| 250 Years Ago |
250 years ago must rival 50 years ago which was our “Finest Hour” a phrase coined at the time of the defence of the Empire. Around 250 years ago the English finally saw off their European colonial competitors, the French, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch, and commenced the consolidation of the greatest empire the world had ever seen.
Although the exploration of the globe started some 250 years previously it took this amount of time to develop the English fleet and the naval armies so that the powerful and hated French could be dominated and eventually eliminated as a sea power. The other pieces of the jig saw required to launch England into this position of world domination were the world acceptance of the English Pound (Sterling) as a universal trading currency and England’s leading position in the Industrial Revolution.
The industrial revolution and steam powered engines.
250 years ago also saw the start of the Industrial Revolution following from inventions made by early English engineers to automate textile production (wool from English sheep, cotton from America and India) all driven by steam engines designed in England (Watt) powered by English mined coal. The mining process made safer by Watts steam engine driven water extracting pumps. (Circa 1775). Coal was initially moved round the country by canal barge (Bridgewater 1761) then almost 100 years later by steam railway. (Richard Trevithick built the steam locomotive-1804 enabling Stevenson’s Stockton to Darlington railway in 1825). By 1885 Britain had 16,000 miles of railway and up to 1860 all railways in the world were British, including those in the US.
This period also saw breakthroughs in road building bridges
Roads were improved so much that the stage coach journey from London to Edinburgh was reduced from 2 weeks in 1745 to 2 days in 1795.
Contributors in this field were;
- Britisher John Macadam the inventor of Tarmac, still used today
- Thomas Telford designer of roads with firm bases (like the Romans), canals, bridges, lighthouses and tunnels. His best known road is the A5 from London to Ireland via Anglesey (1826)
The worlds first cast iron bridge built in 1779 can still be walked across at Coalbrookdale over the river Seven.
Lets start this period 150 years before this.
In 1607 England had only one area in America as a colony, called Virginia on the beautiful and fertile south east Atlantic coast. This was about a 100th of the total land mass. The main benefit was trade, Tobacco.
In 1732 almost the whole of the east coast was under English rule from beautiful Georgia in the south to New Hampshire in the north. At about the same time thanks to the skill and power of the English Navy, the French were ousted from of the massive open lands west of the Mississippi river, ousted from Quebec, so England ruled Canada and about 2/3 of what now is the US.
In the East the English also ousted the French out of India. See the war with France over who was going to be king of Spain. (War of Spanish succession). Also the 7 year war with France, the blockading of all the French Atlantic ports by the English Navy and the famous battles in India ousting the French from the strategically important Bay of Bengal (Bangladesh) in the east.
In 1763 England was now established as the worlds leading colonial power. HOWEVER
By 1776 the English had lost about 50% of the land mass in North America following the American war of independence (1775-83) and the independent United States of America was established. In this battle the French, who particularly hated the English at that time for losing so many key conflicts particularly those resulting in the loss of Louisiana and Quebec, were on the side of the American seperatists under George Washington.
Back again 100 years to Oliver Cromwell
What set the political scene or the climate for such a domination of the world by such a small country? Some of the factors must have been:-
Oliver Cromwell (1650) was a fervent and extreme Protestant, his religious sect were called Puritans who were formed as a result of his disgust of the debaucheries of both the Church of England and the Church of Rome. Oliver Cromwell who is still remembered in Ireland (and Scotland) for ruthlessly quelling the local Roman Catholic (Religious) uprisings involving the mass extermination of local Catholics.
Cromwell became ruler of the English via a military Coup d’Etat. He was the only ruler of England for 1000 years who did not want to be a King. He closed all pubs on Sundays, he made Christmas Day a day of fasting. However he was keen on education of the people and law and order. He proposed that capital punishment (hanging or worse) should only be for crimes as serious as murder. Surprisingly he permitted religious tolerance and even allowed Jews back into England for the first time for 400 years. One of his most important accomplishments was the reform of parliament which after Cromwell “ruled” the country rather than the Kings or Queens.
Hence a new and fairer political basis for running a country as opposed to a dictatorship (a King)
(Note the French revolution was not until some 100 years later Circa 1790)
London is cleaned up and England takes a look at the Arts and Sciences
Following the death of Cromwell, Charles the 2nd was enthusiastically made king (1661 by the army). Parliament however still ran the country. With the recent memories of Cromwell he had to be a good King. He was, he found a new role;-
The new King put money into areas where the nation was weak, the arts and the sciences.
- Arts; many buildings result from his patronage. He was lucky in this field as it was in the time of Christopher Wren (Famous for St Paul’s Cathedral) Note also the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, two theatre companies in Covent Garden, The Royal Hospital Chelsea plus some 60 London churches. He extended the Royal Aviary, now Bird Cage Walk and he made Constitution Hill as it is now. He improved Windsor Castle (State Apartments painted in the elaborate Baroque style of the day) He gave land in London for the development of fashionable buildings in Soho and St James.
- Sciences: He formed the Royal Society for the advancement of Natural Sciences and was again lucky enough to have the likes of Isaac Newton, the greatest scientist of the age and Robert Boyle (Boyle’s Law!) the great Physicist and Chemist as two of his founder members.
During this time the country was being run well by Parliament. At home food markets were organised into the now well known names of Smithfield (Meat) Billingsgate (Fish) and Covent Garden (Fruit and Vegetables).
Roads to get the produce to these and similar regional markets were so appalling it eventually led to the birth of the canal systems and then the railways. Parliament also saw to the building of the navy to become the biggest in the world. These perhaps were some of the key elements in the creation of the most powerful nation in the world.
Another round of Bubonic Plague and the Great Fire of London
Also in the reign of Charles 2nd London saw it’s second most serious outbreak of the bubonic plague this time being “burnt out” by the Great Fire of London (1666) which destroyed 4/5s of London and left 100,000 people homeless. King Charles decreed that London should be rebuilt from houses made from bricks and stone rather than wood the preferred material up to that date.
Unfortunately the magnificent plans for a new London drawn up by Christopher Wren were not adopted and hence we still have the narrow streets we see in London today. (This can be compared with other cities which were burnt to the ground like Madrid in Spain and Chicago in the US where the opportunity was taken to build wide grand boulevards. So most of the buildings we see in London now are less than 350 years old. A notable exception being of course the Tower of London.
William of Orange (King William 3rd)
King Charles 2nd produced no children so when he died in 1685 he was succeeded by his brother James 2nd who became a Roman Catholic ( the religion of his wife). Parliament and people having got used to the economic and other benefits of the Protestant version of Christianity (under Elisabeth 1st) devised a scheme for getting rid of him and replacing him with Dutch Protestant King William 3rd who was married to Mary daughter of James 2nd.
James could not believe that his own daughter and son in law would attack him but they did and in a final battle in Ireland over the river Boyne, James fled to Roman Catholic France and William and Mary ruled a Protestant England (plus Ireland and Scotland). The so called Protestant Orangemen in Ireland have retained the Dutch Orange title and colours ever since.
Wars with France and Napoleon
From 1713 to 1815 England was continuously at war with French forces in one part of the world or another as both nations fought for world domination. Following the French Revolution in 1789 the French declared war on England (1793). Napoleon become commander of the French army in 1796. 1798 Napoleon invaded Egypt and threatens the English quick sea route to the East via the Suez Canal (Built 1869). The English naval fleet under Nelson sinks the French fleet outside the Egyptian port of Alexandria.
Nelson again beats the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Atlantic gateway to the Mediterranean at the battle of Trafalgar.(1805)
1812 Napoleon is defeated by the Russians and the Russian winter and his Empire which at one time stretched from Moscow to the English channel started to collapse. (Hitler obviously did not learn from this)
1815 Napoleon finally defeated by the English army under Wellington at Waterloo in modern day Belgium.
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