 The Standard of Life of the Workers in England. 1790–1830T. S. Ashton The Journal of Economic History, 1949, vol. 9, issue S1, 19-38 Abstract: What happened to the standard of life of the British working classes in the late decades of the eighteenth and the early decades of the nineteenth centuries ? Was the introduction of the factory system beneficial or harmful in its effect on the workers? These, though related, are distinct questions. For it is possible that employment in factories conduced to an increase of real wages but that the tendency was more than offset by other influences, such as the rapid increase of population, the immigration of Irishmen, the destruction of wealth by long years of warfare, ill-devised tariffs, and misconceived measures for the relief of distress. Both questions have a bearing on some political and economic disputes of our own day, and this makes it difficult to consider them with complete objectivity. An American scholar (so it is said) once produced a book entitled An Impartial History of the Civil War: From the Southern Point of View. If I seek to emulate his impartiality I ought also to strive to equal his candor. Let me confess, therefore, at the start that I am of those who believe that, all in all, conditions of labor were becoming better, at least after 1820, and that the spread of the factory played a not inconsiderable part in the improvement. Date: 1949 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:jechis:v:9:y:1949:i:s1:p:19-38_06 Access Statistics for this article More articles in The Journal of Economic History from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK. |
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