... case. Fears of revolution sparked by those on the continent were high and property owners, who would be major losers in a revolution, sought to dominate the working classes for their own gains. However, despite Marx's prediction that the emerging industrial proletariat in England would rise in revolution and attempt to gain political power in response to the Industrial Revolution, Britain instead had relatively peaceful movements such as Chartism. If revolution on the continent was driven by political, economic and social crisis, what differences prevented similar outbursts in Britain? First, the economic crisis in 1845 and 1846 in Britain caused by bad harvests was not as bad as on the continent. In Europe the crisis was magnified by the ancien regime economique, poor cereal harvests of 1845 and the potato blight of 1846 were more severe and the economy was much more dependant on agriculture. John Buckler states Britain and ...

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