Accelerating the Industrial Revolution, More steel- steam engine and smelting Railroads- First RR was built in 1823 to connect Manchester with the nearby port of Liverpool Repeal of the Corn Laws, Poor Laws,

Stockton-Darlington locomotive, 1825 American locomotive, 1850

Iron and railroads led to steel bridges and road improvements

Chemicals: Gas lights, fueled by gas extracted from coal, were installed in London, Sulfuric Acid and Bleach for the textile industry were developed in between Portland cement, and improvement over traditional concrete, was developed in 1824

SS Royal William, the first ship to cross the Atlantic under steam-power, from Nova Scotia to Liverpool, 1833

Pollution Great Stink, 1858

Discontent and Organized Labor Luddites, Manchester, , led a series of riots protesting the use of steam engines in textile mills and the resulting unemployment. Workers’ Unions were illegal in the UK until The Chartist movement of the 1830s and 1840s represented the first real effort to build a labor union, and organized the first wide-spread labor strike in In 1844, Frederick Engels, the son of a textile factory owner, published his Condition of the Working Class in England, one of the founding works of Socialism.

Reform of Working Conditions Factory Acts of 1802, )Children under 8 can’t work 2)Children 8-13 can only work 8 hours per day, but only from 6AM to 9PM (max work week of 58 hours) 3)Children can work twelve hours per day (max work week of 70 hours) 4) The employers of child-labor must send them to school at least once per week for the first four years of their employment (this was expanded to two hours per day). Factory Act of Women and children (13-18) not allowed to work beyond 58 hours per week.

Robert Owen ( ) Great fan of reforming industrial labor conditions Ran his own mill town of New Lanark, Scotland, as an example of how fair treatment and investment in the lives and education of workers could alleviate the social problems of capitalism. Believed poverty could be solved by the creation of new villages for the poor based on the old principle of commonly-held lands.

Edwin Chadwick Member of Poor Laws Commission, but bitterly rejected the reform of the Poor Laws in 1832 Published The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population in 1842, complaining about working and living conditions in London and other cities. Made commissioner of the Metropolitan Sewer District, which built London’s modern sewage system

Ireland: Britain’s First Colony Celtic, Catholic Partially conquered by England in the twelfth century. Conquest completed in the sixteenth century, English nobles settled as major land-owners over the Irish peasants.

Ireland and Enclosures During the eighteenth century, English and Irish- protestant landlords pursued a policy of increasing cash rents or enclosures for sheep farming, dispossessing large swaths of the Irish peasantry. Many moved to England, looking for employment in the cities.

Ireland and Liberal Revolution In the late eighteenth century, a group of Irish liberals, Protestant and Catholic, formed the United Irishmen. The group soon attracted broad support from people unhappy with British rule. Their goal was to set up an independent Irish Republic. Inspired by French Revolution, United States, and liberal principles

1798 Series of uprisings Most of the leadership arrested before uprisings Tepid French support United Irishmen badly defeated

Ireland under British Liberalism Agricultural Revolution and mono-crop agriculture; marginal land in the west of the country Potato famine caused by fungus imported from America, Whig government was convinced that the repeal of the Corn Laws would help, as the market would help drive down the price of food. The opposite happened, and the government refused to interfere, vaguely citing Malthusian theories. Trevelyan: “The judgment of God sent the famine to teach the Irish a lesson”.

Effects of the Famine Demographic disaster: