Assess The Relationship Between Crime, Poverty And Social Protest In The Eighteenth And Early Nineteenth Centuries.

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Assess the relationship between crime, poverty and social protest in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Britain experienced massive social, economic and political transformations.

America had rebelled and after a successful war become independent; and war with France, which had experienced internal revolution that caused serious concern to the British ruling classes, lasted until 1815. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was created in 1801 (Evans 2002, 3). In 1700, with a population of approximately 5 million in England, perhaps 80% of the population lived in the countryside, with some 90% in agriculture or related employment whereas by 1801 the population had risen to 8.7 million and by 1851 to nearly 18 million with only 22% employed in agriculture (Porter 1990, 11, 207; Gardiner & Wenborne 1995, 610; Timmins 2005). The transformation of society through changes in agriculture and industrialisation led inevitably to the creation of new economic relationships and identities within society and to the destruction of old ones. Crime, poverty and social protest were significant factors in these centuries although their relationship is much debated by historians. It is certain that their relationship, as well as changing