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SavannahYear 8
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HistoryIndustrial Britain, 1745–190132 min★★ difficulty

Chapter 4: The new industrial city

Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and other towns expanded around work, transport and trade. Their rapid growth created wealth, striking new buildings and severe overcrowding.

Part of your national curriculum
  • Britain 1066-1901: Understand ideas, political power, industry and empire in Britain 1745-1901, including the Industrial Revolution and its impact on society
  • Historical enquiry: Understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Explain why towns grew and how urban life differed by class

Key learning points

  • • Urbanisation
  • • Housing built for speed
  • • A divided city
  • • Reading population evidence

This lesson at a glance

  • 32 minutes
  • 21 parts to scroll through
  • 3 quick checks
  • Marked quiz at the end
  • Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

differedurbanisationhousingdividedreading

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

Part 1 of 21 · Discover5%
1

Watch & discover

Part 1 of 21

Watch first

Chapter 4: The new industrial city

An English teaching video on this topic from Simple History. Watch it, then scroll down for the lesson.

In a nutshell

Explain why towns grew and how urban life differed by class

2

What you already know

Part 2 of 21

Before we start

What you already know

You should already know that factories concentrated work in particular places, and that people move to where work and wages are.

Recap: Chapter 3: Steam, cotton and the factory system
3

Key words

Part 3 of 21

Key words

Words you'll need today

Urbanisation
The growth of towns and cities as a share of the population.
Back-to-back
Cheap housing built sharing rear walls, with little light or air.
Privy
An outdoor toilet, often shared between many households.
Census
The official count of the population, taken in Britain every ten years from 1801.
4

Your lesson plan

Part 4 of 21

Lesson brief

What can a map reveal about the industrial city?

By the end, you will be able to

  • • Explain why towns grew and how urban life differed by class
  • • Use named historical evidence in context
  • • Reach a supported conclusion

Resources

  • • Ordnance Survey town plans (1840s–1890s)
  • • Lesson notes and marked knowledge check
4 minRecall the chronology and frame the enquiry
10 minRead the textbook explanation and build the argument
10 minInterrogate the archive evidence in context
8 minAnswer the checks and write a supported conclusion
5

Learning cycle

Part 5 of 21

Learning cycle 1 of 2

Why towns grew

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

6

Explore the idea

Part 6 of 21

Learn

Urbanisation

People moved because towns offered wages and because rural changes reduced some opportunities in the countryside. Natural population growth also enlarged towns. Manchester grew from about 90,000 people in 1801 to over 300,000 by 1851.

7

Explore the idea

Part 7 of 21

Learn

Housing built for speed

Builders packed back-to-back houses into narrow streets near workplaces. Families rented cramped rooms, often sharing pumps and privies. Smoke from coal fires and factories darkened buildings and damaged health.

8

Quick check

Part 8 of 21

Quick check

What is urbanisation?

9

Quick check

Part 9 of 21

Quick check

Why were many workers' houses crowded?

10

Reset break

Part 10 of 21

Pause

That's sitting 2 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now
11

Learning cycle

Part 11 of 21

Learning cycle 2 of 2

A divided city and its evidence

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

12

Explore the idea

Part 12 of 21

Learn

A divided city

Industrial cities also contained warehouses, civic halls, shops, parks and comfortable suburbs. Owners and professionals could move away from polluted centres; poorer workers needed cheap housing close to work.

13

Explore the idea

Part 13 of 21

Learn

Reading population evidence

Census totals reveal the scale and pace of growth, but not the quality of individual lives. Historians combine numbers with maps, buildings, reports, letters and objects.

14

Quick check

Part 14 of 21

Quick check

Why should historians combine census data with other sources?

15

Explore the idea

Part 15 of 21

Worked example

Source study — Engels in Manchester

In 1845 Friedrich Engels described filthy, overcrowded working-class districts in Manchester. He had visited these areas, making the account valuable, but he was also developing a political argument against industrial capitalism. Test his claims against maps, census data and reports from other observers.

16

Investigate evidence

Part 16 of 21

Evidence 1 of 1

map

Ordnance Survey town plans

Ordnance Survey, 1840s–1890s

Large-scale plans plot mills, railways, tightly packed courts, waterways, civic buildings and expanding suburbs.

These measured maps make land use and density visible. They do not record smell, noise, health or the quality of relationships inside mapped buildings.

Think like a historian

Which mapped features explain both the growth and inequalities of an industrial town?

Source: National Library of Scotland, georeferenced OS maps

View the archive record ↗
17

Common mix-ups

Part 17 of 21

Common mix-ups

Things people often get wrong

  • People often picture industrial cities as uniformly grim. They also contained wealth, parks, civic buildings and comfortable suburbs.
  • People often treat census totals as the whole story. Numbers show scale, not what daily life felt like.
18

Challenge round

Part 18 of 21

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

19

Challenge round

Part 19 of 21

Game · Fill the gaps

Finish the sentences

Choose the word that belongs in each gap.

Owners and professionals could move away from polluted centres; poorer workers needed cheap ____ close to work.

20

Mastery quiz

Part 20 of 21

Marked quiz

End of lesson quiz: Chapter 4: The new industrial city

5 questions, marked with the reasoning shown. No timer.

  1. 1. Urbanisation means…

  2. 2. Back-to-back housing usually lacked…

  3. 3. Industrial cities also contained…

  4. 4. Wealthier residents could reduce their exposure to smoke by…

  5. 5. Which change best explains the rapid growth of northern towns after 1780?

21

Lesson round-up

Part 21 of 21

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

Quiz score

Not sat

Games

Not played

Points this lesson

0

Best run

0 in a row

Luna: 0 out of 3 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?

Ask Luna

Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Source

A factory inspector's notebook, 1842

"I visited the mill at seven in the morning. The machines were already running. I counted fourteen children at the frames, the youngest no more than nine years of age. The overseer told me they work from six until seven, with forty minutes for dinner."

"The air is thick with cotton dust and the windows are kept shut so the thread does not break. Two of the children showed me hands cut by the shuttles. The owner assured me that the work is light and that the families beg him for the places, since without the children's wages the rent cannot be paid."

"I have written to the magistrates. I doubt much will follow from it."

Original source-style text written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

  1. Who wrote this, when, and why might that make it useful to a historian?
  2. What does the source tell you about children's work — and what does it not tell you?
  3. How far does this source show that mill owners were to blame? Answer with a judgement and evidence.

Source for this lesson

Use this for the source work task below.

Ordnance Survey town plans

map

Ordnance Survey, 1840s–1890s

Large-scale plans plot mills, railways, tightly packed courts, waterways, civic buildings and expanding suburbs.

These measured maps make land use and density visible. They do not record smell, noise, health or the quality of relationships inside mapped buildings.

Source: National Library of Scotland, georeferenced OS maps

View the original record ↗

  • Source work

    Reading

    Read the source closely. Write who made it, when, and what it tells you — then what it does not tell you.

    2 paragraphs

  • Essay answer

    Writing

    Answer the enquiry question with a clear judgement. Use two pieces of evidence and finish with a sentence that weighs them up.

    300–400 words

  • Timeline

    Diagram

    Draw a timeline of the events in this lesson with dates, then photograph it.

    6–8 events

Saved as you type.

Part 1 of 21 · Watch & discover

How this is going

  • Not looked at yet

    Understand ideas, political power, industry and empire in Britain 1745-1901, including the Industrial Revolution and its impact on society

  • Not looked at yet

    Understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance

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