Religion in the 19th century Britain

As it is highlighted in table 1, In 1801 the population of England and Wales was in 1801 just under 9 million; by 1851 it was almost 18 million. From the end of the 18th century, this population increase confronted the rulers of British society with urgent questions of social and political control and gave rise to a much increased interest in the place of education in society. The number of schools offering basic education for the growing numbers of 'the poor' increased substantially. Many of these were Sunday schools but, from the beginning of the 19th century, these were augmented and then overtaken by the networks of voluntary schools.
These schools contributed to an increasing literacy, estimated in 1840 ö at the time of the first official survey by the registrar-general ö to be 67% of adult males, and 51% of adult females. This, in turn, gave rise to a new appetite for printed material and a new commercial market for it. From the 1790s, partly in response to a growing amount ...