Changed lives

In these years, therefore, it was possible for individuals with talent to bring about revolutionary changes. Similarly, there were rich individuals who took risks and invested money in industries in the hope that profits could be made, and that their money would ‘multiply’. In most cases this money – capital – did multiply. Wealth, in the form of goods, incomes, services, knowledge and productive efficiency, did increase dramatically.

There was, at the same time, a massive negative human cost. This was evident in broken families, new addresses, degraded cities and appalling working conditions in factories. The number of cities in England with a population of over , grew from two in to in . This pace of growth was not matched with the provision of adequate housing, sanitation or clean water for the rapidly growing urban population.

Newcomers were forced to live in overcrowded slums in the congested central areas of towns near factories, while the rich inhabitants escaped, by shifting to homes in the suburbs where the air was cleaner and the water safe to drink. Far Left: Coalbrookdale , Carpenters’ Row, cottages built by the company for workers in . Left: The houses of the Darbys; painting