Ten years before William Wordsworth was born (and eight years before Coleridge), England experienced the Industrial Revolution. As the population in Europe grew, the need for more food and supplies also grew. For years, common folk had tended to fields and livestock for those in wealthier classes such as merchants and nobles. This gave way to a gradually more mechanized form of farming, selective breeding and open-field farming, all of which yielded more food and supplies for communities of the time. It also brought about moral dilemmas such as treatment of animals that were born en masse for slaughter to eat, outmoding of skills that had kept generations alive for years and a generalized shake up of the known world and its possibilities (think the steam locomotive soon after, and then electricity and mass production. It was a confusing time for people who were not all that educated and willing to cope with change to begin with.

Chen, James. How the Industrial Revolution Changed Business and Society. 29 July 2020, www.investopedia.com/terms/i/industrial-revolution.asp.