Editing Sheffield (section)

===Industrial Revolution===
[[File:'Owd Shevvield'.jpg|thumb|left|alt=19th century picture of Sheffield|Sheffield in the 19th century. The dominance of industry in the city is evident.]]
[[File:13th December 1940- Sheffield blitz - NARA - 196508.jpg|thumb|left|alt=Bombing in Sheffield during the Sheffield Blitz, WW2.|Sheffield was targeted heavily by the [[Luftwaffe]] during WW2, owing to the city's industrial importance. The bombing campaign became known as the [[Sheffield Blitz]].]]
During the 1740s, a form of the [[crucible steel]] process was discovered that allowed the manufacture of a better quality of steel than had previously been possible.<ref name="Tweedale1986">{{cite journal |doi=10.2307/3105143 |last=Tweedale |first=Geoffrey |year=1986 |title=Metallurgy and Technological Change: A Case Study of Sheffield Specialty Steel and America, 1830–1930 |jstor=3105143 |journal=Technology and Culture |publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of the Society for the History of Technology |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=189–222|s2cid=112532430 }}</ref> In about the same period, a technique was developed for fusing a thin sheet of silver onto a copper ingot to produce silver plating, which became widely known as [[Sheffield plate]].<ref>{{cite ODNB |last=Phillips |first=Helen&nbsp;L. |title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |edition=online |year=2004 |chapter=Boulsover, Thomas (1705–1788) |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/53918}}</ref> These innovations spurred Sheffield's growth as an industrial town,<ref>{{cite book |last=Southall |first=Aidan William |title=The city in time and space |url=https://archive.org/details/citytimespace00sout_491 |url-access=limited |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2000 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/citytimespace00sout_491/page/n315 306]–419 |chapter=The transformation of the city: from the Feudal to the Capitalist mode of production, and on to the apocalypse |isbn=0-521-78432-8}}</ref> but the loss of some important export markets led to a recession in the late 18th and early 19th&nbsp;centuries. The resulting poor conditions culminated in a [[cholera]] epidemic that killed 402&nbsp;people in 1832.<ref name="VICKERS"/> The population of the town grew rapidly throughout the 19th&nbsp;century; increasing from 60,095 in 1801 to 451,195 by 1901.<ref name="VICKERS"/> The [[Sheffield and Rotherham Railway|Sheffield and Rotherham railway]] was constructed in 1838, connecting the two towns. The town was incorporated as a [[borough]] in 1842, and was granted [[City status in the United Kingdom|city status]] by [[letters patent]] in 1893.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/your-city-council/roles-who/lord-mayor/history-of-lord-mayor.html |title=History of the Lord Mayor |access-date=13 October 2013 |publisher=Sheffield City Council |date=17 December 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141019173804/https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/your-city-council/roles-who/lord-mayor/history-of-lord-mayor.html |archive-date=19 October 2014}}</ref><ref>{{London Gazette|issue=26374|date=21 February 1893|page=944}}</ref> The influx of people also led to demand for better water supplies, and a number of new [[reservoir]]s were constructed on the outskirts of the town.

The collapse of the dam wall of one of these reservoirs in 1864 resulted in the [[Great Sheffield Flood]], which killed 270 people and devastated large parts of the town.<ref>{{cite book |last=Harrison |first=Samuel |title=A complete history of the great flood at Sheffield on March 11 & 12, 1864 |publisher=S. Harrison |year=1864 |oclc=2905832 |isbn=0-904293-01-7}}</ref> In 1880 ten men from Sheffield were part of a group of 47 men who had attended a fancy-dress ball in Hulme, Manchester, but they were tried for soliciting sex between men.<ref name=":0">{{Cite thesis |last=Wells |first=Lauren Elizabeth |title=Male-to-Female Cross-Dressing in Yorkshire: 1870-1939 |date=2021 |degree=phd |publisher=University of Leeds |url=https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/29988/ |language=en |page=71}}</ref> Described by historian Lauren Wells as the 'Sheffield Ten', men from the city had their addresses published in local news.<ref name=":0" />

The growing population led to the construction of many back-to-back dwellings that, along with severe pollution from the factories, inspired [[George Orwell]] in 1937 to write: "Sheffield, I suppose, could justly claim to be called the ugliest town in the [[Old World]]".<ref>{{cite book |last=Orwell |first=George |author-link=George Orwell |title=[[The Road to Wigan Pier]] |year=1937 |chapter=Chapter 7 |publisher=[[Victor Gollancz Ltd]] |page=72 |isbn=0-905712-45-5}}</ref>
[[File:Women of steel.jpg|alt=Photo of the statue Women of Steel at barker's Pool, Sheffield|thumb|upright|The ''[[Women of Steel]]'' statue commemorates the women of Sheffield who worked in the city's steel industry during the First and Second World Wars.]]