Wikipedia: History of England/Talk

Refactored. Cornish debate now resolved and removed by ignoring it entirely and noting general fluctuating state of England. sjc

I changed the line about the rise of machine labor to something an economist would not scoff at. Machines resulted in increased productivity not because of tax advantages but because they allowed for worker output to increase.

The line about wealth increasing due to colonial expansion was also removed. There are very few examples of a nation becoming wealthier from colonies. Most British colonies cost more in terms of administration and military expenditures then they returned in tax receipts. The dramatic rise in British wealth from 1780 through the 19th century is due to the efficiencies of the agricultural and industrial revolutions and the policy of free trade.

As to luddites, it might be mentioned that within those industries that used machines in production there were vast increases in the number of workers employed. The luddite predictions were not only wrong but completely wrong. Machines created jobs, by raising output per worker and therefore making each additional worker more valuable.

We should also mention, that in the moral climate created by industrialization and capitalism, people on a mass scale first began to perceive slavery as evil, and sought its eradication, and that this moral climate led the British people to demand an end of the world slave trade, which their Navy successfully enforced. This is one of the greatest humanitarian achievements in history, and is far more important than much of the drivel that is ritualistically mentioned in standard histories (luddites, for instance). - TS

You make some v. interesting points, Tim, and there's not much I'd disagree with in what you say. sjc

Thanks, Tim - good edits and useful take on industry.--MichaelTinkler

I have a gripe about this article -- it seems to in its second part treat the history of the United Kingdom as the history of England. As every one knows, the UK is more than just England. (Though how often do people seem to forget it?) -- Simon J Kissane I agree but how do we separate it? --rmhermen

This is a largely intractable problem. My proposal is this: that we draw a line at the point at which the Union is fixed and then just move stuff across and link. sjc

16 October 2001. Still no Wikipedia entry on the British Empire, AFAIK. Largest empire in the history of the world, sun never sets, etc, etc. I am not competent to begin this. Anybody else want to step in?

From the article:

 in 1666, London, the timbered capital city of England, was swept by fire, the
 Great Fire of London, which raged for 5 days, killing 20% of the city's 
 population and destroying c. 15,000 buildings.

Was 20% of London's population really killed? If I'm remembering my history lessons correctly, only 6 people are known to have died, and although probably many more than that actually died (beggars and so forth), I've never seen a mention of anything like 20%. Where did this number come from? -- DrBob

Sounds like a faux pas to me. 6 looks like a decent figure to me. sjc

I think having the History of England as one page is going to get more and more messy. Perhaps breaking them apart (with History of England linking to them and the pages linking to History of England) or some system of header and sub-headers that are perhaps anchored and linked to at the top of the page.

That's possibly true but the status quo does have the advantage of being better if you want to print a coherent article. However if we are going to split it, I'd like to split into at least three articles pre-1066 (History of Britain), 1066-1707 (History of England) and post-1707 (History of the UK) on the grounds that this would go someway to solving the problem that this article would be better described as the History of Britain/England?/UK at the moment.

: That looks an extremely sensible split. I would note a couple of caveats. England still did not have a recognisable shape of being England until much later; certainly Cornwall was autonomous at this time as were parts of Cumbria and the North, and the Welsh boundaries fluctuated erratically as a consequence of military and political ebb and flow.

: BTW Whoever reworded the 1st paragraph has done an excellent and thoughtful job on it which should remove most of the controversy about the status of Cornwall by neatly avoiding the subject altogether. I might have to belt in a few caveats about the general shape of England but this seems an eminently more practical resolution of the problem than has been adopted by a few proponents of the Deep England mythology. I am now going to refactor the Talk page to reflect that I consider it a dead issue. sjc