pastimes of gambling and drinking were popular with all classes. In the
trades, this was promoted by the uncertainties of life and work and a
general sense of instability. Many London tradesmen started their day
with a breakfast of beer, bread, and cheese, the traditional breakfast
of countrymen. Gambling and dissipation reduced some London men with
good businesses to destitution, the work house, or street begging.
Drunken gentlemen played pranks such as imitating a woman in distress or
throwing a person in a horse trough. Some innkeepers had "straw houses"
where customers who were so drunk they were unable to walk home could
sleep in fresh straw. A person could get drunk for a few pence. Gambling
with cards was a popular pastime after dinner. Cricket matches were
played by all classes instead of just by humbler people; there were
county cricket matches. Gentlemen often took their coachmen with them to
public events such as cricket matches. Tennis was a sport of the wealthy
classes. Billiards, chess, and games with cards or dice were played,
especially in alehouses. There was horse racing on any open ground to
which people brought their horses to race. Jockeys tried to unseat each
other. Hunting of rabbits and then foxes replaced deer hunting. Bird and
duck hunting was usually with flint lock guns instead of hawks, as the
hedges provided cover from hawks. There was fishing with line, hook, and
bait. Watching the hanging of felons, about 35 a year in London, was
popular, as was going to Bedlam to watch for a fee the insane being
flogged. People went to the Tower to try to get a glance at a famous
prisoner looking through a window or taking a walk along the
battlements. Besides the grand pleasure gardens for gentry, there were
lesser pleasure gardens in London for working families, which offered
fresh air, tea, beer, swimming, fishing, courting, bowling, and cheap
entertainment. Running, vaulting, and leaping were still popular in the
countryside. Fairs had amusements such as fire swallowers,
ventriloquists, puppet shows, acrobats, jugglers, animal performances,
pantomimes, boxing, dwarfs, and albinos, but less trading. In 1769 was
the first circus. Circuses included feats of horsemanship and clowns.
There was also eating and drinking competitions, foot races, football,
archery, some wrestling, and some bowling on greens or alleys. In winter
there was ice skating with blades and sliding. The right of public
access to St. James Park became entrenched by the 1700s. There was
sailing, rowing, swimming, and hopscotch. George III made sea-bathing
popular and it was supposed to be good for one's health. There was
steeple chasing as of 1752. Horse-racing was given rules. On Sunday,
there was no singing, music playing, dancing, or games, but the Bible
was read aloud, prayers were said, and hymns were sung. Sabbath-breakers
were fined by magistrates. Men often spent Sunday in a tavern.
In general, commodity prices were stable. But when harvests were poor,
such as in 1709 when there was famine, and between 1765 and 1775, bread
prices rose. The price of wheat in London, which since 1710 had been
between 25s. and 45s., rose to 66s. in 1773. Then the poor engaged in
food riots. These riots were often accompanied by mob violence, burning,
and looting of grain mills, shops, and markets. The English economy was
so dependent on foreign trade, which had trebled since the 1710s, that
the slightest disturbance in the maritime trade threatened the English
with starvation. In many localities the men in need of parochial relief
were sent around from one farm to another for employment, part of their
wages being paid from the poor rates. The poor often went from parish to
parish seeking poor relief. Settled people tended to fear wandering
people. Parishes sought to keep down their poor rates by devices such as
removing mothers in labor lest the infant be born in the parish. So a
statute was passed that a child born to a wandering woman could not have
the place of birth as his settlement, but takes the same settlement as
his mother. Another device to prevent others from establishing
settlement in a parish was for its farmers to hire laborers for only
fifty-one weeks. Also, some apprentices were bound by means other than
indenture to avoid settlement. Laborers who came to work in industries
were refused settlement and sent back to their original parishes
whenever they seemed likely to become dependent on the rates. Statutes
then provided that a parish must give settlement to apprentices bound
for forty days there, not only by indenture, but by deed, writings, or
contracts not indented. In 1722, parishes were authorized to purchase
houses in which to lodge or employ the poor and to contract with any
person for the lodging, keeping, maintaining, and employing of the poor.
These persons could take the benefit of the work, labor, and service of
these poor, which was then used for the relief of other poor. The poor
refusing such lodging could not then get relief. Many of the poor
starved to death. The propertied classes turned a blind eye to the
predicament of the poor, opining that they were idle or could save more
and did not need higher earnings.
Charitable organizations gave to the poor and set up all day Sunday
schools to set wayward children on a moral path. The Sunday schools
could accommodate children who worked during the week. Punishment of
children by parents or others could be by whipping or even sitting in
stocks. About half of the people were dependent on poor relief or
charities.
Desertion by a man of his family was a common offense. Parishes
providing upkeep for the family sent men to find the errant husbands.
The parish would ask unmarried mothers who was the father of their child
and then force him to marry her or pay for the upkeep of the child. He
often made a bargain with the parish to release him of his obligation
for a sum of money paid to the parish. But many young parish children
died of neglect, and later, parishes were required to list children
under four to aid in accounting for them. Divorces were still few and
expensive, but increasing in number; there were more 60 in this period.
It was easier for a man to get a divorce for one act of adultery by his
wife, than for a wife to get one for habitual unfaithfulness.
Vagrants and other offenders could be committed to Houses of Correction
as well as to county gaols, because of the expense of the latter.
Crime was exacerbated by orgies of liquor drinking by the common
people, especially between 1730 and 1750, the sale of which did not have
to be licensed as did ale. In 1736, it was required that retailers of
brandy, rum, and other distilled spirituous liquors be licensed and to
pay 50 pounds a year for their license, because excessive use had been
detrimental to health, rendering persons unfit for useful labor and
business, debauching their morals, and inciting them to vices. Only
persons keeping public victualing houses, inns, coffee houses, alehouses
or brandy shops who exercised no other trade were allowed to obtain a
license. This excluded employers who had sold liquors to their
journeymen, workmen, servants, and laborers at exorbitant prices. Street
vendors who sold liquors had to forfeit 10 pounds. A duty of 20s. per
gallon was imposed on the retailers. There were riots in London against
this statute and its new duties. There had been a tremendous growth in
liquor drinking, which did not stop but went underground after this
statute. In 1753, a penalty of 10 pounds or hard labor for two months
was made for selling spirituous liquors without a license. Also licenses
were restricted to people who were certified by four reputable and
substantial householders to be of good fame and sober life and
conversation. Sellers had to maintain good order in their premises or
else forfeit 10 pounds. About 1754 only innkeepers, victualers, and
vendors paying rent of at least 200 shillings could sell gin at retail.
The punishment for the second offense was whipping and imprisonment.
That for the third offense was transportation out of the country. In
1751, additional duties were placed on spirituous liquors to discourage
immoderate drinking going on by people of the meanest and lowest sort to
the detriment of the health and morals of the common people. In 1761,
these duties were again raised. In 1768, officers were authorized to
seize all horses, cattle, and carriages used to transport foreign
spirituous liquors for which duties had been evaded. In 1773, the
penalty for selling without a license was raised to 50 pounds, which
could not be mitigated below 5 pounds. Half the forfeiture was to go to
the suer.
The informer system for enforcing laws had its drawbacks. Informers
were not trained and were sometimes retaliated against for informing.
Sometimes this meant being tortured to death. Sometimes there were
schemes in which a leader of thieves, would take a profit in the stolen
goods by posing as a good citizen who tracked down and returned them to
the owners for a fee. Also he might inform on his companions to get the
reward for informing or to punish a troublesome one. Sometimes the owner
of goods was involved in a fake robbery. An effort in 1749 to turn the
whole haphazard system of informers, into a specialized organization for
the detection and apprehension of criminals had caused a mob to form and
make threats. Englishmen associated a police force with French tyranny.
Nevertheless, about 1750, Sir John Fielding, a Bow Street magistrate,
and his half-brother picked men to police the street under the direct
control of the Bow Street magistrates. This first police district made
an impact on the increasing violence of the times. In 1753, a proposal
before Parliament to have a national census was also defeated by public
fear of liberty being curtailed by having to make account of the number
and circumstances of one's family and giving out information that could
be used by enemies both in the realm and abroad.
In 1714, the mercury thermometer was invented by Gabriel Fahrenheit of
Germany; this was much more accurate than the alcohol and water
thermometers. Sweden's Anders Celcius invented the Celsius scale. The
hydrometer, which measures air humidity, was also invented. These made
possible weather forecasting. In 1718, the French chemist Etienne
Geoffroy published a table of affinities among chemical substances, a
precursor to the periodic table of elements. Carolus Linneaus, a Swedish
naturalist and botanist, established the scientific method of naming
plants and animals by genus and species. When he showed that there was a
sexual system in plants, church authorities were so shocked that they
suppressed this knowledge as they did other scientific knowledge. Rev.
Stephen Hales made ventilators for ships, prisons, and granaries, using
the method of injecting air with bellows. This saved many lives in the
prisons. In 1727, he discovered that water that plants lost by
evaporation was restored by the roots up the stems. He found that gas
could be obtained from plants by dry distillation and invented a way to
collect gases by heating certain substances.
Hans Sloane, the son of a receiver-general of taxes, who became a
physician, had collected hundreds of species of plants in Jamacia while
physician to its governor. He became physician to George II and was a
benefactor to many hospitals and devised a botanic garden in London for
the Society of Apothecaries.
Italian Luigi Marsigli started the science of oceanography with a
treatise discussing topography, circulation, ocean plants and animals,
along with many measurements. Frenchman Jean-Etienne Guettard prepared
the first true geological maps, showing rocks and minerals. He
identified heat as the causative factor of change in the earth's
landforms. John Mitchell studied earthquakes.
In 1735, George Hadley, a London lawyer and philosopher, determined
that the cause of the prevailing westerly winds was the rotation of the
earth to the east. Benjamin Franklin in 1743 observed that a
particularly violent storm occurred in Boston a day after a particularly
violent occurred in Philadelphia, and realized that they were the same
storm, even though the storm's surface winds were from the northeast. He
determined that Atlantic coastal storms traveled from the southwest to
the northeast. In 1770, he prepared the first scientific chart of the
Gulf Stream.
Daniel Bernoulli, a Swiss university lecturer in physics, mechanics,
medicine, and anatomy, proved his theorem that any degree of statistical
accuracy can be obtained by sufficiently increasing the observations,
thereby also representing the first application of calculus to
probability theory. In 1738, he showed that as the velocity of
horizontal fluid flow increases, its pressure decreases. This followed
from his theorem that the total mechanical energy of a flowing liquid,
comprising the energy associated with fluid pressure, the gravitational
potential energy of elevation, and kinetic energy of fluid motion
remains constant; that is, the mechanical energy is conserved. This was
the first mathematical study of fluid flow. He demonstrated that the
impact of molecules on a surface would explain pressure, and that
assuming the constant random motion of molecules, pressure and motion
will increase with temperature. He explained the behavior of gases with
changing pressure and temperature, establishing the kinetic theory of
gases. Jean Nollet from France discovered osmosis, the passage of a
solution through a semi-permeable membrane separating two solutions with
different concentrations.
In 1754, Scotsman physician Joseph Black identified carbon dioxide, the
first gas recognized as distinct from everyday breathing air. He did
this by using a balance to weigh alkalies before and after exposure to
heat. They lost weight by losing carbon dioxide. His development of the
concept of latent heat, the quantity of heat absorbed or released when a
substance changes its physical phase at constant temperature, was the
first application of quantitative analysis to chemical reactions. He
ascertained the effects of carbon dioxide on animals and its production
by respiration, fermentation, and burning of charcoal. At this time, all
flammable materials were thought to contain "phlogiston", which was
given off as they burned and was associated with the transfer of heat.
Plants were thought to remove phlogiston from the air and therefore
burned when they were dry.
In 1773, Joseph Priestly, a nonconformist minister, schoolmaster, and
tutor, discovered oxygen by heating red oxide of mercury. He became
interested in the study of gases by watching the process of fermentation
in a brewery next to his house. His gas collection techniques enabled
him to work with gases soluble in water. He showed that the processes of
combustion, respiration, and putrefaction caused one-fifth of air
exposed over water to disappear, and that plants restored air vitiated
by these processes. When he isolated oxygen, he noted that it was better
than air in supporting respiration and combustion produced by heating
certain metallic nitrates. It was called "respirable air".
Hydrogen (inflammable air) and nitrogen were discovered. The
differences between acids, bases, and salts and their relationship to
one another became understood. There was some theoretical as well as
empirical knowledge about metals, e.g. in boiling points, intermetallic
compounds, and changes in properties.
In 1742, Benjamin Frankin invented the Franklin stove, which greatly
improved heating efficiency. As a freestanding cast-iron fireplace, it
supplied heat in all directions instead of only from the one direction
of the usual wall fireplace. Also, the heat absorbed by its cast-iron
sides provided warmth even after the fire went out.
Static electricity was being discerned. It had been noticed that
shaking a mercury barometer produced a strange glow in its "vacuum".
Experiments showed that a glass rubbed in vacuo would shine brightly and
that an exhausted glass globe rapidly whirled on a spindle and rubbing
against the hand produced a brilliant glow. And further, as Newton
wrote: "if at the same time a piece of white paper or white cloth, or
the end of ones finger be held at the distance of about a quarter of an
inch or half an inch from that part of the glass where it is most in
motion, the electric vapor which is excited by the friction of the glass
against the hand, will by dashing against the white paper, cloth, or
finger, be put into such an agitation as to emit light, and make the
white paper, cloth, or finger, appear lucid like a glowworm". In the
study of electricity, conductors and insulators were recognized. There
were demonstrations of electrical phenomena such as seeing the ignition
of brandy by a spark shooting from a man's finger and the feeling the
transfer of an electrical impulse created from a rubbed glass globe
among a circle of people by their holding hands. In 1733, Frenchman
Charles DuFay discovered that there are two types of static electric
charges, and that like charges repel each other while unlike charges
attract, linking electricity to magnetism.
In 1750, Benjamin Franklin "caught" lightning with a sharp pointed wire
attached to the top of a kite which led down to a key at the other end.
When a thunder cloud electrified the kite, a charge was seen coming from
the key to an approaching finger. This charge was then stored in an
early type of capacitosr, a1745 Leyden jar, and then reproduced to
create the same feeling of transfer of electrical impulse among a circle
of hand-holders, thereby illustrating that it was the same phenomenon as
electricity. This countered the theological belief that thunder and
lightning were signs of divine displeasure or the work of the devil.
Franklin invented the lightening rod, which was then used to protect
buildings. About ten years later, the first lightening rod on an English
church was erected, which showed the church's acceptance of his theory.
Franklin theorized that there were electric charges everywhere and
designated them as positive or negative. He observed that opposite
charges attracted each other, but that like charges repelled each other.
In 1766, Joseph Priestly did an experiment suggested by Franklin and
showed that electrical force follows the same law as gravitational
force; that is, that the attraction or repulsion between two electrical
charges varies inversely in proportion to the square of the distance
between them.
Joseph-Louis LaGrange from France developed differential equations.
Natural history museums were established. A group split off from the
Royal Society to show collections of curiosities.
In 1754, a self-educated mechanic founded the Society for the
Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. It had sections on
agriculture, manufactures, mechanics, chemistry, liberal arts, and trade
and colonies. It sponsored contests at which prizes were given, such as
that in 1761 for the best invention of a machine that would spin six
threads of wool, flax, cotton, or silk at one time with only one person
attending it.
Machines still mostly relied on human, animal, and water power.
Abraham Darby was a Quaker and millwright who made large cooking pots
of iron, which cost less than bronze. Around 1709, he experimented with
various substances to take the place of wood charcoal in iron smelting.
Coal was a remote possibility. In forging or working metals coal had
more or less the same qualities as wood charcoal, but this was not the
case in smelting ores, especially iron ore. Coal contained sulphur
compounds which caused the iron ore to deteriorate. So he controlled the
burning of coal to burn out these impurities, which produced coke. His
son took over after his death and improved the methods of coking,
strengthened the bellows, and added ore limestone and other reagents to
the mixture. By 1756, his large blast furnace using both pit coal and
wood charcoal was very productive. He made iron goods of such quality as
those imported.
In 1767, Richard Reynolds replaced the wooden rails connecting a blast
furnace to mines with cast iron rails. He had apprenticed as a grocer
and then became a partner in a large ironworks of Darby with a man whose
daughter he married. After Darby died and before Darby's sons became of
age, Reynolds was in charge of the ironworks. He cast cylinders of the
early steam engines.
In 1749 John Roebuck, a physician and son of a prosperous manufacturer
of Sheffield goods, found a cheaper way to manufacture sulphuric acid.
He did this by using leaden chambers instead of glass globes to collect
the vapor from burning nitre and sulphur over water. This reduced the
cost of sulfuric acid to one-fourth of its previous cost, so that
sulfuric acid came to be used to bleach linen instead of sour milk. He
also made cast iron into malleable iron by smelting iron using coke from
pit-coal instead of charcoal. But flooding in his mines and further
ventures resulted in his ruin and bankruptcy.
Thomas Newcomen, a Baptist ironmonger, blacksmith, and locksmith,
supplied iron tools to mine workers. He was aware of the problem of
flooding of mines and the awkward system of pumps which were used one
above the other and were powered by teams of horses. He made a very
valuable contribution to power generation by inventing the atmospheric
pressure steam engine with piston around 1712. He did this by connecting
theory with experiment, through the use of scientific knowledge,
especially the Royal Society's investigation into atmospheric pressure.
First cold water was poured on a cylinder in which a piston could move
up and down. This caused steam inside the cylinder to cool and condense
into water. The vacuum created inside the cylinder under the piston
caused atmospheric pressure on top of the piston to push the piston
down. The piston was attached by a rod to the end of a beam which end
then swung down from a point on a vertical stand to which it was
attached. When the beam swung, its other end, which was attached to a
rod connected to a pump, rose, thus working the pump. Then steam from
water heated in a boiler under and communicating with the cylinder was
allowed into the cylinder under the piston. This overcame the
atmospheric pressure on the piston from above and allowed the piston to
rise by a counterweight on the rod over and connecting to the pump. Boys
opened and closed the steam valve, which let steam into the cylinder
from below, and the water valve, which let cold water pour on the
cylinder from above. Then the boys were replaced by the valves being
connected to the swinging beam which caused them to open and close at
perfectly regular intervals. A story gives the credit for this
improvement to an inventive valve boy who wanted to play with his
friends. In 1712, the mining industry used this steam engine to pump
water out of mine-shafts which had flooded. These engines were also used
to supply water to reservoirs' locks at canals, and drinking water
facilities in towns. One such engine developed power equivalent to fifty
horses working at one sixth the cost. It was the first automatic machine
since the clock.
Then James Watt invented the steam engine which used steam as a force
acting on the piston. Watt made his living making scientific instruments
for Glasgow University. Around 1764, he was fixing one of Newcomen's
engines belonging to the university, when he saw its inefficiencies,
such as the loss of heat when the cylinder was cooled. He saved this
heat energy by having the steam condensed in another vessel distinct but
connected to the cylinder. This condenser was kept constantly cool by
cold water. So the condensed steam was pumped back into the boiler and
it circulated continuously, thus obviating the need for constant
resupply of water. In order to avoid the necessity of using water to
keep the piston air-tight, and also to prevent the air from cooling the
cylinder during the descent of the piston, he used the expansion of the
steam to push the piston instead of atmospheric pressure. Then, in order
to expand the use of the steam engine beyond that of a pump, he
converted the oscillating motion of the beam into rotary motion. He
formed a partnership with John Roebuck, who had a two-thirds interest.
But when Roebuck needed money, he sold his interest to Matthew Boulton.
Boulton wanted better power that that of his watermill for his workshops
that made metal buttons, watch chains, shoebuckles of engraved steel,
ornamental bronzes, vases, chandeliers, tripods, silver and plated
wares, and imitation gold and tortoiseshell work. In dry weather, about
eight horses were needed to aid in driving the machinery. A steam pump
could pump water from the bottom of the watermill to the top to be used
again. He had built up this factory of five buildings and six hundred
workers, with 9,000 pounds derived from his marriage to an heiress. By
1774, the partnership had built a model steam engine with rotary power
whose design could be sold. The price of the engine was set as the
amount of money saved on fuel costs in the first three years of its
operation. This machine was a relatively economical user of energy,
capable of performing almost any kind of work.