The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

The industrial revolution
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population moved, and although archaeology may not be able to resolve the reasons behind these
changes, the study of changing settlements can provide some of the details. Prior to the
development of mass transport, few people lived far from their place of work, and most industrial
areas are characterized by workers’ housing. Early dwellings seem to have been small, singlestorey
cottages, perhaps with lofts, built of local materials. Some were self-built by workers who
squatted on former common or waste land; others were thrown up by speculators or investors,
including the companies themselves. A study of workers’ housing in West Yorkshire uses surviving
buildings to show these different building processes at work, illustrating how the unbridled and
chaotic development of industrial housing influenced the utopian designs of reformers such as
Salt, and the later council-built housing of the twentieth century (Caffyn 1986).
Uncontrolled development and overcrowding, particularly in towns, soon led to health problems
such as the great cholera epidemics of the mid-nineteenth century. Reform was slow, but did
come eventually in the form of legislation to ensure sanitation in towns, and also the provision of
services such as gas, water, drains and transport.
Transport
The changing pattern of settlement is intimately bound up with the development of new transport
networks in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Canals, roads, railways, ports and harbours
were all upgraded in order to cope with increased movement in goods and people. With the
communication came new termini and often new towns, such as Swindon, Wiltshire, on the
Great Western Railway.
At the end of the seventeenth century, the only really efficient form of transport for bulky
industrial goods such as coal was by coastal route and along navigable parts of the river network.
Figure 16.6 Anderton boat lift, Cheshire.
Source: Kate Clark