dealing with lifeCs misfortunes became increasingly important. de (ennington, 0115 Recent research has shown that there was an $early growth parado3%, that economic growth in terms of an increase of per capita &'(5 only after some decades resulted in increases in real wages earned by industrial and agricultural labourers, and that the $biological standard of living% as read from the evidence on heights sometimes tended to lag behind even more. (amu# 4 Eenden, 0005 In the early 180s, $optimist% historians )indert and /illiamson created new indices with wider coverages to argue that standards of living improved sharply in ritain by as much as D0 or more from 1780 to 18A0 and about 100 percent for the period 1780 to 18D0 as a whole. )indert and /illiamson, 18A5 Feinstein, a $pessimist% historian, who created a new cost of living inde3 challenged )indert and /illiamsons findings, claiming that the prices of goods fell much less after the Bapoleonic /ars than previously thought, and thus real wages were lower. he Feinstein indices showed much smaller increases for real wages, about 0 percent for the period 18018D0 and less than +0 percent for the entire period 178018D0. hey indicated another increase of percent for the period 18D01870. Feinstein, 185 )ater, &'( per capita series compiled by historians *rafts and ?arley indicated that industrial and overall growth in ritain until the 18A0s was much slower than esti mated earlier. 6 usually very good indicator of human health is the average height of people, and there has been e3pensive research done in this area, with for e3ample, the total decline in heights of -nglish soldiers reaching two centimetres during the period of industrialisation, suggesting a net decline in living conditions. 6 historian researching on this area, 2omlos emphasi@es that the causal lin#age between socioeconomic and structural changes and heights should be applied for the period of Industrial Revolution as well. ?e argues that a number of developments may have adversely influenced average heights during the early decades of industriali@ation. 6mongst them, he cites rapid population growth and rising relative prices of nutrition that may have led to the substitution of more carbohydrates for proteins, rapid urbani@ation which may have put the town dwellers at a disadvantage for nutrition, growing ine:ualities in income and intensification of labour. hese structural changes may have created a divergence between average incomes and wages on the one hand, biological wellbeing on the other. 2omlos, 185 6nother crucial factor in this widening of social ine:uality is the implementation of the factory system across -ngland. his led to labourers having to be disciplined due to the capital intensive mode of production in factories < namely that machines had to be #ept running. his labour hours were e3tended, and the labour of women and children was also increasingly used. hat wor#ing hours went up until the middle decades of the 1th century is now well documented, in particular for -ngland ;oth, 0005 here is strong rationale to suggest that these factors may have held bac# real improvements in the standard of living amongst the urban population. hompson, 175 In conclusion, this specific pattern of labourintensive industrialisation that was arguably characteristic of the -nglish Industrial Revolution, in which te3tiles were made with the heavy use of cheap women%s and children%s labour, resulted in a period of strong economic e3pansion, during which human capital formation stagnated. 6s many historians, especially *rafts 18D5 have demonstrated, levels of human capital formation during the ritish Industrial Revolution were much lower than those of similar continental countries during their industrialisation, and thus I conclude that the advent of the urban industrialisation in -ngland did heighten the contrasts and ine:ualities between the rich and poor members of society.
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Paper 10 – Supervision 1
Marton Price – Trinity Hall
ibliography> 1. 2no3 ( 4 (inch ! 0105 rban !ocial &eography *hapter 5 . Goung & 0075 ;ictorian -ngland> portrait of an age A. 2omlos, Hohn 185. !hrin#ing in a &rowing -conomyJ he =ystery of (hysical !tature during the Industrial RevolutionK, he Hournal of -conomic ?is tory, D8, 7780. +. Feinstein, *harles, ?. 185. (essimism (erpetuated> Real /ages and the !tandards of )iving in ritain during and after the Industrial Revolution, he Hournal of -conomic ?istory, ;ol. D8, Bo. A, DD8. D. *rafts, B.F.R.18Da5. ritish -conomic &rowth during the Industrial Revolution, 93ford, 18D . *rafts, B.F.R. 18Db5, -nglish wor#ers% real wages during the Industrial Revolution> some remaining problemsK, he Hournal of -conomic ?istor y, +D, Bo. 1, 1A++. 7. *rafts, B.F.R. 175, !ome dimensions of the :uality of life during the Industrial RevolutionK, he -conomic ?istory Review, vol. D0, no. +, 17A. 8. *rafts, B.F.R. and ?arley, *.2. 15. 9utput &rowth and the ritish Industrial Revolution> 6 Restatement of the *rafts?arley viewK, he -conomic ?istor y Review, vol. +D, 70AA0. . 'e (ennington 0115, $eneath the !urface> a *ountry of wo Bations% http>LLwww.bbc.co.u#LhistoryLbritishLvictoriansLbsurfaceM01.shtml 10. )indert, (eter ?. and Heffrey &. /illiamson 18A5. -nglish /or#ers% )iving !tandards during the Industrial Revolution> 6 Bew )oo#K, he -conomic ?istory Review, Bew !eries, vol. A, Bo. 1, 1D. 11. hompson, -.(. 175. Nime, /or#'iscipline, and Industrial *apitalism,N (ast 4 (resent, no. A8, D<7. 1. (amu#, Oev#et 005. -stimating -conomic &rowth in the =iddle -ast since 180K, he Hournal of -conomic ?istory, , 808. 1A. ;oth, ?ansHoachim 0005 ime and /or# in -ngland 17D018A0. 93ford> *larendon. 14. ;oth, ?ansHoachim 00+5 )iving !tandards and the rban -nvironmentKin Roderic# Floud and (aul Hohnson eds.5, he *ambridge -conomic ?istory of =odern ritain, ;ol. 1, Industrialisation, 1700180, 8+
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