LEARNING & COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT (L.A.C.E.) PAGE
A MORE DIVERSE
LONDON
The Victorian Era and the Industrial Revolution, with their advancement of far-reaching trade and global connections, were key factors that led to the establishment of new communities within London, helping to blend the city's cultural identity with cultures from all over the world.
DICKENS' INSPIRATION
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Charles Dickens wrote about the reality of social conditions affecting the people of London during the Victorian era, such as extreme poverty, unsafe working conditions, and class-based wealth disparity.
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He has given readers great insight into the harsh realities of the world in which he lived, but his London was far larger and more diverse than the one that his characters inhabited.
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
(1760-1840)
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A direct byproduct of the Industrial Revolution that began in the late-18th century, mid-1800s Victorian London was a city bursting at the seams, teaming with various classes of people.
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Industrial progress and capitalism created the possibility of social advancement for people from lower classes so that people of all backgrounds were able to rise in socio-economic status.
MIGRATION TO LONDON
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There was also a great migration into the region of London where industry boomed and a better way of life seemed possible. These new Londoners didn’t just come from farms and small towns around England, but from all across the world.
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At the turn of the century, many Britains began a new way of life in Britain’s colonies in North America and the West Indies.
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Citizens from those colonies, as well as colonies in Africa and the Caribbean, also migrated to Britain, joining the thousands who had been forcibly brought there in previous decades by slave trade (before England officially outlawed slave trade in 1807).
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The population of England more than doubled - from 8.3 to 16.8 million - between 1801 and 1850 due to this massive migration.
SPICES IMPORT
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A direct byproduct of the Industrial Revolution that began in the late-18th century, mid-1800s Victorian London was a city bursting at the seams, teaming with various classes of people.
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Industrial progress and capitalism created the possibility of social advancement for people from lower classes so that people of all backgrounds were able to rise in socio-economic status.
STRANGERS' HOME
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In 1856, the Strangers’ Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders, which was a residential home in the Limehouse district that provided accommodations for Asian and African sailors, led populations of Asian communities to settle in East London and created the city’s first Chinatown.
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Chinatown was just one example of the way that London and other cities in England, expanded to become home to communities of people from every corner of the globe.
