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First edition published 2009
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About the author

Bob Pace was born and raised in the United States, three hundred and forty-three years after his ancestors left London for the New World. He has spent nearly all his teaching career in Britain and is presently Head of History at Belmont, Mill Hill Preparatory School. He is also the chief setter for the History Common Entrance examination.

Acknowledgements

I would like to dedicate this book to my mother, who was always a fantastic supporter of all my endeavours, and to my Aunt Mary, whose energy and love of learning has always inspired me.

Bob Pace

Notes on features in this book

You will find keywords in the book. All keywords are defined in the glossary on page 186.

Passages that look like this are quotations from historical sources. You can read the text before and after each passage to understand where the passage comes from, when it was written and who wrote it.

You will occasionally find a box containing an activity or a suggested topic for you to research. These are optional but will enrich your understanding of this historical period.

Contents

Introduction: Britain in 1750

Chapter 1   The Seven Years’ War

Further troubles for the British Empire

Build up to victory

1759: The year of victories

The fall of Quebec

The end of the war – another new colony for the British

Chapter 2   The American Rebellion and world war

The Stamp Tax

Tea and massacre

More trouble with tea

War breaks out: Lexington, Concord and Boston

Open rebellion

The Battle of Bunker Hill

Britain prepares for war

The course of the war

The turning point of the rebellion – Saratoga

The final phase, 1778–83

Defeat at Yorktown

The Peace of Paris, 1783

Could Britain have won the American War of Independence?

Chapter 3   The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars

The outbreak of the French Revolution

The long war against France

The naval war

A British sailor’s life at sea

Horatio Nelson

The Trafalgar campaign

The Battle of Trafalgar

The Duke of Wellington and the struggle against Napoleon

The Waterloo campaign

Britain at the end of the Napoleonic Wars

Chapter 4   Dissent and calls for political reform, 1815–48

The rise of protest

Actions and reactions

Calls for parliamentary change and the Reform Act of 1832

Chartism: the bitter discontent grown fierce and mad (Thomas Carlyle)

Chapter 5   The Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions

The Agricultural Revolution

The Industrial Revolution

The iron industry and Coalbrookdale

Richard Arkwright and the cotton industry

Harnessing the power of steam

The Public Health Act of 1848

Chapter 6   The transportation revolution

Turnpike trusts and stagecoaches

Canals: ‘the most extraordinary thing in the kingdom’

Thomas Telford and the age of the civil engineer

The development of the railways

The impact and importance of the railways

Chapter 7   Social and industrial reform

The abolition of slavery

Slavery in the West Indies

The abolitionists

The campaign against the slave trade: progress and failure, 1787–93

The victory of 1807

Stagnation and a new start

Final victory

Elizabeth Fry and reform in the prisons

The New Poor Law, 1834

The Factory Acts

Chapter 8   Religious life, 1750–1914

Catholic emancipation

The Oxford Movement

John Henry Newman (1801–90)

The Rise of Methodism and the Evangelical movement

The Evangelical movement

Chapter 9   Victorian England: success, war and politics

The young Queen Victoria

Key political figures

The Great Exhibition

The legacy of the Great Exhibition

The Crimean War, 1854

Women’s suffrage

Irish Home Rule

Queen Victoria in her later years

Chapter 10 The British Empire and the road to war

India, the Jewel in the Crown

The Indian Mutiny, 1857

Empire in the late nineteenth century

The Anglo-Boer War, 1899–1902

The first stage: the Boer offensives of late 1899

The second stage: Lord Roberts and the British offensives of 1900 – Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking

The final stage: guerrilla warfare, 1900–02

Britain and the outbreak of the First World War

Appendices

Appendix 1: Timeline

Appendix 2: Family tree

Appendix 3: Willie, Willie, Harry, Ste

Glossary

Introduction: Britain in 1750

In the year 1750 London was shaken by not one but two earthquakes in two months. The historian Horace Walpole wrote at the time:

I thought somebody was getting out from under my bed, but soon found it was a strong earthquake, that lasted nearly half a minute, with a violent vibration and great roaring. I got up and found people running into the streets, but saw no mischief done.

Little did Walpole or his contemporaries know how Britain and British life were to be shaken in the next 150 years.

Great Britain in 1750 was the centre of a vigorous and expanding empire, and held colonies all over the world. British ships sailed all the oceans of the world; Britain’s merchants traded in places as far away as India, China, the West African coast, the West Indies and mainland North America.

The British navy was the key to controlling and spreading this empire. It was also the ‘wooden wall’ protecting the British Isles from its greatest enemy and rival, France.

London was the largest city in the British Isles, thriving as the Empire’s bustling trade and political centre. Edinburgh, Dublin, Nottingham, York, Bristol and Liverpool were smaller cities. Like their ancestors, most people living in Great Britain were involved in farming.

The man who sat at the top of the government that controlled Great Britain was King George II, whose family also ruled the small German state of Hanover; he inherited the throne of Britain from his father, George I, who, as the grandson of James I, was the closest living Protestant relative of Queen Anne, the previous monarch.

Political power in Britain lay with the king and his ministers, while Parliament sought to scrutinise their actions. Political groupings – such as the Tories and the Whigs – existed, but they were more informal and loosely organised than modern political parties. Only relatively wealthy men had the right to vote, and some Members of Parliament were elected because of their family connections and social position. The position of Prime Minister had recently developed to help the foreign Hanoverian kings to rule. However, the prime minister and other ministers were dependent upon the support of the king for their posts.

If a resident of Britain in 1600 could have travelled forward in time to 1750 he or she would have seen many changes, but would also have found much that was familiar in how people lived and worked. The same time traveller would be totally out of place if he or she were to visit Britain in 1900. The story of how and why Britain was to change so much in 150 years is the subject of this book.