In England, the Corn Laws exacerbated the situation. They imposed atariff on foreign grain in an effort toprotect English grain producers (agriculturallandowners). The cost of food for working people rose as people were forced to buy the more expensive and lower quality British grain, and periods offamine andchronic unemployment ensued, increasing the desire for political reform both inLancashire and in the country at large.[2][3]
After the end of theNapoleonic Wars in 1815, a brief boom intextile manufacture in England was followed by periods of chronic industrial economic depression, particularly among textileweavers and spinners (the textile trade was concentrated inLancashire).[4] Weavers who could have expected to earn 15 shillings for a six-day week in 1803, saw their wages cut to 5 shillings or even 4s 6d by 1818.[5] The industrialists, who were cutting wages without offering relief, blamed market forces generated by the aftershocks of the Napoleonic Wars.[5]
At the same time, the Corn Laws (the first of which was passed in 1815) exacerbated the situation. They imposed atariff on foreign grain in an effort toprotect English grain producers (agriculturallandowners). The cost of food for working people rose as people were forced to buy the more expensive and lower quality British grain, and periods of famine and chronic unemployment ensued, increasing the desire for political reform both in Lancashire and in the country at large.[2][6]
Samuel Jackson of Pennsylvania theorised that thePanic of 1819 and resulting depression in the United States were caused by the post-Napoleonic depression, holding that the end of the Napoleonic wars had led to the collapse of export markets and resultingunderconsumption.[10]
^abFarrer, William; Brownbill, John (2003–2006) [1911]."The city and parish of Manchester: Introduction".The Victoria history of the county of Lancaster. – Lancashire. Vol.4. University of London & History of Parliament Trust. Retrieved27 March 2008.
^Glen, Robert (1984),Urban workers in the early Industrial Revolution, Croom Helm, pp. 194–252,ISBN0-7099-1103-3
^Frangopulo, N. J. (1977),Tradition in Action: The Historical Evolution of the Greater Manchester County, EP Publishing, p. 30,ISBN978-0-7158-1203-7
^abHernon, Ian (2006),Riot!: Civil Insurrection from Peterloo to the Present Day, Pluto Press, p. 22,ISBN978-0-7453-2538-5
^Glen, Robert (1984),Urban workers in the early Industrial Revolution, Croom Helm, pp. 194–252,ISBN0-7099-1103-3
Fussell, G.E. and Compton, M. 'Agricultural adjustments after the Napoleonic Wars',Economic History, III, no. 14. London, 1939doi:10.1215/00182702-1-2-306
Hollander, Samuel. "Malthus and the post-Napoleonic depression."History of Political Economy 1.2 (1969): 306-335.Online
O'Brien, Patrick Karl. "The impact of the revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1793-1815, on the long-run growth of the British economy."Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 12.3 (1989): 335-395.Online
