This fundamental change in the experience of work became all the more obvious when the invention of steam engines made the factory city possible. In 1750 there had been only two cities in Britain with more than 50,000 inhabitants–London and Edinburgh. By 1801 that had grown to eight, and to twenty-nine in 1851, including nine over 100,000, meaning that by this time more Britons lived in towns than lived in the country, another first.
