The middle class in urban Britain 1780-1900 - Essay Example

However, they lacked the modalities to effect the change. It was not until the early nineteenth century that need for change was more strongly expressed by the lower class and the middle class. It is of importance to note that the people who took part and spearheaded this change were the middle class and were the cream in terms of their intellect (Scull, 2005).. Political changes The political arena in Britain was secluded to the mighty and wealthy for a long time, which also refers to the upper class.

It was solely the rich who could rule while the middle class neither had a chance nor could raise their voices to be heard. This is evident even from the governance structure since that it is documented that even from the law making organs, the House of Lords could overrule any law passed by House of Commons. The ugly political face was worse in some areas like old Sarum and Dunwich where the middle class could not vote and a number of legislators were re-elected unjustly. The women were also not allowed to vote, which expressed how democracy was indeed a nightmare to the people being ruled.

This did not quite add up since lawyers were also in the category of the urban middle class (Mitchell, 2002). At that particular time, out of an estimated population of thirty million only about two million were allowed to vote. Inspired by the French protester refugees who moved in at around 1700, there were efforts by the middle class to spearhead their liberation. Several uprisings came up and the continuous pressure led to The Great Reform Act that was landmarked a political change in centuries.

This Act brought political sanity to Britain and many other positive changes.. The imagery constituencies done away with and the members of parliament representation rationally and equitably restructured. Moreover, the most relevant to our discussion is that the middle class were allowed to vote with the exception of women (Scull, 2005). Economical changes Despite being despised, the middle class were relatively wealthy. Most of them had their wealth on land possession. It was just until in the late nineteenth century that he urban middle class began engaging in forms of wealth holdings like the stock market.

In the urban areas in this period, a majority began being wealthy by manufacturing and creating employment. This gave rise to several merchants across Europe at the time and this can attribute to the steady rise in the number of the middle class (Mitchell, 2002). There are some cities that their economical growth was attributed solely to the middle class. An exquisite example is the city of Manchester, which at this period had many projects running in the event of industrial revolution. During the industrial revolution, the whole of Europe had a majority of entrepreneurs comprising of the middle class.

The middle class prompted women to get employment. It important to have in mind that women were considered as housewives for some pretty long time in Britain. This had a large impact to the economy of the middle class, since majority-hired house cleaners to help in the daily domestic chores and this amounted to about forty percent of the female workers (Mitchell, 2002).