The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England's terrain is chiefly low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there is upland and mountainous terrain in the north (for example, the Lake District and Pennines) and in the west (for example, Dartmoor and the Shropshire Hills). The capital is London, which has the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and, prior to Brexit, the European Union. England's population of over 55 million comprises 84% of the population of the United Kingdom, largely concentrated around London, the South East, and conurbations in the Midlands, the North West, the North East, and Yorkshire, which each developed as major industrial regions during the 19th century.
Introduction
England
England | Introduction
It transformed  its society into the world's first industrialised nation. There were two main values that really drove the Industrial Revolution in Britain were self-interest and an entrepreneurial spirit. Output from the Royal Society and other English initiatives combined with the Scottish Enlightenment to create innovations in science and engineering, while the enormous growth in British overseas trade protected by the Royal Navy paved the way for the establishment of the British Empire It transformed England's society into the world's first industrialised nation.
what advantages does england seem to have to start the industrial revolution
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The Industrial Revolution began in England due to the social, economic and political changes implemented in the previous centuries. Whereas absolute monarchy stayed the normal form of power execution through most parts of Europe, institutions ensured property rights and political safety to British people after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Aided by these legal and cultural foundations, an entrepreneurial spirit and consumer revolution drove industrialisation in Britain. Geographical and natural resource advantages of Great Britain also contributed, with the country's extensive coastlines and many navigable rivers in an age when water was the easiest means of transportation. Britain also had high quality coal.
Culture of England | Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution began in Britain due to the social, economic and political changes in the country during the previous centuries. The stable political situation in Britain from around 1688 following the Glorious Revolution, in contrast to other European countries where absolute monarchy remained the typical form of government, can be said to be a factor in favouring Britain as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. Aided by these legal and cultural foundations, an entrepreneurial spirit and consumer revolution drove industrialisation in Britain. Geographical and natural resource advantages of Great Britain also contributed, with the country's extensive coast lines and many navigable rivers in an age where water was the easiest means of transportation.
Culture of the United Kingdom | Industrial Revolution
Also, the damp, mild weather conditions of the North West of England provided ideal conditions for the spinning of cotton, providing a natural starting point for the birth of the textiles industry. The stable political situation in Britain from around 1688 following the Glorious Revolution, and British society's greater receptiveness to change (compared with other European countries) can also be said to be factors favouring the Industrial Revolution. Peasant resistance to industrialisation was largely eliminated by the Enclosure movement, and the landed upper classes developed commercial interests that made them pioneers in removing obstacles to the growth of capitalism. (This point is also made in Hilaire Belloc's "The Servile State".)
Industrial Revolution | Causes in Britain
By contrast, the British economy at the time of the Industrial Revolution was much smaller and less efficient than China's. Local shortages could not be readily alleviated by internal trade; besides being far smaller than China, Britain lacked an efficient internal water-based trade network, which prompted the development of the steam engine and railroads. The early paucity of arable farmland in Britain encouraged technical refinements to improve crop yields at an early date, whereas the vast size of China permitted production to be increased simply by cultivating more land until late in the imperial period. Although overseas colonies provided cheap labor during the Industrial Revolution, local labor in Britain itself was more expensive than in China, providing the capitalist class an incentive to improve worker efficiency.
High-level equilibrium trap | Contrast with Britain
At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, Northern England had plentiful coal and water power while the poor agriculture in the uplands meant that labour in the area was cheap. Mining and milling, which had been practiced on a small scale in the area for generations, began to grow and centralise. The boom in industrial textile manufacture is sometimes attributed to the damp climate and soft water making it easier to wash and work fibres, although the success of Northern fabric mills has no single clear source. Readily available coal and the discovery of large iron deposits in Cumbria and Cleveland allowed ironmaking and, with the invention of the Bessemer process, steelmaking to take root in the region.
Northern England | Industrial Revolution
This was further aided by Britain's geographical positionan island separated from the rest of mainland Europe. Another theory is that Britain was able to succeed in the Industrial Revolution due to the availability of key resources it possessed. It had a dense population for its small geographical size. Enclosure of common land and the related agricultural revolution made a supply of this labour readily available. There was also a local coincidence of natural resources in the North of England, the English Midlands, South Wales and the Scottish Lowlands. Local supplies of coal, iron, lead, copper, tin, limestone and water power resulted in excellent conditions for the development and expansion of industry.
Industrial Revolution | Causes in Britain
There are many other conditions that help show why the Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain. The British Isles and colonies overseas represented huge markets that created a large demand for British goods. Britain also had one of the largest spheres of influence due to its massive navy and merchant marine. The British government's concern for commercial interests was also important. The steam engine allowed for steamboats and the locomotives, which made transportation much faster. By the mid-19th century the Industrial Revolution had spread to Continental Europe and North America, and since then it has spread to most of the world.
Industrial Age | Origins
Before the Industrial Revolution, British industries were generally small-scale. Textile production relied on thousands of individual manufacturers, including spinners, weavers and dyers, who worked in their homes. Changes in steam technology revolutionised transport and manufacturing processes in Britain, allowing large-scale manufacturing and transportation and increasing industrial output. The construction of large factories allowed mass employment in one building, increasing labour efficiency and output. Engels' pause allowed for the accrual of profits from output by capitalists and industrialists; these profits were returned to their industries to continue the expansion and development of new manufacturing processes and technology. Britain's gross domestic product increased steadily, with profits on business capital estimated at 12-16 percent during the 1850s.
Engels' pause | Economic effects
According to British historian Jeremy Black, "an unprecedented explosion of new ideas, and new technological inventions, transformed our use of energy, creating an increasingly industrial and urbanised country. Roads, railways and canals were built. Great cities appeared. Scores of factories and mills sprang up. Our landscape would never be the same again. It was a revolution that transformed not only the country, but the world itself." The 18th century entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood is credited with the industrialisation of the manufacture of pottery. Meeting the demands of the consumer revolution and growth in wealth of the middle classes in Britain, Wedgwood created goods such as tableware, which was starting to become a common feature on dining tables.
Culture of England | Industrial Revolution
Huge changes in agricultural methods made the Industrial Revolution possible. This agricultural revolution started with changes in farming in the Netherlands, later developed by the British. The Industrial Age began in Great Britain in the mid 18th century and was fueled by coal mining from places such as Wales and County Durham. The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain because it had the factors of production, land (all natural resources), capital, and labor. Britain had plenty of harbors that enabled trade, Britain had access to capital, such as goods and money, for example, tools, machinery, equipment, and inventory. Britain, lastly, had an abundance of labor, or industrial workers in this case.
Industrial Age | Origins
The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England's terrain is chiefly low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there is upland and mountainous terrain in the north (for example, the Lake District and Pennines) and in the west (for example, Dartmoor and the Shropshire Hills). The capital is London, which has the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and, prior to Brexit, the European Union. England's population of over 55 million comprises 84% of the population of the United Kingdom, largely concentrated around London, the South East, and conurbations in the Midlands, the North West, the North East, and Yorkshire, which each developed as major industrial regions during the 19th century.
England | Introduction
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, technological advances and mechanization resulted in the Industrial Revolution which transformed a largely agrarian society and caused considerable social upheaval. Economies of scale and increased output per worker allowed steam-based factories to undercut production of traditional cottage industries. Much of the agricultural workforce was uprooted from the countryside and moved into large urban centres of production. The consequent overcrowding into areas with little supporting infrastructure saw dramatic increases in mortality, crime, and social deprivation. (Many Sunday schools for pre-working-age children (5 or 6) had funeral clubs to pay for each other's funeral arrangements.) The process of industrialization threatened many livelihoods, which prompted some to sabotage factories.
History of England | Industrial Revolution
England became the world's first industrialised nation, with the Industrial Revolution taking place in the late 18th century. This was also the age of British overseas expansion, where England relied upon colonies (such as India, America, Canada, or Australia) to bring in resources such as cotton and tobacco. English factories then processed goods and sold them on in both the quickly growing domestic market or abroad. Cities grew and large industrial centres were established, especially in the Midlands and North England.
Economy of England | History
Another factor is the change in marriage patterns through this period. Marrying later allowed young people to acquire more education, thereby building up more human capital in the population. These changes enhanced the already relatively developed labour and financial markets, paving the way for the industrial revolution starting in the mid-18th century. Great Britain provided the legal and cultural foundations that enabled entrepreneurs to pioneer the industrial revolution. Starting in the later part of the 18th century, there began a transition in parts of Great Britain's previously manual labour and draft-animal–based economy towards machine-based manufacturing. It started with the mechanisation of the textile industries, the development of iron-making techniques and the increased use of refined coal.
Economic history of the United Kingdom | The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution started in Britain, with manual labour and horse-drawn vehicles being replaced by machine-based manufacturing and transportation aided by railways and steam power. This led to dramatic increases in the productive capabilities of Britain, and the need of new markets to sell the surplus of coal, steel and clothes. The Napoleonic Wars, where Britain was at war with France, made this a difficult task, after Napoleon countered the British naval blockade with the Continental System, not allowing Britain to trade with any other European country. Thus, England needed to be able to trade with the Spanish colonies, but could not do so because they were restricted to trade only with their own metropoli.
Causes of the May Revolution | Industrial Revolution
The United Kingdom was the first country in the world to industrialise. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the UK experienced a massive increase in agricultural productivity known as the British Agricultural Revolution, which enabled an unprecedented population growth, freeing a significant percentage of the workforce from farming, and helping to drive the Industrial Revolution. Due to the limited amount of arable land and the overwhelming efficiency of mechanised farming, the increased population could not be dedicated to agriculture. New agricultural techniques allowed a single peasant to feed more workers than previously; however, these techniques also increased the demand for machines and other hardware, which had traditionally been provided by the urban artisans.
History of industrialisation | Industrial revolution in Europe
Instead, the greater liberalisation of trade from a large merchant base may have allowed Britain to produce and use emerging scientific and technological developments more effectively than countries with stronger monarchies, particularly China and Russia. Britain emerged from the Napoleonic Wars as the only European nation not ravaged by financial plunder and economic collapse, and having the only merchant fleet of any useful size (European merchant fleets were destroyed during the war by the Royal Navy). Britain's extensive exporting cottage industries also ensured markets were already available for many early forms of manufactured goods. The conflict resulted in most British warfare being conducted overseas, reducing the devastating effects of territorial conquest that affected much of Europe.
Industrial Revolution | Causes in Britain
Britain also had high quality coal. Historian Jeremy Black states, "an unprecedented explosion of new ideas, and new technological inventions, transformed our use of energy, creating an increasingly industrial and urbanised country. Roads, railways and canals were built. Great cities appeared. Scores of factories and mills sprang up. Our landscape would never be the same again. It was a revolution that transformed not only the country, but the world itself." Pottery manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood was one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the Industrial Revolution. Meeting the demands of the consumer revolution and growth in wealth of the middle classes that helped drive the Industrial Revolution in Britain, Wedgwood created goods such as soft-paste porcelain tableware (bone china), which was starting to become a common feature on dining tables.
Culture of the United Kingdom | Industrial Revolution
The debate about the start of the Industrial Revolution also concerns the massive lead that Great Britain had over other countries. Some have stressed the importance of natural or financial resources that Britain received from its many overseas colonies or that profits from the British slave trade between Africa and the Caribbean helped fuel industrial investment. However, it has been pointed out that slave trade and West Indian plantations provided only 5% of the British national income during the years of the Industrial Revolution. Even though slavery accounted for so little, Caribbean-based demand accounted for 12% of Britain's industrial output.
Industrial Revolution | Causes in Britain
In 1825 the world's first permanent steam locomotive-hauled passenger railway – the Stockton and Darlington Railway – opened to the public. During the Industrial Revolution, many workers moved from England's countryside to new and expanding urban industrial areas to work in factories, for instance at Birmingham and Manchester, dubbed "Workshop of the World" and "Warehouse City" respectively. England maintained relative stability throughout the French Revolution; William Pitt the Younger was British Prime Minister for the reign of George III. During the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon planned to invade from the south-east. However this failed to manifest and the Napoleonic forces were defeated by the British at sea by Lord Nelson and on land by the Duke of Wellington.
England | Late modern and contemporary
The Industrial Revolution helped create opportunities for employment for all members of the family. Any improvement to the quality of life for the working class, however, came despite hard and bitter experiences among factory laborers. It is generally agreed that the impact of the Industrial Revolution, was negative for children.[1] In the industrial districts, children tended to enter the workforce at younger ages than rural ones, although child labour was not a consequence of the Industrial Revolution: children were first exploited by their parents on farms.[2] Many of the new factory owners preferred to employ children, whom they viewed as easier to deal with than adults.
Life in Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution | Introduction
Muir makes a complex, Malthusian argument for the origin of an industrial revolution in New England independent of the English industrial revolution. Demonstrating that the economic model of colonial New England was large families of children on small-hold farms, producing sufficient wealth not only to live comfortably but to enable all of the children to purchase farms, she argues that a crunch point was reached when cheap, unsettled land ceased to be available. Focusing on the decades following 1790, she argues that families had accumulated wealth to set their children up on farms, but that land was not available until after the federal government broke the armed strength of Tecumseh in the Ohio country.
Reflections in Bullough's Pond | Thesis
The Industrial Revolution started in Britain, with the use of plateways, canals and steam power. This led to dramatic increases in the productive capabilities of Britain, and created a need for new markets to sell its products. The Napoleonic Wars with France made this a difficult task, after Napoleon imposed the Continental System, which forbade his allies and conquests to trade with Britain. Thus Britain needed to be able to trade with the Spanish colonies, but could not do so because the colonies were restricted to trade only with their parent state. To achieve their economic objectives, Britain initially tried to invade Rio de la Plata and conquer key cities in Spanish America.
May Revolution | International causes
Great Britain provided the legal and cultural foundations that enabled entrepreneurs to pioneer the Industrial Revolution. Key factors fostering this environment were: There were two main values that really drove the Industrial Revolution in Britain. These values were self-interest and an entrepreneurial spirit. Because of these interests, many industrial advances were made that resulted in a huge increase in personal wealth and a consumer revolution. These advancements also greatly benefitted the British society as a whole. Countries around the world started to recognise the changes and advancements in Britain and use them as an example to begin their own Industrial Revolutions.
Industrial Revolution | Causes in Britain
By re-introducing income taxes in 1842 at the rate of 7 pence on the pound for incomes over £150, the government of Sir Robert Peel was able to compensate for loss of revenue and repeal import duties on over 700 items. From 1815 to 1870, Britain reaped the benefits of being the world's first modern, industrialised nation. It described itself as 'the workshop of the world', meaning that its finished goods were produced so efficiently and cheaply that they could often undersell comparable, locally manufactured goods in almost any other market.
Economic history of the United Kingdom | Free trade
The ramifications of the early Industrial Revolution affected Carr's approach to local residents in the countries he visited. Britain's economic, technological and military advancements gave him as a British citizen numerical justification, for example naval ships and exports, to feel superior over other countries because of ranking number one in economic and naval terms.
A Northern Summer | Industrial Revolution
Trade expansion was enabled by the introduction of canals, improved roads and railways. Factories pulled thousands from low productivity work in agriculture to high productivity urban jobs.
Economic history of the United Kingdom | The Industrial Revolution
Under the newly formed Kingdom of Great Britain, output from the Royal Society and other English initiatives combined with the Scottish Enlightenment to create innovations in science and engineering, while the enormous growth in British overseas trade protected by the Royal Navy paved the way for the establishment of the British Empire. Domestically it drove the Industrial Revolution, a period of profound change in the socioeconomic and cultural conditions of England, resulting in industrialised agriculture, manufacture, engineering and mining, as well as new and pioneering road, rail and water networks to facilitate their expansion and development. The opening of Northwest England's Bridgewater Canal in 1761 ushered in the canal age in Britain.
England | Late modern and contemporary
Life in Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution underwent rapid social and economic changes due to the developments of mechanized working methods based on the factory system and the steam engine. As a result, work became more regimented, disciplined, and moved outside the home. Large segments of the rural population migrated to the cities, causing dramatic lifestyle changes. The industrial belts of Great Britain included the Scottish Lowlands, South Wales, northern England, and the English Midlands. The establishment of major factory centers helped develop networks of canals, roads, and railroads, particularly in Derbyshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, and Yorkshire. These regions saw the formation of a new workforce, described in Marxist theory as the "proletariat".
Life in Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution | Introduction
They had a good basic structure to build on. Another major advantage, which the British lacked, was no inherited aristocratic institutions. The eastern seaboard of the United States, with a great number of rivers and streams along the Atlantic seaboard, provided many potential sites for constructing textile mills necessary for early industrialization. The technology and information on how to build a textile industry were largely provided by Samuel Slater (1768–1835) who emigrated to New England in 1789. He had studied and worked in British textile mills for a number of years and immigrated to the United States, despite restrictions against it, to try his luck with U.S.
Technological and industrial history of the United States | Introduction
New England is far from the center of the country, is relatively small, and is relatively densely populated. It was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in the United States as well as being one of the first regions to experience deindustrialization. Today, it is the center of education, research, high technology, finance, and medicine.
Economy of New England | Introduction
The Great Depression highlighted the weakness of Northern England's specialised economy: as world trade declined, demand for ships, steel, coal and textiles all fell. For the most part, Northern factories were still using nineteenth-century technology, and were not able to keep up with advances in industries such as motors, chemicals and electricals, while the expansion of the electric grid removed the North's advantages in terms of power generation and meant it was now more economic to build new factories in the Midlands or South. The industrial concentration in Northern England made it a major target for Luftwaffe attacks during the Second World War.
Northern England | Deindustrialisation and modern history
The Industrial Revolution, which occurred between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries, led to an increase in Britain's urban population and economic output due to the modernisation of manufacturing and technology. As per-capita gross domestic product grew, real wages of the British working class remained relatively constant. Capitalists and financiers of new, large-scale manufacturing businesses accumulated the gains from economic development, using them to expand their industries. British academic economists Charles Harley and Nicholas Crafts analysed the growth rates of industries and economic sectors in Britain during the Industrial Revolution in 1980, estimating per-capita growth at 46 percent between 1780 and 1840.
Engels' pause | Background
New products and services were introduced which greatly increased international trade. Improvements in steam engine design and the wide availability of cheap steel meant that slow, sailing ships were replaced with faster steamship, which could handle more trade with smaller crews. The chemical industries also moved to the forefront. Britain invested less in technological research than the U.S. and Germany, which caught up. The development of more intricate and efficient machines along with mass production techniques (after 1910) greatly expanded output and lowered production costs. As a result, production often exceeded domestic demand. Among the new conditions, more markedly evident in Britain, the forerunner of Europe's industrial states, were the long-term effects of the severe Long Depression of 1873–1896, which had followed fifteen years of great economic instability.
Second Industrial Revolution | United Kingdom
Modern industrialization began in England and Scotland in the 18th century, where there were relatively high levels of literacy among farmers, especially in Scotland. This permitted the recruitment of literate craftsman, skilled workers, foremen and managers who supervised the emerging textile factories and coal mines. Much of a labor was unskilled, and especially in textile mills children as young as eight proved useful in handling chores and adding to the family income. Indeed, children were taken out of school to work alongside their parents in the factories. However by the mid-nineteenth century, unskilled labor forces were common in Western Europe, and British industry moved upscale, needing many more engineers and skilled workers who could handle technical instructions and handle complex situations.
Industrial Revolution | Literacy and industrialization
Due to its status as an island nation which needed naval protection against continental European states, Britain's fleet of naval and trade ships were already several times larger than that of its closest rival before the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Britain was only able to maximise the economic advantage of the Industrial Revolution by using the same naval power to convince or force other countries to purchase their factory-manufactured goods.
Maritime power | History
The early technological and industrial development in the United States was facilitated by a unique confluence of geographical, social, and economic factors. The relative lack of workers kept the United States wages generally higher than corresponding British and European workers and provided an incentive to mechanize some tasks. The United States population had some semi-unique advantages in that they were former British subjects, had high English literacy skills, for that period (over 80% in New England), had strong British institutions, with some minor American modifications, of courts, laws, right to vote, protection of property rights and in many cases personal contacts among the British innovators of the Industrial Revolution.
Technological and industrial history of the United States | Introduction
William Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde began using the printing press during the late 15th century. Transport links were also improved; many road bridges were either erected or rebuilt in stone during the long economic boom of the 12th and 13th centuries. England's maritime trade benefited from the introduction of cog ships, and many docks were improved and fitted with cranes for the first time.
England in the Middle Ages | Technology and science
Besides woollens, cotton, silk and linen cloth manufacturing became important after 1600, as did coal and iron. In 1709, Abraham Darby I established a coke-fired blast furnace to produce cast iron, replacing charcoal, although continuing to use blast furnaces. The ensuing availability of inexpensive iron was one of the factors leading to the Industrial Revolution. Toward the end of the 18th century, cast iron began to replace wrought iron for certain purposes, because it was cheaper. Carbon content in iron was not implicated as the reason for the differences in properties of wrought iron, cast iron, and steel until the 18th century.
Economic history of the United Kingdom | Manufacturing
In period loosely dated from the 1770s to the 1820s, Britain experienced an accelerated process of economic change that transformed a largely agrarian economy into the world's first industrial economy. This phenomenon is known as the "industrial revolution", since the changes were far-reaching and permanent throughout many areas of Britain, especially in the developing cities. Economic, institutional, and social changes were fundamental to the emergence of the industrial revolution. Whereas absolutism remained the normal form of governance through most parts of Europe, in the UK a fundamental power balance was created after the revolutions of 1640 and 1688. The new institutional setup ensured property rights and political safety and thereby supported the emergence of an economically prosperous middle class.
Economic history of the United Kingdom | The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution in Continental Europe came a little later than in Great Britain. In many industries, this involved the application of technology developed in Britain in new places, starting with Belgium. Often the technology was purchased from Britain or British engineers and entrepreneurs moved abroad in search of new opportunities. By 1809, part of the Ruhr Valley in Westphalia was called 'Miniature England' because of its similarities to the industrial areas of England. The German, Belgian and many other European governments all provided state funding to the new industries. In some cases (such as iron), the different availability of resources locally meant that only some aspects of the British technology were adopted.
Industrial Revolution | Continental Europe
If the two countries specialize in producing the good for which they have the absolute advantage, and if they exchange part of the good with each other, both of the two countries can end up with more of each good than they would have in the absence of trade. In the absence of trade, each country produces one unit of cloth and one unit of wine, i.e. a combined total production of 2 units of cloth and 2 units of wine. Here, if England commits all of its labor (80+100) for the production of cloth for which England has the absolute advantage, England produces (80+100)÷80=2.25 units of cloth.
Absolute advantage | Example 1
Although localized to certain parts of Britain (the London area was not included), its impact was felt worldwide on migration and trade, society and politics, on cities and countryside, and affected the remotest areas. The growth rate in the British GDP was 1.5% per year (1770–1815), doubling to 3.0% (1815–1831). Success in building larger, more efficient steam engines after 1790 meant that the cost of energy fell steadily. Entrepreneurs found uses for stationary engines in turning the machines in a factory or the pumps at a mine, while mobile engines were put into locomotives and ships (where they turned paddles or, later, propellers).
Economic History of Europe (1000 AD — Present) | Industrial Revolution: 1750s–1840s
Credited as the inventor of modern marketing, Wedgwood pioneered direct mail, money back guarantees, travelling salesmen, carrying pattern boxes for display, self-service, free delivery, buy one get one free, and illustrated catalogues. Described as "natural capitalists" by the BBC, dynasties of Quakers were successful in business and contributed the Industrial Revolution. This included ironmaking by Abraham Darby I and his family; banking, including Lloyds Banking Group (founded by Sampson Lloyd), Barclays PLC, Backhouse's Bank and Gurney's Bank; life assurance (Friends Provident); pharmaceuticals (Allen & Hanburys); the big three British chocolate companies, Cadbury, Fry's and Rowntree); biscuit manufacturing (Huntley & Palmers); match manufacture (Bryant and May) and shoe manufacturing (Clarks).
Culture of England | Industrial Revolution
Would manufacturing towns ever be loyal? Was poverty eating up capital? Was it safe to depend upon imports for food and raw materials? Could the fleet keep the seas open? Or should government encourage emigration and require those who remained behind to support themselves by spade husbandry? These were the ‘condition of England’ questions".
Condition of England question | Introduction
The Industrial Revolution had a big impact on the inequality between people and countries, giving the new parameters of what is a rich or poor country. The Industrial Revolution gives a new sense to the word "Powerful country" and this was if you are an industrialized country you have power and if you are non-industrialized you are weak. To keep the factories, machines and workers in a good state the countries needed primary material so one of the industrialized countries, England had an idea, to extract these primary materials from the non-developed countries (colonies), then other industrialized countries like Japan, the United States and Russia did the same strategy as England, they used the poorest countries to their own benefit, and the imperialism began in this point: this was the practice extending the power of powerful countries in the poorest ones, controlling the economy, production and politics, making the wealthy nations more wealthy and the poorest nations poorer.
International inequality | Economic inequality in Industrial revolution
He has produced a substantial body of papers for academic journals, the British government and international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund. During the 1980s Crafts argued that during the Industrial Revolution an abnormally high (compared to countries which industrialised later) proportion of the British economy came to be devoted to industry and international trade, and that the British economy always tended to grow slowly. When Britain was overtaken by Germany and the USA - both larger countries - in the late nineteenth century, this was not because of any deceleration of British performance.
Nicholas Crafts | Introduction
So, Portugal possesses an "absolute advantage" in producing cloth due to fewer labor hours, but England has a "comparative advantage" in producing cloth due to lower opportunity cost. In other words, if it is cheaper for a country to produce one good relative to a second, then they will have a comparative advantage and an incentive to produce more of that good which is relatively cheaper for them to produce than the other--assuming they have an advantageous opportunity to trade in the marketplace for the other more difficult to produce good. Similarly most anyone should take the opportunity to offer in the marketplace a good which they have a relative advantage in producing.
Comparative advantage | Ricardo's example
During the Industrial Revolution the empire became less important and less well-regarded. The British defeat in the American War of Independence (1775–1783) deprived it of its largest and most developed colonies. This loss brought a realisation that colonies were not particularly economically beneficial to the home economy. It was realised that the costs of occupation of colonies often exceeded the financial return to the taxpayer. In other words, formal empire afforded no great economic benefit when trade would continue whether the overseas political entities were nominally sovereign or not. The American Revolution helped demonstrate this by showing that Britain could still control trade with the colonies without having to pay for their defence and governance.
Economic history of the United Kingdom | Empire
The Industrial Revolution improved Britain's transport infrastructure with a turnpike road network, a canal and waterway network, and a railway network. Raw materials and finished products could be moved more quickly and cheaply than before. Improved transportation also allowed new ideas to spread quickly.
Industrial Revolution | Transportation
The effects of the industrial revolution could be seen through an economy dominated by iron and steel, coal mining and shipbuilding.
North East England | Industrial heritage
Another important result of the manufacturing boom in New England was the new abundance of cheap products that formerly had to be produced on the farm. For example, myriad new mills produced inexpensive textiles, and it now made more economic sense for many farm women to purchase these textiles rather than spin and weave them at home. Women consequently found new employment elsewhere, typically at the mills, many of which had a shortage of workers, and they began to earn cash incomes. The agricultural competition that emerged from the western states due to improvements in transportation (e.g., railroads and steamboats) also helped shape agriculture in New England.
History of New England | Agriculture
According to historian Carroll Quigley, Great Britain could afford to act benevolently in the 19th century due to the advantages of her geographical location, its naval power and economic ascendancy as the first nation to enjoy an industrial revolution. A view advanced by economists such as Barry Eichengreen is that the first age of Globalization began with the laying of transatlantic telegraph cables in the 1860s, which facilitated a rapid increase in the already growing trade between Britain and America. Though Current Account controls were still widely used (in fact all industrial nations apart from Great Britain and the Netherlands actually increased their tariffs and quotas in the decades leading up to 1914, though this was motivated more by a desire to protect "infant industries" than to encourage a trade surplus), capital controls were largely absent, and people were generally free to cross international borders without requiring passports.
Balance of payments | 1820–1914: free trade
Before and during the early 19th century, much of continental European agriculture was underdeveloped compared to Asian Cores and England. This left Europe with abundant idle natural resources. England, on the other hand, had reached the limit of its agricultural productivity well before the beginning of the 19th century. Rather than taking the costly route of improving soil fertility, the English increased labor productivity by industrializing agriculture. From 1750 to 1850, European nations experienced population booms; however, European agriculture was barely able to keep pace with the dietary needs. Imports from the Americas, and the reduced caloric intake required by industrial workers compared to farmers allowed England to cope with the food shortages.
Great Divergence | Agriculture
The Industrial Revolution was the first period in history during which there was a simultaneous increase in both population and per capita income. According to Robert Hughes in "The Fatal Shore", the population of England and Wales, which had remained steady at six million from 1700 to 1740, rose dramatically after 1740. The population of England had more than doubled from 8.3 million in 1801 to 16.8 million in 1850 and, by 1901, had nearly doubled again to 30.5 million. Improved conditions led to the population of Britain increasing from 10 million to 40 million in the 1800s. Europe's population increased from about 100 million in 1700 to 400 million by 1900.
Industrial Revolution | Population increase
British economic historian Gregory Clark has controversially claimed, in his book "A Farewell to Alms", on the basis of extensive research, that Britain may have been where the Industrial Revolution began because the British people had a head start in "evolving"through a combination of cultural and possibly even genetic changesa critical mass of people with middle-class values. Others have claimed, by contrast, that the "natural inclination" of workers at the early stages of the Industrial Revolution was to work as few hours as needed to earn a subsistence living, and workers had to be brainwashed into working long hours. Some have claimed that compulsory education and advertising played a part in this brainwashing - compulsory education instilling obedience and hard work at an early age, and advertising instilling desire for consumer goods that had to be paid for with more work.
Middle-class values | Spread of middle-class values
Between 1830 and 1860, thousands of farm girls moved from rural areas where there was no paid employment to work in the nearby mills, such as the famous Lowell Mill Girls. As the textile industry grew, immigration also grew. By the 1850s, immigrants began working in the mills, especially French Canadians and Irish.
New England | Industrial Revolution
Historians typically date the coming of the Industrial Revolution to Britain in the mid-18th century. Not only did existing cities grow but small market towns such as Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds became cities simply by weight of population.
English society | Industrial Revolution
During this time, with the invention of the steam engine the industrial revolution had begun. Poverty had also accelerated through the Speenhamland system of poor laws by subsidising employers and landowners with parish rates. The Corn Laws from 1815 further impoverished people by fixing prices to maintain landowner profits. While the Great Reform Act 1832 extended the vote slightly, only those with property had any representation in Parliament. Although the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 abolished the slave trade within the British Empire, it only compensated slave owners and made ex-slaves in colonies pay off debts for their freedom for decades after.
History of the constitution of the United Kingdom | Political and industrial revolution
While figures like Jeremy Bentham called natural rights "nonsense upon stilts", Mary Wollstonecraft called for "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" as well as men, arguing that unjust gender and class oppression flowed from "the respect paid to property... as from a poisoned fountain". While successful in the Napoleonic wars in defeating France, and cementing union with Ireland in the Act of Union 1800, liberty, freedom and democracy were scarcely protected in the new "United Kingdom". During this time, with the invention of the steam engine the industrial revolution had begun. Poverty had also accelerated through the Speenhamland system of poor laws by subsidising employers and landowners with parish rates.
Constitution of the United Kingdom | History
From further afield, Northern England saw immigration from European countries such as Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia and Scandinavia. Some immigrants were well-to-do industrialists seeking to do business in the booming industrial cities, some were escaping poverty, some were servants or slaves, some were sailors who chose to settle in the port towns, some were Jews fleeing pogroms on the continent, and some were migrants originally stranded at Liverpool after attempting to catch an onwards ship to the United States or to colonies of the British Empire. At the same time, hundreds of thousands from depressed rural areas of the North emigrated, chiefly to the US, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Northern England | Industrial Revolution
The benefits of growth were widely distributed in New England, reaching from merchants to farmers to hired laborers. The rapidly growing population led to shortages of good farm land on which young families could establish themselves; one result was to delay marriage, and another was to move to new lands farther west. In the towns and cities, there was strong entrepreneurship, and a steady increase in the specialization of labor. Wages for men went up steadily before 1775; new occupations were opening for women, including weaving, teaching, and tailoring. The region bordered New France, and in the numerous wars the British poured money in to purchase supplies, build roads and pay colonial soldiers.
Economic history of the United States | New England
Hoskins begins his chapter on industrialisation with the remark "England was still a peaceful agricultural country at the beginning of the seventeenth century." He describes the early industrial landscape, water power and early mills, steam power and slums. He names transformative inventions such as Kay's flying shuttle of 1733 and Hargreaves's spinning jenny of 1767, and comments that Matthew Boulton opened his steam engine factory "in the still unravished country" outside Birmingham in 1765. He quotes a poem by Anna Seward lamenting the ravishing of Coalbrookdale, c. 1785, and one by Wordsworth from "The Excursion". He is critical of the industrial slums and the smoke and dirt of the Staffordshire Potteries.
The Making of the English Landscape | 7. The Industrial Revolution and the Landscape
In Southeast England, in spite of a sedimentary soil which would not fit this landscape, a bocage resulted from the movement of the enclosure of the open fields. England developed in the 17th century an ambitious sea policy. It imported Russian wheat, cheaper than English wheat. The enclosures favoured sheep husbandry and limited English cereal grain production. As a consequence of this policy, the rural exodus was amplified, accelerating the Industrial Revolution. The surplus of agricultural workers migrated to the cities to work in factories.
Bocage | England
Cary's 1695 "A Discourse on Trade" is cited as having one of the "earliest explicit discussions of machinery." Cary, an advocate of the use of machinery to enhance the manufacturing sector and thereby create economic growth, wrote that England gained a competitive advantage over other competitors because of the innovation of English manufacturers. "Tobacco is cut by Engines: Books are printed; Deal Boards are sawn with Mills; Lead is smelted by Wind Furnaces; all which save the Labour of many Hands, so the Wages of those employed need not be fallen ... New Projections are every Day set on Foot to render the making our Woollen Manufacturers easy, which should be rendered cheaper by the Contrivance of the Manufacturers, not by falling the Price of Labour; Cheapness creates Expence, and gives fresh Employments, whereby the Poor will be still kept at Work" (pg.
John Cary (businessman) | Discussions on Machinery
According to Figure 1, the UK commits 80 hours of labor to produce one unit of cloth, which is fewer than Portugal's hours of work necessary to produce one unit of cloth. The UK is able to produce one unit of cloth with fewer hours of labor, therefore the UK has an absolute advantage in the production of cloth. On the other hand, Portugal commits 90 hours to produce one unit of wine, which is fewer than the UK's hours of work necessary to produce one unit of wine. Therefore, Portugal has an absolute advantage in the production of wine.
Absolute advantage | Example 1
As the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern-day engineering. Thomas Newcomen's steam engine helped spawn the Industrial Revolution. The Father of Railways, George Stephenson, built the first public inter-city railway line in the world, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which opened in 1830. With his role in the marketing and manufacturing of the steam engine, and invention of modern coinage, Matthew Boulton (business partner of James Watt) is regarded as one of the most influential entrepreneurs in history.
England | Science and technology
England's maritime trade benefited from the introduction of cog ships, and many docks were improved and fitted with cranes for the first time.
England in the Late Middle Ages | Technology and science
Henry Maudsley's most influential invention was the screw-cutting lathe, a machine which created uniformity in screws and allowed for the application of interchangeable parts (a prerequisite for mass production): it was a revolutionary development necessary for the Industrial Revolution. Brunel created the Great Western Railway, as well as famous steamships including the "SS Great Britain," the first propeller-driven ocean-going iron ship, and "SS Great Eastern" which laid the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable.
Culture of England | Industrial Revolution
After losing the American colonies in the American Revolution, Britain turned towards Asia, the Pacific and later Africa with subsequent exploration leading to the rise of the Second British Empire (1783–1815). The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain in the late 1700s and new ideas emerged about free markets, such as Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" (1776). Free trade became a central principle that Britain practiced by the 1840s. It played a key role in Britain's economic growth and . From the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 until World War I in 1914, the United Kingdom played the role of global hegemon (most powerful actor).
Pax Britannica | History
In "Condition", Engels argues that the Industrial Revolution made workers worse off. He shows, for example, that in large industrial cities such as Manchester and Liverpool, mortality from disease (such as smallpox, measles, scarlet fever and whooping cough) was four times that in the surrounding countryside, and mortality from convulsions was ten times as high. The overall death-rate in Manchester and Liverpool was significantly higher than the national average (1 in 32.72, 1 in 31.90 and even 1 in 29.90, compared with 1 in 45 or 46). An interesting example shows the increase in the overall death-rates in the industrial town of Carlisle was before the introduction of mills (1779–87), 4,408 out of 10,000 children died before reaching the age of five, and after their introduction, the figure rose to 4,738.
The Condition of the Working Class in England | Summary
After moving to France and also failing to achieve success in promoting his invention, Lee returned to England but was again refused by Elizabeth's successor James I for the same reason. Especially after the Glorious Revolution, authorities became less sympathetic to workers concerns about losing their jobs due to innovation. An increasingly influential strand of Mercantilist thought held that introducing labour saving technology would actually reduce unemployment, as it would allow British firms to increase their market share against foreign competition. From the early 18th century workers could no longer rely on support from the authorities against the perceived threat of technological unemployment.
Technological unemployment | 16th to 18th century
By 1776, some 1,912 parish and corporation workhouses had been established in England and Wales and housed almost 100,000 paupers. A description of the miserable living standards of the mill workers in England in 1844 was given by Fredrick Engels in "The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844". In the preface to the 1892 edition, Engels noted that the extreme poverty he had written about in 1844 had largely disappeared. David Ames Wells also noted that living conditions in England had improved near the end of the 19th century and that unemployment was low. The scarcity and the high price of labor in the US in the 19th century was well documented by contemporary accounts, as in the following:
Unemployment | Industrial Revolution to late 19th century
Some have compared England directly to China, but the comparison between England and China has been viewed as a faulty one, since China is so much larger than England. A more relevant comparison would be between China's Yangtze Delta region, China's most advanced region, the location of Hangzhou, Nanjing and contemporary Shanghai, and England. This region of China is said to have had similar labor costs to England. According to Andre Gunder Frank, "Particularly significant is the comparison of Asia's 66 percent share of world population, confirmed above all by estimates for 1750, with its 80 percent share of production in the world at the same time.
Chinese industrialization | The English school
With his role in the marketing and manufacturing of James Watt's steam engine, and invention of modern coinage, Matthew Boulton is regarded as one of the most influential entrepreneurs in history. Other important English engineers and inventors in the Industrial Revolution include: George Stephenson, Richard Arkwright, Henry Maudslay and Isambard Kingdom Brunel. England has the oldest railway networks in the world; the Stockton and Darlington Railway, opened in 1825, was the first public railway to use steam locomotives. Opened in 1863, London Underground is the world's first underground railway. Known as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson's rail gauge of is the standard gauge for most of the world's railways.
Culture of England | Industrial Revolution
During the Industrial Revolution, Scotland became one of the commercial and industrial centres of the British Empire. With tariffs with England now abolished, the potential for trade for Scottish merchants was considerable, especially with Colonial America. However, the economic benefits of union were very slow to appear, primarily because Scotland was too poor to exploit the opportunities of the greatly expanded free market. Scotland in 1750 was still a poor rural, agricultural society with a population of 1.3 million. Some progress was visible, such as the sales of linen and cattle to England, the cash flows from military service, and the tobacco trade that was dominated by Glasgow after 1740.
Scotland in the modern era | Industrial Revolution
However, freedom of contract did not, as the economist Adam Smith observed, change a worker's factual dependency on employers. As its height, the businesses and corporations of Britain's industrial revolution organised half the world's production across a third of the globe's surface and a quarter of its population. Joint Stock Companies, building railways, canals and factories, manufacturing household goods, connecting telegraphs, distributing coal, formed the backbone of the "laissez faire" model of commerce. Industrialisation also meant greater urbanisation, and inevitably miserable conditions in the factories. The Factory Acts dating from 1803 required minimum standards on hours and conditions of working children.
United Kingdom labour law | History
Safety was very poor in early industrial factories and mines and there was no injury compensation for workers. The injuries from machinery ranged through whole fingers being cut off, mild burns, severe arm and leg injuries and amputation of limbs to death. The most common health issues with long-term effects on workers were disease and cancer. Cotton mills, coal mines, iron-works, and brick factories all had bad air, which caused chest diseases, coughs, blood-spitting, difficult breathing, pains in the chest, and sleepless nights. Housing for workers in the era was overcrowded and unclean, creating a favourable environment for the spread of typhoid, cholera, and smallpox in working-class districts.
Life in Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution | Life affected from working conditions
The United Kingdom, where the Industrial Revolution began in the late 18th century, has a long history of manufacturing, which contributed to Britain's early economic growth. During the second half of the 20th century, there was a steady decline in the importance of manufacturing and the economy of the United Kingdom shifted toward services. Manufacturing, however, remains important for overseas trade and accounted for 44% of goods exports in 2014. In June 2010, manufacturing in the United Kingdom accounted for 8.2% of the workforce and 12% of the country's national output. The East Midlands and West Midlands (at 12.6 and 11.8% respectively) were the regions with the highest proportion of employees in manufacturing.
Manufacturing in the United Kingdom | Introduction
Out of this special population sprang the Industrial Revolution, centred on the colder Northern counties of England like Lancashire and Yorkshire where the high-tech developments of the time took place in spinning and weaving. This is a rare book today, which does not appear to be available as a reprint.
Arthur Keith | "Concerning Man's Origins" (1927)
Conversely England benefits from this trade because its cost for producing cloth has not changed but it can now get wine at a lower price, closer to the cost of cloth. The conclusion drawn is that each country can gain by specializing in the good where it has comparative advantage, and trading that good for the other. Economies of scale refers to the cost advantages that an enterprise obtains due to expansion. There are factors that cause a producer's average cost per unit to fall as the scale of output is increased. Economies of scale is a long run concept and refers to reductions in unit cost as the size of a facility and the usage levels of other inputs increase.
Economic integration | Objective
The "Condition of England Question" was a phrase coined by Thomas Carlyle in 1839 to describe the conditions of the English working-class during the Industrial Revolution. The division of society and the poverty of the majority began to dominate the minds of the most intelligent and imaginative people outside politics following the 1832 Reform Act. They called this the "Condition of England Question". This was closely linked to a growing sense of anger at the culture of amateurism in official circles which produced this misery. The question preoccupied both Whigs and Tories. The historian John Prest has written that the early 1840s witnessed "the middle of structural changes in the economy, which led many to question whether the country had taken a wrong turning.
Condition of England question | Introduction
In fact it was because Hess argued that the revolution would break out first in England that led Engels to move to Manchester, the focal point of English industry. While his father thought Engels would gain first class experience in business by working at the centre of the world economy, Frederick saw it as an opportunity to learn about the class struggle. Steven Marcus argues that whereas radicals based in Europe could look at the industrial heartland of England through rose tinted spectacles, it was by moving there and working on his book "The Condition of the Working Class in England" (1845) that Engels developed a more empirical approach to political writing and that this choice arose from reading Hess's "European Triarchy".
European Triarchy | Introduction
British merchants, shippers and bankers developed overwhelming advantage over those of other nations allowing the UK to dominate international trade in the 19th century. As other nations industrialised, coupled with economic decline after two world wars, the United Kingdom began to lose its competitive advantage and heavy industry declined, by degrees, throughout the 20th century. Manufacturing remains a significant part of the economy but accounted for only 16.7 per cent of national output in 2003.
United Kingdom | Overview
Accordingly, he argued that "not until 1834 was a competitive labor market established in England, hence industrial capitalism as a social system cannot be said to have existed before that date". England began a large-scale and integrative approach to mercantilism during the Elizabethan Era (1558–1603). A systematic and coherent explanation of balance of trade was made public through Thomas Mun's argument "England's Treasure by Forraign Trade, or the Balance of our Forraign Trade is The Rule of Our Treasure." It was written in the 1620s and published in 1664. European merchants, backed by state controls, subsidies and monopolies, made most of their profits by buying and selling goods.
Capitalism | Mercantilism
During the first decades of the industrial revolution in England, from 1750, there was a concentration of labor usually in not yet mechanized factories. There were all kinds of new machines invented, which were initially made by the inventors themselves. Early in the 18th century, the first steam engines, the Newcomen engine, came into use throughout Britain and Europe, principally to pump water out of mines. In the 1770s James Watt significantly improved this design. He introduced a steam engine easy employable to supply a large amounts of energy, which set the mechanization of factories underway. In England certain cities concentrated on making specific products, such as specific types of textiles or pottery.
Machine industry | 18th century
Land was plentiful, wages high, and serfdom had all but disappeared. It was possible to move about and rise higher in life. Younger sons and women especially benefited. As population growth resumed, however, the peasants again faced deprivation and famine.
England in the Late Middle Ages | Economy
The textile manufacturing in New England was growing rapidly, which caused a shortage of workers. Recruiters were hired by mill agents to bring young women and children from the countryside to work in the factories, and thousands of farm girls left their rural homes in New England to work in the mills between 1830 and 1860, hoping to aid their families financially, save up for marriage, and widen their horizons. They also left their homes due to population pressures to look for opportunities in expanding New England cities. The majority of female workers came from rural farming towns in northern New England.
History of New England | Industrialization
Around 6,000 watermills were built to grind flour, freeing up labour for other more productive agricultural tasks. Economic growth began to falter at the end of the thirteenth century, owing to a combination of overpopulation, land shortages and depleted soils. The Great Famine shook the English economy severely and population growth ceased; the first outbreak of the Black Death in 1348 then killed around half the English population. Rodney Hilton and other scholars have argued that those peasants who survived famine, plague and disease, found their situation to be much improved. The period 1350-1450 was for them a golden age of prosperity and new opportunities.
England in the Late Middle Ages | Economy
Manufacturing continues to decline in importance. In the 1960s and 1970s manufacturing was a significant part of England's economic output. However, a lot of the heavy manufacturing industry was government-run and had failed to respond to world markets. State industries were sold off and over the 20th century many closed as they were unable to compete; a situation largely reflected in other Western industrialised countries. In June 2010, manufacturing in the United Kingdom accounted for 8.2% of the workforce and 12% of the country's national output. England remains a key player in the aerospace, defence, pharmaceutical and chemical industries, and British companies worldwide continue to have a role in the sector through foreign investment.
Economy of England | Manufacturing
Textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution in Britain was centred in south Lancashire and the towns on both sides of the Pennines. In Germany it was concentrated in the Wupper Valley, Ruhr Region and Upper Silesia, in Spain it was concentrated in Catalonia while in the United States it was in New England. The main key drivers of the Industrial Revolution were textile manufacturing, iron founding, steam power, oil drilling, the discovery of electricity and its many industrial applications, the telegraph and many others. Railroads, steam boats, the telegraph and other innovations massively increased worker productivity and raised standards of living by greatly reducing time spent during travel, transportation and communications.
Textile manufacture during the British Industrial Revolution | Introduction
The rapid industrialisation of the English economy cost many craft workers their jobs. The movement started first with lace and hosiery workers near Nottingham and spread to other areas of the textile industry owing to early industrialisation. Many weavers also found themselves suddenly unemployed since they could no longer compete with machines which only required relatively limited (and unskilled) labour to produce more cloth than a single weaver. Many such unemployed workers, weavers, and others, turned their animosity towards the machines that had taken their jobs and began destroying factories and machinery. These attackers became known as Luddites, supposedly followers of Ned Ludd, a folklore figure.
Industrial Revolution | Luddites
Forced to rely on their own ingenuity, its members also needed to plan for the future and develop bourgeois habits of work and saving." Berge also mentions that this could be one of the reasons why the Industrial Revolution began in England and other Northwest European countries. However, the historicity of the nuclear family in England has been challenged by Cord Oestmann.
Nuclear family | Overview
In 2019, Frey published "The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation". Comparing the British Industrial Revolution to the Computer Revolution, he argues that the long-run benefits of both events have been immense and indisputable. However, many of those who lived through these massive economic upheavals were not among its main beneficiaries. The Luddites, who smashed machines in the nineteenth century were right in thinking that modern industry reduced their utility. Frey goes on to argue that the reason why the Industrial Revolution first happened in Britain was that governments there were the first to side with inventors and industrialists, and vigorously repressed any worker resistance to mechanisation.
Carl Benedikt Frey | The Technology Trap
Not only was good passenger service established by the late 1840s, but an excellent network of freight lines reduce the cost of shipping coal, and made products manufactured in Scotland competitive throughout Britain. For example, railways opened the London market to Scottish beef and milk. They enabled the Aberdeen Angus to become a cattle breed of worldwide reputation.
Scotland in the modern era | Industrial Revolution
With the onset of the Industrial Revolution in Britain in the late 18th century, there was a rapid increase in the industrial exploitation of labour, including child labour. Industrial cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool rapidly grew from small villages into large cities and improving child mortality rates. These cities drew in the population that was rapidly growing due to increased agricultural output. This process was replicated in other industrialising countries. The Victorian era in particular became notorious for the conditions under which children were employed. Children as young as four were employed in production factories and mines working long hours in dangerous, often fatal, working conditions.
Child labour | Industrial Revolution
New England was key to the industrial revolution in the United States. The Blackstone Valley running through Massachusetts and Rhode Island has been called the birthplace of America's industrial revolution. In 1787, the first cotton mill in America was founded in the North Shore seaport of Beverly, Massachusetts, as the Beverly Cotton Manufactory. The Manufactory was also considered the largest cotton mill of its time. Technological developments and achievements from the Manufactory led to the development of more advanced cotton mills, including Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Towns such as Lawrence, Massachusetts, Lowell, Massachusetts, Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and Lewiston, Maine, became centers of the textile industry following the innovations at Slater Mill and the Beverly Cotton Manufactory.
New England | Industrial Revolution
The Connecticut River Valley became a crucible for industrial innovation, particularly the Springfield Armory, pioneering such advances as interchangeable parts and the assembly line which influenced manufacturing processes all around the world. From early in the nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth, the region surrounding Springfield, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut served as the United States' epicenter for advanced manufacturing, drawing skilled workers from all over the world. The rapid growth of textile manufacturing in New England between 1815 and 1860 caused a shortage of workers. Recruiters were hired by mill agents to bring young women and children from the countryside to work in the factories.
New England | Industrial Revolution
High quality steel in turn fed the shipyards that opened along the coasts, especially on Tyneside and at Barrow-in-Furness. The Great Famine in Ireland of the 1840s drove migrants across the Irish Sea, and many settled in the industrial cities of the North, especially Manchester and Liverpool – at the 1851 census, 13% of the population of Manchester and Salford were Irish-born, and in Liverpool the figure was 22%. In response there was a wave of anti-Catholic riots and Protestant Orange Orders proliferated across Northern England, chiefly in Lancashire, but also elsewhere in the North. By 1881 there were 374 Orange organisations in Lancashire, 71 in the North East, and 42 in Yorkshire.
Northern England | Industrial Revolution
The need for more power stimulated the production of steam-powered beam engines, and rotative mill engines transmitting the power to line shafts on each floor of the mill. Surplus power capacity encouraged the construction of more sophisticated power looms working in weaving sheds. The scale of production in the mill towns round Manchester created a need for a commercial structure; for a cotton exchange and warehousing. The technology was used in woollen and worsted mills in the West Yorkshire and elsewhere.
Textile manufacture during the British Industrial Revolution | Introduction