page_title: Economic history of the United Kingdom
section_title: Recessions
hierarchical_section_title: Economic history of the United Kingdom / 19th century / Recessions
caption_attribution_description: To Henry Hunt, Esq., as chairman of the meeting assembled in St. Peter's Field, Manchester, sixteenth day of August, 1819, and to the female Reformers of Manchester and the adjacent towns who were exposed to and suffered from the wanton and fiendish attack made on them by that brutal armed force, the Manchester and Cheshire Yeomanry Cavalry, this plate is dedicated by their fellow labourer, Richard Carlile:&#91;1&#93;a coloured engraving that depicts the Peterloo Massacre (military suppression of a demonstration in Manchester, England by cavalry charge on August 16, 1819 with loss of life) in Manchester, England. All the poles from which banners are flying have Phrygian caps or liberty caps on top. Not all the details strictly accord with contemporary descriptions; the banner the woman is holding should read: Female Reformers of Roynton -- "Let us die like men and not be sold like slaves".
context_page_description: The economic history of the United Kingdom relates the economic development in the British state from the absorption of Wales into the Kingdom of England after 1535 to the modern United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland of the early 21st century.
  Scotland, England, and Wales shared a monarch from 1601 but their economies were run separately until they were unified in the 1707 Act of Union. Ireland was incorporated in the United Kingdom economy between 1800 and 1920; from 1921 the Irish Free State became independent and set its own economic policy.
  Great Britain, and England in particular, became one of the most prosperous economic regions in Europe between 1600 and 1700, Industrialisation in the UK from the mid-eighteenth century resulted in economic developments described by many historians as the British industrial revolution. These developments resulted in Britain becoming one of the premier economies in Europe during the first half of the 19th century, the most prominent industrial power in the world economy, and a major political power. Its industrialists were major innovators in machinery such as steam engines, textile equipment, and tool-making.
context_section_description: Britain's 19th century economic growth was beset by frequent and sometimes severe recessions. The Post-Napoleonic depression following the end of the Wars in 1815 was induced by several years of poor harvests, which were aggravated by the Corn Laws of 1815. This law set high tariffs on imported foodstuffs, keeping the cost of grain artificially high while wages were declining. As early as 1816, the high cost of grain caused famine and unrest in areas such as East Anglia and the North of England, where rioters seized grain stores and attacked the homes of suspected profiteers and merchants. The high food prices caused an overall slump in consumption and consequently in industrial production and employment. The discontent of the workers culminated in the disastrous confrontation with the authorities at the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, when British cavalry rode headfirst into a crowd of 60,000 to 80,000 protesters in Manchester, killing 5 and wounding as many as 700 people.
  The recession of the "Hungry Forties" was similar in its nature to that of the 1820s. Like that of the years following 1815, the 1840s recession was caused by a series of bad harvests, this time from a blight affecting potatoes facilitated by unusually wet and cold conditions in Northern Europe. Ireland, where the population was heavily dependent on potatoes for subsistence, was the worst affected. On mainland Britain, regions of the Scottish Highlands and the Outer Hebrides were worst affected by the potato blight (some parts were depopulated by as much as 50%). The Corn Laws inhibited the ability of the British government to import food for the starving in Ireland and Scotland, which led the Tory Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel to defy the landed interests in Parliament and force the abolition of the Corn Laws in June 1846. The abolition was only accomplished in phases through 1849, by which time Ireland and the Highlands had lost much of their populations to famine or emigration. The repeal of the Laws, combined with the astronomic growth of the railways, served to lift Britain out of recession in the 1850s, providing the basis for steady growth in population and output over the next few decades.
caption: The Peterloo Massacre of 1819
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