Читать книгу Australian History For Dummies - Alex McDermott - Страница 50

Along with a population boom, Britain in the 18th century experienced a period of rapid transformation — one that would produce a great deal more prosperity for more people but which also uprooted a lot of people from their traditional lives and livelihoods.

A series of Enclosure Acts shifted people off the land, which led to the breakdown of traditional rural order in the 18th century. Before this, agriculture in Britain was mostly communal — each farmer would use a strip in three different fields to grow crops and would graze cattle on the common. This communal style was good for everybody but inefficient. No big improvements in agricultural production could be made until the communal fields were amalgamated into one big plot, which is what the Enclosure Acts did in the 17th and 18th centuries. While enclosure created lots more work (all the enclosing for starters — with fences and hedges — and the intense cultivation that followed), it drove out the smallholders from their traditional claims and people began moving from the country to the cities.

Many people moved into cities such as Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and London, which offered plenty of job opportunities and, with no police force, plenty of crime opportunities too. As the town populations burgeoned, so too did the criminal underworld.