Reflections on the Appropriation of Nature in the Industrial Revolution
Amy Farley
Burlingame High School
Burlingame, CA
2012 NEH Seminar for School Teachers
Historical Interpretations of the Industrial Revolution in Britain
I came to this seminar with little knowledge about the Industrial Revolution itself; my
prior knowledge about the Romantics, or the Victorian Era and its literature, bordered and
sometimes overlapped the period of Britain’s Industrial Revolution without providing a detailed
portrait of the historical and economic issues of that time. Thus, as I began the seminar, I
expected to gain a historical understanding that would fill in the spaces in my knowledge of that
period in Britain. While this has indeed been an outcome of my involvement in the seminar, I
have found that even my understanding of the English landscape—formed initially through close
work with William Wordsworth’s writings—has been deepened and changed throughout the
course of the five weeks.
In developing an understanding of the British relationship to landscape during the
Industrial Revolution, I initially took my cues from William Wordsworth and his
contemporaries. My prior studies of the Romantic period led me to understand the Romantics’
deep appreciation for the pastoral landscape for which England is so famous. For the Romantics,
nature was a space that was both inspiring and humbling, a space from which one could learn
much about life and self. Being immersed in nature was not merely an enjoyable leisure activity;
it was a vital component of developing into a creative, intellectual, and spiritual being. From
what little I knew of the Industrial landscape (an understanding constructed through readings of
Dickens, and poems such as Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper”), I imagined the Industrial
landscape in direct conflict with the pastoral landscape, more akin to Philip de Loutherbourg’s
2
painting Coalbrookdale by Night. In other words, where the Romantic landscape was
picturesque, open, and green, my vision of the Industrial landscape led me to imagine brick row
houses in the city with large families living in squalor, while the factories churned out soot that
darkened the sky and the lives of those who lived and worked there. However, my experiences
during the seminar—the readings and the information and perspective gained through site
visits—have troubled this otherwise seemingly simple duality. It became clear to me that it
wasn’t enough to extol the virtues of the pastoral landscape and turn a critical eye to the living
and working conditions of those working in the cities in industrial jobs. To truly understand the
dichotomy between these ways of life, it was necessary to examine how social class and politics
informed access to the idealized pastoral landscape.
Wordsworth and Pastoral Privilege
Though many of the Romantics wrote in both poetry and prose about the virtues of
immersing oneself in nature, William Wordsworth is perhaps most well-known for waxing
poetic about the English landscape, particularly the area in and around the Lake District. In his
lengthy blank verse poem, The Prelude, Wordsworth carefully examines the way his
development through childhood could be mapped onto the natural landscape, demonstrating “the
spiritual growth of the poet” and “how he comes to terms with who he is, and his place in nature
and the world” (BBC). More than a mere autobiographical lyric poem, Wordsworth’s The
Prelude is akin to a recipe for personal enlightenment: take one person, immerse in the natural
landscape, and shake well. Wordsworth further examines the impact of landscape on his
individual intellectual identity in “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On
Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 31, 1798”:
3
To [nature] I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened:--that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,-Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things (35-49)
In this excerpt, Wordsworth highlights the importance of the natural landscape in two ways.
First, he offers nature as a means of escaping “the heavy and weary weight / Of all this
unintelligible world,” a tool that anyone can use to lighten the burden of a difficult life (38-9).
But perhaps more importantly, Wordsworth also describes the landscape as a place in which one
can “become a living soul,” capable of “see[ing] into the life of things” (46, 49). Critically, the
natural landscape is not just a pleasant space for relaxation; it is a critical component of
becoming human, and becoming an enlightened human. In other words, immersion in the
natural landscape is to be viewed not as a luxury (though it certainly was), but as a necessary
exercise if one hoped to become a fully-developed being.
While it is easy to look at the landscape of the Lake District, and understand why
Wordsworth felt compelled to write about the significance of its beauty, it is important to note
that Wordsworth’s formative experiences in the landscape were afforded by his circumstances
4
and social class. Though they were by no means aristocrats, when Wordsworth was a child, his
father was employed as a lawyer and rent collector, meaning that Wordsworth’s family was
relatively well-off at the time. Because his family had financial stability, Wordsworth and his
siblings were not required to work, meaning that when he wasn’t in school, he had a considerable
amount of time to himself. Wordsworth spent this time immersed in the natural landscape of the
Lake District, playing and wandering as imaginative children are wont to do. Thus, it was
relatively easy for Wordsworth to offer the natural landscape, not only as an escape from the
unpleasantries of life, but as a critical component as developing into fully-formed (and
enlightened) human being.
If one is to take Wordsworth’s advice about how to develop into a fully actualized being,
a plan that is largely the result of his own societal freedoms, one must have access to a natural
landscape, and a sufficient amount of time to spend experiencing and reflecting upon that
landscape. In other words, to effectively follow Wordsworth’s model, one could not be of the
working classes of Industrial Britain.
The Powerful Classes and the Appropriation of Landscape
Standing in the center of the courtyard of Arkwright’s Cromford Mill, a glance to the hill
overlooking the factory’s remains reveals the peaks of Arkwright’s home. From this vantage
point, before the trees grew in, Arkwright would have been able to see both the mill, and the
natural landscape surrounding it. Similarly, at Coalbrookdale, the Darby family home was
perched high on a hill, affording them a view of the furnaces, but also of the lush, green, treedotted hills, rolling into the distance. Though the decision of these men to construct their homes
from these vantage points was assumedly in part a business decision, giving them a way to
5
observe their factories, the placement of their homes also symbolized the power these men could
exert, both over their workforce, and over the landscape.
Prior to some of the early technological innovations of the British Industrial Revolution, a
large percentage of the nation’s workforce was employed in agricultural jobs. While their
presence there was predicated on working, rather than leisure, this meant that a large percentage
of the nation’s workforce was consistently immersed in the pastoral landscape, among the fields,
the sheep, and the stone walls romanticized by poems such as Wordsworth’s “Michael: A
Pastoral Poem.” Although they perhaps did not have time to reflect upon the landscape in which
they worked, they had unbridled access to nature. During this time, “the men and women who
lived in the English town…were never far from the open country: their town life was fringed
with orchards and gardens” (Hammond 44). However, shifts in politics and technology reduced
the number of jobs that offered labor in the field, and changed forever the relationship of the
laboring classes to the landscape.
While Arkwright and Darby carved out relatively small parcels of the landscape for
themselves, they were by no means the only members of the powerful classes to appropriate the
landscape. As early as the “agricultural revolution,” the landed classes were usurping the
pastoral landscape from the working classes through the Enclosure Act of 1801. Discontent with
the mere profit of the fruits of their land, the powerful classes felt it necessary to buy up the
landscape itself. Though it appeared to be a subtle shift, as members of the working class were
often still laboring on that land, this was a significant conceptual shift, as the wealthy and
powerful took free and public land, and appropriated it for their own profit. In other words, the
powerful classes commodified something that was previously free and public. If immersion in
the natural landscape is a vital component of developing into an enlightened human being, by
6
commodifying and appropriating the natural landscape these entrepreneurs also bought the rights
to the souls and minds of the working class.
The Working Classes and the Alteration of Landscape
As the powerful classes limited access to the landscape for the working class through
enclosure and the purchase of large swaths of the country for their estates, they further usurped
the landscape by changing it immensely, constructing mills, factories, furnaces, and towns to
house the streams of laborers that fueled their industries. As I stood on a hill overlooking
Coalbrookdale, I found it difficult to envision the landscape as it might’ve looked during the
British Industrial Revolution. The surrounding hills dipped towards one another in the middle,
opening into a sun-spotted vista that afforded a view of towns in the distance, charmingly framed
by trees and English wildflowers. However, as evidenced by contemporary art and prose alike,
the landscape at these sites looked far less natural after the powerful classes made their mark. In
John Sell Cotman’s painting, Bedlam Furnace, the landscape of Coalbrookdale does not appear
green or pastoral as it does today. Instead, the silhouettes of dying trees frame the grey and sooty
clouds that encroach upon the furnace’s shadow in the distance. In another representation of the
furnace, de Loutherbourg shows almost no trace of nature, save one scrawny tree flailing in the
night sky as the factory buildings and the town are illuminated by violent and fiery bursts from
the furnaces. The powerful classes, through the introduction of their industries into the
countryside, slowly excised nature itself from the landscape.
While industrialization made a mark on the natural landscape, it also significantly
changed the town landscape. Whereas before, laborers were not far from nature, even in their
town lives, “as the Industrial Revolution advanced…the workmen would find it harder and
7
harder to escape out of the wide web of smoke and squalor that enveloped their daily lives”
(Hammond 44). As mills, factories, and furnaces were built, so too were towns built to house
and feed the laborers that filled these new jobs. In contrast to the relatively open spaces of
agricultural living, the towns constructed “were settlements of great masses of people collected
in a particular place because their fingers or their muscles were needed on the brink of a stream
here or at the mouth of a furnace there” (Hammond 40). With little concern for maintaining
access to nature, the powerful classes created towns that met only the most basic of human
needs, effectively denying the laboring classes access to life-affirming nature.
While it seems plausible that the wealthy classes did not believe in the vital nature of the
natural landscape in human development, it should be noted that while they bought and built
over nature for the working classes, they often preserved nature for themselves. Both Arkwright
and Darby built their homes perched on hills above the towns and factories that comprised the
lives of their laborers, the one vantage point that might have afforded them uninterrupted access
to the natural landscape. Other members of the wealthy classes built estates on large, sprawling
grounds, left in tact for their beauty, and the recreational opportunities therein. Despite an
apparent understanding of the value of the natural landscape, these individuals constructed towns
for the working classes that were “as ugly as their industries, with an ugliness in both cases that
was a symptom of work and life in which men and women could find no happiness or selfexpression” (Hammond 40).
After the privileged classes had appropriated the landscape through purchase and political
maneuvering, enlightenment through the natural landscape was still a possibility (albeit a
mediated opportunity without agency or direct access to the pastoral). However, the opportunity
for the working classes to gain enlightenment through communion with nature was eliminated as
8
nature was excised from the landscape. In other words, those of the landed classes effectively
bought the rights to the souls of their workers, and then proceeded to destroy their cognitive and
emotional potential by excising nature from the landscape, effectively transforming the working
class into a “race disinherited of its share of the arts and beauty in the world” (Hammond 40).
Conclusions
While it is perhaps unsurprising (though unfortunate) that the upper classes exploited the
laboring classes to their own benefit, it is striking that the privileged class was able to usurp and
critically alter something that would otherwise be free and universally accessible—the landscape
itself. However, this fact becomes far more striking when one considers the impact of this
decision on the workers. If we are to agree with Wordsworth that immersion in the natural
landscape is vital if one hopes to “become a living soul,” capable of “see[ing] into the life of
things,” then these entrepreneurs were not just appropriating the landscape; they were also
usurping the working class’ opportunity to become self-actualized human beings (46, 49).
It is tempting to look at 21st century America and argue that we are past this juncture in
our own history. The myth of the “American Dream” encourages us to believe that the working
class has unbridled access to the kind of personal and intellectual enlightenment championed by
Wordsworth. And yet, it is often incredibly difficult for an individual to progress past the
obstacles erected by the privileged classes (subtle and unintentional though they may sometimes
be). To this day, corporations, businessmen, and concerned citizens buy up tracts of land or
stretches of the city and gentrify it, often improving it for their own benefit with little concern for
who those changes might displace. As a society, we often do not take the time to consider how
our decisions impact the opportunities and trajectories of other lives.
9
This question is very much at the heart of Dicken’s Hard Times. The selfish and often
flippant decisions of characters in the privileged class (such as Tom or Gradgrind) have real and
lasting effects on the lives of members of the working class. The most notable example of this is
perhaps the life of Stephen Blackpool, who was not only denied the beauty of love by the social
and legal regimes enacted by the upper classes, but whose life was in effect taken by decisions
that were not his own. My hope is to take this question to my high school students by way of
Dickens, encouraging them to consider not only their own position in life and society, but also
the way their existence and decisions impact others. Ultimately, it is not enough to do as
Wordsworth says (namely, to discover one’s self through individual experiences, such as
communion with nature or other forms of introspection) to become an enlightened human being.
Instead, it becomes clear through an examination of both the period of the British Industrial
Revolution and society today that enlightenment is perhaps a far more complicated and social
goal than Wordsworth initially realized.
Works Cited
Hammond, J.L. and Barbara. The Town Labourer: The New Civilization 1760-1832, New York:
Harper & Row, 1970. First published by Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1917.
"William Wordsworth: The Prelude (extract)." BBC News. BBC, n.d. Web. 02 Sept. 2012.
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetryplace/thepreluderev
2.shtml>.
Wordsworth, William, and Stephen Gill. William Wordsworth: The Major Works. Oxford:
Oxford UP, 2000. Print.