Beneath the Surface: A Country of Two Nations

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• 1. A country of two nations
• 2. Optimists and pessimists
• 3. The labouring poor
• 4. Rural and urban poverty
• 5. Official attitudes to the relief of poverty
• 6. Lowest standard of living
• 7. The workhouse
• 8. The Scottish Poor Law
• 9. Charity and self-help
• 10. Conclusion
• 11. Find out more
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A country of two nations

Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by different breeding, are fed by different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws ... THE RICH AND THE POOR.

This extract from Benjamin Disraeli's novel Sybil, published in 1845, goes to the heart of one of the most controversial subjects of 19th century history - the extent to which industrialisation improved or depressed living standards, and the ways in which the poor were treated.

'For the first half of the 19th century, the rural and urban poor had much in common...'

For the first half of the 19th century the rural and urban poor had much in common: unsanitary and overcrowded housing, low wages, poor diet, insecure employment and the dreaded effects of sickness and old age. By 1851 the census showed the urban population was larger than that of the rural areas. Towns provided a wider range of jobs, but unskilled and casual workers continued to struggle with low wages and irregular incomes, the fear of accidents and the dread of slipping into that 'sunken sixth' of the workforce, the 'residuum' so close to the criminal underworld which Dickens wrote about.

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Published: 2001-01-01