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The Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution began in Britain between 1780-1850 and transformed the country's economy from agriculture to industry. New machinery allowed for mass production of goods compared to traditional handcrafting. Britain was well-suited for the revolution due to political stability, developed financial systems, available natural resources like coal and iron, and a large population shift from rural to urban areas providing a workforce. Key industries like cotton and iron grew rapidly using new technologies and factory systems of production.

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141 views

The Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution began in Britain between 1780-1850 and transformed the country's economy from agriculture to industry. New machinery allowed for mass production of goods compared to traditional handcrafting. Britain was well-suited for the revolution due to political stability, developed financial systems, available natural resources like coal and iron, and a large population shift from rural to urban areas providing a workforce. Key industries like cotton and iron grew rapidly using new technologies and factory systems of production.

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vats ujjwal
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THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

.INTRODUCTION
THE transformation of industry and the economy in Britain between the 1780s and the 1850s
is called the ‘first industrial revolution’*. This had far-reaching effects in Britain. Later, similar
changes occurred in European countries and in the USA. These were to have a major impact on
the society and economy of those countries and also on the rest of the world. This phase of
industrial development in Britain is strongly associated with new machinery and technologies.
These made it possible to produce goods on a massive scale compared to handicraft and
handloom industries. The chapter outlines the changes in the cotton and iron industries

The term ‘Industrial Revolution’ was used by European scholars – Georges Michelet in France
and Friedrich Engels in Germany. It was used for the first time in English by the philosopher and
economist Arnold Toynbee (1852-83), to describe the changes that occurred in British industrial
development between 1760 and 1820. These dates coincided with those of the reign of George
III, on which Toynbee was giving a series of lectures at Oxford University. His lectures were
published in 1884, after his untimely death, as a book called Lectures on the Industrial
Revolution in England: Popular Addresses, Notes and Other Fragments.

WHY BRITAIN ?

 Britain was the first country to experience modern industrialisation.

 It had been politically stable since the seventeenth century, with England, Wales and Scotland
unified under a monarchy.

 This meant that the kingdom had common laws, a single currency and a market that was not
fragmented by local authorities levying taxes on goods that passed through their area, thus
increasing their price.

 Money was widely used as the medium of exchange.

 By then a large section of the people received their income in the form of wages and salaries
rather than in goods
 In the eighteenth century, England had been through a major economic change, later described
as the ‘agricultural revolution’. This was the process by which bigger landlords had bought up
small farms near their own properties and enclosed the village common lands, thus creating
very large estates and increasing food production. This forced landless farmers, and those who
had lived by grazing animals on the common lands, to search for jobs elsewhere. Most of them
went to nearby towns.

TOWNS TRADE AND FINANCE


 From the eighteenth century, many towns in Europe were growing in area and in
population.
 Out of the 19 European cities whose population doubled between 1750 and 1800, 11
were in Britain.
 The largest of them was London, which served as the hub of the country’s markets,
with the next largest ones located close to it. London had also acquired a global
significance.
 By the eighteenth century, the centre of global trade had shifted from the
Mediterranean ports of Italy and France to the Atlantic ports of Holland and Britain.
 London replaced Amsterdam as the principal source of loans for international trade.
 London also became the centre of a triangular trade network that drew in England,
Africa and the West Indies.

TRANSPOART
 In England the movement of goods between markets was helped by a good network of
rivers, and an indented coastline with sheltered bays.
 All the navigable sections of English rivers flow into the sea, cargo on river vessels was
easily transferred to coastal ships called coasters. By 1800, at least 100,000 sailors
worked on the coasters.

FINANCE
 The centre of the country’s financial system was the Bank of England (founded in 1694).
 By 1784, there were more than a hundred provincial banks in England, and during the
next 10 years their numbers trebled.
 By the 1820s, there were more than 600 banks in the provinces, and over 100 banks in
London alone.
 The financial requirements to establish and maintain big industrial enterprises were met
by these banks

OCCURRENCE OF INDUSTRIALISATION AND CHANGES BOUGHT BY THEM


 many poor people from the villages available to work in towns;
 banks which could loan money to set up large industries
 ; and a good transport network

FACTORS THAT LED TO THE CHANGE IN DEVLOPMENT


 : a range of technological changes that increased production levels dramatically and a
new transport network created by the construction of railways.

COAL AND IRON


 England was fortunate in that coal and iron ore, the staple materials for mechanisation, were
plentifully available, as were other minerals – lead, copper and tin – that were used in industry.
 However, until the eighteenth century, there was a scarcity of usable iron. Iron is drawn out
from ore as pure liquid metal by a process called smelting
 Charcoal (from burnt timber) was used for the smelting process.
PROBLEMS WITH CHARCOAL:
1.charcoal was too fragile to transport across long distances
2.its impurities produced poor-quality iron
3.it was in short supply because forests had been destroyed for timber;
4. and it could not generate high temperatures

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