, Research Paper
The Era known as the Industrial Revolution was a period in which fundamental changes
occurred agriculture, textiles and metal manufacture, transportation, economic policies
and the social structure in England. This period is appropriately or inappropriately
classified as a “revolution”, for this period completely destroyed the old ways of doing
things; yet these changes did not occur in an abrupt change as the word “revolution”
implies. The transformation that occurred during the period of (1760-1850) occurred very
slowly with small gradual changes. 1760 the year generally accepted as the “eve” of the
Industrial Revolution was not the “eve” at all. In reality, this “eve” people talked about
occurred more than two hundred years ago. The ninety years labeled the Industrial
Revolution is simply a time where the ideas and discoveries of those who had long passed
on, such as Galileo, Bacon, Descartes and others was brought to a national level. The
large question that becomes apparent when studing these years is why then. Why if many
of the ideas of the Industrial Revolution had been known for nearly two hundred years did
they come into common use now? As I answer this question I will examine advances
applied during the Industrial Revolution and shed some light as to why it occurred in the
late eighteenth century.
Agriculture held a prominent position in the way of life during the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. England was no aception as most of the population depended on the
tilling of soil for their livelihood. Not only was Agriculture’s importance rooted in to the
livelihood of the population, but it was an indispensable source of material for the growing
textile industry. The production of wool and cotton for the purpose of manufacturing into
cloth increased every year during the Industrial Revolution. The yield of food crops
increased as well, mainly due to the enclosure movement taking hold in English villages.
Enclosure is the process of enclosing pieces of land by the use of stone walls, tall shrubs
ect. This process helped to increase production because now farmers were able to
introduce new technologies to farming, that before they were unable to do. Before
enclosure there were large farms where villagers worked together to farm. With the
coming of enclosure, farmers were allowed to rent a piece of land and work that land by
themselves. Enclosure gave incentive to try new ways of farming because the more they
produced on their piece of land, the more grain they could sell at the market, and in turn
the more profit they could make. For example, a widely common practice in agriculture at
the time was to allow the land to lie fallow after it had been exhausted of minerals through
cultivation. Soon it was discovered that the growing of clover and other types of legumes
would help restore the fertility of the land. The improved use of manure also helped
replenish land that had been exhausted of minerals. Many of these innovations had been
known for some time but had never been widely used before. The improvements came
into universal use due to the pressure from a rising population. The improvements in
agriculture, led to a greater supply of grain during the winter months to sustain livestock.
This increased the amount of meat on the market throughout the year. All of these
advances made it possible to feed the new populations of people attracted to industrial
centers and large cities. With enough food to sustain a larger work force than ever seen
before, England was on its way for the Industrial Revolution to expand.
Before 1760 the process of manufacturing textiles occurred in the homes. It was a
long and tedious process starting with raw material to finished product. For example
woolen cloth had to be sorted, cleaned and dyed, carded and combed, spun into thread,
then woven into cloth.. Even more processes were performed on the wool to change the
texture and color. Most of each stage of production was performed either by women or
children.
The textile industry in England before the Industrial Revolution was complicated
and grossly inefficient. The process of manufacturing was different from one locality to
another. Generally, a merchant employed putters who distributed the raw materials to
spinners and weavers who were scattered throughout the countryside. Changes in the
process of manufacturing textiles were already occurring in the late seventeen century;
however these changes were not accepted with arms wide open by many Englishmen.
John Kay’s flying-shuttle, which enabled one weaver to do the work of two, and Lewis
Paul’s roller spinner, which was to make spinning more efficient (later to be perfected by
Richard Arkwright), were the precusors of the inventive spirit and the application of new
technology to the textile industry. By the 1760’s the textile industry was experiencing
rapid change. James Hargreaves’ jenny, a device which enabled the operator to
simultaneously spin dozens of threads, was becoming readily adopted. By as early as
1788, 20,000 of Hargreaves jenny were being employed in England and Scotland. Soon
the water frame was developed by Arkwright and others, which performed similarly to
Paul’s roller spinner but now was powered by water rather than muscle. Arkwright,
Samuel Need and Jedidiah Strutt set up a water-powered factory that utilized his
invention. The factory, located in Cromford, had more than six-hundred workers, most of
whom were women and children. The factory spun cotton thread faster than the human
workers could supply the carded and combed raw material.
The adage “necessity is the mother of invention” is appropriate for what was
happening in England during the Industrial Revolution. With larger yields in agriculture
more people could be fed, so in turn England’s population rose. With that rise in
population came a large demand for clothing, mainly cotton clothing. Old textile methods
simply could not produce enough cotton to supply the demand. England’s
non-industrialized textile manufacturing had reached its limits of production, so something
had to be done to expand the limits of production. The development of new technologies
and the movement from textile manufacturing in the home to factories was the cure to
England’s problem.
The changes and development of the textile industry must certainly center about
the inventions and their inventors, though not necessarily be limited to them. The
inventions that were perfected and applied led to tremendous changes in the world of
work. Gone were the old days of domestic system, yielding to the ways of the factory
system.
Developments and improvements in the iron industry came in the early eighteenth
century. Abraham Darby successfully produced pig iron smelted with coke. This was a
huge breakthrough, for before this discovery pig iron was smelted with the use of
charcoal. Charcoal, made from the charring of wood in a kiln, was a good source of
energy to smelt the iron. The downside to using wood to fuel the kiln was the serious
depletion of England’s forests. This new technique developed by Darby was gaining
widespread use during the late eighteenth century, though problems still existed. The iron
produced through the new method was impure and brittle, making it totally un
the forgmasters to fashion it into implements. Soon its use was limited to castings,
nevertheless Darby’s breakthrough changed the iron industry forever. Later,
improvements would occur which produced high quality material and improved techniques
in fashioning it. Although there were many developments in the making of iron, the
orginization of iron factories remained nearly the same, “ The scale of operations has
increased enormously: the sapling has become an oak, deep-rooted and widespread;
technique has been revolutionized. But in structure and organization there is no
fundamental change.” (TFIR pg. 103)All of this made iron and steel more common than
ever before and soon large factories were popping up all over the English countryside.
Improvements in transportation stimulated the course of the Industrial Revolution.
Products, raw materials, food and people needed a reliable, quicker and less costly system
of transportation. In England canals and rivers had long been used as a popular means of
internal transportation. In the mid eighteenth century the first construction of canals
between industrial districts began.. However, canals days were numbered with the coming
of the railroad. The principles of rail transportation were in already in use by the late
1700s. Tramways, using cast iron rails were being used in many coal mines in England,
they were the precusers to railway transportation. A number of people were involved in
the development of railroads in England. Between 1804 and 1820 we find a few attempts
that can be concluded as partially successful. For example: Richard Trevithick’s “New
Castle”, a steam driven locomotive that proved to be too heavy for the rails, John
Blenkinsop’s locomotive, which employed a radical toothed, gear like wheel, and William
Hedley’s “Puffing Billy”, which soon came to be used for hauling coal wagons from the
mines. George Stephenson was a pioneer that bears mentioning. He was invited by the
Stockton and Darlington Railway to build a railway between the two cities. This line
became the first public railroad to use locomotive traction and to carry passengers as well
as material. Soon, however, the line became to unprofitable to maintain and was closed.
Railroads became the dominate mode of transportation in England, “…in the seven years
1831-7 between 400 and 500 miles of railway were opened to traffic.”(TFIR pg.172)
The railroad system is another example of economic necessity producing innovation. The
development of reliable, efficient rail service was crucial to the survival and development
of specific industries and the overall English economy.
The greatest technical achievement of the Industrial Revolution has to go to the
development and application of steam power. Many developing industries needed the
ability to apply enormous power, more than could be produced through human muscle.
James Watt is generally credited with the invention and development of the steam engine.
In fact James improved upon a design which was developed by Thomas Savery and
Thomas Newcomen. The development of a practical, efficient steam engine and its
application to industry and transportation caused a great leap for industrialization. Its
application was virtually limitless, and it was responsible for lifting industries from infancy
to adolescence.
The eighteenth century saw a rise in population faster and larger than ever. Four
primary reason are responsible for this increase: decline in the death rate, increase in the
birth rate, virtual elimination of the dreaded plagues and an increase in the availability of
food. The increase in the availability of food is the most significant of these reasons, for
people in England and Scotland were eating a much larger and healthier diet than ever
before. Industry provided higher wages than what could be found in the villages, this
allowed many young people in the urban areas to marry much younger than before and
produce children earlier.
With the factory system becoming more and more common in England during the
eighteenth century we find a shift in population. Factories were created and soon
settlements popped up around these factories. In a few cases housing was provided for
the workers by the employers. Factories were usually located near a readily available
source of power. The most readily available source of power in England at this time was
moving water. Thus, we find factories popping up near streams and rivers all over the
English countryside. When steam power was introduced factories could then be located
near any source of water moving or not.
In many ways the driving force of the Industrial Revolution was investment of
capitol, “One of the most significant differences between a pre-industrial economy and an
industrialized economy is that the latter had a larger stock of capital; in other words, each
member of the industrial labour force has a great deal more physical capital to assist him in
the process of production.”(TFIR pg. 72) Before industrialization land was the primary
source of wealth in England. A new wealth grew from the Industrial Revolution, that
which came from the ownership of factories and machinery. These people had the daring
to seize the opportunity to invest in new ventures, it was these capitalists who gave the
necessary money to ensure the speedy growth of the Industrial Revolution, “Its
development depended on the unfettered response of private enterprise to economic
opportunity.” (TFIR pg. 98) The lack of an adequate banking system in many remote
industrial centers provided many headaches for these new capitalists. By the early
nineteenth century, however, England had established new banks in more remote areas
near large factories solving many problems. Once the Industrial Revolution started,
capitol was the fuel that kept it going strong for nearly a century.
It is hard to say what exactly caused the Industrial Revolution to happen. There
was no one event that sparked all this change. The Industrial Revolution was a slow
process taking nearly a century to accomplish. The strongest cause for the start of the
Industrial Revolution is the rapid growth in population that England experienced during
the late eighteenth century. With more people in the country, pressure was put on many
different parts of the economy to produce enough to sustain these new people. With
breakthrough methods in agriculture becoming widely used, farmers could produce
enough food to feed a larger population. This in my mind is where the barrier of the old
ways was broken. Once food production modernized, textiles modernized to cloth the
larger population and soon a snowball effect was in full force. Industrialization of England
was an effect of a rising population, spurred on by the virtual elimination of plagues and an
increased food availability.
1. The British Industrial Revolution : An Economic Perspective
by Joel Mokyer
2. The Industrial Revolution and British Society, by Roland Quinault
3. The First Industrial Revolution, by Phyllis Deane
Bibliography
1. The British Industrial Revolution : An Economic Perspective
by Joel Mokyer
2. The Industrial Revolution and British Society, by Roland Quinault
3. The First Industrial Revolution, by Phyllis Deane