Immigrant and Migrant Labor in the Industrial Revolution

Introduction

Millions of people moved during the Industrial Revolution. Some simply moved from a village to a town in the hope of finding work, while others moved from one country to another in search of a better way of life. The primary reason for relocating during this period was to find employment. On one hand, this involved migration from the countryside to the growing industrial cities; on the other, it involved movement from one country — in this case, Britain — to another. Poor working conditions, housing, and sanitation led many people to choose emigration. At the time, the British controlled a massive empire including America, Canada, South Africa, and Australia, and many people moved to these countries in search of a new life.

Migration was not limited to people moving out of the country; it also involved many people moving into Britain. In the 1840s, Ireland suffered a terrible famine. Faced with the massive cost of feeding a starving population, many local landowners paid for laborers to emigrate because it was cheaper than providing poor relief over a long period of time. Approximately one million of these laborers migrated to Britain. This paper examines the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution in England and explores the impact that immigrant and migrant labor played in contributing to the economic growth of the period.

Background: Britain's Rise as an Industrial Nation

Immigrant and migrant workers were a significant factor in providing labor for the Industrial Revolution that took place in Great Britain between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. This mass migration was rooted in a variety of causes, but all migrants were attracted by the promise of economic opportunities offered by the growing British economy. The influx of people added to a growing urban population and shaped the character of the cities in which they settled.

According to Judge and Langdon (2009), two factors were prominent in Britain's emergence as the first industrial nation in Europe. First, Britain led in the transformation of agriculture, which enabled the country to produce enough food to feed a growing urban labor force. Second, Britain established itself as a pioneer in the Scientific Revolution, which allowed it to reduce the unit cost of production through improved technology.

Before the Industrial Revolution, crops were grown in open fields with limited results. The advent of enclosed fields enabled farmers to produce two yearly crops while allowing one-third, instead of the traditional one-half, of the field to lie fallow. Innovations such as the intensive use of fertilizer, rotation between root crops and seed crops, the use of hybrid seed, and improvements in land drainage techniques increased crop yields, allowing farmers to provide sufficient food for the growing urban labor force needed to support changes in manufacturing during this period.

Pre-Industrial Revolution manufacturing was chiefly accomplished through the "putting-out" system. An entrepreneur would secure raw material, find parties to work with it, and collect the finished product for sale elsewhere; workers received a piecework wage. The factory system, by contrast, called for an entrepreneur or company to gather individual workers under one roof and one managerial authority. Workers were paid on a fixed pay scale and labored under tight discipline performing a single, repetitive part of the production process.

Britain was positioned to take the initial lead in the industrial production of goods and services for several reasons. In the early eighteenth century, the British were the Western world's most experienced traders and entrepreneurs. English colonies were spread around the world, and the North American colonies were the largest markets for goods outside Europe. The English national bank had operated as a credit and finance institution since 1603, interest rates were lower than anywhere else, and the English stock markets were the world's largest and most flexible for raising capital.

The British pioneered the inventions that made steam engines the standard form of mechanical energy for industrial production. They controlled the raw materials of the early Industrial Revolution — coal and cotton. Their coalfields were large and easy to access, providing fuel to run steam engines. Cotton came from India and North America, both of which had strong political ties to England. The cotton was transported across the ocean on English ships, woven in English factories, and exported to the rest of Europe without competition for a century. Finally, the geography and topography of England made the country ideal for moving goods to market. There were few natural obstacles to travel and transport, and the river system was connected by canals during the eighteenth century, making transportation cheaper and safer than elsewhere.

Early Years: Labor and Working Conditions

The Industrial Revolution caused great changes in the way of life in Britain. The first changes appeared locally; however, by the early 1800s, most British people knew they were in the midst of a nationwide economic and social revolution. Educational and political privileges that had once belonged largely to the upper class spread to the growing middle class. Some workers were displaced by machines, but others found new jobs working with machinery. Both workers and employers had to adjust to a new, impersonal work environment, and most workers lived and worked under harsh conditions in the expanding industrial cities.

Under the domestic system, many employers had a close relationship with their workers and felt some responsibility for them. Such relationships became impossible in the large factories of the Industrial Revolution, however. Industrialists employed many workers and could not deal with them personally. The working day was probably no longer under industrialism than under the domestic system — about 12 to 14 hours a day for six days a week — but in the factories, machines forced workers to work faster and without rest. Jobs became more specialized, and the work became monotonous.

Factory wages were low. Women and children worked as unskilled laborers and earned only a small fraction of men's already low wages. Children, many of them under 10 years old, worked from 10 to 14 hours a day. Most factory workers were desperately poor and could not read or write. Housing in the growing industrial cities could not keep pace with the migration of workers from rural areas. Severe overcrowding resulted, and many people lived in extremely unsanitary conditions that led to outbreaks of disease. During the 1830s, the life expectancy for men in Birmingham, England, was only slightly more than 40 years.

Until the early 1800s, British employers generally held the advantage in their relations with employees. Workers were not permitted to vote and could do little legally to improve their condition. British law forbade trade unions, and workers who joined one could be imprisoned. Nevertheless, some workers did form trade unions, and many went on strike or participated in riots. In the riots, unemployed workers destroyed machinery in an attempt to exact revenge on the employers they blamed for depriving them of jobs. Even employed workers took part in the riots, wrecking machines as a protest against low wages and terrible working conditions. In 1769, Parliament passed a law making the destruction of certain kinds of machinery punishable by death.

Conclusion

The working and living conditions of the working class improved gradually during the late 1800s. Parliament, which had largely represented only the upper class, began to act in the interests of the middle and working classes. It repealed the law forbidding trade unions and passed other laws regulating factory conditions. In 1832, a Reform Act gave most middle-class men the right to vote. Another Reform Act, passed in 1867, granted the right to vote to city workers and owners of small farms.

Although workers did not at first share in the prosperity of the Industrial Revolution, members of the middle and upper classes prospered from the beginning. Many people made fortunes during the period. The revolution made available products that provided new comforts and conveniences to those who could afford them. The middle class, consisting of business and professional people, won political and educational benefits. As the middle class gained in power, it became increasingly important politically. By the mid-1800s, big business interests largely controlled British government policies.

The Industrial Revolution indirectly helped increase Britain's population. As people of the middle and upper classes enjoyed better diets and lived in more sanitary housing, they suffered less from disease and lived longer. The material condition of the working class also improved. Partly as a result of these improved conditions, the population grew rapidly. In 1750, Britain had approximately 6.5 million people; by 1830, the population had increased to about 14 million.

The Industrial Revolution began in England and eventually spread throughout the world. New forms of transportation and improvements in infrastructure hastened urbanization, transforming small factory towns and shipping centers into places where many people could live and work. Many people saw this as an opportunity to better themselves economically and were drawn to the cities. Immigrants built canals and constructed railroads. They became involved in almost every labor-intensive endeavor in the country and provided much-needed labor to operate newly developed factories. Their contribution to the improvement of the infrastructure was a significant stimulus to the burgeoning world economy.