ABSTRACT
chartism ebbed as economic conditions improved; indeed in terms of the increase in employment opportunities that accompanied expanding trade the working classes had some cause to rejoice. Nevertheless, with each spurt of industrial growth and the related rise in urban population, the downward pressure upon living standards intensified as overcrowding increased and public health deteriorated. Manifestations of this process became evident in the rising death rates of Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow between 1820 and 1840. 1 In terms of its size and rate of population growth, its economic structure and scale of industrial expansion, Nottingham could not be classed as one of Britain’s major industrial cities, yet in 1844 it was found to be comparable, in some respects, with the great northern industrial centres:
‘Some parts of Nottingham are so very bad’, wrote J. R. Martin, ‘as hardly can be surpassed in misery by anything to be found within the entire range of manufacturing cities.’ 2
