Rural Life in Victorian England

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During Victoria's reign the English countryside saw more rapid and far-reaching changes than had been experienced in perhaps all the preceding centuries. These changes were the result of increasing industrialization, the move toward urban settlement, greater reliance on imported foodstuffs and the mass-production of fabric and clothing. Professor Mingay provides an account of how the lives of landowners, farmers, labourers, industrial workers and professional people were affected as technological, economic and social change brought about deep and permanent changes to rural communities. The period was one of great unrest in the allegedly peaceful English countryside, as rioters pillaged food stores and broke machinery, and the work of incendiarists illuminated the night sky.