Religious and Social Change
It was a time of immense social change in Britain, with the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution which began the process of intensifying class divisions, and the emergence of rival political parties like the Whigs and Tories.
In rural areas the Agricultural Revolution saw huge changes to the movement of people and the decline of small communities, the growth of the cities and the beginnings of an integrated transportation system but, nevertheless, as rural towns and villages declined and work became scarce there was a huge increase in emigration to Canada, the North American colonies (which became the United States during the period) and other parts of the British Empire.
Social reform under politicians such as Robert Peel and campaigners like William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson and members of the Clapham Sect began to bring about radical change in areas such as the abolition of slavery, prison reform and social justice. An Evangelical revival was seen in the Church of England with men such as George Whitefield, John Wesley (later to found the Methodists), Charles Wesley, Griffith Jones, Howell Harris, Daniel Rowland, William Cowper, John Newton, Thomas Scott, and Charles Simeon. It also saw the rise of Non-conformists and various Dissenting groups such as the Reformed Baptists with John Gill, Augustus Toplady, John Fawcett, and William Carey.
Philanthropists and writers such as Hannah More, Thomas Coram, Robert Raikes and Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London, began to address the social ills of the day, and saw the founding of hospitals, Sunday schools and orphanages.
Fine examples of distinctive Georgian architecture are Edinburgh's New Town, Bath, Georgian Dublin, Grainger Town in Newcastle Upon Tyne as well as Bristol.
Read more about this topic: Georgian Era
Famous quotes containing the words religious, social and/or change:
“We think of religion as the symbolic expression of our highest moral ideals; we think of magic as a crude aggregate of superstitions. Religious belief seems to become mere superstitious credulity if we admit any relationship with magic. On the other hand our anthropological and ethnographical material makes it extremely difficult to separate the two fields.”
—Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945)
“At this moment, who would not remain persuaded that these women were virtuous? Are they not the flower of the country? Are they all not fresh, ravishing, intoxicating with beauty, youth, life and love? To believe in their virtue is a kind of social religion; because they are the world’s ornament and the glory of France.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“It does change the age that is young, once in Paris it was twenty-six, then it was twenty-two, then it was nineteen and now it is between thirty and forty. They tell about a new young man, how old is he you say and they say he is thirty.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)