Everyday Life in

the Industrial Era

 https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/z3x39j6/revision/1

Using the above website (and then the ones later in the presentation) to
complete the following table:
Working Class Middle Class Upper Class

Outline the main features of everyday life for each social class.
Consider the following aspects when
examining everyday life in a society
• Occupations, jobs and careers, and • Hobbies and pastimes
working conditions • Clothing
• Housing and living conditions • Food
• architecture • Social constructs
• Rights and freedoms • Marriage
• Political rights • Social mobility
• Laws, Acts, legislation impacting on • Gender roles & etiquette
individual/group’s life • Beliefs, religion
• Education • Sports/games
• Values • Entertainment
Modify your social classes table to include key aspects of society
 Living Conditions
• Because England’s cities grew rapidly, they had no development plans, sanitary
codes, or building codes.
• Moreover, they lacked adequate housing, education, and police protection for the
people who poured in from the countryside to seek jobs.
• Most of the unpaved streets had no drains, and garbage collected in heaps on them.
• Workers lived in dark, dirty shelters, with whole families crowding into one
bedroom.
• Sickness was widespread. Epidemics of the deadly disease cholera regularly swept
through the slums of Great Britain’s industrial cities.
• In 1842, a British government study showed an average life span to be 17 years for
working-class people in one large city, compared with 38 years in a nearby rural
area.
Questions – apply your notes from the table
1. DISCUSS the differing experiences of the Middle Class.
2. DESCRIBE a “typical day” for the working class.
3. EXPLAIN the pros and cons of daily life of the aristocracy during the
Industrial Revolution.
4. Paired Work using the sources provided:
• Examine the sources carefully and answer the questions provided in full sentences.
• Use the questions we have been using to examine the source.
• Great practice for Assessment Task 1
Working Class
“You went down one step even from the foul area into
the cellar in which a family of human beings lived. It
was very dark inside. The window-panes many of
them were broken and stuffed with rags . . . . the smell
was so fetid* as almost to knock the two men
down. . . . they began to penetrate the thick darkness
of the place, and to see three or four little children
rolling on the damp, nay wet brick floor, through
which the stagnant, filthy moisture of the street oozed
up.”
*foul
Extract from Mary Barton a novel by English author
Elizabeth Gaskell, published 1848.
1. Who is the author?
2. What type of source is it?
3. When was the source created?
4. Is the source complete?
5. Is the source content reliable?
Why? Why not?
6. What does this source reveal
about the working class in Britain
during the Industrial Revolution?
7. What is the writer’s
perspective? Please note: this question will
be marked. Teachers- please use the marking
criteria on P:Drive to assess this question.
8. Can you believe what the
author has stated. Why? Why
not?
Upper Class

1. What
information does
this source reveal
about the living
conditions of the
Upper Class in
Britain during the
Industrial
Revolution?
A photograph of a wealthy estate. Unknown photographer and location. c.1800s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n9ESFJTnHs

• Charlie Chaplin