Transformation of the economy

 

-          promoted the first industrial and consumer-orientated society in Britain

-          British manufactured goods dominated world trade

-          Commercial, financial and political power, supremacy

-          Range and variety of products

-          Products also overstock the markets oversea

-          Mid-Victorian years change in economy and society

-          Improvement in organisation, finance of industry and commerce, skills and work practices of production and technology, urbanisation, canal, river, road and sea transport

-          Growth of population

-          Railways

-          From agriculture to industry and trade

-          Ideals of gender, ethnicity and class changed as well as ideologies and aesthetics

-          especially the cotton sector grew because of the import out of the colonies

-          however, the growth of national income remained slow, some small manufactures were more successful than large firms and also the capital market was less important than the family finance

 

 

Consumer revolution

 

-          demand for goods resulted from rising incomes and the larger number of consumers

-          a greater variety was wanted

-          china, cutlery, mirrors, books, clocks, furniture, curtains, bedding, buckles, ribbons, buttons, and so ono

-          also greater variety of food: beer, butter, bread, milk, meat, vegetables, fruit, fish, and so on; now being bought and not made/grown at home

-          social emulation: the social classes aspired the consumption of the superior class

-          advertising and department stores increased

 

 

Change in Britain

 

-          until the 1840s mainly cotton was responsible for the success

-          markets became overstocked à recession

-          growing demand from other industrialising nations

-          British manufactures extended: iron, steel and engineering

-          Capital and credit were easily available

-          Corn Laws in 1846 (prevention of the importation of foreign grains)

-          Time of isolation in agriculture used for investment and specialisation

-          Great Exhibition of 1851 marked the peak of British economic dominance

-          British products displayed in Crystal Palace in Hyde Parl

-          Slowly other countries like Germany and the United States were catching Britain up

-          Cheaper supplies of energy and raw material

-          Growth in the economy decreased from the 1870s: farming, textiles, iron and steel, engineering and several other goods

-          New industries like chemicals mainly pioneered in Germany

Source