This atlas draws together crucial social and economic data on England, Scotland and Wales between 1780 and 1914, and gives a clear guide to the industrial development of Great Britain during the modern period.

First published in 1986. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Economic growth was of momentous importance to the 19th century, transforming Britain into the workshop of the world and the world's first industrial nation. Synthesizing much complex research into an accessible form, the author of this work examines the nature of industrial growth and assesses the roles of the staple industries - the railways, agriculture and overseas trade. He also analyzes the causes of Britain's relative economic decline. Through narrative and student guidance sections, the work seeks to provide a thought-provoking introduction to the industrialization of Britain.

Why did slums and suburbs develop simultaneously? Did the capitalist system produce these, and were class antagonisms to blame? Why did the Victorians believe there was a housing problem, and who or what created it? What housing solutions were attempted, and how successfully? These are amongst the central questions addressed by social and urban historians in recent years, and their arguments and analyses are reviewed here. The history of housing between 1780 and 1914 encapsulates many problems associated with the transition from a largely rural to an overwhelmingly urban nation. The unprecedented pace of this transition imposed immense tensions within society, with implications for the urban environment and for local and national government. Housing is central to an understanding of the social, economic, political and cultural forces in nineteenth-century history; this book is an ideal introduction to the topic.

This is an innovative study of middle-class behaviour and property relations in English towns in Georgian and Victorian Britain. Through the lens of wills, family papers, property deeds, account books and letters, the author offers a reading of the ways in which middle-class families survived and surmounted the economic difficulties of early industrial society. He argues that these were essentially 'networked' families created and affirmed by a 'gift' network of material goods, finance, services and support, with property very much at the centre of middle-class survival strategies. His approach combines microhistorical studies of individual families with a broader analysis of the national and even international networks within which these families operated. The result is a significant contribution to the history, and to debates about the place of structural and cultural analysis in historical understanding.

This text is a wide-ranging survey of the principal economic and social aspects of the first Industrial Revolution.