Urbanisation in 19th Century Britain - Essay Example

Matriculation number Urbanization In 19th Century Britain experienced urbanization during the era of 19th century, this era changed Britain from an agricultural based area to an industrialized area. Various achievements took place and Britain experienced enormous amount of success. These changes were although very fruitful for Britain but even caused various issues within the society of Britain. These issues ranged from increase in population within the urban centers, unhealthy sanitary and housing system, protests and fight for rights. This made the government concerned about future of Britain and the government took various steps to counter the negative effects of urbanization. These steps include passage of various reforms such as the Poor Laws and laws related housing and sanitary and policing. In this writing we will focus upon the various changes that took place due to the urbanization within Britain during the era of 19th century, we will even pay emphasis to the issues that Britain experienced due to urbanization and how government tried to relax these issues through changes is legislature. 1Urbanization In 19th Century Introduction The 19th century industrial revolt has altered Britain completely. Previously in 1801, only 20% of the inhabitants resided in cities but by 1851 about 50% and by 1881 about 2/3 of inhabitants have departed themselves to cities (Thackeray 107). In 1801 most of the people work as farmers and used handmade products but by late 19th century industrial units were widespread and most of the products were manufactured by electrical machines (Thackeray 107). Disturbances in the beginning of 19th Century During the initial period of the 19th century, Britain experienced ample amount of prejudiced and mutual chaos. Certain individuals of Clapham Sect had much interference in the political affairs (Stobaugh 2012). They were against slavery and cruel sports. Stobaugh states “on May 11, 1812, John Bellingham murdered the Tory leader Spencer Perceval” (Stobaugh 2012). Uptil then he was the single British Leader yet to be offended. In the year 1820 a plan was made to gun down entire cabinet. Gatrell states “the leader of Cato Street Plot was Arthur Thistlewood” (Gatrell 299). In this plan the leader’s associates were caught on 23 February 1820 (Gatrell 299). Later the leader was murdered with his 4 attendants later. In the meantime in the year 1811-1816 cloth factory employees in the Midlands and North of England destroyed all newly invented machines in fear of joblessness (Kingfisher 327). In March 1817, various cloth factory employees from Manchester walked to London. They were named as blanketeers as all of them surrounded themselves with blankets (Kingfisher 327). On 16 August 1819, some 60,000 citizens assembled to hear a speech from a person called as Henry Hunt at St Peter’s Field in Manchester (Britannica 157). These people were unarmed and nonviolent but the authorities send in troops. These troops killed 11 citizens and hundreds of innocent people were injured 2(Britannica 157). During the era of 1830, farmers in the regions of Kent and Sussex wrecked all the machinery used for agricultural production in fear of unemployment (Johnson 36). The rebellions were fought against them and they were termed as Swing Riots as a man named Swig was their leader (Johnson 36). As a consequence of these rebellions four of the rebels were sentenced to a death row and 52 individuals were transported to Australia. During the era of 1834 few farmers from the region of Tolpuddle, Dorset formulated a trade union who were later accused of unlawful pledges of the unions 3(Jackson 39). These were escorted to Australia but they came back to Britain in 1838. Political Changes in Britain In 1822, some alterations in the government system were established by the Tory Government. Murphy states “during the period starting from 1825 and ending during 1828, capital punishment was abolished for nearly 180 criminal offences” (Murphy 44). The initial police force in Britain was formed during 1829 by Peel (Murphy 44). From the years 1828-1830 the compassionate Duke of Wellington launched the Catholic Emancipation Act (1829) (Murphy 19).The Act re-established the rights of Reformation Catholics to become MPs and embrace public offices but Wellington was robustly divergent to any alteration to the electoral scheme. In the 19th century, two types of communities existed namely country side and boroughs with their own subsequent constituencies. In boroughs there were restricted voters. The electorates were not altered since many years and reflected an unjust distribution of rights for the natives. In early 19th century people stressed to conduct fair and fine elections and demanded fair allocation of voters in the constituencies. Welligton’s party was supporting the demands but the Tories were against it. In 1830, new reforms were introduced by Whig’s government. These reforms were sustained by House of Commons but were rejected by House of Lords. Later because of immense stress from King William IV these reforms were accepted by House of Lords and then they conceded the Great Reform Bill on June7 1832 (Murphy 82). Plans for new type of industrial cities were then presented before the legislatures. After that the laborers in urban areas were given more rights to address. Still the laborers were not included in the reforms and in 1838 they established objection movements named as Chartists (Murphy 114). They demanded their choice to vote, voting by hidden ballot and the right to become an MP without having any property. They further demanded salaries for MPs and they want the constituency to be allotted equal rights. After sending several petitions to the parliament during the years 1838-1842, Chartism were sputtered and then in 1872 the Ballot Act was launched in which voting was done by the help of secret ballot boxes (Murphy 214). The ranch workers were also a part of this campaign and during 1835 the implementation and formation of Municipal Corporations Act took place; a homogeneous group of people created the management of town (Murphy 85). The Corn Laws Corn Laws were established in the year 1815 in which importation of inexpensive worldwide grain was allowed from Europe to Britain. In the starting import taxes on trade but further these were fined and later on elevated rates, when the value of British wheat was diminished. The Corn Law was implemented in 1846 and then ended when Anti-Corn Law was implemented by John Bright and Richard Cobden (Murphy 109). In the meantime in 1840, free trade was allowed and government interferences in civic problems were less tolerated by people and they demanded trade exclusive of import taxes. In 1840, Peel eradicated many duties. The Railways In Britain, the growth of passenger Railways took place immensely during the years 1825-1848. In later 19th century the railway arrangements further extended to various cities. This railway network promoted business connecting different countries and transportations were further modernized. The Factory Acts Female and child labor were for the first time negated during the industrial rising. Children worked with their parents for extensive hours in the 18th century. The authorities were concerned of the problem and they made it unlawful for children below the age of 9 years to occupant in textile mills in 1819 but his act was not taken into consideration. In 1833 another act was passed with same articles but this time superintendents were allotted to keep check on the children. The Act does not allow children aged 9 to 13 to work for over 12 hours during a day or work a minimum of 48 hours per week. Kids who aged between thirteen and eighteen to were not allowed to work for over 69 hours per week. Moreover no one below 18 was permitted to work at night. In 1850 the law was somewhat altered and all industrial employees were permitted for ½ hours lunch gaps. During 1848 Titus Salt who was the mayor of Bradford tried to eliminate pollution created by factories and mills with the assistance of a device recognized as Rodda Smoke Burner (Burnett 180). In 1842 little kids and women were not permitted to employ in mines by the Miners Act. In 1871 holidays were assigned for banks and few capable employees were granted week’s yearly compensated holiday. By the 1890s the laborers were specified Saturdays off. Organization of Trade Unions It 1871 the trade unions were designated as legal entities under the Trade Unions Act. During the period of 1850s and 60s professional employees created various trade unions which were named as New Model Unions (Murphy 189). These were regarded as ‘reputable’ because these unions attempted to settle down issues rather than demanding their rights through strikes. In year 1889 girls who were employed in match factories formed trade unions to accomplish their claims. In March 1889 Gas Employees and few General Laborers formulated separate unions. Seaman’s Union and General Railway Unions were appeared in the same year. House Architecture 19th Century In the starting of 19th century the lodging amenities for laborers were appalling, jam-packed and polluted as many people reside together in a confined area. In the 18th century numerous people named as Paving Commissioners gained power to cover, clean and illuminate the roads in some parishes. In 19th century massive quantities of houses were build where earlier there were only farms and little villages. The representatives had no commands in these latest towns. So there were unpaved and non-illuminated avenues. These streets were drain less and often moribund pools of unhygienic water formed. During the period of 1830s several government officials became quite concerned about the housing situation of the poor but most of them failed to make any enormous changes. During the period Octavia Hill figured out that the landlords of poor unskilled workers were not completing their duties towards these workers, she took the step of finding new place to live for people working under her (Cullingworth 254). But she failed so she decided to earn recognition as landlord. John Ruskin was quite impressed by the thinking of Hill so he purchased three cottages with inherited money and made Hill the governor of these cottages. Later he purchased and placed five more houses under the management of Hill. In majority of cities there were no housing guidelines. Builders aimed to stuff many houses onto small segments of land. Back to back houses having more than two rooms were common. Cellar residences were humid and poorly aerated. Expert employees lived in through houses, named so because people could march through them from front to rear. Cellar homes were prohibited in 1840s and fresh back-to-backs could not be erected. It was unfeasible to bulldoze all back-to-backs at once. It took years to bulldoze them and still some people are residing in them at present. Toilets were generally cesspits, which were rarely drained and mostly spill over. Sometimes urine may leak through the land into wells of drinking water and are responsible for the major cholera endemics in history. In 1848 Public Health Act was executed under which it local Boards of Health were formed in towns and newly built houses were having sewerage and toilets (Murphy 189). In 1850 Titus Salt generated a plan of creating large factories to decrease the number of factories and for this purpose he purchased land and create the mill, additionally he even created several buildings for housing purposes, health care institutes and churches (Burnett 180). Medical Health Officers were also employed who could check the quality of food. Public parks were made and new standards for erecting new accommodations were defined. Sewerage system and fresh water supply system was made in 1860s. As a consequence of these actions towns were greatly enhanced and cleaned till late 19th century. 4 In the late 19th century existing values were raised and two-up, two-downs houses were common. However still at the end of 19th century there were several underprivileged peoples presently residing in single room. Patrick Geddes was a Scottish town planner who proposed and implemented the idea of Conservative surgery for town planning and he creased a house on this approach and his approach assisted in improving living conditions as his plans resulted in increased airflow and sun rays for houses and house owners (Cullingworth 16). Unwin was one of the individuals who helped in popularizing the Arts and Crafts Movement and this led to the development of several homes build during the period of 20th century (Burnett 183). One house created in accordance to his planning ideas was the Goodfellow house. Ebenezer Howard was a planner of the urban areas and he wrote a book during 1898 which was later named as Garden Cities of To-Morrow, the work of Howard led to the movement of garden city (Burnett 140). The book forwarded a model town structure did not contain of any slums and the town comprised of the benefits of town as well as country, this idea was proposed to meet the needs of the community and individuals of that era. Later two towns in UK were created on this model, they were not exactly similar to the model but were quite close, and these towns were named as Letchworth and Welwyn.5 The Poor rule in the 19th Century In 1792 significant magistrates assembled at Speenhamland in Berkshire and created an arrangement for serving the poor. Little earnings were complemented with money elevated by poor prices. People in many places of England acknowledged the arrangement but it was very costly and the government wanted to alter many things. In 1834 they accepted the Poor Law Amendment Act (Murphy 91). The deprived were mishandled as harshly to dishearten them from requesting aid from the state. Capable people with no income were enforced to go into a workhouse. The life of these wretched people was made as horrible as possible. Wedded pairs were divided and children over 7 were detached from their families. The people were made to do work inflexibly to make roads or to make manure. The underprivileged termed the latest workhouses as bastilles and they cause much callousness. As the time steps forward the workhouses slowly became more civilized. Livelihood values in the 19th Century Initially the industrial revolution did much distress to few people but in the end it produced much superior living standard among common citizens. Over manufacturing of commodities by machines made their prices much cheaper. By the late 19th century accommodation for most citizens was improved than in the 18th century. They were also well fed. Gadgets like speedy trains and steamships made it achievable to bring in inexpensive foodstuff and goods from overseas. The lower class lives primarily on bread but in 19th century bread was not the only body of life and many people lived on a diverse diet. Many discoveries made living more easy and suitable. Additionally presently street lighting are taken for granted but in the 19th century gas street lights created going away out at night greatly comfortable and safer. Common public were made to take pictures of their families. It is correct that dearth was widespread in the 19th century but many things had at all times been that way as a huge part of the inhabitants for all times reside at survival level or even below it. References Britannica, inc. The new Encyclopaedia Britannica. 15th ed. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1998. Burnett, John. A social history of housing, 1815-1985. 2nd ed. London: Methuen, 1986. Cullingworth, J. B., and Vincent Nadin.Town and country planning in the UK. 13th ed. New York: Routledge, 2002. Gatrell, Vic. The hanging tree: execution and the English people, 1770-1868. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Jackson, Michael P... Industrial relations. A textbook. Third ed. London: Croom Relm, 1986. Johnson, Ross. Sentenced to cross the raging sea: the story of Sam Johnson, victim of Oldhams Bankside Riot of 1834. North Adelaide: Ross Johnson], 2004. Murphy, Derrick. Britain 1815-1918. London: Collins Educational, 1998. Stobaugh, James P.. British history: observations & assessments from early cultures to today. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2012. Thackeray, Frank W.. Events that formed the modern world: from the European Renaissance through the War on Terror. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2012. The Kingfisher history encyclopedia. New York: Kingfisher, 1999. Read More