At the time of the 1841 Census, England was passing through a period of rapid and radical change, from being a
country with a primarily agricultural economy to becoming the first modern industrial state. In the previous
forty years there had been immense advances in industrial techniques and inventions which enabled Britain to
become the workshop of the world, and for a few decades the foremost industrial power.
The country had survived the period of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars without any serious civil
disturbance. During the first forty years of the 19th century there had been a series of legislative and
administrative reforms.
In 1828 the Catholic Emancipation Act freed Roman Catholics from the restrictions placed upon them.
In 1829 Sir Robert Peel set up the Metropolitan Police Force and a proper constabulary was gradually introduced
all over the country, creating a framework for law and order.
In 1832 the Great Reform Bill rationalised Parliamentary representation, swept away the “pocket boroughs” and
extended the franchise to many freeholders and the larger tenant farmers in the counties.
In 1834 central Registration of Births Deaths and Marriages was introduced, enabling proper statistics of the
population to be prepared, and in 1836 Local Government was reformed.
Apart from these the greatest change lay in the realm of transport. The building of canals had enabled coal and
agricultural produce to reach centres of population, but an even greater change was the building of the modern
railway system, carrying both goods and passengers. The pioneer was the Liverpool and Manchester Railway,
opened in 1830. In 1832 a railway reached Leicester, but the Midland Railway did not reach Oakham until 1848,
(after buying and closing the Oakham Canal) so that in 1841 the nearest railway to Oakham would still be at
Leicester, and Rutland was still in the age of the horse.
The early 1830’s had been a time of good harvests, but from 1836 agricultural areas were hard hit by poor
harvests, and by 1837 there was a severe trade depression which lasted till 1842. In that year there were
disturbances known as the ‘plug riots’ in the Lancashire and Yorkshire textile manufacturing towns in protest
against the lowering of wages by factory owners and the poverty of the handloom weavers. The recovery of
trade in the following year saved the country from further serious disorder. The movement known as Chartism
appeared in 1837 demanding universal male suffrage, annual parliaments and voting by secret ballot Chartism
was to reach its peak in 1848 but then died away. After the Great Reform Bill the Government made a grant to
encourage elementary education, working through two societies, the (Church of England) National Society and
the (nonconformist) British and Foreign School Society. Even so, in 1841 it was thought that two thirds of the
male population and half the female population were unable even to sign their name.
It was not until the Census of 1851 that the majority of the population became urban dwellers. London was far
and away the largest city, indeed the largest in Europe. In 1841 the population was said by Henry Mayhew to be
made up as follows:
Engaged in trade and manufacture
3,000,000
Engaged in agriculture
1,500,000
Engaged in mining, quarrying and transport
750,000
Domestic servants
1,000,000
Independent persons
500,000
Professional persons
200,000
Army, Navy, Civil servants etc. (Government service)
200,000
Paupers etc.
200,000
Residue (3,500,000 women and 7,500,000 children)
11,000,000
Total population
18,350,000
There seems no information available as to how the trade depression of 1838-42 affected Rutland, but the
Committee of the Oakham Canal Company felt able to spend over a thousand pounds on improvements to the
Oakham wharf in 1841, which suggests a degree of prosperity locally. Nationally, one very hopeful feature of the
period was the accession to the throne in 1837 of a young, intelligent and strong minded queen, Victoria, and her
marriage in 1840 to Prince Albert. Together they set the tone for the following half century, and by Prince Albert’s
influence it became the convention that the Crown was strictly non-party and did not take sides in politics.
Langham Village History Group ~ © 1996 - 2022
England in 1841 by David Tew