West Riding And South Lancashire example essay topic

England in the 18th century A. The Age of Walpole 1714 - 42 1- The structure of society, 1714 - 42 England in 1714 was a land of villages and towns. Its town such as it had, were on the coast. In Lancashire, the west midlands towns of same Size... were beginning to grow, but the majority of it population was still in the south and still rural. The population was probably, in 1714, about five and a half millions, and from 1714 to 1742, after an initial spurt, there was only a very small increase, but there were important changes in its distribution, East Anglia had a declining population, the west country and south and East midlands were fairly static, so was the East Riding and all of the north but west Riding, and south Lancashire, where the increase was masked, so, too, was the increase in the west midlands. Surrey and Middlesex grew with London, whose rapid expansion of the late 17th C. was maintained. These changes were due to the growth of towns and industrial villages: Manchester, Liverpool and shelli efd all ceased to be the sprawling villages they had been half a century earlier, although, as towns, they were small by modern standards, none of them reaching 50.000. small as they were they ate up men, women, and children who emigrated from the country.

The first noticeable thing about these towns would have been the stench. There was no sanitary system. The unpaved streets were narrow, all houses were overcrowded - ten to a room was common in Manchester. It was reported that often rooms were without furniture and lacking even of beds. The occupants slept close together. Disease was flourished as typhoid made death commonplace.

In the early of the century, only a born one child in four, born in London, survived. In the midst of death the people sought relief in drink, gambling and violence. Gambling was as antidote favoured by all classes of society. Violence, born of despair and greed, belonged to the poor alone. Most of the new towns were still villages. London, Bristol and Liverpool were better off.

In London, conditions varied considerably. The area controlled by the city of London was better administrated, although the social amenities were negligible. In 1730 a new system of street lighting was introduced which dispelled some of the night gloom. To the contemporaries, it was a spectacular achievement. But it semaine d practically the only one of the period Accounts of travelers, English and foreign, show London to have been dirty and harmful, lacking the common amenities, a city of violent contrast between luxury and elegance and poverty and inglincss, and above all of great disturbances.