大象传媒

Page 7 of 7

• 1. Job changes and job records
• 2. One man and his job
• 3. The country at work
• 4. Manufacturing takes over
• 5. Distribution of labour
• 6. The regions at work
• 7. Conclusion
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Conclusion

The way Victorians earned a living could vary considerably from region to region, as well as over time. Indeed, we could break the figures down further to show marked variation within regions, with families in some parts of Lancashire, for example, remaining strongly dependent on farming. We might reflect, too, that people would commonly have changed their occupations during their working lives, perhaps because some jobs, such as handloom weaving, were phased out, whilst others, including electrical engineering, offered new opportunities.

Developments like these might have encouraged people to move from one place to another to find employment, perhaps on several occasions during their working lives. And such moves might have required them to work in quite different circumstances, perhaps switching from outdoor to indoor work; from working with hand tools to operating machines; or from working alone to working with others. Increasingly, too, earning a living became an urban-based activity as a growing proportion of the population became town dwellers.

Nor should we forget that all too many workers experienced periodic unemployment as the business cycle moved downwards, sometimes to a marked degree. For many Victorians, earning a regular wage might have been no more of a certainty than staying in the same job for any length of time.

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