The post-1660 army was small by Continental standards, but once England joined the struggle of the great powers there from 1689 onwards, it grew. Officers became increasingly professional and long-serving, especially under the Hanoverians. Troops served overseas at an increasing level in garrisons in Britain’s expanding Empire, though forces were also employed at home, especially as there was no national police force. The Royal Navy increasingly became both larger and more professional, especially from the mid-seventeenth century.

Population rapidly increased, from 2.25 million in 1526 to 4.1 million in 1603; a large increase indeed, which led to strain on resources, mounting prices and an increase in poverty in the late sixteenth century. Yet most survived plague and war and by 1700, England’s population stood at 5 million. This was still a rural society, with few towns of any significant size outside London, and communication was still basic.

Britain was becoming a united political entity in these centuries. England and Wales were formally joined in 1536, following the medieval dynastic link. England and Scotland shared a monarch from 1603, and in 1707, the Act of Union brought Scotland’s existence as an independent political entity to an end. Successful wars resulted, by 1713, in Britain being recognized as one of the great powers of Europe as well as one of the world’s leading maritime and colonial nations.

Hanoverian England, 1714–1837

The Elector of Hanover became George I in 1714. There was a question over his dynasty’s survival in the face of threats from the exiled Stuarts. This led to major rebellions in both England and Scotland in 1715, but these were defeated within months. Unlike the previous century the country then enjoyed internal peace, apart from the Jacobite rebellion of 1745.

Major changes were occurring in society and economy, too. The ‘Agricultural Revolution’ accelerated change in the rural economy, with increasing amounts of arable land being enclosed by Acts of Parliament, and thus changing the face of the countryside forever. Farmers began to experiment with innovative methods of growing crops, resulting in higher yields. Elsewhere, industrial growth was being seen, especially in the West Riding of Yorkshire and in the Midlands as industry became less concentrated in small-scale operations and began to be big business as factories were first created. The impact of these developments should not be exaggerated as they took decades to become widespread.

Communication also underwent a lengthy revolution in the Georgian period, and this facilitated industrial growth, too. Roads were improved by turnpike trusts and so travel was quicker. Canals were dug in the latter half of the eighteenth century, thus easing the transportation of goods. Finally, just as our period was ending, steam power was harnessed to bring about the world’s first railways. All these developments assisted in the process known to historians as the Industrial Revolution which was transforming Britain into the ‘Workshop of the World’ and thus into the modern age. The textile industry was the most important, with cotton becoming dominant by 1810. Coal and iron production also soared, thanks to improved techniques and inventions.

Population increased, from about 5 million in 1700, to 8.3 million a century later and then to 13.1 million in 1831. London’s population topped one million. Death rates were falling and birth rates rose. Yet in 1801, only 30% of the population lived in towns, and most of these in towns with less than 10,000 people. Most of these towns were not industrialized, but maritime or dockyard towns, or regional centres.

Politically and constitutionally, the authority of Parliament rose relative to that of the Crown, albeit by evolutionary means. Royal patronage declined in the later eighteenth century. Under George IV the prestige of the monarchy declined, too. The Reform Act of 1832 led to a redistribution of seats as well as an increase in the electorate; the first such changes to the constitution since the experiments of the Commonwealth. Political parties began to become more recognizable, with the Whigs and Tories being more than abusive labels for the factions of the late seventeenth century. New towns became constituencies in their own right. Radicalism emerged as a political force in the 1760s, and continued as a major extra-parliamentary force from thereon, partly aided by the growth of national and local newspapers.

England had several forms of Protestantism in 1714, and their number grew in the century. The Wesley brothers founded Methodism which became the largest Nonconformist grouping. Despite popular fears about Catholicism, the decline of Jacobitism as a political danger eventually led to anti-Catholic legislation being repealed, so that by the end of the eighteenth century Catholics could worship in peace and Catholic priests no longer feared legal prosecution. This led to a reduction in the influence of the established Anglican Church, yet this institution remained a powerful force into the nineteenth century.

Much remained the same. The counties continued to be ruled by the quarter sessions. However, central government grew in power relative to them, with the creation of the New Poor Law in 1834, which led to a decline in the administrative importance of the parishes. In 1833 the first government educational grant was made and in 1829 the Metropolitan Police was formed. The old order was changing, but at an evolutionary pace.

By 1815 Britain had emerged as the world’s greatest power by virtue of its financial, economic, military and naval strength. The American colonies had been lost in 1781, but much had been retained, including Canada and islands in the West Indies. There had been new acquisitions elsewhere, and Britain, through the East India Company, had become the leading power in India, having ousted the French.

Generally speaking there were several key differences between the centuries between 1066 and 1837 and the twenty-first century. England was far less densely populated and the majority of its residents lived in the countryside and earned their living from agriculture. The authority of the monarch and the church, as well as the nobility and the gentry was far greater. Most people had at best a fairly rudimentary education and led shorter lives. Central government had a far more limited role in most peoples’ lives. This, then, was the England of 1066–1837, centuries of great change, in which your ancestors lived. It is now time to investigate how you can discover who they were and what they did.