Why did the population of cities increase during the 1800s?

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Industrialization and emergence of the factory system triggered rural-to-urban migration and thus led to a rapid growth of cities, where during the Industrial Revolution workers faced the challenge of dire conditions and developed new ways of living.

Connect the development of factories to urbanization

Key Points

• Industrialization led to the creation of the factory, and the factory system contributed to the growth of urban areas as large numbers of workers migrated into the cities in search of work in the factories. In England and Wales, the proportion of the population living in cities jumped from 17% in 1801 to 72% in 1891.
• In 1844, Friedrich Engels published The Condition of the Working Class in England, arguably the most important record of how workers lived during the early era of industrialization in British cities. He described backstreet sections of Manchester and other mill towns where people lived in crude shanties and overcrowded shacks, constantly exposed to contagious diseases. These conditions improved over the course of the 19th century.
• Before the Industrial Revolution, advances in agriculture or technology led to an increase in population, which again strained food and other resources, limiting increases in per capita income. This condition is called the Malthusian trap and according to some economists, it was overcome by the Industrial Revolution. Transportation advancements lowered transaction and food costs, improved distribution, and made more varied foods available in cities.
• The historical debate on the question of living conditions of factory workers has been very controversial. While some have pointed out that industrialization slowly improved the living standards of workers, others have concluded that living standards for the majority of the population did not grow meaningfully until much later.
• Not everyone lived in poor conditions and struggled with the challenges of rapid industrialization. The Industrial Revolution also created a middle class of industrialists and professionals who lived in much better conditions. In fact, one of the earlier definitions of the middle class equated the middle class to the original meaning of capitalist: someone with so much capital that they could rival nobles.
• During the Industrial Revolution, the family structure changed. Marriage shifted to a more sociable union between wife and husband in the laboring class. Women and men tended to marry someone from the same job, geographical location, or social group. Factories and mills also undermined the old patriarchal authority to a certain extent. Women working in factories faced many new challenges, including limited child-raising opportunities.

Agricultural Revolution The unprecedented increase in agricultural production in Britain due to increases in labor and land productivity between the mid-17th and late 19th centuries. Agricultural output grew faster than the population over the century to 1770, and thereafter productivity remained among the highest in the world. This increase in the food supply contributed to the rapid growth of population in England and Wales. Malthusian trap The putative unsustainability of improvements in a society’s standard of living because of population growth. It is named for Thomas Robert Malthus, who suggested that while technological advances could increase a society’s supply of resources such as food and thereby improve the standard of living, the resource abundance would encourage population growth, which would eventually bring the per capita supply of resources back to its original level. Some economists contend that since the Industrial Revolution, mankind has broken out of the trap. Others argue that the continuation of extreme poverty indicates that the Malthusian trap continues to operate. Cottonopolis A metropolis centered on cotton trading servicing the cotton mills in its hinterland. It was originally applied to Manchester, England, because of its status as the international center of the cotton and textile trade during the Industrial Revolution.

Factories and Urbanization

Industrialization led to the creation of the factory and the factory system contributed to the growth of urban areas as large numbers of workers migrated into the cities in search of work in the factories. Nowhere was this better illustrated than in Manchester, the world’s first industrial city, nicknamed Cottonopolis because of its mills and associated industries that made it the global center of the textile industry. Manchester experienced a six-times increase in its population between 1771 and 1831. It had a population of 10,000 in 1717, but by 1911 it had burgeoned to 2.3 million. Bradford grew by 50% every ten years between 1811 and 1851 and by 1851 only 50% of the population of Bradford was actually born there. In England and Wales, the proportion of the population living in cities jumped from 17% in 1801 to 72% in 1891.

During the first Industrial Revolution, Britain experienced massive changes including scientific discoveries, expanding gross national product, new technologies, and architectural innovation. At the same time, the population changed—it increased and became more urbanized, healthy, and educated. This nation was forever transformed for the better.

Immigration from Great Britain's rural areas and foreign countries contributed to a steady rise in population as the Industrial Revolution was underway. This growth provided cities with the workforces they desperately needed to keep up with new developments and allowed the revolution to continue for several decades. Job opportunities, higher wages, and better diets brought people together to meld into new urban cultures.

Historical studies indicate that between 1700 and 1750, in the years preceding the Industrial Revolution, the population of England stayed relatively stagnant and grew very little. Precise figures don't exist for the period before the establishment of a nationwide census, but it is clear from existing historic records that Britain experienced a demographic explosion in the latter half of the century. Some estimates suggest that between 1750 and 1850, the population in England more than doubled.

Given that the population growth occurred when England experienced the first Industrial Revolution, the two are likely connected. While large numbers of people relocated from rural regions into large cities to be closer to their new factory workplaces, studies have ruled out immigration as the largest factor. Instead, the population increase could primarily be attributed to internal factors such as changes in marriage age, improvements in health allowing more children to live to adulthood, and increasing birth rates.

Over the course of the Industrial Revolution, mortality rates in Britain fell significantly and people started living longer. This might be surprising given that the newly crowded cities were rife with disease and illness—urban death rates were higher than rural death rates—but overall health improvements and better diets due to improved food production and livable wages offset that.

A rise in live births and a drop in death rates has been attributed to a number of factors such as the end of the plague, changing climate, and advances in hospital and medical technology (including a smallpox vaccine). But today, the swell in marriage and birth rates is held to be the main reason for unprecedented growth in population.

In the first half of the 18th century, the marriage age of Britons was relatively high compared to the rest of Europe and a large percentage of people never married at all. But suddenly, the average age of people marrying for the first time fell, as did the number of people choosing never to marry.

These developments ultimately led to more children being born. Increasing numbers of out-of-wedlock births, believed to have been due to the influences of urbanization growing more prominent and traditionalism growing less prominent on the mindset of women, also contributed to this growing birth rate. As young people moved into cities, they had more opportunities to meet others and this increased their chances of finding partners. Their odds were much better in urban areas than they ever were in sparsely populated rural areas.

Not only was marriage more attractive to young adults during the revolution, but so was the notion of raising children. Although estimates of real-term wage increase percentages vary, scholars agree that widespread eagerness to have children arose as a result of growing economic prosperity, which allowed people to feel more comfortable starting families.

Technological and scientific developments eventually led industries to build factories outside of London. As a result, multiple cities in England grew larger and smaller urban environments where people went to work in factories and other mass places of employment were born.

The population of London doubled in the 50 years from 1801 to 1851, and at the same time, the populations in towns and cities across the nation boomed. These urban areas were frequently in poor condition because the expansion happened so quickly and people were crammed together into tiny living spaces (as were dirt and disease), but not poor enough to slow the steady influx to cities or negatively impact the average lifespan.

Continued growth following initial industrialization in urban environments can be credited to high birth and marriage rates there remaining stable. After this period, once relatively small cities were far from small. Post-revolution, Britain was filled with huge cities producing enormous quantities of industrial goods. Both these innovative products and the lifestyle of those taking part in their production would soon be exported to Europe and the rest of the world.

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• Kelly, Morgan, Joel Mokyr, and Cormac Ó Gráda. "Precocious Albion: A New Interpretation of the British Industrial Revolution." Annual Review of Economics 6.1 (2014): 363–89.
• Wrigley, E. A, and Roger Schofield. The Population History of England 1541–1871. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.