#english_history 

By 1800, the total population of the British Isles was about 13 million.

# Towns
By 1750 Liverpool, Manchester, etc were already large, but such new towns were still treated as villages and so had no representation in Parliament.

All the towns smelled bad, there were no drains. Streets were used as lavatories and the dirt was seldom removed. 

The towns were centres of disease: only 1 child in 4 in London lived to become an adult.
The poor were buried together in large holes. These were not covered with earth until they were full.

It was hardly surprising that poor people found comfort in drinking alcohol and in trying to win money from card games.
[[Revolution in thought of the 17th century|Quakers]], shocked by the effects of gin drinking, developed the beer industry in order to replace gin with a less damaging drink.

During the 18th century, efforts were made to make towns healthier: streets were built wider, from **1734** London had a street lighting system. From 1760 many towns asked Parliament to allow them to tax their citizens in order to provide social services.

Although Catholics and Jews were still not allowed into Parliament, they were all able to belong to the town councils that were all able to belong to the town councils. As these local authorities grew, they brought together the merchants and industrial leaders. These started to create a new administrative class to carry out the council's will. Soon London and the other towns became much, much cleaner.

There were 4 main classes of people in 18th-century towns:
1. the wealthy merchants
2. the ordinary merchants and traders
3. the skilled craftsmen
4. the ordinary workers

# The Rich
The rich had less control over the poor in Britain (in 1760 one lord was actually hanged for killing his servant).
Foreigners noticed how easy it was for the British to move up and down the social "ladder": in London a man who dressed as a gentleman would be treated as one, as there were little difference between the upper classes.
The difference between rich and poor was much more noticeable. The rich could hire such famous painters as [[Thomas Gainsborough]], while the life of the poor was immortalised by those like [[William Hogarth]]

The comfortable life of the gentry must have been stultifying most of the time. The men went hunting and riding, carried out "improvements" to their estates. Women's lives were even more torpid, as they could not take a share in more serious matters.

During the 18th century, people believed that the natural spring waters in "spa" towns such as Bath were good for their health. These towns became fashionable places where most people went to meet other members of high society.

In Scotland a "New Town"on the edge of the old city of Edinburgh was built by Scotland's great architect, **Robert Adam**.

# The Countryside
## Scotland
By the time the [[The Celtic kingdoms of Scotland#^814ea0|law forbidding the kilt and tartan]] was abolished in **1782**, the old ways of making them from local plants had long been forgotten.

The real disaster was, however, economic, as towards the end of the 18th century, the clan chiefs began to realise that money could be made from sheep for the wool trade, and got in on the enclosing hype train. The chiefs treated the clan lands as their personal property, making a lot of Highlanders lose their lands. Clan society in the Highlands had gone for ever.

## England
During the 18th century most of common village land was enclosed, but it was not used only for sheep farming, but for mixed animal and cereal farms. People with money and influence persuaded their MP to pass a law through Parliament allowing them to take over common land and to enclose it.

One main cause of these enclosures was that a number of the greater landlords had a great deal of money to invest, and farming had become much more lucrative than it had been in the Tudor era. ^089570

Traditionally the land had been allowed to rest every 3 years, but by growing root crops one year, animal food the next, and wheat the 3rd, farmers could now produce more.

In spite of the greatly increased production of food, Britain could no longer feed itself by the end of the 18th century and had to rely on import.

But in social terms the enclosures were damagin: some had built their homes on common land and these were destroyed.

Many of the poor had to depend on the help of the [[Class division by income during Tudors' time|Poor Laws]].

Another problem was that there were several years of bad harvests which resulted in a sharp increase in wheat prices. To fix this, the town councils decided they to help those whose wages were particularly low out of the local rates - "**Speenhamland Act**", from the name of an eponymous village where it was first implemented. 
It was a disastrous system, because:
1. Employers were now able to employ people cheaply knowing that the parish would have to add to the low wages
2. Increase in population, as the more children you had, the more you'd get paid

Neighbouring parishes joined together to build a **"parish workhouse"**.

# Family life
In the 18th century families began to express affection more openly than before. The increase in affection was partly because people could now expect a reasonably long life.

Girls, however, continued to be victims of the parents' desire to make them match the popular idea of feminine beauty of slim bodies, tight waists and a pale appearance. The way in which they achieve it is hazardous to the girl's health.

Parents still often decided on a suitable marriage for their children, but they increasingly sought their children's opinion.

Britain was ahead of the rest of Europe in nascent individualism, which emanated in a desire for privacy. It also helped improve trade and industry.
Such individualism could not exist for the poorer classes.

The use of child labour in the workhouse and in the new factories increased towards the end of the century. It was incredibly cheap. But at t he end of the century child labour began to be seen as shameful **(Regulating Act of 1788 to reduce the labour's cruelty)**.

# Religion
Britain avoided a revolution like in France partly because of a new religious movement, which met the needs of the growing industrial working class, led by a man called **John Wesley**.
In **1738** Welsey had had a mystical experience, and then started to preach while travelling.
Wesley's **"Methodism"** was above all a personal and emotional form of religion. It was organised in small groups - "chapels" - all over the country. At a time when the Church of England itself showed little interest in the social and spiritual needs of the growing populations, Methodism was able to give ordinary people a sense of purpose and dignity. The Church was afraid of this new movement, and Wesley was forced to leave the Church of England and start a new Methodist Church.
John Wesley was no friend of the ruling classes but was deeply conservative.
The Methodists were not alone, and other Christians became well known for social concern.
It was also a small group of Christians who were the first to act against the slave trade. The first success against it came when a judge ruled that "no man could be a slave in Britain" and freed a slave who had landed in Bristol. The slave trade was abolished by law in **1807**, but slavery itself was abolished in all British colonies only in **1833**.

These sects also tried to push for the first worker protections laws, such as the **1802** Factory Act, limiting child labour to 12 hours a day. In **1819** a new law forbade the employment of children under the age of 9.