Asa Briggs, the author of this volume of the Folio Society’s History of England, has chosen these dates to encompass the entitled age.
He states “The changes of the late eighteenth century were social and intellectual as well as technical and economic. They were associated with a great increase in population; a further expansion of trade; the emergence of new social groups, both ‘captains of industry’ and factory labour, skilled and unskilled; the creation of new political pressures and of new social institutions; new modes of thought and action; and, above all, the foundation of a new view of society. The whole view of the social order, which had been transmitted from the past and reformulated in terms of eighteenth-century philosophy, was transformed under the influence of coal and iron, cotton and steam, growth and ‘progress’… Three major technical advances were of the utmost importance – the mechanisation of the textile industry; the emergence of a new technology of coal and iron; and the introduction of steam power.”
James Watt was important in the development of steam power; Josiah Wedgwood for pottery. These were inventors, combining with businessmen such as Mathew Boulton.
Also significant was the development of the canal system and the improvement of roads aiding transport, and the growth of banking providing custodians of deposits, access to cash and necessary loans to enable growth of business. Population growth, largely attributable to better medical facilities, reduction in death rates, and increase in births, provided labour and markets.
“As the [eighteenth] century went by the North gained enormously in importance, largely as a result of water power, the growth of the coal and iron industries, and improvements in the transport system.”
“Women and children were the first to feel the strains of the mechanisation of the cotton industry. They were adept with their fingers, more docile than men in their response to discipline, and cheap to employ; and manufacturers were quick to see their advantages. In most mills women were the standard labour force along with children making up two-thirds of the whole….”
“The emergence of the new industrial middle class favoured the spread of the new morality which was taught in the Sunday schools. Wesley had preached with spectacular success to the poor; Hannah More had preached with unexpected success to the rich.”
The relationships between George III, Pitt, and Fox, rivals for the premiership, were significant in terms of politics. “There were no two men more different in temperament and outlook than Pitt and Fox. The volatile, amiable, and pre-eminent sociable Fox was loved by a wide circle of friends and idolised by his supporters. Even men who disagreed with him admitted his magnetism and charm. The lofty, unbending, and self-sufficient Pitt, loved by few and best treated with profound respect rather than with spontaneous affection, was never really liked except in the world of high politics…Pitt became a symbol of national unity, while Fox, bitterly disliked by the King a seldom assured of as much wholehearted popular support as he believed, was relegated to the role of a foil or at best a partisan.”
“Pitt was always willing to serve, just as Fox was always willing to oppose, and this, rather than any desire to be popular, was the key to his political career…. It was fortunate for George III and for England that in many spheres of administration Pitt could serve efficiently as well as loyally….”
“Before the French Revolution led to a consolidation of the forces of ‘order’ under Pitt’s direction….there was one final and illuminating crisis in the relations between George III and the two parliamentary leaders. This led to the regency of the future George IV . The King was seriously ill, and from November 1788 to February 1789 was a violent maniac.” This led to the regency of the future George IV, “a spendthrift libertine whose conduct had helped to force on his father’s illness.”
The French Revolution met with differing opinions in England, eventually leading to war with France and its allies and involvement in conflict with Napoleonic forces culminating in the Iberian Peninsular War.
“How had it been possible for Britain to wage almost continuous war from 1793 to 1815 and eventually to emerge victorious?….. It was above all else the seas, the source of both Britain’s wealth and of her greatness…… [The main factor in English dominance at sea] was the plentiful supply and qualitative superiority of British officers and the organisation of the naval command.”
The King succumbed to a final bout of ‘madness’ from which he was never to recover. The Prince regent followed his father’s policies. “George III did not die until 1820, although for long he had lost all contact with the world of reality. In the meantime the Prince Regent, with little obvious virtue or piety, continued to accept the ‘safe government’ of Lord Liverpool, which had been formed as second best in 1812.”
“Liverpool succeeded, indeed, in uniting the old Pittite forces which had coalesced in the first struggle against the French Revolution, and in addition to bringing together well-established figures with a past behind them, …. he encouraged bright young men with a future, like the third Viscount Palmerston, Sir Robert Peel, and William Huskisson…”
“…. the greatest and most publicised of all Peel’s ministry [was] – the resurrection and reform of the national finances and and the creation of a new fiscal system.”
“Friendship with Peel was as important to [Prince ]Albert as friendship with Melbourne had been to [Queen] Victoria, and it helped in itself to set the tone of mid-Victorian England….. the Queen and her husband came to put their full trust in their great Prime Minister and the causes for which he stood – sound administration, strong government, and free trade.”
“The respectability of the Prime Minister and his tolerance of opposing points of view contrasted sharply with the notorious profligacy of the Prince Regent and his increasingly hysterical prejudices…..There is little doubt that between 1812 and 1830 when George IV died unmourned and unlamented, there was a waning of royal power as well as of royal popularity.”
The rise of the working class and spread of unions and a series of Bills debated in Parliament in 1831 and ’32 despite conflict between Whig and Tory elements concerning continuity and reform led to a new electoral system.
Robert Owen’s showcase Industrial community of New Lanark helped the rise of the working class.
“The economic effects of the railway revolution were obvious enough – they permitted the cheaper movement of goods, particularly heavy and perishable goods, and they widened local markets. Socially, as Dickens saw, they enabled their new passengers not only to travel faster – at as much as fifty miles an hour instead of twelve – but to rub shoulders with people they had never met before and even to catch glimpses of the ‘other world’ on the side of the railway track.”
“The Mines Act….forbade the employment underground of women and boys under ten..”
“Among those people who did not look forward to the new age of reform was William Wordsworth, who remarked that if the Bill passed he would retire to a ‘safe and conservative government like Austria’. He had no reason to be so despondent. Conservatism was not crushed in 1832, and the reformed electoral system was a blend of old and new; the House of Lords not only survived but revived, and even the House of Commons elected at the first general election under the new system turns out, as the diarist Greville admitted,’to be very much like every other parliament’.”
In practice influence, tradition, and bribery continued to be determining factors in voting preferences.
England continued with a voice on the world stage. “For the whole period from 1815 to 1850 successive British Foreign Secretaries were directly concerned with enforcing the [slave trade] abolitionist promises made by foreign powers and with securing the enforcement of abolition where no agreements had been made.”
“…after a brief war between Britain and China the Treaty of Nanking (1842) ceded Hong Kong to Britain and opened up five treaty ports, including Shanghai, to foreign trade.”
Victoria never recovered from Albert’s death in 1861.
Throughout 1866-7 various Reform Bills were debated and tinkered with ultimately granting virtually universal suffrage to include the working classes.
