Changing Britain Flashcards
Living conditions in cities
- Pollution
- Overcrowding
- Disease
- Waste disposal
- Poor quality housing
- Lack of fresh water
Reasons for problems of overcrowding
- Due to large numbers of people moving the cites, not enough houses for all the people
- Low wages and high rents caused families to live in as small spaces as possible
- Migration - push and pull reasons, wanting to escape poverty and hunger
- Industrialisation - more factories and workers needed
Reasons for the spread of diseases
- Diseases like typhoid, typhus, tuberculosis and cholera existed
- Reasons: rapid pace of industrialisation, weak local and national gov and lack of understanding of causes of disease
- Waste
-Overcrowded housing - Filth, dirt and rubbish
- Lack of food, clean water and clothing
- Dumped rubbish
- 14 feet between buildings
Improvements in living conditions and slums
- 1848 Public Health Act
- 1875 Public Health Act
- 1866 Sanitary Act
1848 Public Health Act
- to improve sanitary conditions of towns by encouraging cities to set up boards of health and provide clean water.
- Local boards of health must be established.
1875 Public Health Act
Forced many towns and cities to clean up streets and improve working conditions
1866 Sanitary Act
Gave town councils the power to force land owners to connect new houses to sewers. Force landlords to improve conditions in slums.
Medical advancements
- During major cholera epidemic in 1854, John Snow made connection between disease and water supply
- Edward Jenner discovered vaccination then vaccinations against cholera were created
- Joseph Lister introduced sterilisation of dressings and surgical equipment during operations
- Hospital building programme began in late 1800s and Florence Nightingale made them cleaner
- 1847 James Simpson discovered chloroform, an effective aesthetic
Dangers in cotton mills
- Illness
- Exhaustion
- Injuries
- Overseer’s punishments
- Getting crushed by large machinery
Dangers in coal mines
- Cave ins
- Flooding
- Black lung
- Nystagmus (eyes hurt all the time)
- Gas leaks
- Poisonous gases
- Explosions
Improvement of factories
- 1833 Factory Act
- 1878 Factory Act
- Invention of the spinning jenny by James Hargreaves
- James Watt’s steam engines
1833 Factory Act
No children under the age of nine to work - if between 9-13 48 hrs per week and part time schooling
- Inspectors created to enforce act but only a few were effective
- Parents and doctors lied about the ages of the children
- Schooling avoided
- If factories persecuted, fines were very low
1878 Factory Act
- Brought all previous acts together - consolidation
- No child under 10 employed
- Compulsory education for children up to 10
- 10-14 only employed half days
- Women no more than 56 hours per week
- Inspectors increased
Improvement of mines
- 1842 Coal Mining Act
- 1911 Coal Mine Act
- Deeper mines, working to support the roof
- Upcast and downcast shafts to provide ventilation
- Invention of Davy Lamp which helped to prevent gas explosions
- Easier coal transport
1842 Coal Mining Act
- 8 hr day
- No boy under 14 to work underground
- Required all mine owners to make rescue stations, provide teams of trained rescuers
Growth of railways
- Railway building began in 1830s in industrial areas
- Pulled 30 tons of coal, impressed mine owners
- Railway opened on 15th Sep 1830, within month, line was carrying 1200 passengers per day
Why were railways built?
- Trade
- Population growth - increase in demand for coal etc
- Reliability - better than canals
- Cost - raw materials could be transported quickly
Impacts of railways
- Holidays
- Boosted industries
- Created jobs
- Improved communication
- Easy travel
- MPs could travel freely between constituencies and parliament
Why did canals decline?
- Summer: canals dried up
- Winter: Froze over
- Many canal owners did not invest and network began to look shabby
- Canals became mainly used for tourism
- By 1800s railways were faster and could move goods
- Slow
- even short journeys involved several canal companies, inconvenient paperwork, expensive
Pressure for democratic reform up to 1884
- Few people could vote
- MPs were unpaid, you had to be rich to be one
- Open voting: voters could be intimidated/bribed
- Rotten boroughs - small villages had few people but an MP
- Parliament controlled by rich landowners, often passed laws to suit themselves
Radical unrest at Peterloo - St Peter’s Field
- Happened in Manchester in 1819
- Radicals increased demands for political reform
- Group organised large meeting at St Peter’s Field
- 60,000 came to listen some with children and picnics
- 1000 locals to deal with potential riot
- Crowd got excited, commanders sent into crowds, determined to arrest group leaders
- People threw rocks and sticks at them, more horses charged
- 10 mins later, people had fled but 11 were dead and between 400-600 wounded
Chartism Demands
- They were radical protesters
- All men right to vote
- End bribery and corruption and elections
- Each MP representing roughly same amount of people
- Elections every year
- Pay for MPs
Failures of the Chartists
- Petitions: presented to parliment three times, all times rejected
- Many signitures on petitions fake and chartists became the subject of jokes
- Many workers scared of losing their jobs or being arrested so they ignored them
- Branded as being ‘dangerous revolutionaries’
Successes of the Chartists
- 4th Nov 1839 Newport rising. 5000 workers armed arrived in Newport, gunfire broke out, 25 min gun battle resulted in deaths
- Without existence of the Chartist movement it may well have taken longer for any other reforms to take place after 1832
- First real organisation of the working-class population in Britain
1832 Reform Act
- 76 new constituencies created - cities like Manchester were given MPs
- 56 of the corrupt boroughs abolished
- Voting now based on value of property, not where you lived
- Less rotten boroughs
1867 Reform Act
- Men or lodgers who owned or rented property of £10 a year could vote
- Depopulated areas lost the right to an MP
1884 Reform Act
- Voters in countryside given same rights as those in towns
- Adult males owning or renting land worth £10 a year could vote