Like Peter Gaskell, Richard Guest, one of the earliest historians of the English textile industry, believed that industrialization had produced “great changes in the manners and the habits of the people.” Unlike Gaskell, however, Guest was convinced that this change had been for the better. Where Gaskell saw moral decline, Guest saw moral awakening. The very concentration of populations in industrial towns that Gaskell associated with vice and ill health, Guest saw as key to workers’ elevation to a new and more active role in the life of the nation. As you read Guest’s account of the changes that came to Lancashire during the early decades of the industrial revolution, keep Gaskell’s very different assessment in mind. On what did the two men agree? On what did they differ? Why?

The population of Lancashire, before the introduction of the Cotton Manufacture, was chiefly agricultural. In those days, the Squire was the feudal Lord of the neighbourhood, and his residence, or the Hall, as it was called, was looked upon in the light of a palace. He was the dictator of opinion, the regulator of parish affairs, and the exclusive settler of all disputes. On holidays the rustics were invited to the Hall, where they wrestled, ran races, played at quoits and drank ale. An invitation to the Hall was a certificate of good character; not to be invited along with his neighbours was a reproach to a man, because no one was uninvited unless he had been guilty of some impropriety. The Clergyman had scarcely less influence than the Squire, his sacred character and his superior attainments gave him great authority. . . . He never met the elders of his flock without the kindest enquiries after the welfare of their families, and, as his reproof was dreaded, so his commendation was sought, by young and old.

Incontinence in man or woman was esteemed a heinous offence, and neglecting or refusing to pay a just debt was scarcely ever heard of. Twice at Church on Sundays, a strict observance of fast days, and a regular reading of the Scripture every Sunday evening, at which the youngsters, after putting off their best clothes, were always present, were uniform and established customs. The events of the neighbour-hood flowed in a regular, unbroken train; politics were a field little entered into, and the histories of each other’s families, including cousins five times removed, with marriages, births, deaths, etc., formed the almost only subjects of their conversations.

The Farmer was content to take on trust the old modes of husbandry and management practised by his forefathers for generations; and new improvements were received, or rather viewed, with dislike and contempt. There was little fluctuation in prices, little competition between individuals, and the mind became contracted from the general stagnation and its being so seldom roused to exertion. Men being mostly employed alone, and having few but their own families to converse with, had not their understandings rubbed bright by contact and an interchange of ideas; they witnessed a monotonous scene of life which communicated a corresponding dullness and mechanical action to their minds. The greatest varieties of scene which they witnessed were the market day of the village, and the attendance at Church on the Sabbath; and the summum bonum of their lives was to sit vacant and inactive in each other’s houses, to sun themselves in the marketplace, or to talk over news at that great mart of village gossip, the blacksmith’s shop. . . .

The progress of the Cotton Manufacture introduced great changes into the manners and habits of the people. The operative workmen being thrown together in great numbers, had their faculties sharpened and improved by constant communication. Conversation wandered over a variety of topics not before essayed; the questions of Peace and War, which interested them importantly, inasmuch as they might produce a rise or fall of wages, became highly interesting, and this brought them into the vast field of politics and discussions on the character of their Government, and the men who composed it. They took a greater interest in the defeats and victories of their country’s arms, and from being only a few degrees above their cattle in the scale of intellect, they became Political Citizens. . . .

The facility with which the Weavers changed their masters, the constant effort to find out and obtain the largest remuneration for their labour, the excitement to ingenuity which the higher wages for fine manufactures and skilful workmanship produced, and a conviction that they depended mainly on their own exertions, produced in them that invaluable feeling, a spirit of freedom and independence, and that guarantee for good conduct and improvement of manners, a consciousness of the value of character and of their own weight and importance.

The practical truth of these remarks must be obvious to every one who had served on the Jury at Lancaster, and compared the bright, penetrating shrewd and intelligent Jurors from the south of the county, with the stupidity and utter ignorance of those from its northern parts; and to every one who witnessed the fervour and enthusiasm with which the people in the manufacturing districts flew to arms, in 1803, to defend their firesides against a foreign invader. What crowding to the drills; what ardour and alacrity to learn the use of arms there then was, and how much stronger and more rapid the feeling of independence, both national and individual, is found among the highly-civilized dense manufacturing population, than among a scattered, half-informed Peasantry!

The amusements of the people have changed with their character. Athletic exercises of Quoits, Wrestling, Foot-ball, Prison-bars and Shooting with the Long-bow, are become obsolete and almost forgotten; and it is to be regretted that the present pursuits and pleasures of the labouring class are of a more effeminate cast. They are now Pigeon-fanciers, Canary-breeders and Tulip-growers.

The field sports, too, have assumed a less hardy and enterprising character. Instead of the Squire with his merry harriers and a score or two of ruddy, broad-chested yeomen, scouring the fields on foot, heedless of thorn or brier, and scorning to turn aside for copse or ditch, we see half a dozen Fustian Masters and Shopkeepers, with three or four greyhounds and as many beagles, attacking the poor Hare with such a superiority, both as respects scent and fleetness, as to give her no chance of escape, and pouncing on their game like poachers, rather than pursuing it with the fairness and hardihood of hunters.

Source: E. Royston Pike, Human Documents of the Industrial Revolution in Britain (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1970), pp. 26–28.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER