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Access to education increased rapidly during the 19th century. State funded schools were established in England and Wales for the first time. Education became compulsory for pre-teenaged children in England, Scotland and Wales. Literacy rates increased rapidly and had become nearly universal by the end of the century.
The 19th century saw rapid technological development with a wide range of new inventions. This led Great Britain to become the foremost industrial and trading nation of the time. [ 70 ] Historians have characterised the mid-Victorian era (1850–1870) as Britain's 'Golden Years', [ 71 ] [ 72 ] with national income per person increasing by half.
There was no catastrophic epidemic or famine in England or Scotland in the nineteenth century—it was the first century in which a major epidemic did not occur throughout the whole country, and deaths per 1000 of population per year in England and Wales fell from 21.9 from 1848 to 1854 to 17 in 1901 (cf, for instance, 5.4 in 1971). [6]
England remained an example of a country whose territorial administration relied solely on local government bodies until the end of the 19th century. They had broad powers and evolved towards decentralization. In the 19th century, local government reforms were carried out. [g] [14] The first stage, initiated between 1832 and 1835, concerned ...
The Billingsgate Fish Market in London in the early 19th century Chester, c. 1880. The Local Government Act 1888 was the first systematic attempt to impose a standardised system of local government in England. The system was based on the existing counties (today known as the historic counties, since the major boundary changes of 1974).
Some children undertook work as apprentices to respectable trades, such as building, or as domestic servants (there were over 120,000 domestic servants in London in the mid 19th century). Working hours were long: builders might work 64 hours a week in summer and 52 in winter, while domestic servants were theoretically on duty 80-hours a week:
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The 19th century was an era of rapidly accelerating scientific discovery and invention, with significant developments in the fields of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, electricity, and metallurgy that laid the groundwork for the technological advances of the 20th century. [4]