equivalent to 8.9% of the families’ whole income. (Clark, 1998) The Enclosure Act was the catalyst in Britain being exposed to the Industrial Revolution as it provoked the idea of productivity, thus creating machines and increased efficiencies in manufacturing, water power and saw the rise of factory systems. Having near-perfect conditions, such as access to rivers, coal and iron, a large capital to invest in industry and a catalog of inventors that made machines, such as the steam engine created by Thomas Savery in 1698 and Richard Arkwright who constructed a horse-driven spinning mill in 1775. Arkwright was the first to use James Watts’s steam engine to power textile machinery, which enabled the power loom to be developed by Edmund Cartwright in 1785 and for Urbanisation and the Industrial Revolution to take hold in Britain. (Palermo, 2014)
“It was the best of times, it the worst of times”
(Dickens 1859 page 1)
At the dawn of the 19th century, Britain was on the move and it continued to build an empire upon which the sun never set. The explosion of towns and cities allowed prosperous industrialists and merchants to dominate and acquire wealth and build empires. The growth of the country as a whole can be determined by the birth-rate, death-rate and migration. The prospect of new and stable jobs attracted many people to urban areas and the improved transport links enabled this. In 1818 the ferry service between Glasgow and Belfast opened, allowing the population to grow. Another contributing factor for population growth was fecundity as couples married younger, resulting in women having more children during life, economic opportunity enabled this as families’ received more realistic wages as towns and cities industrialised. By 1820 the process of spinning textiles had become predominantly factory based due to the invention of the mule by Samuel Crompton and Richard Roberts aided this by allowing it to become fully automatic by 1830. Change occurred by 1820 in the weaving of textiles as 14,000 power looms had been introduced, however the disparity of power looms to hand looms was 250,000 to 43,000 in 1851. Mill owners employed both skills, however it was the hand loom operatives that made change less necessary due to low wages and as time progressed wages fell further. Typical earnings for a hand loom operative in 1805 were 23 shillings per week, compared to 6 shillings per week in 1831. In times of economic depression due to the price of cloth falling, it was the hand loom operatives that suffered, 250,000 were made redundant in 1825. (Collier, Pedley, 2001) A canopy of dark satanic mills (Blake, 1810) stretched far and wide as factories and mills gained momentum through the power of steam, increasing the demand for coal. Other contributing factors were a growing export market and population and railways provided a great stimulus to the industry, allowing transport costs to remain low. Deeper mines had to be dug, however this caused explosions underground. In 1810 John Buddle tried to introduce trap doors and a mechanical ventilator, which would allow fresh air into areas of the mine and pump harmful air out, however, it was not until 1849 when William Brunton successfully used a fan to ventilate them that they became safer. (Collier, Pedley, 2001)
Middle class citizens, John, Joseph and Thomas Starkey constructed the largest woollen factory in 1819. Demand for labour was huge and factory work was the most prevalent way of surviving in Huddersfield, due to what had gone before, people of all genders and ages were employed, no one was indispensable. The working class were desperate to earn and rich factory owners had great desire to enhance capital, they could employ the masses as employment laws did not exist. Working conditions were dreadful, expectations were increasingly high and women and children were exploited. Children were employed and on some occasions worked 20 hour days, like in the case of Ibbotson and Taylor who commenced work on 27th of May, at 6am and the shift did not finish until 28th of May, at 4pm. Operating dangerous machinery with minimal training and working exceptionally long hours caused injury and the loss of limbs and if operating within these unscrupulous standards was not enough, if children arrived late or made mistakes they could be brutally punished. These dreadful conditions provoked workers to campaign for improvements, however, not all people welcomed this, some parents insisted that children go to work as families were desperate for food, education for them was not fundamental, unlike earning for food and water, it was only wealthy families that were exposed education. Factory owners also opposed change as they believed it would become a financial hindrance, as it would slow down production and make products more expensive. (Collier, Pedley, 2001) 1833 saw the first Factory Act passed, which focused only on children’s working conditions. Inspections would take place and owners fined if rules were broken, for example, employing three young people and two children after 6pm would cause owners to be fined £200. The consistency of inspector’s visits was infrequent and sporadic, therefore very little change took place. (The National Archives, n.d)
Society was exposed to economic depression after the Napeleonic wars in 1815, due to 400,000 servicemen returning to Britain seeking work, this lead to falling wages and an increase in poverty and living conditions worsening. The transition from night to day was unnoticeable, every day was a season of darkness. Towns and cities could not cater for such a vast influx of people and a combination of not enough housing, low wages and high rent caused them to become over crowded, which caused working class families to suffer and live in squalor. Whole families often resided in one shabby and dreary room and extremely poor, ‘able-bodied’ families lived in slums and cellars, beggars on the street and the ‘impotent’ poor were looked after in almshouses. Common lodgings was a breeding ground for disease of an epidemic scale, the most common being typhus, typhoid and cholera. The sharing of basic facilities with other families enhanced the spreading of disease and a lack of sanitation was a significant factor. Streets and gutters were covered in litter, sewage stacked way up high and human waste discharged directly into rivers. In 1849, 53,000 people died as a result of a cholera outbreak. (Collier, Pedley, 2001) Life expectancy was very poor as a result of living standards and people usually lived to the age of 30, however it was not uncommon to die much younger or at birth, over three quarters of deaths occurred in children under the age of five in Britain. (Colton History Society, n.d)
Industrialisation and Urbanisation continued to develop and gain strength as the decade progressed. In 1840, Fredrich Engles travelled across the world’s largest brick built structure, the Stockport viaduct. It took 600 labourers 21 months to build the structure that consisted of eleven million bricks and cost of £72,000. (Morley, 2013) The atrocious working and living conditions were the cause of change towards the latter 19th century, in particularly the period during 1855-1880 with the introduction of many Parliamentary Acts. These had a significant impact on social standards, such as, the Factory Act, Sanitary Act and Public Health Act. They made unfair conditions in factories illegal, local authorities responsible for maintenance of local areas, medical officers appointed and families were to have fresh water and street lighting, as well as making education compulsory for children under the age of 10, in 1880. (British Broadcasting Corporation, 2014) The Electoral Reform Act was passed in 1832, which allowed only men of a certain age and privilege to vote. Two further Reform Acts followed in 1867 and 1884, whereby they increased the vote to 60% of males, however it was not until the beginning of the 20th century that women were able to vote. (British Broadcasting Corporation, 2014) At the beginning of the 20th century the population of Huddersfield had risen to 45,000 and conditions of the working class had improved dramatically, typically living in a ‘two up two down’. Working half day on a Saturday and being paid for holidays meant that they could enjoy leisure activities such as, football matches or read the newspaper, which was first published by The Daily Mail In 1896. An improvement in conditions allowed life expectancy to increase and by 1914 women lived to the age of 54. (Lambert, n.d).
Political Protest
Perhaps a popular view of Luddism in the early 19th century is of groups of workers in the midlands and north of England, who smashed and destroyed textile machinery through fear that the advances of machinery would bring direct threat to one’s livelihood, which until then, had been carried out in a labour intensive, cottage based way. The term Luddite is still used in contemporary language to describe someone who opposes progress. However, the movement did not try to prevent technological progress, nor did it endeavour to protect privileged trades. Rather, it was linked strongly to minimum wage campaigns and prevention of lowering wages, as well as workers’ rights and representation.
Luddism originated in Nottingham around 1810 and quickly spread to other centres in the midlands. It soon reached Yorkshire and Lancashire and much of the activity undertaken in the West Riding took place in and around Huddersfield, which was rapidly becoming a focus of industrial mechanisation on woollen textiles. (The Luddites at 200, n.d) Ned Ludd was the ‘general’ and with his grit the movement expanded quickly with individual mills being targeted at secret meetings held in the middle of the night in remote locations. One such location is believed to be The Dumb Steeple, a stone monument which still stands, on the roadside, between Huddersfield and Mirfield. William Cartwrights mill was attacked by 150 Luddites in 1812 in Huddersfield, of which two luddites died and threat to kill Cartwright the following week. Such was the increasing strength and political direction of the Luddite movement that fear amongst Britain’s ruling class reached a level where spies were dispatched to infiltrate individual groups, and troops mobilised to deal with the insurrection and financial compensation to the sum of £50 offered to locate the culprits. The government legislated by making frame breaking a capital offence in 1812, and many were either executed or transported following battles, although this did not deter them, anarchy continued until 1813 when state power defeated them. The Luddites created a template and the momentum for the rights of workers, which continued through-out the period of the 19th century. (Simkin, 2015)
It is within this conclusion that 19th century Britain was the pioneer of a new way of living due to ideal conditions and inventors which allowed nascent machinery to be constructed and the Industrial Revolution to evolve. It brought positive change at unprecedented speed in the economic climate and Parliamentary Acts, which allowed change to continue. Albeit, many people lived in horrific conditions during the early decades, which was unacceptable, however, positive change did occur and conditions improved through-out the century. The Luddite movement could be viewed in a negative manner due to the devastation and death caused, however, it could be argued that it was revolutionary rather than reactionary as they campaigned for workers’ rights and caused a stir in further campaigns for rights, which were passed some decades later.