Post-Napoleonic Depression
The post-Napoleonic Depression was an economic depression in Europe and the United States after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. In England and Wales, an agricultural depression led to the passage of the Corn Laws, and placed great strain on the system of poor relief inherited from Elizabethan times.
In England, the Corn Laws exacerbated the situation. They imposed a tariff on foreign grain in an effort to protect English grain producers. The cost of food for working people rose as people were forced to buy the more expensive and lower quality British grain, and periods of famine and chronic unemployment ensued, increasing the desire for political reform both in Lancashire and in the country at large.
England
After the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, a brief boom in textile manufacture in England was followed by periods of chronic industrial economic depression, particularly among textile weavers and spinners. Weavers who could have expected to earn 15 shillings for a six-day week in 1803, saw their wages cut to 5 shillings or even 4s 6d by 1818. The industrialists, who were cutting wages without offering relief, blamed market forces generated by the aftershocks of the Napoleonic Wars.At the same time, the Corn Laws exacerbated the situation. They imposed a tariff on foreign grain in an effort to protect English grain producers. The cost of food for working people rose as people were forced to buy the more expensive and lower quality British grain, and periods of famine and chronic unemployment ensued, increasing the desire for political reform both in Lancashire and in the country at large.