THE POPULATION EXPLOSION, MOVEMENT AND CHANGING SETTLEMENT PATTERNS
POPULATION EXPLOSION
The most evidence of the Industrial revolutions impact on the modern world is seen in the worldwide human population growth. Humans have been around for about 2.2 million years. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the mid 1700s, the world’s human population grew by about 57 percent to 700 million. It would reach one billion in 1800. The birth of the Industrial Revolution altered medicine and living standards, resulting in the population explosion that would commence at that point and steamroll into the 20thand 21st centuries. In only 100 years after the onset of the Industrial Revolution, the world population would grow 100 percent to two billion people in 1927 (about 1.6 billion by 1900). During the 20th century, the world population would take on exponential proportions, growing to six billion people just before the start of the 21stcentury. That’s a 400 percent population increase in a single century. Since the 250 years from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to today, the world human population has increased by six billion people.
POPULATION MOVEMENT
Poor working conditions, housing and sanitation led to many people choosing to emigrate. The British at the time controlled a massive empire including America, Canada, South Africa and Australia and people soon started to move to these countries in search of a new life. These people would save money and seek assistance from others to pay for the journey, by boat, to these new lands.Other migrants had a little less choice in the matter, they were 'transported'. Transportation was a punishment. Britain had for a long time sent convicts to her colonies. By 1868, when transportation ended, over 150,000 criminals had been sent to work in Australia. Migration was not just people moving out of the country, it also involved a lot of people moving into Britain. In the 1840's Ireland suffered a terrible famine. Faced with a massive cost of feeding the starving population many local landowners paid for labourers to emigrate. About a million of these laborers migrated to Britain, many others moved to North America.
CHANGING SETTLEMENT PATTERNS
The settlement patterns changed during the industrial Revolution because society began to be split up into two sides; the poor and the rich. The poor suddenly began to become extremely desperate, which resulted in them turning to a life of crime. This life of crime was common among many, not for pleasure or enjoyment, but these people were so poor that they would do anything it takes to gain food and resources to help their families and themselves survive. Life of crime became so popular that the prisons became full and there was no place else for the convicts to go. From there the idea was had to take all the convicts to a new land, to make them work and stay there. Australia was chosen as this land and from there the settlement in Australia began.