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How modern was Britain in the 18th century?
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Britain – Economic and Social Change in the 18th Century
In this course, Dr Lawrence Klein (University of Cambridge) discusses economic and social change in the 18th century. In the first module, we introduce the topic by considering the question "how modern was Britain in the 18th century?". After this, we look at the question "was the economy undergoing a revolution in the 18th century?". In the third module, we focus on the question "what did urbanisation mean in the 18th century?". Then, we discuss the question "was society becoming secular in the 18th century?". Finally, we turn to look at the question "was Britain a class society in the 18th century?".
How modern was Britain in the 18th century?
In this lecture, we introduce the topic by considering the question "how modern was Britain in the 18th century?". In particular, we focus on: (i) the two views of Britain as an "old regime" society and a "modern" society; (ii) the ways in which Britain can be seen as an old regime society and a modern society at the same time; (iii) the effects of the political revolutions of the 17th century on social and economic change in the 18th century; (iv) the structure of the subsequent lectures; (v) the effect of war and foreign policy in this period; (vi) the growth in the population of Britain in the long run and how this affected social and economic change in the 18th century; and (vii) the reasons why population began to increase from the middle of the 18th century.
Hello. I'm Lawrence Klein.
00:00:06I'm a retired member of the History faculty at the
00:00:08University of Cambridge,
00:00:11and I'm an emeritus fellow at Emmanuel College in Cambridge.
00:00:13The course today is about social and economic
00:00:18developments in eighteenth century Britain from seventeen
00:00:20hundred to seventeen eighty.
00:00:23And among the things we're gonna be talking about are the
00:00:25economy, what was happening in towns,
00:00:28some fundamental beliefs in society,
00:00:31and the shape of society overall.
00:00:34When I refer to our period,
00:00:37I'll be thinking of those dates seventeen hundred to seventeen eighty
00:00:39But economic and social developments don't always fit within,
00:00:43an exact date range. So occasionally
00:00:48I'll be talking about what was going on in the previous
00:00:51century and sometimes anticipating what's going on in
00:00:54the nineteenth century.
00:00:57Another thing I want to mention is that Britain, of course,
00:00:58includes England, Wales, and Scotland,
00:01:02and much of what I have to say is relevant to all three.
00:01:04However, each has its own history.
00:01:08There are different histories of the economy and religion in
00:01:10the three. So often, I'll have to confine myself to what was
00:01:14going on in England.
00:01:18Now,
00:01:20the first lecture addresses a very broad question that
00:01:21historians have considered extensively in recent decades.
00:01:24The question is,
00:01:28how modern was Britain in the eighteenth century?
00:01:29Or another way of putting that is was eighteenth century
00:01:33Britain an old regime,
00:01:36or was it a modernizing country?
00:01:38Now, by old regime
00:01:42historians are creating a picture of a society and policy
00:01:44that was basically traditional.
00:01:49And conservative,
00:01:51one that was principally shaped by its historical inheritance.
00:01:52The features that are said to define the British older regime are several.
00:01:57Its economy was fundamentally agricultural.
00:02:02Its heartland was rural. Most people worked on the land,
00:02:05society was hierarchical dominated by an aristocracy,
00:02:09who owned the land.
00:02:13The state was run by a kind of alliance of the monarch
00:02:16and the aristocracy. And in Britain, the aristocracy
00:02:20sat in the houses of parliament.
00:02:24As for culture,
00:02:28religion was overwhelmingly the main way that people thought
00:02:29about the world. And their place in it.
00:02:32Religion was organized with an established church that was
00:02:36really a part of the state, and everyone was expected to be a member.
00:02:39So there was an expectation of religious uniformity.
00:02:45So in its fundamentals,
00:02:49this picture of an old regime was, of a society that was
00:02:51rural agricultural,
00:02:56hierarchical,
00:02:58monarchical,
00:03:00and religious.
00:03:01Now, the alternate view
00:03:03is that despite some conservative features,
00:03:05some striking developments were occurring.
00:03:08So important innovations.
00:03:11In the economy, the idea is that manufacturing
00:03:14and commercial activity were expanding
00:03:18and competing with agriculture.
00:03:21In society,
00:03:23the idea is that towns and town populations were ever more
00:03:24significant and are competing with the land and the landed aristocracy.
00:03:28According to this idea,
00:03:33a middle class was beginning to rival the old aristocracy
00:03:35and challenge it with new ideas of greater equality and greater democracy.
00:03:39And in culture, the idea is a less religious and more secular
00:03:45attitude was appearing.
00:03:49So historians have often contrasted and set up a debate.
00:03:51Between an old regime model of the society and a notion of
00:03:55the society as modern.
00:04:00Historians have argued which is the more accurate picture.
00:04:04Now my view is that this is a bit of a false dichotomy.
00:04:07Because it's obvious that features of both pictures are
00:04:11truly present in eighteenth century Britain.
00:04:15In the lectures to come,
00:04:18I'll be pointing out the ways in which Britain was simultaneously
00:04:20traditional and innovative.
00:04:23Each of the lectures will address a question that part of
00:04:26the debate between continuity and change or between tradition and innovation.
00:04:30A lecture about the economy will consider whether the
00:04:35economy was undergoing a revolution.
00:04:38A lecture about towns will consider what it means to
00:04:41assert that Britain was urbanizing.
00:04:44A lecture about religion will considering whether secularization
00:04:47was going on. And finally,
00:04:51a lecture about the social order will address whether
00:04:53social classes existed.
00:04:57In other words,
00:04:59each of the following lectures will examine a feature that is
00:05:00ascribed to the process of modernization,
00:05:04industrialization,
00:05:08urbanization, secularization,
00:05:10and class.
00:05:13Now there are two other matters I want to discuss briefly in
00:05:15this first lecture. First politics and then demography.
00:05:18These lectures are not about political history,
00:05:23the political history of Britain,
00:05:26but one important generalization about politics
00:05:28is relevant. And that generalization
00:05:31is that politically things were very different in eighteenth
00:05:34century England than they had been in seventeenth,
00:05:37in the seventeenth century. In the seventeenth century, Britain,
00:05:40was marked by religious and political polarization
00:05:45by civil war and revolution.
00:05:49And the final revolution was sixteen eighty eight,
00:05:52the so called glorious revolution.
00:05:55By contrast, they eighteenth,
00:05:58the eighteenth century was much less volatile politically.
00:06:00In other words, as many historians would say,
00:06:04the eighteenth century witnessed a growth of stability
00:06:07political stability, and social stability.
00:06:10And I raise this matter because the topics I discuss about
00:06:13economic social and cultural history help us understand the
00:06:17greater stability.
00:06:21Now one problem that caused political division in the
00:06:22seventeenth century was money. And the financing of the state.
00:06:25And in the next lecture,
00:06:29I'll discuss how that problem was solved after sixteen eighty eight.
00:06:31The next lecture is about economic growth in general, and
00:06:35just, I think we could say that economic growth, growing wealth,
00:06:39helped to reduce tensions in society and politics.
00:06:42The development of towns treated in the third lecture
00:06:46helped to create new bonds among different kinds of elite in the country.
00:06:49Religion treated in the fourth lecture was pacified in the
00:06:55eighteenth century.
00:06:59Finally, as the final lecture will discuss,
00:07:01despite lots of breakdowns,
00:07:04and disturbances,
00:07:06a paternalistic and hierarchical society worked.
00:07:08There were no classes yet.
00:07:12Now, in ways I don't have time to discuss other things helped,
00:07:15the stability of Britain.
00:07:19In the period discussed in these lectures,
00:07:21Britain was very frequently at war. And broadly,
00:07:23it was successful in these wars. As a result,
00:07:27Britain developed an empire of possession and influence in
00:07:30different places over the globe.
00:07:34One central feature of that empire,
00:07:37which I will not be discussing at any length,
00:07:40was the institution of slavery.
00:07:43It's important to remember and reflect on the fact that the
00:07:46successes of Britain internally and externally owed much to enslavement
00:07:49with its odious realities.
00:07:55Now before proceeding,
00:07:57it'll be useful to say something about demography.
00:07:59That is the history of population.
00:08:02Taking a long view,
00:08:06we can see that the population of Britain was growing in the
00:08:07sixteenth and seventeenth century until the middle of the
00:08:09seventeenth century. Then a population crisis occurred.
00:08:13By population crisis,
00:08:17we're referring to the fact that population had grown to
00:08:18the extent that it was pressing hard on the resources people
00:08:22need to stay alive.
00:08:26The result was that population stopped growing. Indeed,
00:08:28it's always seemed to me remarkable. That for about a
00:08:34century, from sixteen fifty to seventeen fifty, the population
00:08:37of Britain fairly constant at about six million people.
00:08:42But this is the same time when the economy began to grow noticeably.
00:08:47A static population with a growing economy and therefore
00:08:52more wealth is in a pretty good position.
00:08:56I mean, in short, in that century,
00:08:59there the conditions for people in general were benign.
00:09:03People had more resources.
00:09:07Now obviously the affluent had more disposable income,
00:09:10which they spent on houses, on interiors,
00:09:13on entertainment,
00:09:17on urban improvement.
00:09:18But I would say that even the poor were better situated in
00:09:20that they were for a while, were less at risk. From the
00:09:23dangers of poverty.
00:09:27However, by the middle of the eighteenth century,
00:09:29seventeen fifty on, things were changing again.
00:09:32The population started rising at an increasing rate.
00:09:35Three seventeen eighty eight, and for several decades,
00:09:38beyond that, By eighteen hundred,
00:09:41the population of England and Wales, was nearly nine million,
00:09:44and the Scott Scotland added another million and a half to
00:09:48that. Why did population increase in this way?
00:09:52One reason was that people in general were living a bit more
00:09:55longer and perhaps a reflection of growing wealth.
00:09:59But the only thing that's very interesting is they are having
00:10:02more children. And we know why they were having more children.
00:10:05They were marrying younger.
00:10:09In the seventeenth century,
00:10:11people often married most generally in their later twenties.
00:10:12By the later eighteenth century,
00:10:17the tendency was for them to marry a couple two or three
00:10:18years younger than they had in the seventeenth century.
00:10:22This means that marriages lasted longer.
00:10:25There was more time within them to have babies.
00:10:28Now I'll discuss We might be asking then why were people
00:10:32marrying younger?
00:10:36And that's something I'll address briefly when we come to
00:10:37a lecture about towns.
00:10:40So the big picture about population,
00:10:42in the eighteenth century,
00:10:46is that in the first part of the eighteenth century,
00:10:47population growth was not putting much pressure on
00:10:49economic resources.
00:10:53But, in the later part of the century,
00:10:55population pressure was more intense on those resources and
00:10:58conditions of the poor, got worse.
00:11:02However, there's one other thing to say in,
00:11:06to finish this lecture.
00:11:09In the decades after seventeen eighty,
00:11:10something became clear that was indeed remarkable.
00:11:13It's true that the population growth was putting pressure on
00:11:16resources, but the economy had become productive enough that a
00:11:20population crisis was avoided.
00:11:25Perhaps in the first time in human history,
00:11:28the population could continue to grow seemingly, indefinitely,
00:11:30without a crisis in which hunger and disease stopped
00:11:35population growth.
00:11:38This was a revolutionary development and an undeniable
00:11:40sign of modernization.
00:11:45
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Klein, L. (2023, November 20). Britain – Economic and Social Change in the 18th Century - How modern was Britain in the 18th century? [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/britain-economic-and-social-change-in-the-18th-century
MLA style
Klein, L. "Britain – Economic and Social Change in the 18th Century – How modern was Britain in the 18th century?." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 20 Nov 2023, https://massolit.io/courses/britain-economic-and-social-change-in-the-18th-century