The rapid social changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution combined with the political and intellectual legacy of the French Revolution to give rise to a number of competing ideologies, each offering a different response to the social and economic challenges of the early nineteenth century. Conservatives were committed to protecting the social status quo, pre-revolutionary political norms, and what they saw as traditional values. Liberals, by contrast, sought an end to government controls over the economy, and called for the establishment of representative political institutions grounded in written constitutions. Communists offered yet another solution—the seizure of the means and ownership of production by the working class—while Chartists sought the enfranchisement of all adult males. For all the hardships wrought by industrialization, the population of England rose dramatically in the nineteenth century. At the same time, the population of Ireland shrank from about eight million to scarcely six million during the 1840s as people fled the devastating conditions of the potato famine. ■