Outline the causes of Discontent experienced by the population in the 19th Century?

Essay by chermadUniversity, Bachelor'sA-, December 2003

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In Britain during the early 19th Century, the country was going through many different changes. There was transformation occurring in Agricultural and Industrial trades. This then had consequence effect on the social standards of all the population. The dramatic change to the economical status in Britain gave rise to long and short-term problems. The traditional order of hierarchical was breaking down but the new forcing order the middle classes were not facing their responibility's of the growing population needs. There was no political enforcement to help deal with any problems. These developments were important changes but the problems that followed were not being dealt with and there was growing discontent among the people.

Firstly, the Agricultural trade all over Britain had experienced the Enclosures since the 15th Century, during the early 19th Century this movement accelerated. Enclosure was the fencing or hedging-in of large areas this affected all farmers. There self-sufficiency was then taken away from them because all the farrow, waste and common land were enclosed.

This took away grazing land for the animals, no place to cultivate and no fuel for heating and cooking. As B Hammond said "Enclosure had robbed him of the strip that he tilled, and of the cow that he kept on the village pasture."(B.Hammond, The Village Labourer, 1911.) For the cottagers and squatters their homes were being pulled down because they were built on wastelands. The Yeoman farmers had the legal right to keep their land, only if they could afford to pay for the enclosure and the hedging-in. Some sold their land; with this they changed to the industry trade and migrated to the new Towns. The others rented land or became farm labourers. The Landed gentry were the only people to gain from enclosures. According to E.P. Thompson "Enclosure (when all...