In this essay I will research into the industrial revolution and how this affected the working class, I will look at the way society was policed before and how it changed during and after the revolution. The Industrial revolution began around 1750 and gradually spread across Britain, the changes to Britons agricultural, manufacturing, mining and transport had a huge effect on the socio-economic and cultural conditions in the UK and had a major impact on the way we live our lives today. In eighteenth century Britain there were three primary social classes, the peasants, the bourgeoisie and the aristocrats, conditions of the working class or peasants were very bad.
The peasants had to work for everything they had. Hunger was very common among the poor and very low times all the people could eat was whatever bread they could find. The cities were often crowded and the people had to live very dirty and over populated areas. Sickness and disease were rife. Contagious diseases were extremely common. Prejudice against peasants often meant they could not get treatments. Life outside the cities wasn’t any easier. Families and farmers were often found sharing shelter with their animals. The industrial revolution helped to urbanise Britain. The machinery that was invented replaced farm workers which resulted in many of the unemployed farm workers moving into the city looking for jobs in factories, this resulted in an influx of new machinery and tools which would carry on the revolution Britain. At the time of the industrial revolution the English parliament was run by merchant and capitalist classes so the interests were mainly that of the wealthy upper class. The working conditions in most of the factories were terrible and the employees often worked long hours in very hot and dangerous environments, this lead to high mortality rates. However between 1819 and 1874 Acts were
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