-
Period: to
Important population growth
Smallpox vaccination, along with the increase of nutruition (food quality and quantity) and the decrease of infant mortality, the population went from 6 Million in 1750 to 21 Million in 1850, and to 37 Million in 1901, leading to a fear of overpopulation (food supplies not keeping pace) and Malthusianism (moral restrain, such as marrying later in life, having less children than before...). -
Period: to
Corn Laws passed
Restriction of foreign import of food and grain to prevent wilde price flictuations. Some thought of it as necessary to keep British agriculture profitable with high tariffs on foreign corn. Did not work. -
Combination Act
-prohibited trade unions and collective bargaining by british soldier
(fear of French revolution)
= strikes illegal + 3months of jail and 2 months of hard labour for workmen combining with another -
Canal Mania
-
34% of population in urban cities
Increase of factories in cities , and tendency to move in cities. -
214k workers in mining industry
-
Factory Act (cotton mills only)
-Prohibited employment of children under 9.
-Children 9-12 were to work "only" 12h/day -
Period: to
Growing demand for electoral reform
New social forces
-increase of middle class in industrial cities
- skilled industrial workers in need of representation
End of Napoleonic Wars
-expectation of rewarded population with wider political representation
New Ideas about Democracy
-American revolutionary war
-French revolution
Fear over social upheaval
- Thomas Babington Macaulay, "security against revolution" -
Combination Act Repealed
- increase of number of trade unions -organised skill workers along specific skills
- but high cost of membership -favouring negociation over strikes
-
Period: to
Increased demand for social reform
By the "condition of england" novelists Engels and Disraeli, focusing on child an women labour, fueled by the anti-slavery campaign. -
95% of population with no vote power
women, poor, black people.
Franchise based on two types of constituencies:
-counties (men could vote if owned land/property worth 2£
-boroughs (based on traditions and old customs, like for the rotten boroughs, small willages with one or multiple MPs. Also pocket boroughs) -
First Reform Act
Extended franchise
- counties: male adults who owned land worth 2£/year or held lease on property worth 10£/year or tenants on land worth 50£/year
-boroughs : ancient customs abolished = only male adults who owned/occupied house worth £10 at least a year
Reallocated seats in Hous of Commons
-56 rotten / pocket boroughs disfranchised
-22 new boroughs created and given 2 MPs each
-20 new boroughs created and given 1MP each But franchise only 14%-18% in England an Wales, 5/6 adults not voting -
Factory Act
- prohibited employment of children under 9 in factories -8h/day for children 9-13 -12h/day for children 13-18
- children 13 were to receive schooling -creation of "inspecctorate of factories" to enforce regulations
-
Poor Law
Reducing cost of looking after the poor. Advocates for utilitarianism, by Jeremy Bentham. -
New Poor Law
Poor put in workhouses, making them seek work rather than charity using harsh conditions and long days of work and separating families. Compared with prisons and criticized in Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist" and the creation of the anti-poor law movement. -
Chimney Sweeps Act
Forbidden use of kids under 10. But not really applied, so kept on doing it. Theses sweeps were trated mercilessly by thei master sweeps, who would put lighted straws and pins tu their feet to make them go inside the chimney. The soot would causetesticular cancer to the boys. -
Period: to
Victorian era
-
Anti-Corn Law League
Lead by Richard Cobden -
The People's Charter
-all men to vote
-secret ballot
-Parliamentary election every year
-constituencies same size
-MPs paid
-Property qualification to become MP abolished National petitions reaching 6Million signatures in 1848 -
Thomas Carlyle's "Chartism"
First time that the "Condition of England is coined -
Period: to
Spread of the Industrial Revolution
Term of "industrialization" preferred since the 20th Century.
Fuled by the increased use of new basic matrial such as iron/steel and coal, but also by the invention of new machines (steam engines, spinning jenny, power loom).
At first, presence of cottage industries in home (textile production), but after the I.R., increased number of industries and factories = rise of "mechanized factory system". -
Period: to
Policy of free trade
-
Mines Act
Women and boys10 prohibited from working underground for sexual immorality.
Never really implemented, for only one inspector at the time -
Report of the Children's Employment Commission
Visited coal mines and interviewed hundreds of miners. Mainly two works for children: trappers (aeration doors in pits) and drawers ( to cart the coal mined) -
"Sybil, Or The Two Nations" Disraeli
The rich on one side, on the other are the poor -
Engels' "The Condition of the Working Class in England"
Idea that the I.R. was only allowed by the exploitation of the weak. -
Repeal of Corn Laws
By Tory PM Robert Peel -
Chartist meeting on Kennington Common
-
Steam locomotives dominant in transports
-
60% steel and coal, and 50% cotton goods in the world produced in England
-
1867 Reform Act
By Disraeli as MP
- franchised part of urban working class for first time
- from 1M to 2M voters
- in boroughs, franchise to men owning a house or paid £10/year for lodgings -
Creation of the Trade Union Congress (TUC)
-
Foster Education Act
Compulsory education for children 5-13 -
1/3 of manufactured goods in world produced in UK
With the National Income per Habitant higher than any other country, Britain is the world leading commercial nation. It increased its overseas trades relying on steel-built steamships, exported cotton and other cargoes to America and Europe, and had a financial strenght (The City + Bank of England) -
Period: to
Late Victorian Recession
-US and German iron and steel output overtook Britain's
-Agricultural depression and increase of foreign competition
-Challenged lead in manufacturig
-Majority of great inventions now from US and Germany since mid 19th
-Late on developping electricity -
Trade Union Act
Gave to the trade unions legal recognition and protection of funds -
Public Health Act (1872 and 1875)
-administrative machinery established to deal with local issues of health and sanitation
-medical officers compulsory in urban areas
- local authorities to provide water, drainage and sewerage -
Ballot Act
Mandatory use of secret ballot in elections -
Chimney Sweepers Act
Sweeps required licences and police duty to enforce the law -
Peaceful Picketing Legalized
-
Period: to
Consummer Revolution
- Increase in the number of consumers -Increase in population, in wage-earning opportunities for women/youth, and in spending power. -Social Emulation and conspicuous conception.
- Changes in distribution -Advertisement -Department stores
- A greater variety of goods
-
Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act
Criminal offence to bribe voters -
1884 Reform Act
By Gladstone as PM
-All male property-owners could vote
-In counties, franchise on same grounds as men in boroughs -
Period: to
Rise of New Unionism
-to organize unskilled workers not admitted in craft unions
-low membership cost
-leaders highlighted the need for militant methods -
Match Girl's Strike
3K workers stricking for 3 weeks
"Phossy jaw" -
London Dock Strike
-
National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS)
The Suffragists
Millicent Fawcett as main leader
Constitutional methods, peaceful, moderate -
TUC in favour of union movement forming a Party
-
Labour Representation Committee
alliance of trade unions and socialist organizations -
TAFF Vale Decision
Trade Unions could be sued for damages in strikes -
78% of population in urban area
Increase of factories in cities , and tendency to move in cities. -
Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU)
The Suffragettes
The Pakhurst (mother and daughters)
Violent and confrontentional, often illegal -
General Elections
29 Labour Representation Committee members elected
Became Labour Party -
Trade Union Dispute Act
-reversed TAFF Vale Decision
-protected unions' funds
-picketing and sympathetic strikes legalised -
Osborne Judgement
illegal for trade unions to use funds for political purpose -
Elections
42 Labour Party MPs elected in H.C. -
League for Opposing Women's Suffrage
- degraded social and legal status -"separate sphere" ideology -anti-suffrage societies
-
Period: to
12 Major Strikes in Great Britain
Still important in local memory nowadays
EX: Tonypandy -
Emily Davidson's death at royal derby (Suffragette)
-
III Heath Act, the "Cat and Mouse" Act
After their arrestation, suffragettes militants would stop eating in prison, to the point of which the forces were obliged to force-feed them. Huge backlash. Cat and Mouse Act is basically authorising the catch and release of protesters. -
20k miles of railroad in Britain
-
Period: to
Lord Kitchenerr's army
2.4M volunteers
relied on propaganda and volunteering
no real tradition of conscription -
Period: to
WWI
-
Defense of the Realm Act (DORA)
extraordinary emergency powers to government -imprisonments without trials
-censoring of newspaper and letters
-take over any land/factory needed for the war effort
... -
Military Service Act (January AND May)
all men 18-45 eligible to conscription = 2.5M raised
(exception for clergymen, teachers, some classes of workers, medically unfit)
But 17k Conscientious objectors
- mass protest, unpopular measure -
Voluntary rationning
Role ensured by women -
Creation of Department of Information
-fight war weariness in citizen moral
-push a certian narrative of the war
-influence allies -
Compulsory rationning
Role ensured by women -
>100k Women enrolled
in various auxiliary bodies of fighting services (WAAC, WRENS, WRAF) -
Women in Workforce
-2M replaced men
-1M in trade unions
-700k -
Creation of the Ministry of Information
By Lord Beaverbook
-700nfilms made
-2.5M copies of 110 posters
-pamphlets/illustrated periodicals
postcards
-information given to foreign newspaper -
1918 Representation of the People's Act
-vote to all men 21
-vote to all women 30 and property owners
-women allowed as MPS
= from 7.7M to 21M voters, with women as 47% of electors -
Treaty of Versailles
-Full responsability of Germanay in war for damages caused
-major land concessions forced upon Germany
-German army limited to 100k
+ to pay large sums in reparations to Allied Forces Britain entered as Great Power, and left in bad shape
= 750k soldiers killed; 1.5M wounded -
Elections
142 Labour Party seats won
Became 2nd largest Party in H.C
Start of decline and disappearance of Liberal Party -
1928 Representation of the People Act
-vote to women with the same conditions as male's vote
-women as majority of voters in 1929 general elections = "Flapper election" -
Nazi Party largest in Germany
-
Hitler Chancelor
-
Occupation of Rhineland
by german army, with expansionist intentions -
German annexion of Austria
War scare in Europe
Ill prepared France and Britain -
Schedule of Reserved Occupation
list of essential jobs reserved from forces -
Period: to
Munich Crisis
-
Munich Conference
With Chamberlain, Daladier, Mussolini and Hitler -
Sudetenland to be ceded to Germany
for end of German territorial expansion.
Chamberlain returned to UK as hero, he saved peace. But for others it was a scandal, they had sold the Czechs. -
Hitler took rest of Czechoslovakia
-
Military Training Act
conscription men 20-21 + 6 months training -
Military Alliance Poland-Britain
-
German Troops in Poland
-
War declared by Chamberlain
- King George VI's Speech
-
National Service Act
all men 18-41 liable to conscription
gradually called up:
-Oct: 20-23
-May: 27
-June: 40
men working in key industries forbidden to join forces -
Period: to
Evacuation and the Phoney War
evacuate areas - reception area - neutral area
-827k schoolchildren
-13k expecting mothers
-524k mothers and children -
Britain close to losing
-
Operation Dynamo
Dunkirk
evacuate 338k soldiers, 1/3 were french -
Operation Sea Lion
Luftwaffe ordered to destroy RAF to prepare potential invasion of G.B. Spitfire VS ME 109 -
British Victory
no threat of invasion -
Essential Work Order
Workers not allowed quit their jobs
AND Employers could not fire without consent of Ministry of Labour -
National Service Act
conscription of women 20-30, then 19-43
Exemption married women with child 14 -
500k women in forces
+1/3 factory workers were women