The Great British Story: A People's History - Season 1 - Eps 7: Industry and Empire
Michael Wood uncovers the extraordinary tale of the Industrial Revolution which turned Britain into the world's first industrial society. Exploring the deep roots of British industry, Michael visits the Free Miners of the Forest of Dean, the flax mills of Northern Ireland, the Cornish tin mines, the Potteries and the world's first centre of copper production in South Wales. In Liverpool he shows how slavery underpinned British wealth and trade, which was expanding to India. As urban society grew and the countryside was depopulated by enclosures and clearances, on the island of Skye, at Tolpuddle in Dorset and at Downton in Wiltshire, Michael shows how the rural workforce responded. Meanwhile, Enlightenment ideals were transforming society, from Armagh, with its great library and observatory to Birmingham, home to the Lunar Society and James Watt's steam engine. In Manchester, the 'shock city' of the age, Michael joins an excavation in the Angel Meadow slum and meets the descendants of poor families who lived there. With British society transformed into an urban proletariat, Michael looks finally at the social progress of the late Victorian age and the migrations which took vast numbers of ordinary people from all over the British Isles to the farthest corners of the globe.
About The Great British Story: A People's History
Title: The Great British Story: A People's History
First Air Date: 2012-05-25
Last Air Date: 2012-08-10
Status: Ended
Rating: 0/10 (from 0 votes)
Language: EN
Seasons: 2
Total Episodes: 8
Network: BBC Two
Genres: Documentary
Production Companies: Unknown
Synopsis
Series looking at history through the eyes of ordinary people. Rulers and royals, lords and ladies have all had their say down the centuries, what were the last 1,600 years like for everyday Britons?
Cast
Michael Wood
Presenter
