Industrial Revolution: Protests & Reformers

The Luddists: 1811-1816

Peterloo Massacre: 1819

• On August 16, 1819 about 60 000 workmen, women, and children assembled to hear speeches about their discouragement and unhappiness with the increase of food prices and corn laws, and their want for parliamentary reform.

• On horseback, with drawn sabers, the military forces attacked, indiscriminately slashing and trampling members of the peaceful, unarmed crowd. The carnage was over in 10 minutes, during which 9 men and 2 women were killed, some 400–500 participants were wounded, and the crowd was completely scattered.

• They did this in fear of a commencement of another revolution just as the one that had recently occurred in France.

The "Peoples Charter"

• The Reform Bill was enacted in 1832. It eliminated depopulated constituencies and constituencies controlled by the crown and other landowners. They were transferring their representation to more populated areas such as Manchester and Birmingham.

• However, people campaigned to reform inequalities created by the Reform Bill. Some of these inequalities included;
• votes for all men instead of only men who obtained certain valued premises
• equal electoral districts
• abolition of the requirement that MP's be property owners
• Payment for MP's
• Annual general elections
• the secret ballot

Industrial

Revolution:

Protests & Reforms

The Chartists

British working-class movement for social reform that formally came into existence after the publication of The People's Charter in May 1838

Anti Corn Law League

The Anti Corn Law League was founded in Manchester on May 1839. The leaders of the league believed that industrial depression, which had begun in 1836, could be overcome only by increasing exports of British manufactures and balancing trade by increasing corn imports.

They aimed to:

• Give manufacturers more outlets for their products
• Expand employment
• Lower the prices of bread
• Make British agriculture more efficient and productive
• Expose trade and agriculture to foreign competition

• Due to the inventions of machinery, labor was done much faster and productively. The evolution of these technologies led companies to gain more money because of the amount of productivity that could be done in a short period of time. Therefore, increasing consumer demands.

• Cotton workers and textile workers became less needed because these machines were able to complete the tasks they would normally complete. This led to many factory workers being dismissed and jobless.

• Workers were underpaid and over worked. They were under paid because less of their skill was needed and they were over worked because less effort was needed to complete their demands.

• For these reasons a group formed called "The Luddites" which opposed to the idea of the development of new machinery to get their jobs done. They opposed to this idea because of how undervalued they felt and because of low wages, less work or no work.