The Victorian Era

How Did the Industrial Revolution Impact Victorian Britain?

Article · History & Overview · The Victorian Era, 1837–1901

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The Industrial Revolution had a transformative effect on Victorian Britain. By the time Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, the country had been industrialising for almost a century, and the basic features of the new economy were already in place. The Victorian era saw the full maturation of the industrial economy, the deepening of its effects on every part of British life, and the emergence of a recognisably modern industrial society. The transformation affected the cities and the countryside, the rich and the poor, the men and the women, the British and the Irish, and the settlers and the colonised. By 1850, Britain accounted for roughly half of the world’s manufacturing output, a share no country has ever matched. The story of this transformation is one of the central themes of the period, and it is examined in detail in The Victorian Economy and Industrialization. For the broader historical context, see The Victorian Era: A Complete Historical Overview.

The First and Second Industrial Revolutions

The Industrial Revolution is conventionally divided into two phases. The first, lasting from about 1760 to about 1840, was based on cotton, iron, coal, steam, and the canal and the railway. Its key inventions included James Hargreaves’s spinning jenny of 1764, Richard Arkwright’s water frame of 1769, Edmund Cartwright’s power loom of 1785, James Watt’s separate-condenser steam engine of 1769, and Henry Cort’s puddling process of 1784. The second, lasting from about 1870 to 1914, was based on steel, electricity, chemicals, and precision engineering. Its key inventions included the Bessemer converter of 1856, the Siemens-Martin open-hearth furnace of the 1860s, the Gramme dynamo of 1870, the Swan and Edison electric light bulbs of 1879 to 1880, and Charles Parsons’s steam turbine of 1884. The second industrial revolution was concentrated in the new industrial nations of Germany and the United States as well as in Britain, and by 1900 Britain had lost its pre-eminent position in heavy industry. The first phase, in which Britain stood alone, is examined in Victorian Inventions.

The Impact on the Population

The Industrial Revolution had a profound impact on the population of the United Kingdom. The population of England and Wales, which had been roughly stable at around 6 million for centuries, began to grow rapidly in the late eighteenth century. By 1801, the year of the first modern census, the population of England and Wales was 8.9 million. By 1837, the year of Victoria’s accession, it was 15.5 million. By 1901, the year of the queen’s death, it was 30.5 million. The Scottish population grew more slowly, from 1.6 million in 1801 to 2.9 million in 1841 to 4.5 million in 1901. The Irish population was devastated by the Great Famine of 1845 to 1852, and fell from 8.2 million in 1841 to 4.5 million in 1901. The population history of the period is examined in Victorian Daily Life and Society.

The growth of the population was driven by two factors. The first was a fall in the death rate, especially in infant mortality, which was caused by better nutrition, better housing, better sanitation, and the gradual development of modern medicine. The second was a continued high birth rate, which was typical of pre-industrial populations. The result was a population explosion that put enormous pressure on housing, on food supply, on employment, and on the social services of the new industrial state.

The Impact on the Cities

The most visible impact of the Industrial Revolution was the growth of the cities. The new industrial cities of the north and the Midlands, including Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Liverpool, and the towns of the Black Country, grew from small market towns into great industrial conurbations. Manchester’s population grew from 25,000 in 1772 to 142,000 in 1821 to 303,000 in 1851 to 543,000 in 1901. Birmingham’s grew from 71,000 in 1801 to 233,000 in 1851 to 522,000 in 1901. Glasgow’s grew from 77,000 in 1801 to 274,000 in 1851 to 762,000 in 1901. The growth of the cities is examined in Victorian Cities, Transport, and Entertainment.

The new cities were unhealthy, overcrowded, and insanitary. The great cholera epidemics of 1832, 1848, and 1866 killed tens of thousands of people, and the sanitary reformers led by Edwin Chadwick, the author of the Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of 1842, gradually forced the government to act. The Public Health Act of 1848 established a General Board of Health; the construction of the London sewerage system by Joseph Bazalgette in the 1860s; the Local Government Act of 1858; and a long series of later acts slowly improved the conditions of the cities. The sanitary history of the period is examined in Victorian Medicine and Public Health.

The Impact on Work

The Industrial Revolution transformed the nature of work. The old domestic system, in which merchants put out raw materials to be worked on in cottage workshops, was largely replaced by the factory system, in which workers were gathered under one roof, in mechanised processes, under the eye of managers. The new factories were huge, noisy, and dangerous, and the hours of work were long. The Factory Act of 1833 limited the working hours of children under nine in textile mills; the Mines Act of 1842 restricted the employment of women and children underground; the Ten Hours Act of 1847 limited the working day of women and children in factories to ten hours; and a long series of later acts gradually extended regulation to other industries. The history of the labour movement is examined in The Victorian Economy and Industrialization.

The new industrial work was divided into skilled and unskilled categories. The skilled workers, including the engineers, the machinists, the carpenters, and the printers, were a relatively privileged group, and they formed the backbone of the new trade union movement. The unskilled workers, including the women, the children, and the Irish, were a much larger group, and they were paid very low wages. The experience of the working class is examined in Victorian Society, Class, and Daily Life.

The Impact on the Countryside

The Industrial Revolution had a profound impact on the countryside. The growth of the cities created a huge demand for food, and the British countryside was reorganised to supply it. The Corn Laws, which had protected British agriculture from foreign competition, were repealed in 1846, and British agriculture was gradually exposed to the competition of the new grain-producing regions of North America, Argentina, and Australia. The Agricultural Depression of the 1870s and 1880s, caused by the arrival of cheap grain from the American Midwest, led to a long period of rural decline, in which many farm workers lost their jobs and emigrated to the cities or to the colonies. The rural history of the period is examined in Victorian Society, Class, and Daily Life.

The Industrial Revolution also had a profound impact on the landscape. The new factories, the new railways, the new mines, the new towns, and the new suburbs transformed the face of Britain. The pollution caused by the new industries, including the smoke of the factory chimneys, the soot of the steam engines, and the chemical waste of the new chemical industries, was one of the most visible consequences. The pollution of the cities, and the campaigns against it, are examined in Victorian Engineering Marvels.

The Impact on the Family

The Industrial Revolution had a profound impact on the family. The old family economy, in which the family worked together on the land or in the workshop, was gradually replaced by the wage economy, in which the individual members of the family went out to work in the factory, the mine, the office, or the shop. The role of the women, the role of the children, and the role of the elderly were all transformed. The women’s movement of the late Victorian period, which culminated in the campaign for women’s suffrage, was one of the consequences of the new industrial economy. The history of the family is examined in The Victorian Family.

The Impact on the Mind

The Industrial Revolution had a profound impact on the Victorian mind. The new science of the period, including the work of Charles Darwin, the work of Michael Faraday, the work of James Clerk Maxwell, and the work of William Thomson, transformed the understanding of the natural world. The new philosophy of the period, including the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, the positivism of Auguste Comte, and the idealism of T. H. Green, transformed the understanding of the human world. The new literature of the period, including the novels of Charles Dickens, the poetry of Alfred Tennyson, and the essays of John Ruskin, responded to the new industrial world in complex ways. The intellectual history of the period is examined in Victorian Literature, Theatre, and the Written Word.