 After the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 , a brief boom in textile manufacture was followed by periods of chronic economic depression , particularly among textile weavers and spinners ( the textile trade was concentrated in Lancashire ) . Weavers who could have expected to earn 15 shillings for a six @-@ day week in 1803 , saw their wages cut to 5 shillings or even 4s 6d by 1818 . The industrialists , who were cutting wages without offering relief , blamed market forces generated by the aftershocks of the Napoleonic Wars . Exacerbating matters were the Corn Laws , the first of which was passed in 1815 , imposing a tariff on foreign grain in an effort to protect English grain producers . The cost of food rose as people were forced to buy the more expensive and lower quality British grain , and periods of famine and chronic unemployment ensued , increasing the desire for political reform both in Lancashire and in the country at large . 
