How far did the industrial revolution adversely affect the lives of people in Britain?
Industrialisation transformed 19th century Britain from a predominantly agricultural to an industrialised and mechanised nation; this ‘workshop of the world’ resulted in the landscape changing with large numbers of factories and migration to vastly populated urban towns and cities. However, in the sense of defining ‘adversely’ as preventing the success or development of individuals in Britain, whilst for the working classes working conditions arguably adversely affected the lives of people in Britain through employers to place profit over workers’ interests allowing gender economic inequality to persist whilst living standards decline due to excessive strain on infrastructure, the industrial revolution arguably improved the lives of people in Britain. This is because it provided opportunities for self-made men of commerce to become economically successful through free-trade; this granted them the wealth to afford affluent and luxurious properties. Therefore, the industrial revolution did not adversely affect, but rather improved, the lives of people in Britain.
The emergence of the industrial middle class was the most significant feature of industrialisation; this is because it improved the lives of people in Britain by complicating a land-centred stratification that used land ownership to determine economic position; this therefore provided an alternative means of progressing in society through employment. This was significant in economically improving the lives of people in Britain by providing the opportunity for the ‘willing and motivated’ to pioneer economic development on a large scale; this consisted of self-made men of commerce who earnt their wealth from trades profiting from industrialisation’s expanding markets, and sought to apply the principle of economist Adam Smith’s ‘An Enquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations’ free trade; using profiteering to dominate the market alongside competitors. This was reflected by individuals such as Richard Arkwright; described as ‘truly revolutionary’ by columnist A.N Wilson, his creation of a water frame intervention that harnessed the power of water to spin yarn was primarily significant as its economic success enabled him to build a cotton mill on purchased land in Derbyshire’s Cromford, employing 300 workers; this extended further the north of England, building further mills powered by his water frame. Such an invention enabled Arkwright to end his life in 1792 with £500,000 and a knighthood bestowed in 1786; this was significant as it not only reflected a departure from his working class background, of where he previously could not afford education, to embody the self-made and commercially minded middle classes, but also represented the opportunities for huge wealth to be created within the dynamic environment that industrialisation promoted. Overall, the emergence of the middle classes was the most significant factor that reflected how industrialisation economically improved the lives of people in Britain; by providing the opportunity for self-made men of commerce to pioneer wealth from application of Smith’s free-trade to large-scale economic development, this was responsible for the emergence of an affluent and wealthy class founded upon newfound economic success therefore industrialisation did not economically adversely affect the lives of people in Britain. In order to provide a counter-argument to the question, other paragraphs could also include living conditions and working conditions within Victorian Britain.
