From 1750-1900 British towns changed rapidly and it was a change for the better

The first 200 words of this essay...

From 1750-1900 British towns changed rapidly and it was a change for the better

In 1750 only 20% of Britain's population lived in towns. This was because the other 80% were farmers who lived in small villages and supported themselves, as each farmer had their own strip of land to farm, this was called 'the open-field system' but as the population grew more food was needed to feed the extra people and so 'the enclosure system' was developed, this meant that less farmers were needed as the new larger fields opened up opportunity for new modern machinery. This meant the growing population were looking for jobs other than farming. By 1830 50% of the population lived in towns.

Because of the now much larger population, more products were needed to clothe them, feed them etc and because so many more people were living in towns, new factories began to emerge, initially it was wool mills which replaced the old system of people spinning their own wool and then weaving it themselves, now it was all mass produced in the factories by machines. In 1750 they had man-powered pulley system lifts to carry people into the mines