By the early 18th century the British had become, well, very materialistic, they craved exotic goods, sugar, porcelain, fine cotton, but it was tea that particularly took their fancy. Mid-18th century people of taste liked nothing more than to sip this Oriental import sweetened with Caribbean sugar, they drank from the finest Chinese porcelain and dressed in Indian cottons including calicos and chintzes, this was the good life and everyone wanted a taste. How this dream became a reality is one of the most fascinating adventures in British history.
In the middle of the 18th century Britons made there living by one means above all, farming, as they always had done. However Britain was about to undergo the most profound social change in its history, a change that would affect and define us all. In the space of just 60 years Britain would experience a revolution, a revolution which would take the worker out of the country and into the city, out of rural economy and into urban factories. This is the story of the machines and people that for better or worse created our modern world of work.
By the middle of the 18th century the only way to get around Britain was pulled by a horse, but it wasn’t as much fun as it might look. If it had been then passengers might not have been referred to as the martyrs of the highway. There were potholes big enough to drown in, highwaymen were a constant threat and the carriages themselves were heavy and lumbering boneshakers that made passengers sick as they juddered along the road.
In the mid-18th century Britons had one overriding personal concern, their health, with good reason, average life expectancy was 36 years. People generally treated themselves based on little more than superstition, magic and hearsay. There were trained doctors but without an accurate way to diagnose or cure illness your chances were limited.
Until the Industrial Revolution battles were normally won on lost according to the training and discipline of the soldiers. After nearly 10 years of fighting the French and the British were pretty evenly matched and deadlocked. If Britain was to win it needed new tactics and new technology, it was time for a change.
During the Industrial Revolution Britain’s economy had begun to boom, to keep it booming the City of London needed a whole new set of financial machinery. The Bank of England was already in place, the Stock Exchange got going in 1773, and in 1771 Lloyds underwriters established their own premises just down the road. So the city as we know had started to emerge, and these new commercial mechanisms needed a new type of worker to operate them, these workers became the backbone of the emerging middle-class.