The Lower-Class As A Result Of The Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution brought upon a drastic change to the world through a transformation in technology and resources. Contrary to the popular belief that life improved, it is undeniable that this was not the case for the lower class, who continued to have an existence filled with adversity and labour. As a result of the Industrial Revolution, Britain’s lower class was negatively impacted, creating dangerous working conditions, an increase in poverty; producing further complications along with a series of disease epidemics. According to Hub Pages (2015) The Industrial Revolution generally brought about better economic conditions for people, but the poor and working classes often suffered with grim jobs and terrible living conditions. Dissatisfaction

As factories grew in size and quantity a greater need for workers was acquired causing employers to resort to children and women. In the early 1860s, an estimated one fifth of the workers in Britain’s textile industry were under the age of 15 (History, 2015). Female and young workers were employed in unsafe conditions, operated without proper safety checks and were then exploited and treated brutally. Punishments were harsh and delivered regularly without mercy to those who failed to fulfil the high expectations. Although it is argued that the minimum age to work increased from seven to nine in 1833, this was still a ludicrously young age to begin work and only eleven years later this age reduced to eight years-old. Elizabeth Hutchins a 13 year-old girl who worked within a gang in the Industrial Revolution said “I get up at 5 o’clock. I earn 10d a day now. In November there were twenty of us carrot digging. Each child brings her own tools. My father finds [gives] me my tools. My different sizes, a muck-fork, a carrot fork, a twitch basket and a twitch rake.” Although they made up 80% of the population the lower class had little power to negotiate with their employers so they had to endure the hazardous

According to Don Nado (2009) Up until the mid-1800s, no one realized that germs cause a long list of diseases and that the unsanitary conditions were breeding grounds for germs. Likewise, poor hygiene practices stemming from the ignorance regularly contributed to epidemics both small and large. Among the worst diseases was cholera, due to this disease being carried through the contaminated drinking water, it was easy to become infected, as the symptoms included dehydration, a person would then feel the urge to drink more, making it difficult to recover as a consequence the untreated perished. In 1845 a German writer Friedrich Engels observed living conditions in a workers’ slum in the large English Industrial town of Manchester he said “In one of these courts there stands directly at the entrance, at the ends of the covered passage, a privy [toilet stall] 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…” The unhygienic manner in which they lived allowed disease to prosper and murder