ABSTRACT
Most observers of the social scene in the middle of the last century were still uncertain whether the rapidly developing industrialization of Britain was benefiting or deteriorating the lot of the worker. In the depressed years of the early 1840s few were in doubt. Samuel Laing, whose essay on National Distress was awarded first prize in a competition in 1844, believed that:
Society has been startled by the discovery of a fearful fact, that as wealth increases, poverty increases in a faster ratio, and that in almost exact proportion to the advance of one portion of society in opulence, intelligence and civilization, has been the retrogression of another and more numerous class towards misery, degradation and barbarism.!
