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The Industrial Revolution
Words you should look up and understand before reading the excerpts. Write the
definition here:
 Industrial
 Revolution
 Urbanization
 Commodities
The term "Industrial Revolution" is thought to have originated among
French commentators at the turn of the 19th century. Those authors
suggested that many nations were experiencing changes that were
resulting in profound economic and social transformations. Indeed,
the Industrial Revolution, which had its beginnings in remote times
but is generally deemed to have taken place from the late 18th to
early 19th centuries, marked the onset of industrial society and
defined the key mechanisms of its progress.
Although the pace of industrial development obviously differed between nations, there were
many similarities. The Industrial Revolution encompassed a number of components, including
technological advances. Economic growth, the subsequent development of new markets, changes
in the transportation of goods, improved communications, and changes in the social structure
were also important factors.
All of those factors were evident in England, which is often credited with playing a leading role
in the Industrial Revolution. Although a predominantly agricultural society, at the beginning of
the 18th century, England was already an important industrial producer. Best known for the
manufacture of woolen cloth, England also produced great quantities of tin, coal, leather goods,
small metal goods, and other domestic items.
Moreover, there were many technological advances in England during the 18th century. Some
were of benefit to many different types of industries. These included James Watt's steam engine,
which could either replace or supplement power from traditional sources like watermills and
windmills. Initially, the steam engine was developed for use in the mining industry to provide
greater amounts of coal. It was later adapted to power different types of machinery within
factories.
Other inventions aided specific industries, like the production of cloth. They included the flying
shuttle, which was patented in 1733 by a Lancashire mechanic named John Kay. Previously, four
spinners were needed to keep up with a single cotton loom. Ten additional people were needed to
prepare yarn for one woolen weaver. The new shuttle expedited this process by allowing the yarn
to be produced more quickly. Richard Arkwright's water frame, patented in 1769, further
accelerated the production of yarn. Less then a decade later, Samuel Crompton combined those
two machines into what became known as Crompton's mule.
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Economic growth was also readily apparent in 18th-century England. The country already
enjoyed a vigorous export trade to Europe, the American colonies, India, and Africa. Further
growth in international trade was fueled by political developments across Europe. After 1713,
the British were allowed to trade with the Spanish Empire in South and Central America. New
markets were created by the growth of English colonies in the West Indies and India. As the pace
of industrialization increased, a growing number of cheap manufactured goods were sent to the
colonies. Those goods included articles ranging from hammers, shovels, and anchors to firearms
and gunpowder.
Although ships were used for long-distance trade, other forms of transportation developed to deal
with internal European trade. Navigable rivers had long played a role in the distribution of both
raw and manufactured goods. Those natural channels were supplemented in the second half of
the 18th century by the construction of a canal system. Roads also continued to improve thanks
in part to the growth of turnpike roads, which charged a toll for their use and subsequent upkeep.
During the 19th century, the development of railroads changed the face of transportation forever.
By 1850, trains were able to travel between 30 and 50 miles an hour to speed both raw materials
and consumer goods across Europe.
Improved methods of communication were another factor in the acceleration of industrialization.
Sir Samuel Cunard pioneered the concept of transatlantic mail in 1839. After gaining permission
from the British government, he began a postal system between Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston.
In 1840, a new method of sending mail was implemented in England. The new penny post was
based on the concept that it was the handling, rather than the distance sent, that was the critical
cost in delivering mail. By the third quarter of the 19th century, telegraph cables enabled
businesses to communicate to far-away lands. This period also saw the development of the
Universal Postal Union, whose purpose was to facilitate the movement of post overseas.
A final major factor in the European Industrial Revolution was that of changes in the social
structure. Those changes included a dramatic increase in population and urbanization that was
most apparent in England and Germany. By the mid-19th century, only half of the English
population still dwelled in rural areas. Over the following 50 years, the same became true for
many European countries.
Growing urbanization was caused by three main requirements of industrial growth. First of all,
most factories were located in centers where coal or other raw materials were available, like the
Ruhr Valley in Germany. Second, cities were normally located in centers of transportation, like
Liverpool and Marseille. Finally, banks and other forms of commerce were generally established
in political centers like London, Paris, and Berlin.
Many of the immigrants to urban areas were part of what became a new working class. Factories
called for a large number of workers to run machinery. In many cases, the factory owners tended
to consider their employees as little more than commodities. The men, women, and children who
filled those roles were generally subjected to long hours, low wages, and poor working
conditions. Artisans, who had previously been considered to be skilled workers, also found
themselves degraded to routine laborers. The Industrial Revolution also helped in the creation of
a middle class. New occupations were developed in order to cope with the running of factories.
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Those occupations included managers, engineers, and skilled workers like mechanics and
toolmakers.
Industrialization in England also affected the growth of its colonies. During the early 18th
century, the British colonies were concerned with the need to make a living rather than industrial
advancement. The Industrial Revolution changed that attitude by increasing the demand for
colonial goods, which enjoyed a protected market. In addition, industrialization supplied capital
to the colonists.
However, the Industrial Revolution in the United States followed a different, somewhat later
course. Although agriculture was the main source of income, there were major differences in the
way business developed in the South and North. Tobacco, which was grown in the former areas,
was probably the most important export. Tobacco was a very successful product and was
supplied in increasing quantities to England and France. There was also a growing timber
industry, developed through the use of traditional water-powered sawmills.
While the southern part of the country concentrated on cash crops, the North had a growing
commercial sector and showed the beginnings of manufacturing. The successful export of a
range of foodstuffs and timber resulted in the demand for new ships. In addition to shipbuilding,
the northern colonies also became known for the smelting of iron and production of metal wares.
By the second half of the 18th century, colonial iron output was sufficiently high for the British
Parliament to pass an act controlling the industry. By 1760, a number of factories had also
opened to produce pottery, glass, cloth, and paper.
Industrialization accelerated in the early 19th century with the growth of the young American
nation. Consumer and industrial demand led to a rising number of factories. In 1814, Francis
Cabot Lowell began the first large-scale mechanized American mill for the production of
textiles. Other successful new businesses included the manufacture in the mid-19th century of
armaments. Samuel Colt's range of pistols was made with the best precision machine tools
available at that time.
The growing industrialization of the United States also had an impact on agriculture. Cyrus
McCormick was responsible for one of the most important tools for the nation's farmers. He
invented the reaper, a piece of machinery that replaced the labor-intensive hand sickles that had
traditionally been used for cutting grain. By using a horse-drawn reaper, the time needed to
harvest a field that previously took 20 hours was reduced to one hour. Although initially
produced on a small scale, the demand for the machines quickly grew. In response, the
McCormick Harvesting Machine Company was founded in 1847 to supply enough reapers for
the entire country.
The last half of the 19th century experienced another set of technological innovations. Those
included the development of cheap steel, which allowed factory machinery to be produced more
quickly. As companies continued to expand, many merged with each other to create large and
powerful corporations. By the end of the century, those mergers resulted in a large number of
highly integrated, conglomerate corporations both in the United States and in Europe.
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However, while the Industrial Revolution had been portrayed in the middle of the 19th century as
one of humankind's greatest achievements, to many 20th-century critics, that was no longer the
case. Social reformers noted the moral and spiritual deficiencies of an industrialized society,
including the disparity between the wealthy industrialists and the urban working class.
Nevertheless, the so-called revolution continued during the 20th century, and industrialization
spread throughout the world.
CITATION: MLA STYLE
"Industrial Revolution." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2009. Web. 29 Sept. 2009.
<http://www.worldhistory.abc-clio.com>.
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The Industrial Revolution Timeline, 1700-early 1900s
1698
English engineer Thomas Savery developed a steam engine. He successfully advertised his water
pumping steam engine to owners of coal mines in his region of England where deepening mines
kept filling with water.
1700
2.7 million tons of coal were mined in Britain.
1750
4.7 million tons of coal were mined in Britain.
1769
2,500 steam engines were being used to pump water out of coal mines in Britain.
1797
900 cotton mills were operating across Britain.
1800
10 million tons of coal were mined in Britain.
1814
Francis Cabot Lowell begins the first large-scale mechanized U.S. mill for the production of
textiles (fabric).
1818
The Industrial Revolution leads to growing international concerns with alcoholism, starting the
temperance movement (to make alcohol illegal). The earliest recorded temperance group in
Europe is established in Sweden.
1819
On August 16, in what is known as the Peterloo massacre, the British cavalry clears out a crowd
of tens of thousands of British people gathered peacefully to protest a year of industrial
depression and high food prices in the hope of initiating parliamentary reform. In response to the
incident, the British Parliament pass the Six Acts, a limit on civil liberties in Great Britain that
includes the prohibition of a gathering of more than 50 people.
1820
34 steam-powered ships operated in British waters.
1830
A few dozen miles of railroad track existed in Britain.
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1833
The British Parliament enacts the Factory Act (1833), the first significant legislation passed
anywhere in the world to attempt to deal with the appalling conditions faced by workers laboring
in factories.
1838
William Lovett and Francis Place write the Chartist People's petition (1838), a mandate for
reform of the British government's policies regarding workplace conditions.
1840
Britain was exporting 200 million yards of cotton textiles to other European countries and 529
million yards of cotton textiles elsewhere in the world.
1840
4,500 miles of railroad track existed in Britain.
1845
The Irish potato famine begins, bringing high unemployment, overcrowding in populated areas,
and general poverty.
1848
Karl Marx publishes the Communist Manifesto (1848).
1848
French workers revolt in the June Days after losing hope in the economic and social reforms
promised by the government during the uprisings earlier that year.
1848
The Seneca Falls Convention is held from July 19 to July 20. Organized by Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth and Mary Ann McClintock, the convention is the first
women's rights convention in U.S. history.
1850
50 million tons of coal were mined in Britain.
1850
23,000 miles of railroad track existed in Britain.
1854
The Irish potato famine ends after tens of thousands of people have died of outright starvation.
An estimated 1.1 million people have died of famine-related diseases, and another 1.5 million
Irish have fled their homeland in search of a new sense of security and a better chance for
survival.
1862
Andrew Carnegie forms the Piper and Shiffler Company to make iron railroad bridges.
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1864
The first international association to fight for the rights of workers, the First International (also
called the International Workingmen’s Association) is organized.
1865
John D. Rockefeller creates the firm of Rockefeller & Andrews, Cleveland, Ohio's largest oil
refiner.
1869
The golden spike ceremony marks the completion of the transcontinental railroad in the United
States.
1869
In the United States, women fight for the right to vote. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B.
Anthony form the National Woman Suffrage Association. Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and
Henry Ward Beecher lead the American Woman Suffrage Association.
1875
Andrew Carnegie founds the Carnegie Steel Company.
1875
Alexander Graham Bell makes the first true communication by telephone.
1890
Jacob Riis publishes his first and most famous book, How the Other Half Lives. Its photographs
and accompanying text show the horrible living conditions of the poor in New York City.
1903
Henry Ford founds Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan.
1906
Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle (1906), a scathing exposé regarding sanitation practices in
the meat-packing industry and the brutal condition of the workers' lives who labor in that
industry.
1908
Ford Motor Company introduces the Model T, using the assembly line for production.
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Industrial Revolution Primary Source
“Lowell Mill Girls” by Harriet Robinson, 1883
Description of Source: In her autobiography, Harriet Hanson Robinson, the wife of a newspaper
editor, provided an account of her earlier life as female factory worker (from the age of ten in
1834 to 1848) in the textile Mills of Lowell, Massachusetts. Her account explains some of the
family dynamics involved, and lets us see the women as active participants in their own lives for instance in their strike of 1836.
Primary Source Excerpts:
In what follows, I shall confine myself to a description of factory life in Lowell, Massachusetts,
from 1832 to 1848, since, with that phase of Early Factory Labor in New England, I am the most
familiar-because I was a part of it.
In 1832, Lowell was little more than a factory village. Five "corporations" were started, and the
cotton mills belonging to them were building. Help was in great demand and stories were told all
over the country of the new factory place, and the high wages that were offered to all classes of
workpeople; stories that reached the ears of mechanics' and farmers' sons and gave new life to
lonely and dependent women in distant towns and farmhouses .... Troops of young girls came
from different parts of New England, and from Canada, and men were employed to collect them
at so much a head, and deliver them at the factories.
...
At the time the Lowell cotton mills were started the caste of the factory girl was the lowest
among the employments of women. In England and in France, particularly, great injustice had
been done to her real character. She was represented as subjected to influences that must destroy
her purity and self-respect. In the eyes of her overseer she was but a brute, a slave, to be beaten,
pinched and pushed about. It was to overcome this prejudice that such high wages had been
offered to women that they might be induced to become mill girls, in spite of the opprobrium that
still clung to this degrading occupation....
The early mill girls were of different ages. Some were not over ten years old; a few were in
middle life, but the majority were between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five. The very young
girls were called "doffers." They "doffed," or took off, the full bobbins from the spinning frames,
and replaced them with empty ones. These mites worked about fifteen minutes every hour and
the rest of the time was their own. When the overseer was kind they were allowed to read, knit,
or go outside the mill yard to play. They were paid two dollars a week. The working hours of all
the girls extended from five o'clock in the morning until seven in the evening, with one half-hour
each, for breakfast and dinner. Even the doffers were forced to be on duty nearly fourteen hours
a day. This was the greatest hardship in the lives of these children. Several years later a ten-hour
law was passed, but not until long after some of these little doffers were old enough to appear
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before the legislative committee on the subject, and plead, by their presence, for a reduction of
the hours of labor.
Those of the mill girls who had homes generally worked from eight to ten months in the year; the
rest of the time was spent with parents or friends. A few taught school during the summer
months. Their life in the factory was made pleasant to them. In those days there was no need of
advocating the doctrine of the proper relation between employer and employed. Help was too
valuable to be ill-treated....
...
The most prevailing incentive to labor was to secure the means of education for some male
member of the family. To make a gentleman of a brother or a son, to give him a college
education, was the dominant thought in the minds of a great many of the better class of mill girls.
I have known more than one to give every cent of her wages, month after month, to her brother,
that he might get the education necessary to enter some profession. I have known a mother to
work years in this way for her boy. I have known women to educate young men by their
earnings, who were not sons or relatives. There are many men now living who were helped to an
education by the wages of the early mill girls.
It is well to digress here a little, and speak of the influence the possession of money had on the
characters of some of these women. We can hardly realize what a change the cotton factory
made in the status of the working women. Hitherto woman had always been a money saving
rather than a money earning, member of the community. Her labor could command but small
return. If she worked out as servant, or "help," her wages were from 50 cents to $1 .00 a week;
or, if she went from house to house by the day to spin and weave, or do tailoress work, she could
get but 75 cents a week and her meals. As teacher, her services were not in demand, and the arts,
the professions, and even the trades and industries, were nearly all closed to her.
As late as 1840 there were only seven vocations outside the home into which the women of New
England had entered. At this time woman had no property rights. A widow could be left without
her share of her husband's (or the family) property, an " incumbrance" to his estate. A father
could make his will without reference to his daughter's share of the inheritance. He usually left
her a home on the farm as long as she remained single. A woman was not supposed to be capable
of spending her own, or of using other people's money. In Massachusetts, before 1840, a woman
could not, legally, be treasurer of her own sewing society, unless some man was responsible for
her. The law took no cognizance of woman as a moneyspender. She was a ward, an appendage, a
relict. Thus it happened that if a woman did not choose to marry, or, when left a widow, to remarry, she had no choice but to enter one of the few employments open to her, or to become a
burden on the charity of some relative.
...
One of the first strikes that ever took place in this country was in Lowell in 1836. When it was
announced that the wages were to be cut down, great indignation was felt, and it was decided to
strike or "turn out" en masse. This was done. The mills were shut down, and the girls went from
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their several corporations in procession to the grove on Chapel Hill, and listened to incendiary
speeches from some early labor reformers.
One of the girls stood on a pump and gave vent to the feelings of her companions in a neat
speech, declaring that it was their duty to resist all attempts at cutting down the wages. This was
the first time a woman had spoken in public in Lowell, and the event caused surprise and
consternation among her audience
It is hardly necessary to say that, so far as practical results are concerned, this strike did no good.
The corporation would not come to terms. The girls were soon tired of holding out, and they
went back to their work at the reduced rate of wages. The ill success of this early attempt at
resistance on the part of the wage element seems to have made a precedent for the issue of many
succeeding strikes.
Citation:
Robinson, Harriet H. "Early Factory Labor in New England," in Massachusetts Bureau of
Statistics of Labor, Fourteenth Annual Report (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1883), pp. 38082, 38788, 39192.
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Industrial Revolution Primary Source
Women Miners in the English Coal Pits, 1842
Description of Source: The following is a written observation of the work being done in coal
mines during the Industrial Revolution.
Primary Source Excerpts:
In England… female Children of tender age and young and adult women are allowed to descend
into the coal mines and regularly to perform the same kinds of underground work, and to work
for the same number of hours, as boys and men…
In great numbers of the coalpits in this district the men work in a state of perfect nakedness, and
are in this state assisted in their labour by females of all ages, from girls of six years old to
women of twenty-one, these females being themselves quite naked down to the waist…
One of the most disgusting sights 1 have ever seen was that of young females, dressed like boys
in trousers, crawling on all fours, with belts round their waists…
When I arrived at the board or workings of the pit I found at one of the sideboards down a
narrow passage a girl of fourteen years of age in boy's clothes, picking down the coal with the
regular pick used by the men. She was half sitting half lying at her work, and said she found it
tired her very much, and 'of course she didn't like it.' The place where she was at work was not 2
feet high. Further on were men lying on their sides and getting. No less than six girls out of
eighteen men and children are employed in this pit…
In two other pits in the Huddersfield Union I have seen the same sight. In one near New Mills,
the chain, passing high up between the legs of two of these girls, had worn large holes in their
trousers; and any sight more disgustingly indecent or revolting can scarcely be imagined than
these girls at work-no brothel can beat it…
When it is remembered that these girls hurry chiefly for men who are not their parents; that they
go from 15 to 20 times a day into a dark chamber (the bank face), which is often 50 yards apart
from any one, to a man working naked, or next to naked, it is not to be supposed but that where
opportunity thus prevails sexual vices are of common occurrence…
Citation:
Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1842, VoL XVI, pp. 24, 196.
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Description of Source: The following is an oral account from a woman who worked in the
mines.
Primary Source Excerpts
Betty Harris, age 37: I was married at 23, and went into a colliery when I was married. I used to
weave when about 12 years old; can neither read nor write. I work for Andrew Knowles, of Little
Bolton (Lancs), and make sometimes 7s a week, sometimes not so much. I am a drawer, and
work from 6 in the morning to 6 at night. Stop about an hour at noon to eat my dinner; have
bread and butter for dinner; I get no drink. I have two children, but they are too young to work. I
worked at drawing when I was in the family way. I know a woman who has gone home and
washed herself, taken to her bed, delivered of a child, and gone to work again under the week.
I have a belt round my waist, and a chain passing between my legs, and I go on my hands and
feet. The road is very steep, and we have to hold by a rope; and when there is no rope, by
anything we can catch hold of. There are six women and about six boys and girls in the pit I
work in; it is very hard work for a woman. The pit is very wet where I work, and the water
comes over our clog-tops always, and I have seen it up to my thighs; it rains in at the roof
terribly. My clothes are wet through almost all day long. I never was ill in my life, but when I
was lying in.
My cousin looks after my children in the day time. I am very tired when I get home at night; I
fall asleep sometimes before I get washed. I am not so strong as I was, and cannot stand my work
so well as I used to. I have drawn till I have bathe skin off me; the belt and chain is worse when
we are in the family way. My feller (husband) has beaten me many a times for not being ready. I
were not used to it at first, and he had little patience.
I have known many a man beat his drawer. I have known men take liberties with the drawers,
and some of the women have bastards.
Citation:
Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1842, Vol. XV, p. 84, and ibid., Vol. XVII, p. 108.
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Industrial Revolution Primary Source
Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 by
Friederich Engels, 1844
Description of Source: Manchester, England rapidly rose from obscurity to become the premier
center of cotton manufacture in England. This was largely due to geography. Its famously damp
climate was better for cotton manufacture than the drier climate of the older eastern English cloth
manufacture centers. As a result, Manchester became perhaps the first modern industrial city.
Friedrich Engels' father was a German manufacturer and Engels worked as his agent in his
father's Manchester factory. As a result he combined both real experience of the city, with a
strong social conscience. The result was The Condition of the Working-Class in England in
1844. He also went on to write the Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx, which was published
in 1848.
Primary Source Excerpts:
The following is a description of Manchester, England:
Describing courtyards (public spaces) in the city:
In one of these courts there stands directly at the entrance, at the end of the covered passage, a
privy without a door, so dirty that the inhabitants can pass into and out of the court only by
passing through foul pools of stagnant urine and excrement.
. . . Here, as in most of the working-men's quarters of Manchester, the pork-raisers rent the courts
and build pig-pens in them. In almost every court one or even several such pens may be found,
into which the inhabitants of the court throw all refuse and offal, whence the swine grow fat; and
the atmosphere, confined on all four sides, is utterly corrupted by putrefying animal and
vegetable substances....
Describing a river in the city:
At the bottom flows, or rather stagnates, the Irk, a narrow, coal-black, foul-smelling stream, full
of debris and refuse, which it deposits on the shallower right bank.
In dry weather, a long string of the most disgusting, blackish-green, slime pools are left standing
on this bank, from the depths of which bubbles of miasmatic gas constantly arise and give forth a
stench unendurable even on the bridge forty or fifty feet above the surface of the stream. But
besides this, the stream itself is checked every few paces by high weirs, behind which slime and
refuse accumulate and rot in thick masses. Above the bridge are tanneries, bone mills, and
gasworks, from which all drains and refuse find their way into the Irk, which receives further the
contents of all the neighbouring sewers and privies. It may be easily imagined, therefore, what
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sort of residue the stream deposits. Below the bridge you look upon the piles of debris, the
refuse, filth, and offal from the courts on the steep left bank; here each house is packed close
behind its neighbour and a piece of each is visible, all black, smoky, crumbling, ancient, with
broken panes and window frames. The background is furnished by old barrack-like factory
buildings. On the lower right bank stands a long row of houses and mills; the second house being
a ruin without a roof, piled with debris; the third stands so low that the lowest floor is
uninhabitable, and therefore without windows or doors. Here the background embraces the
pauper burial-ground, the station of the Liverpool and Leeds railway, and, in the rear of this, the
Workhouse, the "Poor-Law Bastille" of Manchester, which, like a citadel, looks threateningly
down from behind its high walls and parapets on the hilltop, upon the working-people's quarter
below.
Such is the Old Town of Manchester, and on re-reading my description, I am forced to admit that
instead of being exaggerated, it is far from black enough to convey a true impression of the filth,
ruin, and uninhabitableness, the defiance of all considerations of cleanliness, ventilation, and
health which characterise the construction of this single district, containing at least twenty to
thirty thousand inhabitants. And such a district exists in the heart of the second city of England,
the first manufacturing city of the world. If any one wishes to see in how little space a human
being can move, how little air - and such air! - he can breathe, how little of civilisation he may
share and yet live, it is only necessary to travel hither. True, this is the Old Town, and the people
of Manchester emphasise the fact whenever any one mentions to them the frightful condition of
this Hell upon Earth; but what does that prove? Everything which here arouses horror and
indignation is of recent origin, belongs to the industrial epoch.
Citation:
Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (London: Swan
Sonnenschein & Co., 1892), pp. 45, 48-53.
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Industrial Revolution Primary Source
“Report on Sanitary Conditions,”
by Edwin Chadwick, 1842
Description of Source: Edwin Chadwick (1800-1890) had taken an active part in the reform of the
Poor Law and in factory legislation before he became secretary to a commission investigating
sanitary conditions and means of improving them. The Commission's report, of which the summary
is given below, is the third of the great reports of this epoch. The following material comes from
Report...from the Poor Law Commissioners on an Inquiry into the Sanitary Conditions of the
Labouring Population of Great Britain [online source]. London, 1842, pp. 369-372.
Primary Source Excerpts:
After as careful an examination of the evidence collected as I have been enabled to make, I beg
leave to recapitulate the chief conclusions which that evidence appears to me to establish.
First, as to the extent and operation of the evils which are the subject of this inquiry: —
That the various forms of epidemic, endemic, and other disease caused, or aggravated, or
propagated chiefly amongst the labouring classes by atmospheric impurities produced by
decomposing animal and vegetable substances, by damp and filth, and close and overcrowded
dwellings prevail amongst the population in every part of the kingdom, whether dwelling in
separate houses, in rural villages, in small towns, in the larger towns — as they have been found
to prevail in the lowest districts of the metropolis.
Contaminated London drinking water containing various micro-organisms, refuse, and the like.
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That the formation of all habits of cleanliness is obstructed by defective supplies of water.
That the annual loss of life from filth and bad ventilation are greater than the loss from death or
wounds in any wars in which the country has been engaged in modern times.
That of the 43,000 cases of widowhood, and 112,000 cases of destitute orphanage relieved from
the poor's rates in England and Wales alone, it appears that the greatest proportion of deaths of
the heads of families occurred from the above specified and other removable causes; that their
ages were under 45 years; that is to say, 13 years below the natural probabilities of life as shown
by the experience of the whole population of Sweden.
That the public loss from the premature deaths of the heads of families is greater than can be
represented by any enumeration of the pecuniary burdens consequent upon their sickness and
death.
That these habits lead to the abandonment of all the conveniences and decencies of life, and
especially lead to the overcrowding of their homes, which is destructive to the morality as well
as the health of large classes of both sexes.
That defective town cleansing fosters habits of the most abject degradation and tends to the
demoralization of large numbers of human beings, who subsist by means of what they find
amidst the noxious filth accumulated in neglected streets and bye-places.
Secondly. As to the means by which the present sanitary condition of the labouring classes may
be improved:-The primary and most important measures, and at the same time the most practicable, and within
the recognized province of public administration, are drainage, the removal of all refuse of
habitations, streets, and roads, and the improvement of the supplies of water.
That for all these purposes, as well as for domestic use, better supplies of water are absolutely
necessary.
That appropriate scientific arrangements for public drainage would afford important facilities for
private land-drainage, which is important for the health as well as sustenance of the labouring
classes.
That for the prevention of the disease occasioned by defective ventilation and other causes of
impurity in places of work and other places where large numbers are assembled, and for the
general promotion of the means necessary to prevent disease, that it would be good economy to
appoint a district medical officer independent of private practice, and with the securities of
special qualifications and responsibilities to initiate sanitary measures and reclaim the execution
of the law.
17
And that the removal of noxious physical circumstances, and the promotion of civic, household,
and personal cleanliness, are necessary to the improvement of the moral condition of the
population; for that sound morality and refinement in manners and health are not long found coexistent with filthy habits amongst any class of the community.
Citation:
Chadwick, Edwin. Report...from the Poor Law Commissioners on an Inquiry into the Sanitary
Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain [online source]. London, 1842, pp. 369372.