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Unit 22: The Nineteenth Century (Reflection of Changes in the English Society Due to Industrial Revolution in the .........

meant that they made less money for working longer hours. Add to this the higher living expenses Notes
due to urbanization and one can easily see that many families’ resources would be extremely
stretched.

22.1 Women and Child Labour

As a result, women and children were sent out to work, making up 75% of early workers. Families
were forced to do this, since they desperately needed money, while factory owners were happy to
employ women and children for a number of reasons. First of all, they could be paid very little,
and children could be controlled more easily than adults, generally through violent beatings.
Children also had smaller hands, which were often needed to reach in among the parts of a
machine. Furthermore, employers found that children were more malleable and adapted to the
new methods much better than adults did. Children were also sent to work in mines, being small
enough to get more coal and ore from the deep and very often unsafe pits. They could also be
forced to work as long as eighteen hours each day. For these reasons, children as young as eight
years old were sent to factories—usually those which manufactured textiles—where they became
part of a growing and profitable business.

22.2 Growth and Profit
This unprecedented growth and profit was another social change that occurred during the Industrial
Revolution. The laissez-faire approach taken by the government—and advocated by philosopher-
economist Adam Smith—allowed capitalism to flourish. There were little or no government
regulations imposed upon factory policies, and this allowed the wealthy, middle-class owners to
pursue whichever path was most profitable, regardless of the safety and well being of their
workers. This relentless pursuit of money caused another important social change: the ultimate
breakdown of the family unit.
Since workers, especially women and children, were labouring for up to eighteen hours each day,
there was very little family contact, and the only time that one was at home was spent sleeping.
People also had to share housing with other families, which further contributed to the breakdown
of the family unit. As a result, children received very little education, had stunted growth, and
were sickly. They also grew up quite maladjusted, having never been taught how to behave
properly. The living conditions were indeed horrible; working families often lived in slums with
little sanitation, and infant mortality skyrocketed.

Did you know During the early Industrial Revolution, 50% of infants died before the age of two.
However, the social changes that took place were not all negative. Most classes eventually benefited
in some way from the huge profits that were being made, and by 1820 most workers were making
somewhat better wages. The “widespread poverty and constant threat of mass starvation…lessened,
[and] overall health and material conditions of the populace clearly improved”. The government,
however, did have to eventually intervene in order to put an end to child labour and other
unacceptable practices.

22.3 Transition for Rural to Aristocratic

The Pickwick Papers is set in a time prior to the Industrial Era, specifically, before the infiltration of
the railroad into the life of British society. Charles Dickens wrote the novel during the early
period of the Victorian Era. This was a time which, in contrast to the later periods, was marked by
a considerable amount of social turmoil as the nation came to terms with the transition from an
existence as an aristocratic, rural society to a rapidly-changing, confusing, urban-based, industrial
economy. The Norton Anthology of English Literature characterizes this period (1830 to 1848) as one in
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