The Industrial Revolution occurred from the 18th to the 20th century, whereby rural and urban communities experienced significant changes, with each influencing the other, due to their interdependence. This article will focus on how the Industrial Revolution, particularly the introduction of steam power, transformed rural life and contributed to the highly urbanised United Kingdom of the present day.
Significant urban expansion occurred from the 1770s onward, due to increased industrial activity, thereby bringing significant changes to cities and rural areas. The enclosure system had a considerable impact on rural depopulation, but this trend accelerated further with the discovery and exploitation of coal in the Midlands and northern England. This was because mining was more lucrative than farming, prompting landowners to shift to it. As a result of mechanised methods of farming, agricultural jobs declined, and small mining villages expanded, ultimately resulting in small pockets of urbanisation. Towns arose out of small mining communities and the Industrial Revolution advanced.
Urbanisation was further driven by the introduction of steam power in the late 18th century, which made coal mining more productive through improved ventilation and water pumping. From the 1820s, steam locomotives and railroads connected mines to cities and ports, such as London, Manchester, and Liverpool; indeed, towns grew as employment opportunities increased, but the distinction between rural and urban populations remained, despite the increasing interdependence.
As rural areas transformed, cities grew exponentially at the cost of poor living conditions for the urban proletariat. Manchester was the inspiration for Friedrich Engels’ critique of the Industrial Revolution in The Condition of the Working Class in England. In this book Engels argued that industrial workers faced worse economic circumstances than their agrarian predecessors. Furthermore, industrialisation dismantled traditional rural communities, which put an end to feudal reciprocity; due to landowners switching to mining, there emerged an industrial proletariat with wage-based interactions with employers. The once-dominant paternalistic culture gave way to an economic structure defined solely by wages. In 1834, the Poor Laws replaced the Speenhamland relief system, reinforcing the capitalist notion that individuals were merely wage workers. In this context, deteriorating conditions prompted the working class to unite, in the aftermath of the (failed) 1832 Reform Act. As a result, this led to the emergence of the Chartist movement advocating for enfranchisement.
Ultimately, the impacts of the Industrial Revolution on rural and urban communities cannot be viewed in isolation; they were deeply interconnected and mutually influential twin pillars. Industry transformed rural life through coal mining and spurred urban growth, ultimately uniting the working class and reshaping social and economic systems.