Living Conditions During The Industrial Revolution
The industrial revolution brought about significantly social changes in Britain. It is obvious that a class of industrialists, ship owners, merchants accumulated great weath. However, many researchers devoted their time in investigating the effects to ordinary people. According to a post of Nardinelli (n.d), there was an argument on the time when living condition were improved. “The pessimists claim no marked improvement in standards of living until the 1840s or 1850s. Most optimists, by contrast, believe that living standards were rising by the 1810s or 1820s, or even earlier.” No matter stance was correct, the labourers used to live in low condition. In The Condition of the Working Class in England Engels, Friedrich (1892). The Condition
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of the Working-Class in England in 1844. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. people. 45, 48–53. in 1844 http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1844engels.asp Friedrich Engel (2009) described Manchester was so awful that population density was extremely high. People live in crude shanties and shacks that provided no sanities facilities. Workers often shared a small room with no furniture with many other workers and slept on the pile of straw or sawdust.
“rarely a wooden or stone floor to be seen in the houses, almost uniformly broken, ill-fitting windows and doors … Everywhere heaps of debris, refuse, and offal; standing pools for gutters, and a stench which alone would make it impossible for a human being in any degree civilised to live in such a district. Passing along a rough bank, among stakes and washing-lines, one penetrates into this chaos of small one-storied, one-roomed huts, in most of which there is no artificial floor; kitchen, living and sleeping-room all in one. In such a hole, scarcely five feet long by six broad, I found two beds - and such bedsteads and beds.” ( p.41)
Engel finished this work in 1844 and in his 1892 edition he noted that a new public health acts had regulated thing such as sewage, hygiene and home contruction. Over the course of the 19th century, the conditions improved a lot.
However, not all people lived in such condition. The Industial Revolution also created another class called middle class of professionals, such as lawyers and doctors, living in better condition.
2. Working condition
A great number of people flocked to the cities to find a job opportunity but they were often under strict working condition with long hour of labour.
A typical shift lasted 12-16 hours. They were easily fired if they complained, got sick, got hurt and could no longer to work. Lives were so tough that a third of poor familly was without a male breadwinner, either as a result of death or desertion.
2.1 Children labour
With the mechanisation, the traditional cottage industries lost their position and many people became unemployed. Consequently, more and more poverty-stricken workers moved to cities and they often brought their family with them including their children. In such wretched circumstances, a child’s penny can help their parents with a small loaf of bread or fuel for fire. Some even, because of grinding poverty, sold their children to masters as “pauper apprentices”. Children were so badly treated that some were injured or even died. On her article on Daily Mail, Venning said that
“Some were shackled to prevent them escaping, with 'irons riveted on their ankles, and reaching by long links and rings up to the hips, and in these they were compelled to walk to and fro from the mill to work and to sleep'… Many child scavengers lost limbs or hands, crushed in the machinery; some were even
decapitated.”
While many people think these iniquities just happened to slavers, British children were shackled and starved in their own countries. They were ideal labourerss because they were paid just 10-20 per cent of a man’s wage). Moreover, children could get access to such small places like under machinery or through narrow tunnel.
The worst part is the effects on their health, which was mentioned on Daily Mail that
“Most children were malnourished and suscetible to diseas, and life expectanc in such places fell to just 29 years in the 1830s.
A doctor who observed mill workers noted that '… their complexion is sallow and pallid, with a peculiar flatness of feature, caused by the want of a proper quantity of adipose substance [fatty tissue], their stature low, a very general bowing of the legs … nearly all have flat feet'.
… The average height of the population fell in the 1830s as an overworked generation reached adulthood with knock-knees, humpbacks from carrying heavy loads and damaged pelvises from standing 14 hours a day. Girls who worked in match factories suffered from a particularly horrible disease known as phossy jaw.
…Many were so hungry that they resorted to eating rats”
Finally, an Act was performed, prohibiting women and children younger than ten working underground. Two year later, another act prohibited the textile industry from employing children under nine. It was not until the mid of the 19th century that children had to work only 12 hours a day.
In 1880, the Compulsory Education Act was passed to reduce the number of child labourers.
2.2 The Luddites
The rapid industrialization provoke high rate of unemployment, making many people oppose machinery. The Luddites was a term indicating workers protesting against newly developed labour-economizing technologies. The movement first started with hosiery worker near Nottingham and then spreaded to other fields of textile industries. Finding themselves could not compete with machines, which was the main reason to be unemployed, they showed their animosity by distroying factories and machinery. The Luddites quickly gained the popularity, forcing government using militaries and army to protect the industries. These riots led to the formation of Trade Union, and pressure for reform.
of the Working-Class in England in 1844. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. people. 45, 48–53. in 1844 http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1844engels.asp Friedrich Engel (2009) described Manchester was so awful that population density was extremely high. People live in crude shanties and shacks that provided no sanities facilities. Workers often shared a small room with no furniture with many other workers and slept on the pile of straw or sawdust.
“rarely a wooden or stone floor to be seen in the houses, almost uniformly broken, ill-fitting windows and doors … Everywhere heaps of debris, refuse, and offal; standing pools for gutters, and a stench which alone would make it impossible for a human being in any degree civilised to live in such a district. Passing along a rough bank, among stakes and washing-lines, one penetrates into this chaos of small one-storied, one-roomed huts, in most of which there is no artificial floor; kitchen, living and sleeping-room all in one. In such a hole, scarcely five feet long by six broad, I found two beds - and such bedsteads and beds.” ( p.41)
Engel finished this work in 1844 and in his 1892 edition he noted that a new public health acts had regulated thing such as sewage, hygiene and home contruction. Over the course of the 19th century, the conditions improved a lot.
However, not all people lived in such condition. The Industial Revolution also created another class called middle class of professionals, such as lawyers and doctors, living in better condition.
2. Working condition
A great number of people flocked to the cities to find a job opportunity but they were often under strict working condition with long hour of labour.
A typical shift lasted 12-16 hours. They were easily fired if they complained, got sick, got hurt and could no longer to work. Lives were so tough that a third of poor familly was without a male breadwinner, either as a result of death or desertion.
2.1 Children labour
With the mechanisation, the traditional cottage industries lost their position and many people became unemployed. Consequently, more and more poverty-stricken workers moved to cities and they often brought their family with them including their children. In such wretched circumstances, a child’s penny can help their parents with a small loaf of bread or fuel for fire. Some even, because of grinding poverty, sold their children to masters as “pauper apprentices”. Children were so badly treated that some were injured or even died. On her article on Daily Mail, Venning said that
“Some were shackled to prevent them escaping, with 'irons riveted on their ankles, and reaching by long links and rings up to the hips, and in these they were compelled to walk to and fro from the mill to work and to sleep'… Many child scavengers lost limbs or hands, crushed in the machinery; some were even
decapitated.”
While many people think these iniquities just happened to slavers, British children were shackled and starved in their own countries. They were ideal labourerss because they were paid just 10-20 per cent of a man’s wage). Moreover, children could get access to such small places like under machinery or through narrow tunnel.
The worst part is the effects on their health, which was mentioned on Daily Mail that
“Most children were malnourished and suscetible to diseas, and life expectanc in such places fell to just 29 years in the 1830s.
A doctor who observed mill workers noted that '… their complexion is sallow and pallid, with a peculiar flatness of feature, caused by the want of a proper quantity of adipose substance [fatty tissue], their stature low, a very general bowing of the legs … nearly all have flat feet'.
… The average height of the population fell in the 1830s as an overworked generation reached adulthood with knock-knees, humpbacks from carrying heavy loads and damaged pelvises from standing 14 hours a day. Girls who worked in match factories suffered from a particularly horrible disease known as phossy jaw.
…Many were so hungry that they resorted to eating rats”
Finally, an Act was performed, prohibiting women and children younger than ten working underground. Two year later, another act prohibited the textile industry from employing children under nine. It was not until the mid of the 19th century that children had to work only 12 hours a day.
In 1880, the Compulsory Education Act was passed to reduce the number of child labourers.
2.2 The Luddites
The rapid industrialization provoke high rate of unemployment, making many people oppose machinery. The Luddites was a term indicating workers protesting against newly developed labour-economizing technologies. The movement first started with hosiery worker near Nottingham and then spreaded to other fields of textile industries. Finding themselves could not compete with machines, which was the main reason to be unemployed, they showed their animosity by distroying factories and machinery. The Luddites quickly gained the popularity, forcing government using militaries and army to protect the industries. These riots led to the formation of Trade Union, and pressure for reform.