The Birth of Industrial Britain

The Industrial Revolution had a profound and lasting effect on socioeconomic and cultural conditions in Britain. The Birth of Industrial Britain examines the impact of early industrialisation on British society in the century before 1850, coinciding with Britains transition from a late pre-industrial economy to one based on industrialisation and urbanisation. This fully revised and updated second edition provides a comprehensive range of pedagogical material to support the text, including a Glossary of terms, people and parliamentary acts, new primary source documents and a brand new Chronology and Whos Who section. The Birth of Industrial Britain provides an essential up-to-date synthesis of the impact of the Industrial Revolution on British society for students at all levels.

Kenneth Morgan is Professor of History at Brunel University and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. His books include Bristol and the Atlantic Trade in the Eighteenth Century (1993) and Slavery and the British Empire (2007).

PART ONE: Introduction 1. THE BIRTH OF INDUSTRIAL BRITAIN PART TWO: ANALYSIS 2. WORK AND LEISURE Agriculture Domestic Industry and the Factory Womens Work Child Labour Legislation on Labour Practices Leisure and Recreation 3. LIVING AND HEALTH STANDARDS The Demographic Context Housing and the Environment Real Wages Regional and Occupational Wage Variations Female and Child Labour, Family Budgets and Entitlements Height and Health 4. RELIGION AND SOCIETY The Church of England The Rise of Evangelicalism Methodism and Society 5. POPULAR EDUCATION Elementary Schools Sunday Schools Voluntary Schools and Monitorial Education State Provision for Schools Factory Schools Poor Law Schools Literacy and the Curriculum Social Control and Elementary Education Adult Education 6. THE OLD AND NEW POOR LAWS The Operation of the Old Poor Law The Old Poor Law under Pressure, 17931832 Changing Views on the Old Poor Law The Royal Commission on the Poor Law, 1832 The Poor Law Amendment Act, 1834 The Implementation of the New Poor Law The Poor Law in Scotland 7. POPULAR PROTEST Grain Riots and the Moral Economy of the Crowd Wilkes and Liberty Revolutionary Protest? The Luddites From Luddism to the Reform Bill Riots Chartism 8. CRIME, JUSTICE AND PUNISHMENT The Operation of the Law Prosecution Enforcing the Law Physical Punishments Convict Transportation Prisons PART three: assessment 9. CONCLUSION PART FOUR: DOCUMENTS 1. New Lanark, A model factory, 178491 2. Occupations in 1851 3. Richard Oastler on child labour in Yorkshire Mills 4. Festivals, holidays and local communities 5. Two family budgets, 1794 6. Pauperism and public health, 1842 7. Annual leverage price of British wheat per quarter, 180151 8. Average weekly wages in some industrial, 184951 9. Religion and class, 1849 10. The visitation of Chesterfield, 1751 11. A Methodist class meeting, c.1822 12. Samuel Bamford on Sunday schools 13. Work and discipline in the monitorial school, 1810 14. A view of workhouse education, 1838 15. Address at the opening of the London mechanics institution, 10 February 1824 16. The duties of an assistant overseer of the poor, 1832 17. Settlement examination and removal order, Wiltshire, 1766 18. The Speenhamland decision, 6 May 1795 19. A pauper letter of 1826 20. The principle of less eligibility 21. A Cornish bread riot, 1773 22. Parliament against trade unionism, 1799 23. A warning from Ned Ludd, 1812 24. The Peterloo Massacre, 1819 25. The Swing protests in Norfolk 26. The Chartist land plan 27. Chartism and a trial for sedition 28. Attitudes towards the Game Laws 29. Old Bailey proceedings, 1764 30. The state of the prisons in England and Wales, 1777 References Further Reading