British history: 1750 - 1900


 

Quotations - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Agriculture, 1750 - 1870

Squires and labourers

Britain was still a country of villages and farms in 1750 ...

Improved farming methods

Enclosures made more money for landlords and tenants ...

Good times and bad

The years after 1750 were a time of high profits for farmers and good rents for landlords ...

Trade and Empire in the Eighteenth Century

Quotations: Adam Smith

,,Nicht von dem Wohlwollen des Fleischers, Brauers oder Bäckers erwarten wir unsere Mahlzeit, sondern von ihrer Bedachtnahme auf ihr eigenes Interesse ..."

Adam Smith - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Problems with trade: mercantilism, free trade and protection

Britain's large empire helped her to become wealthier through trade ...

Mercantilism, free trade and protection - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Eighteenth-century trade

By 1750 Britain was the world´s leading trading nation ...

India in the eighteenth century

India's ruler was the Mughal emperor in Delhi ...

The loss of the American colonies

Most of the east coast of North America was British in 1750 ...

Captain James Cook

James Cook was the most famous sea captain of the 18th century ...

The killing of a god

The old sailor blew smoke into the warm air ...

The Industrial Revolution - Iron, Steam and Coal

The Industrial Revolution: Iron, Steam and Coal - PowerPoint-Präsentation

The Industrial Revolution

Between 1750 and 1900 Britain went through a huge change in how and where men and women worked and lived ...

Im Rausch der Maschinen

Wer um die Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts etwas auf sich hielt im alten Europa, ließ sich von der dreißigstündigen Fahrt über den Kanal nicht abschrecken und nahm eine Bildungssreise nach England in sein Programm ...

The iron industry

Iron ore has to be heated (or smelted) to extract the iron ...

Steam engines

The most important of the iron machines was the steam engine ...

Coal-mining

Ironworks and steam engines needed coal ...

Changes in power - PowerPoint-Präsentation

The Industrial Revolution - Textiles

The Industrial Revolution: Textiles - PowerPoint-Präsentation

From cottage to mill

Since the Middle Ages, making woollen cloth had been England´s main industry ...

"King cotton"

Cotton mills spread through Lancashire in the first years of the nineteenth century ...

Factory children

Mill owners said that they had to keep their prices down ...

The workshop of the world

In the middle of the 18th century the population in Britain started to grow very quickly, so far more people needed food, clothes and houses ...

Quotations

The division of workers in cotton mills in 1835 - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Canals and roads

Colliers and barges

As industries grew, more heavy loads of iron and coal had to be moved from place to place ...

Canal mania

After 1770, canals began to snake their way through much of England ...

Travelling by water

A relaxing way to see the countryside is by water ...

Turnpikes and stage coaches

Canals were built partly because the roads were so bad ...

Railways and Ships

The first railways

Before the year 1700, trucks ran on wooden rails in the Cornish tin mines ...

The railway age

After 1830, there was a rush to build railways ...

Sailing ships and steamships

The first boats with engines were paddle-steamers ...

Britain and the French Revolution

Guillotines in London?

In the eighteenth century, the king of France was the real ruler of his country ...

The threat of invasion

In 1793, France was at war with most of the countries of western Europe ...

Napoleon and Wellington

Between 1805 and 1807, Napoleon´s armies again crushed the great powers - Austria, Prussia, and Russia ...

The Reform of Parliament

Rule by property-owners

In the eighteenth century, Britain was ruled by its great landowners ...

The 1832 Reform Act

The radicals were just a small group ...

Rule by the people

Not everyone was happy with the Reform Act ...

The Move to the Towns

The growth of population

The first census (official count of people) in Britain took place in 1801 ...

Towns and cities

With the spread of industry, Britain's towns and cities got bigger ...

Health in the towns

Before 1830, the government did not think that the state of the towns was its business ...

Making Ends Meet

The standard of living - the evidence

The 'standard of living' of a family depended on how much money came in and how high the prices were ...

The rising standard of living

Working people's standard of living rose between 1750 and 1793 ...

The Poor Law

Before 1900 there were no old-age pensions or free health service in Britain ...

Free Trade

Tariffs and Corn Laws

All governments need to collect taxes ...

The "workshop of the world"

By 1860 there were hardly any tariffs left, and free trade was almost complete ...

The Great Exhibition

It was Prince Albert's idea to hold a festival of arts and science in London, and he played an important part in the planning ...

The End of British Prosperity?

The decline of agriculture

A quarter of all British men were farm workers in 1850 ...

Good news and bad

Low food prices were good news for most workers ...

Why did Britain lose her lead?

Britain had been the world's leader in industry and trade ...

Working Class Movements

From Luddites to Chartists

The British working class did not care about revolutions ...

Early trade unions

The first trade unions were set up between 1700 and 1750 ...

"New unions"

The unions of the 1840s were small, and most of them did not last long ...

The British Empire in the Nineteenth Century

India in the nineteenth century

The East India Company was a company with an empire ...

The dominions

Britain did not treat her white subjects overseas in the same way as her black and Asian ones ...

Empire-building

The trade in black slaves made some English merchants rich in the eighteenth century ...

Empire and industry

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Britain itself was peaceful ...

Empire and industry - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Education

Public schools and private schools

Most of the great 'public' schools of England took boarders and charged fees ...

Public money for schools

The biggest problem about schooling for the poor was money - the cost of teachers, books, etc ...

Board schools

An act passed in 1870 started a state system of schooling in England and Wales ...

Arts and Leisure

Architecture and painting

Only the rich can afford to hire architects ...

William Blake: The Ancient of Days, 1794 - PowerPoint-Präsentation

William Turner: Chichester Canal, 1828 - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Fashion

In clothes, also, fashions were set by the rich ...

William Wordsworth: Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

Earth has not anything to show more fair: ...

William Wordsworth: I wandered lonely as a cloud (1807)

I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er vales and hills ...

Jane Austen

Jane Austen spent her short life in Hampshire, near the south coast of England ...

Jane Austen: Emma (1815) - Grade 1

Emma Woodhouse was pretty, clever and rich ...

Jane Austen: Emma (1815)

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence ...

Jane Austen: Emma: Introduction

Pretty, rich young Emma Woodhouse is very pleased with herself when her closest friend, Miss Taylor, marries Mr Weston ...

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was probably the most popular novelist in the English language in the nineteenth century ...

Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist (1838) - Grade 2

One cold day, a young woman walked into a small country town ...

Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist: Introduction

Poor Oliver! He has no mother or father. He has no good friends ...

Charles Dickens: Ein Weihnachtslied in Prosa (1843)

Marley war tot; damit wollen wir anfangen. Darüber gibt's nicht den leisesten Zweifel ...

Charles Dickens: Hard Times (1854)

"Now, what I want is, Facts ..."

Charles Dickens - PowerPoint-Präsentation

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë

The Brontë sisters were exceptional writers of poetry as well as fiction ...

Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights (1847) - Grade 5

Before I came to live here at Thrushcross Grange, I, Ellen Dean, was nearly always at Wuthering Heights ...

Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights (1847)

1801. - I have just returned from a visit to my landlord - the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with ...

Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights: Introduction

Late one evening, Mr Earnshaw returns to his moorland home, Wuthering Heights ...

Emily Brontë: Die Sturmhöhe (1847)

1801. Ich bin gerade von einem Besuch bei meinem Gutsherrn zurückgekehrt - diesem einsamen Nachbarn, der mir zu schaffen machen wird ...

Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre (1847) - Grade 1

My name is Jane Eyre. When I was very small, my father and mother died, and I was alone ...

Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre: Introduction

Jane Eyre does not have an easy life. Her mother and father die when she is just a small child ...

William Gilbert: The Sacristan of St Botolph

Master Walter De Courcey, although an indefatigable man of business, was extremely punctual in his religious observances ...

Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland (1865)

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do ...

Robert Louis Stevenson: Treasure Island (1883) - Grade 1

My name is Jim Hawkins. When I was a boy, I lived with my mother and father in an inn called the Admiral Benbow ...

Robert Louis Stevenson: Treasure Island (1885): Introduction

Jim Hawkins lives at an inn with his mother and father ...

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy was a poet and a novelist. He wrote about the English countryside ...

Thomas Hardy: A Mere Interlude (1885)

The traveller in school-books, who vouched in driest tones for the fidelity to fact of the following narrative ...

Oscar Wilde: The Canterville Ghost (1887) - Stage 2

When Hiram B. Otis, the American businessman, bought the house called Canterville Chase ...

Oscar Wilde: The Canterville Ghost (1887)

When Mr. Hiram B. Otis, the American Minister, bought Canterville Chase, every one told him he was doing a very foolish thing, as there was no doubt at all that the place was haunted ...

Oscar Wilde: The Canterville Ghost: Summary 1

There has been a ghost in the house for three hundred years, and Lord Canterville's family have had enough of it ...

Oscar Wilde: The Canterville Ghost: Summary 2

Most grand old houses have a family ghost of some kind ...

Rudyard Kipling: The Jungle Book (1894) - Grade 2

One warm evening Father Wolf woke from his day's rest. Mother Wolf lay beside her four babies ...

Rudyard Kipling: The Jungle Book - Introduction

"I have never seen a man's cub," said Mother Wolf. "Bring him here ...

Rudyard Kipling: Just So Stories - Grade 1

Long, long ago, my dear, when the world was young, there was a very big and very hungry whale ...

Rudyard Kipling: Just So Stories: Introduction

At the beginning of time, the animals were quite different from the ones we see today ...

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Silver Blaze (1894)

"I´m afraid, Watson, that I shall have to go," said Holmes, as we sat down together to our breakfast one morning ...

Sport and entertainment

To the upper classes, 'sport' meant killing birds and animals - shooting and fox-hunting ...

Harrods

Department stores are found in all big cities ...

Religion

The Church of England

In 1750, the great majority of people in Britain were Christians ...

The Methodists

John Wesley was a Church of England parson and a great preacher ...

The Churches and reform

Between 1750 and 1900, trade and industry made Britain rich and strong ...

The factory in a garden

Many people came to the new cities for work ...

The National Trust

The National Trust is a charity set up in 1895 to preserve places of historic interest and natural beauty in Britain ...