Social Changes During The Industrial Revolution

“Were the economic, social and political changes of nineteenth century Britain an Industrial Revolution or an Industrial Revolution?”

Many historians have argued over the intricate question of whether the immense changes of nineteenth century Britain’s economy, political ideals and social constructs were an Industrial Revolution or an Industrial Evolution. Judging by the way that we refer to the Industrial Revolution as in fact a “Revolution” we can draw the conclusion that the majority of historians have agreed on that particular opinion. Unfortunately the answer is far from that simple as many compelling arguments can still be formulated to support both opinions. If we were to look at the topic as a whole we would have insufficient evidence

Therefore food production efficiency was severely limited as crops had far less room to grow and prosper. Working on a farm to survive essentially was your “job” and the idea of a consumeristic society in Britain was completely unheard of. The Industrial Revolution dramatically changed this sacred way of life in an extremely short span of time. Many farms were acquired by entrepreneurs in which mass production of agriculture by machines quickly began as far less human labour was required. This led to many farmers losing their jobs and moving to densely populated urban centres to work in the recently opened factories. Conditions severally deteriorated and diseases became far more rampant due to the drastic increase of worker concentration in merely a few years. Working adopted a similar ideology that we see today in where there was distinct boundaries between work and home as well as the adoption of hourly “rates”. A prime example of the social changes that the Industrial Revolution induced in nineteenth century Britain can be found in “Cromford Mill”. The mill was established by Richard Arkwright in 1771 and was the very first operational factory which sparked the very social principle of factory employment in Industrial Britain. Although the reasoning for the social changes that occurred in nineteenth century Britain may have been a gradual Industrial

Due to the rise of rich factory owners and entrepreneurs that were relatively independent of the British government there was no protection in place for the factory workers. There was no minimum wage that employers were required to pay and due to the lack of jobs at the time many people just accepted the limited pay at risk of possessing nothing. Children were also mercilessly employed by factory owners and a huge wave of child labour was witnessed in the factory workforce. Due to non-existence of any trade unions at the time period the conditions that employers placed their workers in were immensely unhygienic, dangerous, cramped and of course especially poor for the health of anybody forced to work in the factories. The attitude of British workers deteriorated relatively quickly and worker rebellions occurred. This forced the British monarchy to establish a number of laws that prevented the exploitation of workers by employers as they otherwise risked a similar destruction of monarchy that the French Revolution induced. Wages were increased, hours were reduced, child labour was significantly lessened and workers around the country banded together to from trade