The State of Britain in 1815

The State of Britain in 1815

After the end of the Napoleonic wars between France and England, which

had lasted about a quarter of a century, England was the most powerful

country in the world. This had come about because of many changes

throughout Britain in Industry, Agriculture, Society, and Politics and

also because of International incidents. The culmination of all these

changes was that Britain had changed dramatically and had become a

much more 'modern' state. In this essay I will be exploring the

changes and what effects they had.

From about 1750 the Industrial Revolution had begun in Britain, this

was the transition from an essentially land based economy to an

industrial one with high levels of services industries and

manufacturing. This had been brought about by technological

improvements especially in the metal, coal and textiles industries,

some of the improvements included advances in loom technology, such as

Cartwright's power loom. Also there were advances in the use of blast

furnaces and the invention of the steam engine. All these advances

brought about quicker and better ways to produce the goods in the

industries, so many more goods were made, and the economy prospered.

The war with France had also created a need for these goods and so

more workers were needed to make the goods. These situations created

many jobs, and farm workers flocked from rural areas to new industrial

towns, which grew rapidly, this was urbanisation. As industries grew

and grew, Britain's trade flourished and many imports were brought

into Britain. But after the war with France there was less demand for

goods and this caused economic reces...

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...n in the world. Britain also had

to get involved occasionally to further her trading interests, as at

the time Europe was the biggest buyer of Britain's exports. Britain

also had to protect its political interests, supporting liberalism and

nationalism, which meant it, got into disagreements with autocratic

governments like Austro-Hungary and Russia.

Britain also became involved in the scramble for the colonisation of

Africa, which later added to Britain having the biggest empire the

world had ever seen.

So in 1815 Britain had begun to go through a period of change,

especially the industrial revolution which was to change Britain

totally and affected Britain's society, politics and international

situation.