Introduction:

The 19th century had great change on British society, cities began to grow, trade
expanded and consumerism and popular culture blossomed. They saw the
beginning of industrialization; radicalism and repression; the society had both
utmost luxury side by side with utmost poverty.

Population:

Great Britain had 13 million people after the battle of Waterloo, and in less than 60
years (1871) it had doubled, this is called "modern rise of population" by
McKeown1. It happened due to less infant mortality rate and longer life in England.
Life became better overall even in the new industrial towns, as people were better
fed, better clothed, had less infection rates than the 18th century. Also the
immigration from Ireland to western English and Scotland became a reason for the
increase of population, although a lot of English, Irish and Scots will go westwards
to North America.

Economy:

Agriculture was common in England, as most Englishmen worked either in

1
The modern rise of population: By T. McKeown. 1976. London: Edward Arnold. A vol. in-8° 176 pp
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They were all countrified (i.e. having the characteristics and outlook of country
folk). Also their children who were raised in ghettos that existed due to the
acceleration of the cheesy houses that are built to accommodate the new settlers,
were not a common social phenomenon in northern England. 18th century big towns
– such as: London, Bristol, and Liverpool – had both town-bred and ghetto-bred
people, mostly ignorant, dirty and gin drinkers. The city rally was a terrifying fear
for every government during the last half of the century. Now this old evil assumed
larger amount, with more women and children employed in Wales’ coal-mines or
Lancashire’s cotton mills which affected their health badly, new great social
problems appeared. William Cobbett shows their terrible “oatmeal and water” diet:

“if, when I go to the North I find the labourers eating more meat those of the
"Sooth", I shall say that "enlightening" is a very good thing but give none of that
"light", or of that "grace" which makes a man content with oatmeal and water, or
that makes him lie down and die of starvation amidst abundance of food...Talk of
vassals! Talk of villains! Talk of serfs! Are there any of these or did feudal times
ever see any of them, so debased, so absolutely slaves, as the poor creatures who, in
the "enlightened" north, are compelled to work fourteen hours a day, in a heat of
eighty-four degrees, and who are liable to punishment for looking out at a window
of the factory!”2

At the time of Waterloo, Britain was halfway through the most profound social
transformation of its whole history. The industry began to flourish, beginning in the
great cotton mills of Lancashire, then in the coal mines and blast furnaces. There
were privately owned spinning and weaving mills and factories that were using
steam engines, it employed hundreds of men, women and children. In 1815, there
were 82 million pounds of cotton imported to England, raising in 1860 to 1000

2
The rural rides: Cobbett, William. 1830, page 179.
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million pounds. There was also another slow transformation in the industry of
wool, which is the exporting industry. Spinning by machines superseded spinning
by hand, but building a bigger amount of weaving factories did not occur until the
next generation. The heavy industries of iron, coal, and engineering came after the
textile industries. The wars that just ended had caused prosperity to them. The great
railroad era that began in the 1830s made it one of the main sources of national
income. Indeed, the inventions of Joseph Bramah, Henry Maudlay, and others laid
the foundation for the major engineering companies; and in a few years, the making
of machine tools - machines that make machines - introduced a new stage of the
industrial revolution. In transportation, the canal network was nearly complete
before Waterloo, and Thomas Telford and John McAdam were revamping the
major roads.

Social classes:

So the thirty thousand British survivors who fought the Battle of Waterloo returned
to England which was rapidly changing its appearance, and its wealth rapidly
increased thanks to new manufacturing and transport techniques. Factory towns,
however, were a small part of the whole, and most English towns were picturesque
rural towns, located in the unspoiled beautiful countryside. The villages, to which
most of them have returned, were still the main center of life for most English
people and in the 18th century nearly completed their transformation. The
countryside was drained, abandoned, hedged, and enclosed to such a degree that it
would have shocked their ancestors. Almost all former open fields are closed. The
gardens and wastelands were as tightly closed as before. This means that
agriculture has become more effective. Improved methods of tillage, crop rotation,
and stock raising are becoming popular, although farmers have not generally
practiced them yet. This also meant that more land is now owned by wealthy men,

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who were allowed to hire farmers; many of the old smallholders have become
landless agricultural workers or have gone to the new towns. Homeowners in most
cases lost their old common rights, the fuel they used to gather from the
wastelands, and their food often was only bread and cheese for six days a week.
The lucky ones had small gardens to grow vegetables, keep pigs or some domestic
fowls.

Six years after Waterloo, the strong aggressive countryman, William Cobbett, rode
his horse and started his famous "rural rides" through the shires of England. He saw
several reasons to mourn the suffering and grievances of the deprived poor. He
said:

“There is one farmer, in the North of Hampshire, who has nearly eight thousand
acres of land in his hands; who grows fourteen hundred acres of wheat and two
thousand acres of barley! He occupies what was formerly 40 farms! Is it any
wonder that paupers increase?3”

Like many of the old "agricultural interest" spokespersons of his time, he hated the
growth of a new aristocratic elite that was only more reckless and profitable and
whose fortunes were drawn from trade and investment.

The outrage against the East India company's "Nabobs" and the owners of the
national debt was very old, and Cobbett was barely hater of exaggeration: even if
these facts were allowed, a new wealthy class was there that had accumulated its
wealth and large influence in its possession, which indicated that there will be
major social changes.
Both the old and the new nobility were both rich, cheerful, and immersed in the life
of their wonderful and enjoyable country houses. Fighting barely disrupted their
usual normal schedule. The operations of the Seven Peninsula War against
3
The rural rides: Cobbett, William. 1830, page 30.
4
Napoleon when there was the largest exploratory power of the continent, cost only
less than 40,000 people. With the price of corn, rents and tithes increased, and to
the nobility, the income tax was more troublesome than onerous. The laboring and
manufacturing classes suffered from a shortage of corn and the periodic economic
crises. The practice of imposing low fees to increase income, which became known
as the "Speenhamland System", helped escape hunger, at least in the southern
provinces. This measure, which benefited the working classes in the short term but
led to their impoverishment and frustration in the long run, certainly benefited the
large working farmer. This freed him from the obligation to give his workers the
appropriate salaries, and forced the small independent parish rate to pay, through
the low rate, to the wage bill of the large farmer and the large manufacturer. In
1818, when the highest year for poverty alleviation took place, the sums spent
increased to 8 million pounds. These were perhaps the most striking features of the
English social scene in 1815. As usual, the new forces tended to attract attention
and became overrated, until Cobbett sometimes gladly stated that village workers
in some areas were in good status, and that small independent farmers still thrive.

Social condition and crime:

In a report in 1831, years later, it was reported that about one million families
participated in agriculture, 145,000 of whom were shareholders or farmers who did
not employ workers, compared to 686,000 working-class families. Before 1780, the
number of small yeoman farmers had decreased. But while it became more popular
after 1780, after 1832 it became rarer. In 1830, poor agricultural workers in
southern countries rioted in favor of claiming a half-a-crown salary per day.
Nineteen of them were executed and 481 expelled to Australia: which worked
during that period to clarify a certain dimension of social life - the brutality of laws
and penalties for the working class.

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There were about 220 crimes under which capital punishment could be enacted: so
although not always applied since judges have a moral compass so that courts can
choose not to prosecute, the unjust court system has become a serious threat to
people's safety and well-being.

Because London is the capital and because of its own population density, it quickly
produced a truly unique crime problem after Waterloo. Contemporaries assumed
that there was a significant rise in crime due to peace, disassociation, and anxiety
after the war. In 1816 the Metropolis Police Committee was formed to examine the
situation. She was very careful in her investigations but found that the crimes were
“much less atrocious than before." In fact, what has changed is the general attitude
toward crime and civil safety, compared to the changed attitude of the criminal law.
The substance and intent of the crime had changed, but not for the worse.

References:

1. Sultan D, Hosni B, Culture Textbook, 2020.

4. McKeown T, The modern rise of population, 1976, London.