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Y109: The Making of Georgian Britain 1678–c.1760

Social and economic developments c.1700–1780: financial settlement and urban unrest

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Overview

Recall questions on financial settlement, National Debt and commercial growth, urban development and problems, including crime, urban unrest, including the Porteous Riots and the Gordon Riots.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

What does eighteenth-century rioting tell us about popular politics?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Why was the Bank of England founded in 1694?

    Model answer

    To lend the government £1.2 million for the war against France at eight per cent interest in return for a charter of incorporation and the right to issue notes, which gave the state a reliable long-term creditor.

  2. 2

    Explain what the National Debt was and why it mattered.

    Model answer

    Long-term government borrowing secured on taxes voted by Parliament, which allowed Britain to fund wars far beyond current revenue; it rose from around £14 million in 1700 to roughly £130 million by 1763.

  3. 3

    Why was cheap government credit a political issue?

    Model answer

    The debt was held by City investors and the great companies, so landed Tories complained that the land tax paid the interest of a moneyed interest that profited from war, creating a lasting resentment between land and finance.

  4. 4

    How did towns develop in the eighteenth century?

    Model answer

    London grew towards three-quarters of a million people, the ports and manufacturing towns of Bristol, Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester expanded rapidly, spa and leisure towns such as Bath were rebuilt, and improvement commissions took on paving, lighting, cleansing and water supply.

  5. 5

    What problems accompanied urban growth?

    Model answer

    Overcrowded and insanitary housing, mortality higher than birth rates so that towns grew only by migration, epidemic disease, the gin epidemic that provoked the Gin Acts of 1736 and 1751, and crime in districts with no effective policing.

  6. 6

    How did the authorities respond to crime?

    Model answer

    By multiplying capital statutes in the Bloody Code, notably the Black Act of 1723, by using transportation to the colonies from 1718 as an alternative to hanging, and by relying on rewards, thief-takers and, from 1749, the Fielding brothers' Bow Street Runners.

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