Work, trades and professions

For the working class, a range of new work opportunities arose. Between the censuses of 1851 and 1871, the number of persons employed in domestic service increased from 900,000 to 1,500,000. This in turn reflected another important change, the rise of the professional 'middle' class. In the same period, the number of professional workers rose from 272,000 to 684,000 and continued to rise steadily. These were the teachers, ministers, engineers, industrial designers, accountants, lawyers, borough and county officials, army and navy officers, clerks, factory managers – a largely urban group, living in bigger terraced houses or separate 'villas', and employing at the very least a cook and a parlour-maid.

The education gap

Within this great burgeoning of population, industry, activity and national wealth, there was a hidden flaw. England, which had produced the steam engine and Brunei's iron ship, and which had nurtured the intellectual explosions caused by the science of geology and – in 1859 – of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, the England that was among the most literate countries in the world, was falling behind in a crucial field. Education was not something that government considered to be among its responsibilities. It was not in the English tradition for a government to compel parents to send their children to school, or to set standards of attainment either in the old subjects or the new ones.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

While more centralized regimes in Europe and Russia established technical universities and national qualification systems, the English way was to allow things to happen through a mixture of individual initiatives and the gradually evolving practices of different crafts. This remains the case in medicine even today Engineers in England began as apprentices, either 'premium' ones whose fathers paid for them to enter the business, or ordinary apprentices who were paid a tiny amount. They learned on the shop floor. The Institution of Civil Engineers, founded in 1818, and that of Mechanical Engineers, in 1848, did not at first set out national standards. The universities, old and new, were more concerned with the humanities, law and divinity than with the sciences and technology, unlike those of the United States, where professors taught commerce, science and technology. In the later decades of the nineteenth century, it was increasingly evident that England was ceasing to be the prime nursery of new technology. If inspiration and application were what got the 'Industrial Revolution' going, technical education was vital in order to maintain it. But technical education in England lagged behind that of other industrialised countries, and as a result the engineer and technician never gained the social respect accorded to doctors and lawyers.

The chartist movement and the anti-corn law league

In 1837, the leaders of radical groups in London combined to draw up a list of six points which they considered essential to the political and social health of the nation, and framed them in a petition to the House of Commons. They were: a vote for every adult male; electoral districts of equal size; a secret ballot in elections; annual parliaments; salaries for members of parliament; and abolition of the requirement for any MP to be a property owner. Five of these eventually became law and are seen as basic aspects of modern democracy; and most people will feel grateful to be spared an annual parliamentary election. In 1837, however, they met entrenched and indignant opposition. In 1838 the six points were formed into‘the People's Charter', and the Chartist movement received its name. Hundreds of local Chartist groups were formed, and hopes were high for a time. As in 1819, a Whig government set out to clamp down, using every means at its disposal, including infiltrators and paid informants. Chartism comprised a great number of disparate interest groups, all of whom subscribed to the six principles but whose further agendas, and methods of achieving them, ranged from the wholly legal to violence and assassination. The popular strength of Chartism is seen in the fact that the original petition, when presented in its massive entirety to parliament in 1839, was signed by 3,317,702 persons. The original leaders were overshadowed by a fiery orator from Ireland, Feargus O'Connor, who was neither an organiser nor a conspirator, and while Chartism remained a prime aspiration among the radical-minded, the heady hopes of 1838 were blown away by the abortive affray at Newport, Monmouthshire, anticipated and stamped out by the authorities in 1839. After that, despite strikes and demonstrations in different English cities, Chartism was wrecked. A second petition was rejected by parliament in 1842 and strikes in Staffordshire and Lancashire led to riots and disorder. While hardship bit deeply into the lives of the English, the government formed by Peel itself resigned – on the young Queen Victoria's refusal to admit some grand Tory dames to the exclusive, influential and wholly Whig circle of Women of the Bedchamber. For two years Melbourne returned to lead a doddering ministry that could not cope with Chartist and anti-Corn Law protest. The Anti-Corn Law League had grown very quickly from its foundation in 1838. Although cheaper corn prices were its great proclaimed aim, in fact it was a free trade movement supported by manufacturing interests, chiefly the cotton makers of Lancashire. Its leaders, John Bright and Richard Cobden, both emerged from the factory owners, and their 'liberal' radicalism which encompassed free trade had little to do with the popular radicalism of the Chartists.

The 'May 2nd Fenny Black' - the first known posting of any stamp in the world

The backers of the League had little interest in industrial reform; the freedom they wanted was manufacturers' freedom from government controls and tariffs. It has been described as the first important middle-class movement in politics, though its impact was largely confined to the textile-producing districts in the north, and it was identified in particular with the city of Manchester. In 1841 a general election returned Peel and the Conservatives with a majority of ninety.