AQA GCSE History (8145) — Thematic Studies
Today, most of us live in towns or cities, but in 1740, roughly 80% of the British population lived in the countryside. By 1851, the nation had transformed, with over 50.4% living in urban areas.
This massive demographic shift was driven by Internal Migration, leading to severe Rural Depopulation and the rapid growth of Urbanisation. The population of Britain surged from 10 million in 1801 to 37 million by 1901. People flocked to "factory towns" like Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow.
For the AQA exam, you must analyse the causes of this movement using specific factors:
This migration created a new Industrial Proletariat—a class of unskilled labourers governed by factory clocks rather than daylight. However, rapid, unplanned city growth created an "Urban Graveyard" effect. In the 1840s, 60% of children in some industrial cities died before age five due to cholera and typhoid.
Imagine relying entirely on a single crop to survive, only to watch it rot in the ground across the entire country.
Between 1846 and 1850, approximately 1.5 million people emigrated from Ireland. The primary push factor was the Great Famine (1846), caused by a biological disease known as Potato Blight. Over 1 million people died of starvation. British government policy worsened the crisis by continuing to export grain from Ireland, while absentee landlords evicted starving tenants.
Migrants were pulled to Britain by the booming demand for Navvies to build railways and canals, and by military service (forming 40% of the British Army). By 1861, 600,000 Irish-born people lived in Britain, settling mainly in Liverpool, Glasgow, and London's East End.
Technically, due to the Act of Union (1800), this was internal migration, but Irish migrants were treated as foreigners. They lived in extreme slum conditions, such as London's Jennings Buildings. They faced intense anti-Catholic discrimination, were dehumanised in the press, and faced "No Irish Need Apply" job discrimination.
How did a simple penny bazaar in an 1880s market stall grow into the famous high-street brand Marks & Spencer? It started with an Eastern European migrant named Michael Marks.
Between 1881 and 1914, approximately 120,000 to 150,000 Eastern European Jews arrived in Britain. They were pushed out of the Russian Empire by state-sanctioned violence called Pogroms, triggered by the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. They were also fleeing discriminatory laws that forced them to live in restricted, overcrowded areas known as The Pale of Settlement.
Around 70% of these arrivals settled in London's East End (Whitechapel and Spitalfields). Economically, many found work in Sweated Trades—cramped tailoring and shoemaking workshops requiring up to 20 hours of labour a day.
Established British Jews attempted to aid assimilation by funding schools, but local hostility grew over housing competition. This anti-Jewish sentiment directly led to the 1905 Aliens Act, Britain's first modern immigration restriction.
| Feature | Irish Migration | Jewish Migration |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Push Factor | Environmental & Economic (Famine, poverty) | Political & Religious (Pogroms, discrimination) |
| Primary Employment | Heavy manual labour (Navvies, construction) | Manufacturing and retail (Sweated trades, tailoring) |
| Key Settlement Areas | Liverpool, Glasgow, London | London (East End), Manchester, Leeds |
| Hostility Faced | Anti-Catholicism, blamed for crime/disease | Anti-Semitism, blamed for undercutting wages/high rents |
The abolition of slavery in 1833 did not end exploitative labour in the British Empire; it merely shifted the legal framework.
To fill the labour vacuum left by emancipated slaves on Caribbean sugar plantations, the British turned to Indentured Labour. Between 1838 and 1917, around 500,000 Indians (who called themselves Girmitiyas) were moved to destinations like British Guiana, Trinidad, and Jamaica.
Unlike enslaved people—who were unpaid, held lifelong status, and possessed no legal rights—indentured labourers signed contracts (usually for 5 years) and received small wages. However, historians call it a "New System of Slavery" because labourers lived in old slave barracks, faced severe movement restrictions, and suffered a 17% mortality rate on ships. Over two-thirds stayed, deeply influencing Caribbean culture by introducing Hinduism, Islam, and festivals like Diwali.
Empire migration also included Transportation, moving 162,000 convicts to Australian penal colonies under the legal fiction of Terra Nullius. Elsewhere, settler colonialism saw British 'Uitlanders' migrate to South Africa following the discovery of diamonds (1867) and gold (1886).
Students often confuse the push factors for Irish and Jewish migrants; remember that Irish migration was primarily driven by economic and environmental factors (famine), whereas Jewish migration was driven by political and religious persecution.
For AQA factor analysis questions on urbanisation, explicitly group your causes into 'Economic Resources' (factory jobs), 'Science and Technology' (mechanisation/railways), and 'Government' (Enclosure Acts).
When describing 19th-century internal migration, 1851 is a crucial date—examiners treat this as the turning point when over 50% of Britain's population lived in towns.
Use the specific historical term 'navvies' rather than 'workers' when describing the contribution of Irish migrants to British infrastructure to secure higher terminology marks.
Internal Migration
The movement of people within the same country, such as moving from rural Norfolk to industrial Manchester.
Rural Depopulation
The decline of population in the countryside as people move away to urban centres.
Urbanisation
The process by which an increasing percentage of a population lives in towns and cities.
Enclosure Acts
Government laws that allowed wealthy landowners to consolidate small farms and privatise common land, forcing poor labourers out of the countryside.
Agricultural Revolution
A period of technological improvement and increased crop productivity that reduced the need for manual farm labour.
Industrial Proletariat
The new social class of industrial wage-earners who rely on selling their unskilled labour in factories.
Potato Blight
A biological disease that destroyed the Irish potato crop in 1846, triggering the Great Famine.
Navvies
Manual labourers, often Irish migrants, who performed heavy physical construction for canals, roads, and railways.
Pogroms
Organised, often state-sanctioned massacres and persecution of a specific ethnic group, particularly Jews in the Russian Empire.
The Pale of Settlement
A restricted territory in the Russian Empire where Jewish residency was legally permitted.
Sweated Trades
Workplaces with highly poor conditions, low pay, long hours, and no job security, commonly associated with the clothing industry.
Aliens
A historical legal term for non-citizens of Britain or its Empire, targeted by the 1905 restriction act.
Indentured Labour
A system where workers are bound by a contract to work for a fixed period (usually 5 years) in exchange for passage and food.
Girmitiyas
A term derived from the word 'agreement', used by Indian indentured labourers to describe themselves as people bound by contract.
Transportation
A legal sentence used by the British government exiling convicts to overseas penal colonies, primarily Australia.
Terra Nullius
A Latin phrase meaning 'nobody's land', used as legal justification by the British to claim Australian land despite the presence of Aboriginal peoples.
Put your knowledge into practice — try past paper questions for History
Internal Migration
The movement of people within the same country, such as moving from rural Norfolk to industrial Manchester.
Rural Depopulation
The decline of population in the countryside as people move away to urban centres.
Urbanisation
The process by which an increasing percentage of a population lives in towns and cities.
Enclosure Acts
Government laws that allowed wealthy landowners to consolidate small farms and privatise common land, forcing poor labourers out of the countryside.
Agricultural Revolution
A period of technological improvement and increased crop productivity that reduced the need for manual farm labour.
Industrial Proletariat
The new social class of industrial wage-earners who rely on selling their unskilled labour in factories.
Potato Blight
A biological disease that destroyed the Irish potato crop in 1846, triggering the Great Famine.
Navvies
Manual labourers, often Irish migrants, who performed heavy physical construction for canals, roads, and railways.
Pogroms
Organised, often state-sanctioned massacres and persecution of a specific ethnic group, particularly Jews in the Russian Empire.
The Pale of Settlement
A restricted territory in the Russian Empire where Jewish residency was legally permitted.
Sweated Trades
Workplaces with highly poor conditions, low pay, long hours, and no job security, commonly associated with the clothing industry.
Aliens
A historical legal term for non-citizens of Britain or its Empire, targeted by the 1905 restriction act.
Indentured Labour
A system where workers are bound by a contract to work for a fixed period (usually 5 years) in exchange for passage and food.
Girmitiyas
A term derived from the word 'agreement', used by Indian indentured labourers to describe themselves as people bound by contract.
Transportation
A legal sentence used by the British government exiling convicts to overseas penal colonies, primarily Australia.
Terra Nullius
A Latin phrase meaning 'nobody's land', used as legal justification by the British to claim Australian land despite the presence of Aboriginal peoples.
