3. industrial britain (1750 - 1900)

Question 1

britain’s population from 1750 to 1900

Answer 1

6 million -> 37 million

Question 2

which new machinery was introduced & what impacts did they have?

Answer 2

steam engines and textile machinery -> mass production in huge mills and factories

better farming machinery -> more food was produced, fewer people needed to work on farms

new railways and steam trains -> transported people and goods around the country, improved food supply to towns and allowed townies to get to the countryside easier

Question 3

what was all the new machinery powered by?

Answer 3

coal, which was mined on a large scale

Question 4

why did people move from the countryside to towns?

Answer 4

-changes in farming meant there was less work, with lower wages, in rural areas
-growing industrial towns in the north, offered new jobs in the factories

Question 5

distribution of people in rural & urban areas

Answer 5

1750
-20 per cent of the population lived in urban areas
1881
-68 per cent of the population lived in towns and cities

Question 6

working conditions in factories & mines

Answer 6

-long working hours (eg: over 12 hours a day)
-accidents were common
-working conditions were smoky and dusty, causing respiratory diseases

Question 7

the british empire

Answer 7

by 1900, britain’s colonies made up a quarter of the world’s population

Question 8

new ideas

Answer 8

-people were still religious but the churches influence was in decline
-literacy rate was improving & more people were reading newspaper
-by 1900, many people had accepted the theory of evolution
-in 1861, louis pasteur published his germ theory, which proved that germs that cause disease

Question 9

why was the newspaper in higher demand?

Answer 9

there was growing literacy

Question 10

______ educational act

Answer 10

1870:
ensured that some basic education was available to all children under 10

Question 11

democracy (who could vote?)

Answer 11

-in 1832, some middle-class men were granted the vote
-no women could vote
-people had a lassiez-faire attitude
-in 1867 vote was extended to working class men

Question 12

housing

Answer 12

-back to back houses
-packed houses onto small plots of land
-hard to ventilate -> damp -> TB

Question 13

lodging houses

Answer 13

-single people rented out rooms in lodging houses, large houses that had been divided up into smaller rooms
-sometimes families stayed in lodging houses while they found a house of their own to rent

Question 14

lodging houses conditions

Answer 14

-dirty & overcrowded
-people packed into a single room & shared beds/slept on the floor
-typhus spread

Question 15

cellar dwellings

Answer 15

-small and damp spaces under other people’s houses, with no sunlight at all
-sometimes flooded with rain or sewage from the street above

Question 16

where were the working class living?

Answer 16

crowded slums in the city centre, close to work

Question 17

where did the rich live?

Answer 17

spacious villas in the country/suburbs

Question 18

food

Answer 18

-fresh food could reach towns because of railways
-workers’ housing had limited facilities for cooking and storing food safely
-wages of unskilled workers were low, they struggled to buy enough food to feed a family

-workers had bread, potatoes and weak tea (tea leaves would be used multiple times) -occasionally they might have bacon or offal

-this was an unbalanced diet -> malnutrition

Question 19

why was the quality of food poor?

Answer 19

-there were no laws regulating the quality of food
-some butchers and street sellers sold meat from diseased animals
-food adulteration was a widespread practice (eg: copper was added to butter to alter its colour) -> diarrhoea and food poisoning.

Question 20

waste

Answer 20

-privies
-some people had their own privy because they had their own yard
-back-to-back houses had to share a privy, sometimes between ten houses or more

-privies were connected to cesspits
-landlords paid night-soil men to empty the cesspits & take the waste away to sell to farmers
-if landlords didn’t pay, cesspits overflowed into the streets and yards

-the middle & upper class started to use water closets in the early 19th century these were linked to sewers which went to rivers

Question 21

water

Answer 21

all water was unsafe throughout the 19th century: water from the rivers was contaminated by human waste & rainwater had fallen through the smoke from factories

-piped water into homes was not usually available in working-class areas
-water companies supplied water to be shared between a court or a street, accessed by a water pump
-many landlords were unwilling to pay more than the minimum fee to the water companies, so the water was only available for a few hours per day
-some people collected rainwater or got water from the towns river if there was no water

Question 22

when did cholera first arrive in
Britain?

Answer 22

1831

Question 23

symptoms of cholera

Answer 23

-vomiting
-diarrhoea
-rapid dehydration

Question 24

how did cholera spread?

Answer 24

through contaminated water

Question 25

impact of cholera

Answer 25

overall 100,000 people died from cholera

Question 26

TB

Answer 26

-the bacteria spread from person to person through coughing
-poorly ventilated houses and crowded conditions meant it spread very easily

Question 27

symptoms of TB

Answer 27

-victims spit up blood
-weight loss
-chest pains

Question 28

beliefs about the origin of cholera

Answer 28

-miasma
-some doctors argued that the disease was contagious, passing by touch
-some church leaders said that cholera was a punishment from God

Question 29

john snow

Answer 29

-studied the spread of cholera in the broad street area
-noticed that the victims had all drank water from the pump in the street
-he persuaded local officials to stop people using the pump and the number of cases fell rapidly
-by observation snow had shown the link between bad water and cholera - the broad street water had been pumped from the thames
-if people had clean water then disease would be reduced

Question 30

responses to cholera from the authorities

Answer 30

-the govt encouraged towns to set up local boards of health to monitor the spread of the disease and advise the local population (were voluntary & had to fund themselves)
-burned barrels of tar to clear miasma
-cholera hospitals to isolate victims
-poor from other places rejected from trying to enter towns

Question 31

responses to cholera from normal people

Answer 31

-church attendance rose
-rumours spread that cholera was being used as a way to reduce the population of the poor

Question 32

what was in edwin chadwick’s report?

Answer 32

stated that the main cause of poverty was illness caused by filthy living conditions & had detailed info from doctor’s report

-national public health authority should be set up
-clean water, new sewer system, constant water
-sewers should be used paid for by increasing taxes on the rich

Question 33

why didn’t people want to listen to edwin chadwick?

Answer 33

-property owners didn’t want to pay more tax
-water companies would have to extend their supply which would take more money
-people supported lassiez-faire

Question 34

public health act ______

Answer 34

1848

-the act set up the general board of health
-gave boards the power to supply water if a private company would not
-boards had responsibility for cleaning the streets

(effects were limited as the act wasn’t enforced)

Question 35

the great stink

Answer 35

1852
-a heatwave that caused the river thames to produce a horrible smell
-the MPs in parliament couldn’t continue with their debates & decided to take action

Question 36

joseph bazalgette

Answer 36

-built 82 miles of main sewers that went from west to east
-1,100 miles of street sewers fed into these
-built from 1859 to 1868
-pumping stations on each bank of the river pumped sewage into reservoirs
-2x a day sewage was released into the river so it could flow away on the tide

Question 37

louis pasteur’s germ theory

Answer 37

-(1861) he published a theory saying that it was germs that made liquids like beer turn bad
-he proved this in a series of experiments in 1864

Question 38

public health act of 1875

Answer 38

-prohibited construction of houses without running water and an internal drainage system
-inspect slaughterhouses and shops

Question 39

1875 artisans dwelling act

Answer 39

-gave local councils the power to buy up slum areas to clear and rebuild them
-they could borrow money from the government in order to do this

Question 40

1875 sale of foods and drugs act

Answer 40

-set basic standards for the quality of food
-introduced harsh punishments for those who sold adulterated or contaminated food

Question 41

improvements in birmingham
(1875)

Answer 41

the mayor, joseph chamberlain, introduced many improvements to the city:

-he used ratepayers’ money to buy up the city’s water supplies, the council took control of them and improved their quality
-he organised slum clearance and rehoused slum-dwellers, he even contributed £10,000 of his own money toward this initiative