The 18th century

 As powerful as France, due to industrial growth, and large trading empire (large part stolen from France).

 Strongest navy in the world, which controlled trading routes and protected it from enemies. (deliberate
policy of the government).
 Ministers were the real policy and decision-makers. Their power belonged to the groups from which the
ministers came+ the Parliament. – this power lead to trade and later the wealth made possible both
agricultural and industrial revolution—Britain is the most economically advanced.
 Proletariat—group of people who lost their land because of the revolutions (working class)

 Inventions destroyed the old cottage industries and created factories. (sudden growth of cities like
Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool etc.)
 All this happened because the British were afraid of revolutions (seen in France -the misery of the poor and
the power of the trading classes led to rev. in 1789). They even ended fighting with Napoleon Bonaparte
(defeated him). Although revolution was still possible, the were saved partly.
 Methodism—new religious movement, which offered people hope and self-respect. Methodism did not
question political or social injustices on earth, only focused on heavenly matters.

Politics and finance

 When Queen Anne (Stuart) died in 1714, the kingship of the Protestant ruler Hanover George was not
certain. Some wanted the son of James II, James III to return as king. This was not possible because he
would not change his religion to Anglican. At the same time, he would not give up the claim for the throne
either, so he tried to win it by force.
 1715- Rebellion against George I. Unsuccessful. Stuarts -Jacobite

 The Governments power increased--- the new king only spoke German and was not interested in his new
kingdom. Among the ministers were Robert Walpole, who is considered to be Britain’s first Prime Minister.
 Robert Walpole—came to power as a result of his financial ability. At the end of the 17th century the
government was forced to borrow money, to be able to pay for the war with France. In 1694, a group of
financiers decided to create a bank, and the government borrowed from the bank only. (Bank of England).
They raised money by printing bank notes. This made the trade easier and lawful back in the day, while
Henry I was king.
 At the time when people had a lot of money to invest, they wanted to invest in trading companies doing
business in the West Indies or newly developing areas. This caused these trading adventures to be very
expensive. A company named South Sea Company offered to pay the country’s debt. When the confidence
in the company suddenly fell, people lost a lot of money, Robert Walpole was able to gain back public
confidence. He made sure the so-called South Sea Bubble could never happen again. He made the
companies responsible to the public.
 Walpole developed the idea that government ministers should work together in a small group (Cabinet). If
someone disagreed with the Cabinet, they had to resign. This resulted in another important rule. All
members of the Cabinet were together responsible for policy decisions.
 Walpole made the political results of the Glorious Revolution in 1688. He made sure the power of the king
remained under control.
 Limits of the king: could not be Catholic
could not remove or change laws
was dependent on the Parliament on his financial income and army
The king chooses his ministers, even today it is Her Majesty’s Government, but they belonged to the
Parliament much more then to the king.
 Walpole avoided war and increase taxes in order to be able to pay back everything. He put taxes on luxury
goods, like tea, coffee and chocolate. that way only the rich were paying more and the poor was left in
peace.
 Tea became a national drink by 1700.

 Walpole’s biggest political enemy was William Pitt, later Lord Catham, who wanted Britain to be
economically strong. He studied French trade, and wanted to beat France in the race for an overseas trade
empire.
 Failed--- 1733 France made an alliance with Spain. He feared that this would give them trade advantage
through freer trade possibilities with Spain, South America and the Far East.
 Once Catham was in the government he decided to make the navy stronger than of any other nation.

 1756—war with France. He let his ally Prussia do most of the fighting in Europe, he directed the navy to
destroy French ships. The war went on in the world. The British took Quebec and Montreal. Now the
British controlled fish, fur and wood trades.
 England slowly defeated France. they took control over half of India, by trading with princes. But while
India became the so-called jewel of the Crown the relations went sour.
 The brits were very proud of themselves they thought that nothing is as great as is England.

 The new king George III, did not wanted Catham to continue the expensive war. In 1763 he made peace
with France.
 The country’s international trades increased rapidly (West Indies were the most profitable part of the new
empire)
 The British made: knives, swords and cloth, which were taken to West Africa and exchanged for slaves.
Those slaves were than taken to the West Indies to produce sugar which was sold by the British.

Wilkes and liberty

 George III was the first Hanoverian to be born in Britain. He wanted to take a more active part in governing
Britain, and in particular he wished to be free to choose his own ministers.
 As long as he worked with the small number of aristocrats from which the king's ministers were chosen, it
did not seem as if he would have much difficulty.
 Parliament still represented only a very small number of people. In the eighteenth century only house
owners with a certain income had the right to vote. As a result, while 'the mid-century population of
Britain was almost eight million, there were fewer than 250,000 voters.
 The others were controlled by a small number of very rich property owners, sometimes acting together as
a "borough corporation". Each county and each borough sent two representatives to Parliament.
 At that time voting was not done in secret, and no tenant would vote against the wishes of his landlord in
case he lost his land. Other voters were frightened into voting for the "right man", or persuaded by a gift of
money. In this way the great landowning aristocrats were able to control those who sat in Parliament
 John Wilkes-- who saw things differently. Wilkes was a Whig, and did not like the new government of
George Ill. Wilkes believed that politics should be open to free discussion by everyone. Free speech, he
believed, was the basic right of every individual. The king and his ministers were extremely angry. They
were unwilling to accept free speech of this kind. Wilkes was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of
London
 Wilkes fought back when he was tried in court. The government claimed it had arrested Wilkes "of state
necessity". Wilkes won his case and was released. His victory established principles of the greatest
importance: that the freedom of the individual is more important than the interests of the state, and that
no one could be arrested without a proper reason.
 Between 1750 and 1770 the number of newspapers had increased. These were read by the enormous
number of literate people who could never hope to vote, bur who were interested in the important
matters of the times. They were mainly clerks, skilled workers and tradesmen.

 The fact that ordinary people who had no part to play in politics asked and discussed such questions
explains why John Wilkes was so popular. His struggle showed that public opinion was now a new and
powerful influence on politics.

 Newspapers were allowed to send their own reporters to listen to Parliament and write about its
discussions in the newspapers. The age of public opinion had arrived.

Radicalism and the loss of the American colonies

 In 1764 there was a serious quarrel over taxation between the British government and its colonies in
America. It was a perfect example of the kind of freedom for which Wilkes had been fighting. The British
government continued to think of the colonists as British subjects.

 Some American colonists decided that it was not lawful for the British to tax them without their
agreement. Political opinion in Britain was divided. Some felt that the tax was fair because the money
would be used to pay for the defence of the American colonies against French attack. But others agreed
with the colonists that there should be "no taxation without representation".

 In 1773 a group of colonists at the port of Boston threw a shipload of tea into the sea rather than pay tax
on it. The event became known as "the Boston Tea party". This was rebellion, and the government
decided to defeat it by force. The American War of Independence had begun.

 The war in America lasted from 1775 until 1783. The result was a disastrous defeat for the British
government. It lost everything except for Canada.

 Many British politicians openly supported the colonists. They were called "radicals". For the first time
British politicians supported the rights of the king's subjects abroad to govern themselves and to fight for
their rights against the king.
 Two of the more important radicals were Edmund Burke and Tom Paine. Paine was the first to suggest that
the American colonists should become independent of Britain. Burke argued that the king and his advisers
were once again too powerful, and that Parliament needed to get back proper control of policy.

Ireland
 James lI's defeat by William of Orange in 1690 had severe and long-term effects on the Irish people.

 Over the next half century, the Protestant parliament in Dublin passed laws to prevent the Catholics from
taking any part in national life. Catholics could not become members of the Dublin parliament, and could
not vote in parliamentary elections. No Catholic could become a lawyer, go to university, Catholic schools
were forbidden. Although there were still far more Catholics than Protestants, they had now become
second-class citizens in their own land.
 By the I770s, however, life had become easier and some of the worst laws against Catholics were removed,
but not everyone agreed. In Ulster, the northern part of Ireland, Protestants formed the first "Orange
Lodges", societies which were against any freedom for the Catholics.
 In order to increase British control Ireland was united with Britain in 1801, and the Dublin parliament
closed. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland lasted for 120 years.
 Politicians had promised Irish leaders that when Ireland became part of Britain the Catholics would get
equal voting opportunities. But George III, supported by most Tories and by many Protestant Irish
landlords, refused to let this happen.

Scotland
 Scotland also suffered from the efforts of the Stuarts to win back the throne. The first "Jacobite" revolt to
win the crown for James Il's son, in 1715, had been unsuccessful.
 The Stuarts tried again in 1745, when James Il's grandson, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, better known as
"Bonny Prince Charlie", landed on the west coast of Scotland.
 Bonny Prince Charlie was more successful at first than anyone could have imagined. His army of
Highlanders entered Edinburg and defeated an English army in a surprise attack.
 Then he marched south. Panic spread through England, because much of the British army was in Europe
fighting the French. But success for Bonny Prince Charlie depended on Englishmen also joining his army.
When the army was over halfway to London, however, it was clear that few of the English would join him.
The rebels moved back to Scotland. Early in 1746 they were defeated by the British army at Culloden.
 The English army behaved with cruelty. Many Highlanders were killed, even those who had not joined the
rebellion.

Life in town and country

Town life
 In 1700 England and Wales had a population of about 5.5 million. This had increased very little by 1750,
but then grew quickly to about 8.8 million by the end of the century. Including Ireland and Scotland, the
total population was about 13 million.
 In 1700 England was still a land of small villages. By the middle of the century Liverpool. Manchester.
Birmingham. Sheffield and Leeds 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. In fact, people added to it, leaving in the streets the rubbish from the marketplace and from
houses.
 The towns were centres of disease. As a result, only one child in four in London lived to become an adult. It
was the poor who died youngest. They were buried together in large holes dug in the ground. These were
not covered with earth until they were full.
 From 1734. London had a street lighting system. After 1760 many towns asked Parliament to allow them to
tax their citizens in order to provide social services. such as street cleaning and lighting.
 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 were so clean and tidy that they became the wonder of Europe.
 There were four main classes of people in eighteenth-century towns: the wealthy merchants; the ordinary
merchants and traders; the skilled craftsmen; and the large number of workers who had no skill and who
could not be sure of finding work from one day to another.

The rich
 Social conditions were probably better than in any other country in Europe. British aristocrats had less
power over the poor than European aristocrats had. To foreigners, English law seemed an example of
perfect justice, even if it was not really so.
 Foreigners noticed how easy it was for the British to move up and down the social "ladder". It was difficult
to see a clear difference between the aristocracy, the gentry and the middle class of merchants. Most
classes mixed freely together.
 The comfortable life of the gentry must have been dulling most of the time. The men went hunting and
riding, and carried out "improvements" to their estates e.g. rebuilding many great houses in the classical
style.
 Women's lives were more boring, although during the winter there were frequent visits to London, where
dances and parties were held. Richest women's lives were limited by the idea that they could not take a
share in more serious matters. They were only allowed to amuse themselves.
 During the eighteenth 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.

The countryside
 The cultural life of Edinburgh was in total contrast with life in the Scottish Highlands. Because the kilt and
tartan were forbidden, everyone born since 1746 had grown up wearing Lowland (English) clothes.
 The real disaster in the Highlands, however, was economic. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the
clan chiefs began to realise that money could be made from sheep for the wool trade.
 They began to push the people off the clan lands, and to replace them with sheep, a process known as the
clearances. The chiefs treated the clan lands as their personal property.
 Between 1790 and 1850 hundreds of thousands of Highlanders lost their old way of life so that their chiefs
could make a profit from the land. Many Highlanders, men, women and children, lived poor on the streets
of Glasgow. Others went to begin a new life, mainly in Canada and Australia in the nineteenth century.
Clan society in the Highlands had gone for ever.
 During the eighteenth century most of this land was enclosed. The enclosed land was used for mixed
animal and cereal farms. One main cause of these enclosures was that a number of the greater landlords,
including the aristocracy, had a great deal of money to invest. This had come partly from profits made from
increased trade, especially with the West Indies and with India, also from investment in coal mines and
ironworks.
 Most of them wanted to invest their money on the land, and having improved their own land, and built
fine country houses, they looked to other land. Their reason was that farming had become much more
profitable.
 At the beginning of the eighteenth century a "seed drill", a machine for sowing corn seed in straight lines
and at fixed intervals. This made fields easier to weed, and made it possible to produce a greater crop.

 Traditionally the land had been allowed to rest every three years. But by growing root crops one year,
animal food the next, and wheat the third, farmers could now produce more. Growing animal food also
made it possible to keep animals through the winter. This was an important new development.
 Richer farmers wanted to change the system of farming, including the system of landholding. With one
large area for each farm the new machinery and methods would work very well. They had the money to do
this, and could expect the help of the village squire.
 The enclosures, and the farming improvements from which they resulted, made possible far greater and
more efficient food production than could be found in almost any other country in Europe.
 Improved use of land made it possible to grow wheat almost everywhere. For the first time everyone,
including the poor, could eat white wheat bread. White bread was less healthy than brown, but the poor
enjoyed the idea that they could afford the same bread as the rich. In spite of the greatly increased
production of food, however, Britain could no longer feed itself by the end of the century. Imported food
from abroad became necessary to feed the rapidly growing population.
 The enclosures changed the look of much of the countryside. Instead of a few large fields there were now
many smaller fields, each encircled with a hedge, many with trees growing in them.
 The problem of the growing landless class was made very much worse by the rapid increase in population
in the second half of the century. Some were able to work with the new farming class. Others were not
able to find work.
 Speenhamland Act-- employers were now able to employ people cheaply knowing that the parish would
have to add to the low wages they paid. Another effect of the Speenhamland Act was to increase the
growth of the population. Help was given to a family according to the number of children.

Family life
 In the eighteenth-century families began to express affection more openly than before. In addition, it
seems that for the first-time children were no longer thought of as small adults, but as a distinct group of
people with special needs.
 In I798 another handbook told mothers that "The first object in the education of a child should be to
acquire its affection, and the second to obtain its confidence. The most likely thing to expand a youthful
mind is .... praise."
 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. To achieve this aim, and so improve
the chances of a good marriage, parents forced their daughters into tightly waisted clothes, and gave them
only little food to avoid an unfashionably healthy appearance.
 Parents still often decided on a suitable marriage for their children, but they increasingly sought their
children's opinion. However, their sons and daughters often had to marry against their wishes. But love
and companionship were slowly becoming accepted reasons for marriage.
 For perhaps the first-time people started to believe that cruelty either to humans or animals was wrong. It
did not prevent bad factory conditions, but it did help those trying to end slavery. At the root of this dislike
of cruelty was the idea that every human was an individual.
 This growing individualism showed itself in a desire for privacy. in the eighteenth-century families began to
eat alone, preferring to serve themselves than to have servants listening to everything they had to say.
They also rebuilt the insides of their homes, putting in corridors, so that every person in the family had
their own private bedroom.
 The most successful in trade and industry were often Nonconformists, who were especially hardworking.
They could be hard on their families, as Puritan fathers had been a century earlier. But they were also
ambitious for their sons, sending them away to boarding school at a young age. Removed from family
affection, this kind of education increased individualism.
 Such individualism could not exist for the poorer classes. Where women and children could find work
making cloth, a worker family might double its income, and do quite well. But a poor family in which only
the father could find work lived on the edge of starvation.
 A rapidly growing population made a world of children. Children of the poor had always worked as soon as
they could walk. Workhouse children were expected to learn a simple task from the age of three, and
almost all would be working by the age of six or seven.
 Then, quite suddenly at the end of the century, child labour began to be seen as shameful. This resulted
partly from the growing dislike of cruelty, and also from the fact that hard child labour became more
visible and more systematic
 Horrified by the suffering of children forced to sweep chimneys, two men campaigned for almost thirty
years to persuade Parliament to pass a Regulating Act in 1788 to reduce the cruelty involved. In the
nineteenth century the condition of poor children was to become a main area of social reform.

The years of revolution

Industrial revolution

 Several influences came together at the same time to revolutionise Britain's industry: money, labour, a
greater demand for goods, new power, and better transport.
 By the end of the eighteenth century, some families had made huge private fortunes. Growing merchant
banks helped put this money to use.
 Increased food production made it possible to feed large populations in the new towns. These populations
were made up of the people who had lost their land through enclosures and were looking for work. They
now needed to buy things they had never needed before (food, clothes)
 By the early eighteenth-century simple machines had already been invented for basic jobs. They could
make large quantities of simple goods quickly and cheaply so that "mass production" became possible for
the first time.
 The I740s the main problem holding back industrial growth was fuel. There was less wood, and in any case,
wood could not produce the heat necessary to make iron and steel either in large quantities or of high
quality. But at this time the use of coal for changing iron ore into good quality iron or steel was perfected,
and this made Britain the leading iron producer in Europe.
 The demand for coal grew very quickly. In 1800 Britain was producing four times as much coal as it had
done in 1700, and eight times as much iron.
 Increased iron production made it possible to manufacture new machinery for other industries. No one
saw this more clearly than John Wilkinson, a man with a total belief in iron. He built the largest ironworks
in the country. He built the world's first iron bridge, over the River Severn, in 1779. He saw the first iron
boats made. He built an iron chapel for the new Methodist religious sect, and was himself buried in an iron
coffin.
 Until then steam engines had only been used for pumping, usually in coal mines. But in 1781 Watt
produced an engine with a turning motion, made of iron and steel. It was a vital development because
people were now no longer dependent on natural power.
 Other basic materials of the industrial revolution were cotton and woollen cloth. which were popular
abroad. In the middle of the century other countries were buying British uniforms. equipment and
weapons for their armies. To meet this increased demand. better methods of production had to be found.
and new machinery was invented which replaced handwork.
 In 1764 a spinning machine was invented which could do the work of several hand spinners. and other
improved machines were made shortly after.
 . In 1785 a power machine for weaving revolutionised cloth making. It allowed Britain to make cloth more
cheaply than elsewhere. and Lancashire cotton cloths were sold in every continent. But this machinery put
many people out of work.
 The cost of such goods was made cheaper than ever by improved transport during the eighteenth century.
New waterways were dug between towns, and transport by these canals was cheaper than transport by
land. Roads. still used mainly by people rather than by goods, were also improved during the century
 Along these main roads the coaches stopped for fresh horses in order to keep up their speed. They became
known as "stage" coaches. a name that became famous in the "Wild West" of America.
 Soon Britain was not only exporting cloth to Europe. It was also importing raw cotton from its colonies and
exporting finished cotton cloth to sell to those same colonies.
 The social effects of the industrial revolution were enormous. Workers tried to join together to protect
themselves against powerful employers. They wanted fair wages and reasonable conditions in which to
work.
 Riots occurred. led by the unemployed who had been replaced in factories by machines. In 1799 some of
these rioters. known as Luddites, started to break up the machinery which had put them out of work. The
government supported the factory owners. and made the breaking of machinery punishable by death. The
government was afraid of a revolution like the one in France.

Society and religion

 Britain avoided revolution partly because of a new religious movement. This did not come from the Church
of England. which was slow to recognise change. Many new industrial towns in fact had no church or
priests or any kind of organised religion.
 The new movement which met the needs of the growing industrial working class was led by a remarkable
man called John Wesley. He was an Anglican priest who travelled around the country preaching and
teaching.
 John Wesley's "Methodism" was above all a personal and emotional form of religion. It was organised in
small groups, or "chapels", all over the country.
 Method ism was able to give ordinary people a sense of purpose and dignity. The Church was nervous of
this powerful new movement which it could not control. and in the end Wesley was forced to leave the
Church of England and start a new Methodist Church.
 By the end of the century there were over 360 Methodist chapels, most of them in industrial areas. These
chapels were more democratic than the Church of England, partly because the members of each chapel
had to find the money to pay for them. The Anglican Church, on the other hand, had a good income from
the land it owned.
 John Wesley was no friend of the ruling classes but he was deeply conservative, and had no time for
radicalism. He carefully avoided politics, and taught people to be hardworking and honest. As a result of
his teaching, people accepted many of the injustices of the times without complaint. Some became
wealthy through working hard and saving their money.
 The Methodists were not alone. Other Christians also joined what became known as "the evangelical
revival", which was a return to a simple faith based on the Bible.
 It was also a small group of Christians who were the first to act against the evils of the slave trade, from
which Britain was making huge sums of money. Slaves did not expect to live long. Almost 20 per cent died
on the voyage. Most of the others died young from cruel treatment in the West Indies.
 The first success against slavery came when a judge ruled that "no man could be a slave in Britain", and
freed a slave who had landed in Bristol. This victory gave a new and unexpected meaning to the words of
the national song, "Britons never shall be slaves."
 The slave trade was abolished by law in 1807. But it took until 1833 for slavery itself to be abolished in all
British colonies.
 Others, also mainly Christians, tried to limit the cruelty of employers who forced children to work long
hours. In 1802, as a result of their efforts, Parliament passed the first Factory Act, limiting child labour to
twelve hours each day. In 1819 a new law forbade the employment of children under the age of nine.

Revolution in France and the Napoleonic Wars

 France's neighbours only slowly realised that its revolution in 1789 could be dangerous for them. Military
power and the authority of kingship were almost useless against revolutionary ideas.
 In France the revolution had been made by the "bourgeoisie", or middle class, leading the peasants and
urban working classes. In England the bourgeoisie and the gentry had acted together for centuries in the
House of Commons, and had become the most powerful class in Britain in the seventeenth century. They
had no sympathy with the French revolutionaries, and were frightened by the danger of "awakening" the
working classes.
 Several radicals sympathised with the cause of the French revolutionaries, and called for reforms in Britain.
In other countries in Europe such sympathy was seen as an attack on the aristocracy.
 Not all the radicals sympathised with the revolutionaries in France. In many ways Edmund Burke was a
conservative, in spite of his support for the American colonists in 1776.
 He feared that the established order of kings in Europe would fall.

 These matters were discussed almost entirely by the middle class and the gentry. Hardly any working-class
voices were heard, but it should be noted that the first definitely working-class political organisation. the
Corresponding Society, was established at this time. It did not last long, because the government closed it
down in 1798, and it only had branches in London, Norwich, Sheffield, Nottingham
 The French Revolution had created fear all over Europe. The British government was so afraid that
revolution would spread to Britain that it imprisoned radical leaders. It was particularly frightened that the
army would be influenced by these dangerous ideas. Until then, soldiers had always lived in inns and
private homes. Now the government had built army camps, where soldiers could live separated from the
ordinary people
 As an island, Britain was in less danger, and as a result was slower than other European states to make war
on the French Republic. But in 1793 Britain went to war after France had invaded the Low Countries
(today, Belgium and Holland). One by one the European countries were defeated by Napoleon, and forced
to ally themselves with him. Most of Europe fell under Napoleon's control.
 Britain decided to fight France at sea because it had a stronger navy, and because its own survival
depended on control of its trade routes. British policy was to damage French trade by preventing French
ships, including their navy, from moving freely in and out of French seaports.
 The commander of the British fleet, Admiral Horatio Nelson, won brilliant victories over the French navy,
near the coast of Egypt, at Copenhagen, and finally near Spain, at Trafalgar in 1805, where he destroyed
the French- Spanish fleet. Nelson was himself killed at Trafalgar, but became one of Britain's greatest
national heroes.
 In the same year as Trafalgar, in 1805. a British army landed in Portugal to fight the French. This army, with
its Portuguese and Spanish allies, was eventually commanded by Wellington who had fought in India. But
fighting the French on land was an entirely different matter.
 Almost everyone in Europe believed the French army. and its generals. to be the best in the world.
Wellington was one of the very few generals who did not.
 Like Nelson he quickly proved to be a great commander. After several victories against the French in Spain
he invaded France. Napoleon, weakened by his disastrous invasion of Russia, surrendered in 1814.
 The following year he escaped and quickly assembled an army in France. Wellington. with the timely help
of the Prussian army. finally defeated Napoleon at Waterloo in Belgium in June 1815.
 The 19th century

The years of power and danger

 Britain in the nineteenth century was at its most powerful and self-confident. After the industrial
revolution, nineteenth-century Britain was the "workshop" of the world. Until the last quarter of the
century British factories were producing more than any other country in the world.
 By the end of the century, Britain's empire was political rather than commercial. Britain used this
empire to control large areas of the world.
 The rapid growth of the middle class was part of the enormous rise in the population. In 1815 the
population was 13 million, but this had doubled by 1871, and was over 40 million by 1914. This growth
and the movement of people to towns from the countryside forced a change in the political balance,
and by the end of the century most men had the right to vote.
 Britain enjoyed a strong place in European councils after the defeat of Napoleon. Its strength was nor
in a larger population, as this was half that of France and Austria, and only a little greater than that of
Prussia. It lay instead in industry and trade, and the navy which protected this trade.
 Britain wanted two main things in Europe: a "balance of power" which would prevent a single nation
from becoming too strong, and a free market in which its own industrial and trade superiority would
give Britain a clear advantage.
 Outside Europe, Britain wished its trading position to be stronger than anyone else's. It defended its
interests by keeping ships of its navy in almost every ocean of the world. This was possible because it
had taken over and occupied a number of places during the war against Napoleon. These included
Mauritius (in the Indian Ocean), the Ionian Islands (in the eastern Mediterranean), Sierra Leone (west
Africa), Cape Colony (south Africa), Ceylon, and Singapore.
 After 1815 the British government did not only try to develop its trading stations, its policy now was to
control world traffic and world markets to Britain's advantage. Britain did not, however, wish to
colonise everywhere. There were many areas in which it had no interest. But there were other areas,
usually close to its own possessions or on important trade routes, which it wished everyone else to
leave alone.
 Britain's main anxiety in its foreign policy was that Russia would try to expand southwards, by taking
over the Slavic parts of Turkey's Balkan possessions, and might reach the Mediterranean. Britain also
felt increasingly anxious about growing competition from France and Germany in the last part of the
century.
 Britain's foreign policy for a hundred years. It was to keep the balance in Europe in 1838 that Britain
promised to protect Belgium against stronger neighbours. In spite of political and economic troubles in
 Europe, this policy kept Britain from war in Europe for a century from 1815. In fact, it was in defence
of Belgium in 1914 that Britain finally went to war against Germany.

The danger at home, 1815-32

 Until about 1850, Britain was in greater danger at home than abroad. The Napoleonic Wars had turned the
nation from thoughts of revolution to the need to defeat the French. They had also hidden the social
effects of the industrial revolution. Britain had sold clothes, guns, and other necessary war supplies to its
allies' armies as well as its own.
 All this changed when peace came in 1815. Suddenly there was no longer such a need for factory-made
goods, and many lost their jobs. Unemployment was made worse by 300,000 men from Britain's army and
navy who were now looking for work.
 While prices doubled, wages remained the same. New methods of farming also reduced the number of
workers on the land.
 People tried to add to their food supply by catching wild birds and animals. But almost all the woods had
been enclosed by the local landlord and new laws were made to stop people hunting animals for food.
 Many had to choose between watching their family go hungry and risking the severe punishment of those
who were caught. A man found with nets in his home could be transported to the new "penal" colony in
Australia for seven years
 These laws showed how much the rich feared the poor, and although they were slowly softened, the fear
remained.
 Central government did not provide the necessary money and many people received even less help than
before. Now, only those who actually lived in the workhouse were given any help at all.
 The workhouses were feared and hated. They were crowded and dirty, with barely enough food to keep
people alive. The inhabitants had to work from early morning till late at night.
 Between 1815 and 1835 Britain changed from being a nation of country people to a nation mainly of
townspeople. Several towns close together grew into huge cities with no countryside left in between. The
main city areas were northwest England, where the new cotton industry was based, the north Midlands,
the area around Glasgow, and south Wales. But although these cities grew fast, London remained the
largest.
 If the rich feared the poor in the countryside, they feared even more those in the fast-growing towns.
These were harder to control. If they had been organised, a revolution like that in France might have
happened. But they were not organised, and had no leaders. Only a few radical politicians spoke for the
poor, but they failed to work in close cooperation with the workers who could have supported them.

Reform
 The Whigs understood better than the Tories the need to reform the law in order to improve social
conditions. Like the Tories they feared revolution, but unlike the Tories they believed it could only be
avoided by reform.
 Indeed, the idea of reform to make the parliamentary system fairer had begun in the eighteenth century. It
had been started by early radicals, and encouraged by the American War of Independence, and by the
French Revolution.
 The Tories believed that Parliament should represent "property" and the property owners, the radicals
believed that Parliament should represent the people. The Whigs, or Liberals as they later became known,
were in the middle, wanting enough change to avoid revolution but little more.
 The Tories hoped that the House of Lords would protect the interests of the property owners. When the
Commons agreed on reform in 1830 it was turned down by the House of Lords. But the Tories fell from
power the same year, and Lord Grey formed a Whig government
 In 1832 the Lords accepted the Reform Bill, but more because they were frightened by the riots in the
streets outside than because they now accepted the idea of reform.
 However, in spite of its shortcomings, the 1832 Reform Bill was a political recognition that Britain had
become an urban society.

Workers revolt
 Since 1824 workers had been allowed to join together in unions. Most of these unions were small and
weak. Although one of their aims was to make sure employers paid reasonable wages.
 Determined employers could still quite easily defeat strikers who refused to work until their pay was
improved, and often did so with cruelty and violence.
 The radicals and workers were greatly helped in their efforts by the introduction of a cheap postage system
in 1840. This enabled them to organise themselves across the country far better than before. For one
penny a letter could be sent to anyone, anywhere in Britain.
 Working together for the first time. unions, workers and radicals put forward a People's Charter in 1838.
The Charter demanded rights that are now accepted by everyone: the vote for all adults, voting in secret,
and an election every year (which everyone today recognises as impractical). All of these demands were
refused by the House of Commons.
 The "Chartists" were not united for long. They were divided between those ready to use violence and
those who believed in change by lawful means only. Many did not like the idea of women also getting the
vote. partly because they believed it would make it harder to obtain voting rights for all men.
 The government was saved partly by the skill of Robert Peel, the Prime Minister of the time. Peel believed
that changes should be made slowly but steadily. He was able to use the improved economic conditions in
the 1840s to weaken the Chartist movement, which slowly died.
 In 1846 he abolished the unpopular Corn Law of 1815, which had kept the price of corn higher than
necessary. These industrialists neither wished to pay higher wages, nor employ an underfed workforce. In
this way, Peel's decision to repeal the Corn Law was a sign of the way power was passing out of the hands
of the eighteenth-century gentry class.
 Besides hunger, crime was the mark of poverty. Peel had turned his attention to this problem already, by
establishing a regular police force for London in 1829. A t first people had laughed at his blue-uniformed
men in their top hats. But during the next thirty years almost every other town and county started its own
police force.
 Britain's success in avoiding the storm of revolution in Europe in 1848 was admired almost everywhere.
European monarchs wished they were as safe on their thrones as the British queen seemed to be.
Family life
 In spite of the greater emphasis on the individual and the growth of openly shown affection, the end of the
eighteenth h century also saw a swing back to stricter ideas of family life.
 Except for the very rich. people no longer married for economic reasons. but did so for personal happiness.
However. while wives might be companions. they were certainly not equalling.
 An increasing number of women found their sole economic and social usefulness ended when their
children grew up. a problem that continued into the twentieth century.
 In spite of a stricter moral atmosphere in Scotland which resulted from the strong influence of the Kirk.
Scottish women seem to have continued a stronger tradition of independent attitudes and plain speaking.

The years of self-confidence

 In 1851 Queen Victoria opened the Great Exhibition of the Industries of All Nations inside the Crystal
Palace, in London. The exhibition aimed to show the world the greatness of Britain's industry. No other
nation could produce as much at that time.
 Britain had become powerful because it had enough coal, iron and steel for its own enormous industry!
and could even export them in large quantities to Europe.
 Britain made and owned more than half the world's total shipping. This great industrial empire was
supported by a strong banking system developed during the eighteenth century.

The railway
 The greatest example of Britain's industrial power in the mid-nineteenth century was its railway system. In
fact, industrialists had built the railways to transport goods, not people, in order to bring down the cost of
transport. By 18402,400 miles of track had been laid, connecting not only the industrial towns of the north,
but also London, Birmingham and even an economically unimportant town like Brighton.
 In 1851 the government made the railway companies provide passenger trains which stopped at all
stations for a fare of one penny per mile. Now people could move about much more quickly and easily.
 The men travelled by train to work in the town. Many of the women became servants in the houses of the
middle classes. By 1850 16 per cent of the population were "in service" in private homes, more than were
in farming or in the cloth industry.

The rise of the middle classes

 In the nineteenth century, however, the middle class grew more quickly than ever before and included
greater differences of wealth, social position and kinds of work. It included those who worked in the
professions, such as the Church, the law, medicine, the civil service, the diplomatic service, merchant
banking and the army and the navy.
 Industrialists were often "self-made" men who came from poor beginnings. They believed in hard work, a
regular style of life and being careful with money.
 The children of the first generation of factory owners often preferred commerce and banking to industry.
Some went into the professions. The very successful received knighthoods or became lords and joined the
ranks of the upper classes.
 Those of the middle class who could afford it sent their sons to feepaying "public" schools. These schools
aimed not only to give boys a good education, but to train them in leadership by raking them away from
home and making their living conditions hard.

The growth of towns and cities

 The escape of the middle classes to the suburbs was understandable. The cities and towns were
overcrowded and unhealthy (cholera).
 In the middle of the century towns began to appoint health officers and to provide proper drains and clean
water, which quickly reduced the level of disease, particularly cholera. These health officers also tried to
make sure that new housing was less crowded.
 Most people did not own their homes, but rented them. The homes of the workers usually had only four
small rooms, two upstairs and two downstairs, with a small back yard. Most of the middle classes lived in
houses with a small garden in front, and a larger one at the back.

Population and politics

 In 1851, an official population survey was carried out for the first time. It showed that the nation was not
as religious as its people had believed. Only 60 per cent of the population went to church.
 Changes in the law, in 1828 and 1829, made it possible, for the first time since the seventeenth century, for
Catholics and Nonconformists to enter government service and to enter Parliament. In practice, however,
it remained difficult for them to do so.
 Liberalism--This meant allowing a freer and more open society, with all the dangers that might mean, it
also meant encouraging a freer and more open society in the countries with which Britain hoped to trade.
 From 1846 until 1865 the most important political figure was Lord Palmerston, described by one historian
as "the most characteristically mid-Victorian statesman of all."
 He strongly believed that despotic states discouraged free trade, and he openly supported European
liberal and independence movements.
 After 1865 a much stricter "two party" system developed, demanding greater loyalty from its membership.
The two parties. Tory (or Conservative as it became officially known) and Liberal, developed greater party
organisation and order. There was also a change in the kind of men who became political leaders. This was
a result of the Reform of 1832, after which a much larger number of people could vote.
 Much of what we know today as the modern state was built in the 1860s and 1870s

 In 1872 voting was carried out in secret for the first time, allowing ordinary people to vote freely and
without fear. This, and the growth of the newspaper industry, in particular "popular" newspapers for the
new half-educated population. strengthened the importance of popular opinion. Democracy grew quickly.
A national political pattern appeared.
 The House of Commons grew in size to over 650 members. and the House of Lords lost the powerful
position it had held in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Now it no longer formed policy but
tried to prevent reform raking place through the House of Commons.
 In 1868 the first congress of trade unions met in Manchester, representing 118,000 members. The
following year the new Trades Union Congress established a parliamentary committee with the purpose of
achieving worker representation in Parliament. This wish to work within Parliament rather than outside it
had already brought trade unionists into close co-operation with radicals and reformist Liberals.
 During the 1870s wages were lowered in many factories and this led to more strikes than had been seen in
Britain before. The trade unions' mixture of worker struggle and desire to work democratically within
Parliament led eventually to the foundation of the Labour Party. During the same period the machinery of
modern government was set up.
 The army, too, was reorganised, and from 1870 officers were no longer able to buy their commissions. The
administration of the law was reorganised. Local government in towns and counties was reorganised to
make sure of good government and proper services for the people.

Queen and monarchy and empire

 Queen Victoria came to the throne as a young woman in 1837 and reigned until her death in 1901. She did
not like the way in which power seemed to be slipping so quickly away from the monarchy and aristocracy,
but like her advisers she was unable to prevent it.
 Many radicals actually believed the end of monarchy was bound to happen as a result of democracy. Most
had no wish to hurry this process, and were happy to let the monarchy die naturally. the queen 's advisers
persuaded her to take a more public interest in the business of the kingdom. She did so, and she soon
became extraordinarily popular.
 The increasingly democratic British respected the example of family life which the queen had given them,
and shared its moral and religious values. Bu t she also touched people's hearts.
 Britain's empire had first been built on trade and the need to defend this against rival European countries.
After the loss of the American colonies in 1783, the idea of creating new colonies remained unpopular until
the 1830s
 Fear that Russia would advance southwards towards India resulted in a disastrous war in Afghanistan
(1839 -42), in which one army was completely destroyed by Afghan forces in the mountains. Soon after,
Britain was fighting a war in Sindh, a part of modern Pakistan, then another against Sikhs in the Punjab, in
northwest India.
 The Russian danger also affected south Europe and the Middle East. Britain feared that Russia would
destroy the weak Ottoman Empire, which controlled Turkey and the Arab countries. This would change the
balance of power in Europe.
 In India, the unwise treatment of Indian soldiers in British pay resulted in revolt in 1857. (Indian mutiny)

 Both British and Indians behaved with great violence, and the British cruelly punished the defeated rebels.
The friendship between the British and the Indians never fully recovered. A feeling of distrust and distance
between ruler and ruled grew into the Indian independence movement of the twentieth century.
 Christianity too easily became a tool for building a commercial and political empire in Africa. The
governments of Europe rushed in to take what they could, using the excuse of bringing "civilisation" to the
people. The rush for land became so great that European countries agreed by treaty in 1890 to divide
Africa into "areas of interest.
 From the 1830s there had been growing concern at the rapidly increasing population of Britain. A number
of people called for the development of colonies for British settlers as an obvious solution to the problem.
 The white colonies, unlike the others, were soon allowed to govern themselves, and no longer depended
on Britain. They still, however, accepted the British monarch as their head of state.
 By the end of the nineteenth century Britain controlled the oceans and much of the land areas of the
world. Most British strongly believed in their right to an empire, and were willing to defend it against the
least threat.

Wales, Scotland and Ireland

 As industrialisation continued, the areas at the edge of British economic power became weaker. Areas in
Wales, Scotland and Ireland were particularly affected.
 Wales had fewer problems than either Scotland or Ireland. In south Wales there were rich coal mines
which quickly became the centre of a rapidly growing coal and steel industry. By 1870 Wales was mainly an
industrial society.
 This new working-class community. born in southeast Wales. became increasingly interested in
Nonconformist Christianity and radicalism. It created its own cultural life.
 Other people joined the local Nonconformist chapel choir. and helped to create the Welsh tradition of fine
choral singing. Wales was soon a nation divided between the industrialised areas and the unchanged areas
of old Wales. in the centre and north.
 Scotland was also divided between a new industrialised area. around Glasgow and Edinburgh. and the
Highland and Lowland areas. Around the two great cities there were coal mines and factories producing
steel and iron, as well as the centre of the British shipbuilding industry on the River Clyde. Like Wales.
Scotland became strongly Liberal once its workforce gained voting rights.

 In the second half of the century it became more profitable to replace the sheep with wild deer. which
were hunted for sport. The Highlands have never recovered from the collapse of the clan system. either
socially or economically. It is probable that the Highland areas would have become depopulated anyway.
as people moved away to find work in the cities.

 The Irish experience was worse than that of Scotland. The struggle for Irish freedom from English rule
became a struggle between Catholic and Protestant. Even so. the fact that a Catholic could enter
Parliament increased Irish national feeling.

 But while this feeling was growing. Ireland suffered the worst disaster in its entire history. For three years.
1845. 1846 and 1847. the potato crops. which was the main food of the poor, failed.

 At the same time Ireland had enough wheat to feed the entire population. but it was grown for export to
England by the mainly Protestant landowners. The government in London failed to realise the seriousness
of the problem.

 Many Irish people had little choice but to leave. At least a million left during these years. Most settled in
the United States Many helped to build Britain's railways.
 The Irish who went to the United States did not forge t the old country. Nor did the y forgive Britain. By
1880 many Irish Americans were rich and powerful and were able to support the Irish freedom movement.

The end of an age

Social and economic improvements

 Between 1875 and 1914 the condition of the poor in most of Britain greatly improved as prices fell by 40
per cent and real wages doubled. Life at home was made more comfortable. Most homes now had gas
both for heating and lighting. As a result of falling prices and increased wages, poor families could eat
better food, including meat, fresh milk and vegetables.
 In 1870 and 1891 two Education Acts were passed. As a result of these, all children had to go to school up
to the age of thirteen, where they were taught reading, writing and arithmetic.
 There were four Scottish universities, three dating from the Middle Ages. In Wales schools had begun to
grow rapidly in the middle of the century, partly for nationalist reasons. By the middle of the century Wales
had a university and a smaller university college.
 England now started to build "redbrick" universities in the new industrial cities. The term "redbrick"
distinguished the new universities, often brick-built, from the older, mainly stone-built universities of
Oxford and Cambridge. These new universities were unlike Oxford and Cambridge, and taught more
science and technology to feed Britain's industries.
 It was easy to see the physical changes such as the growth of towns and cities and villages. It was less easy
to see the social changes. But in fact, power had moved from the shires to the towns.
 New county councils took their place, which were made up of elected men and women, with a staff of
administrators to catty out their decisions, a system which still operates today.
 The authority of the Church was also weakened. In the country, the village priest no longer had the power
he had had a century earlier. Churches were now half empty, because so many people had gone to live in
the towns, where they stopped going to church.
 In the village, many people had gone to church because they were forced to do so by the squire, who
probably employed them. In the great cities of industrial Britain, they were free, and they chose to stay
away.
 From the middle of the century many people had started to use the railway to get to work. Now they
began to travel for pleasure. The working class went to the new seaside holiday towns. The middle class
enjoyed the countryside, or smaller seaside resorts of a more expensive kind.
 The invention of the bicycle was also important. For the first time people could cycle into the countryside.
up to fifty miles from home. It gave a new freedom to working-class and middle-class people, who met
each other for the first time away from work. More importantly. it gave young women their first taste of
freedom.

The importance of sport

 By the end of the nineteenth century. two sports, cricket and football. had become of great interest to the
British public. Cricket, which had started as a "gentleman's" sport. had become an extremely popular
village game. Cricket was a game which encouraged both individual and team excellence and taught
respect for fair play.
 Britain's other main game. football. was also organised with proper rules in the nineteenth century. As an
organised game it was at first a middle-class or gentleman's sport. but it quickly became popular among all
classes.

Changes in thinking
 The most important idea of the nineteenth century was that everyone had the right to personal freedom,
which was the basis of capitalism. Fewer laws, meant more freedom, and freedom for individuals would
lead to happiness for the greatest number of people. These ideas were eagerly accepted by the growing
middle class.
 By 1820 more and more people had begun to accept the idea that government must interfere to protect
the poor and the weak. The result was a number of laws to improve working conditions. One of these, in
1833, limited the number of hours that women and children were allowed to work. Another law the same
year abolished slavery throughout the British Empire.
 by the end of the century, few people thought it was wrong for the government to interfere in factory
conditions, health in towns, and education for children. People now saw these as government duties.
 At the beginning of the century Robert Owe n, a factory owner in Scotland, gave his workers shorter
working hours. Owen was able to prove that his workers produced more in less time than those forced to
work long hours.
 Again, it was individual people who led the fight against this problem. William Booth started a new
religious movement, the Salvation Army, to "make war" on poverty.
 Above all, Victorian society was self-confident. This had been shown in the Great Exhibition in 185I. British
self-confidence was built not only upon power but also upon the rapid scientific advances being made at
the time.
 In 1857 Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species. There was one dangerous result of Darwin's book.
Some of those who accepted his ideas began to talk of „advanced" and "inferior" races. These ideas soon
influenced Britain's imperial policy. Several European countries already shared the view that for reasons of
religion and "higher" civilisation, they could justify their colonial policy. But the idea of racial or genetic
superiority was a new one.

The end of "England's summer"

 At the beginning of the twentieth century people did not, of course, realise that they were living at the end
of an age.
 A growing demand for reform led "New Liberal" governments to try to improve social conditions. In 1907
they provided free school meals, to improve the health of Britain's children. The following year they
starred an old age pensions scheme.
 The New Liberals had begun to establish what became the "welfare state". By doing so, they made
important changes to the free capitalism of the nineteenth century. Government, said the Liberals, had a
duty to protect the weak against the strong.
 In 1911 another important political event occurred. The Liberal drive for reform, both in Irish politics and in
social affairs at home, was extremely unpopular with most Conservatives.
 The battle of wills between the two Houses produced a crisis when the Liberals tried to introduce a new
budget in 1909 which was intended to increase the taxes paid by the rich, particularly the large
landowners. The Lords turned down the new budget.
 The crisis, however, was not only about money, or about reform. There was a constitutional disagreement.
The Conservatives still favoured a two-house parliamentary system, but they now recognised that the
Lords would have to be changed. The Liberals wanted one strong house, with the powers of the Lords so
weakened that it could not prevent the will of the Commons from being carried out.

The storm clouds of war

 By the end of the century it had become clear that Britain was no longer as powerful as it had been.

 In Europe Germany was now united and had become very strong. Its economic prospects were clearly
greater than Britain's. Like the USA it was producing more steel than Britain, and it used this to build strong
industries and a strong navy.
 Reasons:
1. Other countries, Germany particularly, had greater natural wealth, including coal and iron, and wheat
producing lands.
2. Public schools, the private system of education for the richer middle class, did not encourage business or
scientific studies. Britain had nothing to compare with the scientific and technical education of Germany.
3.the working class, used to low pay for long hours, did not feel they were partners in manufacture.
 The balance of power in Europe that had worked so well since Waterloo was beginning to collapse.

 Suddenly Britain realised that it no longer ruled the seas quite so assuredly, and that others had more
powerful armies and more powerful industries. As a result of the growth of international trade Britain was
less self-sufficient, and as a result of growing US and German competition started to trade more with the
less developed and less competitive world.

 Between 1902 and 1907 Britain made treaties or understandings of friendship with France, Japan and
Russia. It failed to reach agreement with the Ottoman Empire, and with the country it feared most,
Germany.

 The danger of war with Germany had been clear from the beginning of the century, and it was this which
had brought France and Britain together. Britain was particularly frightened of Germany's modern navy,
which seemed a good deal stronger than its own.

 From 1908 onwards Britain spent large sums of money to make sure that it possessed a stronger fleet than
Germany. Britain's army was small, but its size seemed less important than its quality. In any case, no one
believed that war in Europe, if it happened, would last more than six months.

 By 1914 an extremely dangerous situation had developed. Germany and Austria-Hungary had made a
military alliance. Russia and France, frightened of German ambitions, had made one also. Although Britain
had no treaty with France, in practice it had no choice but to stand by France if it was attacked by
Germany.

 In July 1914 Austria-Hungary declared war on its neighbour Serbia following the murder of a senior
Austrian Archduke in Sarajevo. Because Russia had promised to defend Serbia, it declared war on Austria-
Hungary. Because of Germany's promise to stand by Austria-Hungary, Russia also found itself at war with
Germany.
 France, Russia's ally, immediately made its troops ready, recognising that the events in Serbia would lead
inevitably to war with Germany. Britain still hoped that it would not be dragged into war.

 In August 1914 Germany's attack on France took its army through Belgium. Britain immediately declared
war because it had promised to guarantee Belgium's neutrality by the treaty of 1838.

 But Britain went to war also because it feared that Germany's ambitions, like Napoleon's over a century
earlier, would completely change the map of Europe. In particular Britain could not allow a major enemy
power to control the Low Countries.

The 20th century

Britain at war
 At the start of the twentieth century Britain was still the greatest world power. By the middle of the
century, although still one of the "Big Three", Britain was clearly weaker than either the United States or
the Soviet Union.

 One reason for this sudden decline was the cost and effort of two world wars and the cost of keeping up
the empire, followed by the economic problems involved in losing it. But the most important reason was
the basic weaknesses in Britain 's industrial power.

 Britain still has some valuable advantages. The discovery of oil in the North Sea has rescued the nation
from a situation that might have been far worse. And in electronics and technology Britain is still a world
competitor.

The First World War

 Germany nearly defeated the Allies, Britain and France, in the first few weeks of war in 1914. It had better
trained soldiers, better equipment and a clear plan of attack.

 Four years of bitter fighting followed, both armies living and fighting in the trenches, which they had dug to
protect their men.
 In the Middle East the British fought against Turkish troops in Iraq and in Palestine, and at Gallipoli, on the
Dardanelles. It was not until 1917 that the British were really able to drive back the Turks.

 Somehow the government had to persuade the people that in spite of such disastrous results the war was
still worth fighting. The nation was told that it was defending the weak (Belgium) against the strong
(Germany), and that it was fighting for democracy and freedom.

 The war at sea was more important than the waron land, because defeat at sea would have inevitably
resulted in British surrender. From 1915 German submarines started to sink merchant ships bringing
supplies to Britain.

 When Russia, following the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, made peace with Germany, the German generals
hoped for victory against the Allies.

 German submarine attacks on neutral shipping drew America into the war. The arrival of American troops
in France ended Germany's hopes, and it surrendered in November 1918.

 In this atmosphere, France and Britain met to discuss peace at Versailles in 1919. Germany was not invited
to the conference, but was forced to accept its punishment, which was extremely severe.

 When peace came there were great hopes for a better future. These hopes had been created by the
government itself, which had made too many promises about improved conditions of life for soldiers
returning from the war.

The rise of the Labour Party

 An important political development during the war was the rapid growth of the Labour Party. It was
formally established in 1900, as part of the trade union movement.

 The trade unions themselves had grown enormously, from two million members to five million by 1914,
and eight million by 1918. In that year, all men aged twenty-one and some women over thirty were
allowed to vote.

 The Labour Party, however, was not "socialist". Its leaders were, or had become, members of the middle
classes. Instead of a social revolution, they wanted to develop a kind of socialism that would fit the
situation in Britain.

 Most working-class people wished to improve their financial situation and to enjoy the advantages of the
middle class without becoming involved in socialist beliefs.

 They did not believe they could bring down the existing form of government, and in any case, they wanted
to change things by accepted constitutional means, in Parliament.
 the effect on Britain of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia was not as great as many feared it would
be. Enough people were interested in Marxism to establish a Communist Party, but the Labour Party firmly
refused to be connected with it.

 As a result of Labour's success in 1924, the Liberal Party almost completely disappeared.

The rights of women

 In 1918, some women over the age of thirty gained the right to vote after a long, hard struggle.

 A man thought of his wife and daughters as his property, and so did the law. It was almost impossible for
women to get a divorce, even for those rich enough to pay the legal costs.

 In 1850 men of all classes were able to take sexual advantage of working women. Women were probably
treated worse in Britain than in any other industrialising European country at this time.

 After 1870 women were allowed to study at Oxford and Cambridge in separate women's colleges, but they
could not receive a degree at the end.

 Working-class women were more interested in their legal rights concerning working conditions, and they
found support in the trade union movement.

 In 1897 women started to demand the right to vote in national elections. Many politicians who agreed
with their aims were shocked by their violent methods and stopped supporting them. However, if they had
not been willing to shock the public, the suffragettes might not have succeeded.

 The war in 1914 changed everything. Britain would have been unable to continue the war without the
women who took men's places in the factories.

 The liberation of women took other forms. They started to wear lighter clothing, shorter hair and skirts,
began to smoke and drink openly, and to wear cosmetics. Married women wanted smaller families, and
divorce became easier.

 The struggle for full women's rights is one of the most important events in recent British social history, and
its effects continue to be felt.

Ireland
 Before the beginning of the First World War the British government had agreed to home rule for Ireland.
When war began in 1914, the government delayed the introduction of home rule, and called on Irishmen
to join the army. Many did but another group of Irishmen, however, who did not see why they should die
for the British.
 1916, these republicans rebelled in Dublin. They knew they could not win, but they hoped their rising
would persuade other Irishmen to join the republican movement. The "Easter Rising" was quickly put
down. The British executed all the leaders, which was a serious mistake. The public was shocked, not only
in Ireland, but also in London.

 In 1921 it agreed to the independence of southern Ireland. But it also insisted that Ulster, or Northern
Ireland as it became known, should remain united with Britain.

 A group of republicans formed a new party, Fianna Fail, which won the election of 1932 and the new
Prime Minister, Eamon de Valetta, began to undo the Treaty and in 1937 declared southern Ireland a
republic. The British Crown was now no longer sovereign in Ireland.

Disappointment and depression

 Alongside the social effects of the war were far reaching economic ones. The cost of the war had led to an
enormous increase in taxation, from 6 per cent of income in 1914 to 25 per cent in 1918. It was inevitable
that there should be increasing disagreement between workers and the government.

 It is possible to argue that Britain missed an opportunity to reform the economic structure of the country
after the war. But instead of careful planning, businessmen were allowed to make quick profits,
particularly in the cotton mills, the shipyards and engineering industries.

 All over Europe and America a serious economic crisis, known as lithe depression", was taking place. It
affected Britain most severely from 1930 to 1933, when over three million workers were unemployed.

 In Germany the depression was even more severe, and it destroyed Britain's second most important
market from before the war. Far worse, the economic collapse of Germany led to the rise of Adolf Hitler.

 Because the worst effects of the depression in Britain were limited to certain areas, the government did
not take the situation seriously enough. The areas most affected by the depression were those which had
created Britain's industrial revolution, including Clydeside, Belfast and many more.

 It is surprising that Britain avoided a serious political crisis in the I920s. The unfairness of the situation was
so obvious to working-class people, who had neither political nor economic power.

 In other European countries economic crisis and social unrest had led to great changes. In Russia there had
been the Bolshevik revolution. Powerful new Nazi and Fascist governments were taking over in Germany,
Italy, Austria and Spain.

 In the 1930, the British economy started to recover, especially in the Midlands and the south. This could be
seen in the enormous number of small houses which were being built along main roads far into the
countryside.
 Economic recovery resulted partly from the danger of another war. By 1935 it was clear that Germany,
under its new leader Adolf Hitler, was preparing to regain its position in Europe, by force if necessary.

 Britain had done nothing to increase its fighting strength since the government suddenly had to invest a
large amount of money in heavy industry. By 1937 British industry was producing weapons, aircraft and
equipment for war, with the help of money from the United States.

The Second World War

 The people of Britain watched anxiously as German control spread over Europe in the 1930s.

 In 1920 the Allies had created the League of Nations which, it was hoped, would enable nations to
cooperate with each other. Although the League did not forbid war, its members agreed to respect and
preserve the borders and territory of all other members.

 Britain and France were anxious to win Italy's co-operation against Hitler, who was illegally rearming
Germany, and therefore decided against taking action against Italy as the rules of the League required
them to do.

 This failure to use the League's authority had serious results. Italy's Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, and
Hitler realised that Britain and France lacked the will to make sure the standards the League demanded of
its members were followed.

 For the next four years Germany, Italy and their ally in the Far East, Japan, took advantage of this weakness
to seize territory of interest to them.

 In order to avoid war in 1938, the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, accepted and co-operated in
the takeover of German-speaking parts of Czechoslovakia by Germany. Chamberlain returned from
meeting Hitler in Munich. He reassured Britain that he had Hitler's written promise that Germany had no
more territorial ambitions (Six months later Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia.)

 In September 1939 Germany invaded Poland, and Britain entered the war. The British felt again that they
were fighting for the weaker nations of Europe, and for democracy. They had also heard about the cruelty
of the Nazis from Jews who had escaped to Britain.

 Everyone in Britain n expected Germany to invade, but the British air force won an important battle against
German planes in the air over Britain. This, however, did not prevent the German air force from bombing
the towns of Britain.

 In 1941 Japan, Germany's ally, attacked British colonial possessions, including Malaya (Malaysia), Burma
and India. As a result, Britain used soldiers from all parts of its empire to help fight against Germany, Italy
and Japan.
 In 1941 Germany and Japan had made two mistakes which undoubtedly cost them the war. Germany
attacked the Soviet Union, and Japan attacked the United States, both quite unexpectedly.

 Britain could not possibly have defeated Germany without the help of its stronger allies, the Soviet Union
and the United States.

 In May 1945, Germany finally surrendered. In order to save further casualties among their own troops,
Britain and the United States then used their bombing power to defeat Japan. This time they used the new
atomic bombs to destroy most of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, two large Japanese cities. Over 110,000 people
died immediately and many thousands more died later from the after-effects.

 It was a terrible end to the war, and an equally terrible beginning to the post-war world. But at the time
there was great relief in Britain that the war had finally ended.

The age of uncertainty

The new international order

 During the war the Allies had started to think of ways in which a new world order could replace the failed
League of Nations.

 The United States had agreed an "Atlantic Charter" with Britain. The basis of this new charter was US
President Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms'': freedom of speech and expression; freedom of worship; freedom
from fear; and freedom from want.

 At the end of the war the victorious Allies created the United Nations, which expressed the ideas of the
Atlantic Charter.

 The idea of the four allies (Soviet Union, United States, France and Britain) working together for the
recovery of central Europe collapsed. Europe became divided into two, the eastern part under communist
Soviet control, the western part under a capitalist system protected by US power.

 In 1948- 9 the Soviet Union tried to capture West Berlin by stopping all road and rail traffic to it, and it was
only saved by a huge airlift of essential supplies from the West, which lasted almost one year.

 In 1950 the United Nations faced new difficulties in the Far East. Troops of North Korea, which was under
Soviet control invaded South Korea, which was under US control.

 British foreign policy was not only concerned with the danger from the Soviet Union. It was also concerned
with finding a new part to play in a fast-changing world, and getting used to changing relations with its
friends, particularly with the United States.

 Britain still considered itself to be a world power, and this confidence was strengthened by three
important technical developments in the I950s which increased its military strength.
 These developments were in research into space, in the design of nuclear weapons, and in the design of
intercontinental ballistic missiles.

 it led to the building of the first nuclear energy power station in the world in 1956. All these military and
scientific developments drew Britain more closely to the United States, both for political and financial
reasons.

 1956 Britain, together with France and Israel, attacked Egypt. But the United States loudly disapproved of
Britain's action, and forced Britain to remove its troops from Egypt.

The welfare states

 At the end of the war many reforms were introduced, both by Conservative and Labour Party ministers.
Most of them agreed that there were social wrongs in British life which had to be put right.

 In 1944, for the first time, the government promised free secondary education for all, and promised to
provide more further and higher education.

 In 1946 a Labour government brought in a new National Health Service, which gave everyone the right to
free medical treatment.

 In 1948, the National Assistance Act provided financial help for the old, the unemployed and those unable
to work through sickness. Mothers and children also received help.

 The Labour government went further, taking over control of credit (the Bank of England), power (coal, iron
and steel), and transport (railways and airlines). These acts were meant to give direction re the economy.

 Nationalisation was a disappointment. Even the workers in the nationalised industries did not feel involved
in making them succeed, as the planners had hoped.

 As a result of the changes which gave importance to people's happiness and wellbeing, the government
became known as "the welfare state".

 For the next quarter century both the Conservative and Labour parties were agreed on the need to keep
up the "welfare state", in particular to avoid unemployment.

 However, although the welfare state improved many people's lives, it also introduced new problems.
Government administration grew very fast in order to provide the new welfare services.

Youthful Britain

 Like much of post-war Europe, Britain had become economically dependent on the United States. Thanks
to the US Marshall Aid Programme, Britain was able to recover quickly from the war.
 People had free time to enjoy themselves. At weekends many watched football matches in large new
stadiums. In the evenings they could go to the cinema.

 It was also the age of youth. Young people had more money in their pockets than ever before, now that
wages for those just starting work had improved. The result was that the young began to influence fashion,
particularly in clothing and music. Nothing expressed the youthful "pop" culture of the sixties better than
the Beatles; whose music quickly became internationally known.

 Divorce became much easier, and by 1975 one marriage in three ended in divorce, the highest rate in
Europe. Older people were frightened by this development, and called the new youth culture the
"permissive society".

A popular monarchy

 During the twentieth century the monarchy became more popular than ever before. George V on
Christmas Day, 1932, he used the new BBC radio service to speak to all peoples of the Commonwealth and
the empire. His broadcast was enormously popular, and began a tradition.

 However, in 1936 the monarchy experienced a serious crisis when George V's son, Edward Vlll, gave up the
throne in order to marry a divorced woman.

 During the Second World War George VI, Edward's brother, became greatly loved for his visits to the
bombed areas of Britain. He and his wife were admired for refusing to leave Buckingham Palace even after
it also had been bombed. Since 1952, when Elizabeth II became queen, the monarchy has steadily
increased in popularity.

The loss of empire

 At the end of the First World War, the German colonies of Africa, as well as Iraq and Palestine in the
Middle East, were added to Britain's area of control. Its empire was now bigger than ever before, and
covered a quarter of the entire land surface of the world.

 The United Nations Charter in 1945 also called for progress towards self-government. It seemed hardly
likely in this new mood that the British Empire could last very long. This feeling was strengthened by the
speed with which Britain had lost control of colonial possessions to Japan during the war.

 In 1947 the British finally left India, which then divided into a Hindu stare and a smaller Muslim state called
Pakistan. Britain also left Palestine, where it was unable to keep its promises to both the Arab inhabitants
and the new Jewish settlers. Ceylon became independent the following year.
 Between 1945 and 1965 500 million people in former colonies became completely self-governing. In some
countries, like Kenya, Cyprus and Aden, British soldiers fought against local people. Other countries
became independent more peacefully.

 Britain tried to hold onto its international position through its Commonwealth, which all the old colonies
were invited to join as free and equal members.

 It was with the help of the Commonwealth that Zimbabwe finally moved peacefully from rebellion by the
whites to independence and black majority rule.

Britain, Europe and the United States

 It was, perhaps, natural that Britain was unable to give proper attention to its relations with Europe until it
was no longer an imperial power. Ever since the growth of its trade beyond Europe during the seventeenth
century, Britain had ceased to be fully active in Europe except at moments of crisis.

 After the First World War it was natural that some Europeans should try to create a European union that
would prevent a repetition of war.

 After the Second World War the value of European unity was a good deal clearer. In 1949 Britain joined
with other Western European countries to form the Council of Europe, "to achieve greater unity between
members", but it is doubtful how far this aim has been achieved.

 It quickly became clear that Britain's attitude, particularly in view of the rapid loss of empire, was mistaken.
As its financial and economic difficulties increased, Britain could not afford to stay out of Europe.

 Although trade with Europe greatly increased, most British continued to feel that they had not had any
economic benefit from Europe.

 Britain felt its "special relationship" with the United States was particularly important. It was vaguely
believed that this relationship came from a common democratic tradition, and from the fact that the
United States was basically Anglo-Saxon.

 Britain's special relationship rested almost entirely on a common language, on its wartime alliance with the
United States and the Cold War which followed it.

 After the war, Britain found itself unable to keep up with the military arms race between the United States
and the Soviet Union.

 In 1986, it allowed US aircraft to use British airfields from which to attack the Libyan capital, Tripoli. One
thing was clear from these events, Britain still had not made up its mind whether its first political loyalty
lay across the Atlantic, or in Europe.

Northern Ireland
 Ireland was divided in 1921. many people in Northern Ireland considered that the system of government
was unfair. It was a self-governing province, but its government was controlled by the Protestants, who
feared the Catholics and kept them out of responsible positions. Many Catholics were even unable to vote.

 Suddenly, in 1969, Ulster people, both Catholics and Protestants, began to gather on the streets and
demand a fairer system. The police could not keep control, and republicans turned this civil rights
movement into a nationalist rebellion against British rule.

 Violence has continued, with bomb attacks and shootings by republicans, which the British army tried to
prevent. In 1972 the Northern Ireland government was removed and was replaced with direct rule from
London.

 In 1985 Britain and Ireland made a formal agreement at Hillsborough that they would exchange views on
Northern Ireland regularly.

 The future of Northern Ireland remains uncertain and young people in Northern Ireland cannot remember
a time when there was peace in the province.

Scotland and Wales

 In Scotland and Wales, too, there was a growing feeling by the 1970s that the government in London had
too much power.

 Welsh nationalism lost support in 1979 when the people of Wales turned down the government's offer of
limited self-government. Almost certainly this was because many of them did not welcome wider official
use of the Welsh language.

 Scotland was offered the same limited form of self-government as Wales, just over half of those who voted
supported it.

 In both countries most people continued to support the Labour Party, partly in protest against mainly
Conservative England.

The years of discontent

 During the I950s and I960s Britain remained a European leader economically as well as politically. But
Britain suddenly began to slip rapidly behind its European neighbours economically.

 Compared with its European neighbours, however, Britain was certainly doing less well. In 1964 only West
Germany of the six European Community countries produced more per head of population than Britain.
 Thirteen years later, however, in 1977, only Italy produced less. Britain eventually joined the European
Community in 1973, hoping that it would be able to share the new European wealth. By 1987 this had not
yet happened, and Britain has continued to slip behind most other European countries.

 Britain also experienced new social problems, particularly after the arrival of immigrants in Britain. All
through British history there have been times when large numbers of immigrants have come to settle in
the country. But until recently these people, being Europeans, were not noticeably different from the
British themselves. In the fifties, however, the first black immigrants starred to arrive from the West Indies,
looking for work.

 Later, Asian immigrants started to arrive from India and Pakistan and from East Africa. Most immigrants
lived together in poor areas of large cities.

 As unemployment grew, the new immigrants were sometimes wrongly blamed. In fact, it was often the
immigrants who were willing to do dirty or unpopular work, in factories, hospitals and other workplaces.

 The old nineteenth-century city centres in which black immigrants had settled were areas with serious
physical and economic problems. In the 1980s bad housing and unemployment led to riots in Liverpool,
Bristol and London, worse than any seen in Britain since the nineteenth century.

 Women, too, had reasons for discontent. They spoke out increasingly against sexism, in advertising, in
employment and in journalism. They protested about violence against women and demanded more severe
punishment for sexual crimes. They also tried to win the same pay and work opportunities as men. This
new movement resulted from the growth in the number of working women.

 Unemployment increased rapidly at the end of the 1970s, Inflation had made the situation more difficult.
Industrial problems also increased the differences between the "comfortable" south and the poorer north.
It is easy to forget that this division already existed before the industrial revolution, when the north was
poorer and had a smaller population.

The new politics

 Few of the problems of the I980s were entirely new. However, many people blamed them on the new
Conservative government, and in particular, Britain's first woman Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher
(1979)

 In the Conservative Party there had been a strong movement to the right, and in the Labour Party there
had been a similarly strong move to the left. Both moved further away from the "centre" of British politics
than they had done in living memory.

 This basic change in British politic caused a major crisis for the Labour Patty. Labour was no stranger to
internal conflict, nor to these conflicts being damagingly conducted in public. (been split between its
 traditional anti-war members and those who recognised the Nazi danger. in 1959 Labour had again publicly
disagreed about, nationalisation and nuclear weapons)

 The 1979 election result was the worst defeat since 1931

 Margaret Thatcher had come to power calling on the nation for hard work, patriotism and self-help. She
was nor, however, a typical Conservative.

 Not everyone in the Conservative Party was happy about the change in policy. By the beginning of 1982
the Conservative government had become deeply unpopular in the country. However, by her firm
leadership during the Falklands War Thatcher captured the imagination of the nation, and was confidently
able to call an election in 1983.

 As expected, Thatcher was returned to power It was the greatest Conservative victory for forty years.

 Thatcher had promised to stop Britain 's decline, but by 1983 she had not succeeded. Industrial production
since 1979 had fallen by 10 per cent, and manufacturing production by 17 per cent.

 By 1983, for the first time since the industrial revolution, Britain had become a net importer of
manufactured goods. There was a clear economic shift towards service industries.

 Thatcher could claim she had begun to return nationalised industries to the private sector that she had
gone even further than she had promised. By 1987 telecommunications, gas, British Airways, British
Aerospace and British Shipbuilders had all been put into private ownership.

 she had broken the power of the trade unions, something else she had promised to do. In fact, the trade
unions had been damaged more by growing unemployment

 The most serious accusation against the Thatcher government by the middle of the 1980s was that it had
created a more unequal society, a society of "two nations", one wealthy, and the other poor.

 Although the government sold many state-owned houses and flats to the people who lived in them, it also
halved the number of new houses it built between 1981 and 1985, a period in which the number of
homeless people increased.

 More importantly, people saw a divide between the north and south of the country. People were aware of
growing unemployment in the "depressed" areas, and fewer hopes of finding a job.

 As a result, it was not surprising that Labour continued to be the stronger party in the north, and in other
depressed areas.

 In spite of these problems, Thatcher's Conservative Party was still more popular than any other single party
in 1987.

 Thatcher's policies were creating a society which seemed decreasingly interested in Labour philosophy,
and it had to decide how it could make this philosophy more attractive without giving up its principles.
Britain: past, present and future

 By the late I980s most British people felt that the future was full of uncertainty. These doubts resulted
from disappointment with lost economic and political power.

 The government said much about maintaining "traditional values", particularly law and order. It also spoke
of a return to Victorian values. On the other hand, its opponents argued that the tradition of broad popular
agreement on the management of the nation's affairs was in grave danger. Neither side was wholly right in
its claim.

 In 1988 Britain celebrated two major anniversaries, the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and the
Glorious Revolution in 1688. One was about Britain's successful military and foreign policy, the other about
its successful constitutional development. Both were truly glorious events.

 Not everyone was happy with parliamentary life by 1988.

 In 1988 there was a reminder of this side of Britain's history in the conflict in Northern Ireland, where even
the Protestant "Loyalists" were unhappy with rule by the Westminster Parliament.

 In Scotland, Wales, and parts of England, too, there were people who disliked the centralised power of
Westminster, which had increased in the Thatcher years.

 Every year there are historical ceremonies, for example the State Opening of Parliament, the Lord Mayor's
Show, or the meeting of the Knights of the Garter at Windsor each St George's Day.

 When looking at Britain today, it is important to remember the great benefits from the past. No other
country has so long a history of political order, going back almost without interruption to the Norman
Conquest. Few other countries have enjoyed such long periods of economic and social wellbeing.