The earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of "Homo antecessor", dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago. Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years. After the last ice age only large mammals such as mammoths, bison and woolly rhinoceros remained. Roughly 11,000 years ago, when the ice sheets began to recede, humans repopulated the area; genetic research suggests they came from the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula.
Prehistory and antiquity
England
England | Prehistory and antiquity
780,000 years ago 780,000 years ago, during the Upper Paleolithic period. Upper Paleolithic period In the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840.
what advantages does england seem to have to start the industrial revolution
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It transformed  its society into the world's first industrialised nation.
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which age can its history be traced back to?
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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
England largely became bound up with the Atlantic trade system, which created a cultural continuum over a large part of Western Europe. It is possible that the Celtic languages developed or spread to England as part of this system; by the end of the Iron Age there is much evidence that they were spoken across all England and western parts of Britain. The Iron Age is conventionally said to begin around 800 BC. The Atlantic system had by this time effectively collapsed, although England maintained contacts across the Channel with France, as the Hallstatt culture became widespread across the country.
History of England | Later Prehistory
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
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
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
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
The development of iron smelting allowed the construction of better ploughs, advancing agriculture (for instance, with Celtic fields), as well as the production of more effective weapons. During the Iron Age, Celtic culture, deriving from the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures, arrived from Central Europe. Brythonic was the spoken language during this time. Society was tribal; according to Ptolemy's "Geographia" there were around 20 tribes in the area. Earlier divisions are unknown because the Britons were not literate. Like other regions on the edge of the Empire, Britain had long enjoyed trading links with the Romans. Julius Caesar of the Roman Republic attempted to invade twice in 55 BC; although largely unsuccessful, he managed to set up a client king from the Trinovantes.
England | Prehistory and antiquity
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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)
The time from Britain's first inhabitation until the Last Glacial Maximum is known as the Old Stone Age, or Palaeolithic era. Archaeological evidence indicates that what was to become England was colonised by humans long before the rest of the British Isles because of its more hospitable climate between and during the various glacial periods of the distant past. This earliest evidence, from Happisburgh in Norfolk, includes the oldest human footprints found outside Africa, and points to dates of more than 800,000 RCYBP. These earliest inhabitants were hunter-gatherers. Low sea-levels meant that Britain was attached to the continent for much of this earliest period of history, and varying temperatures over tens of thousands of years meant that it was not always inhabited.
History of England | Stone Age
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
In around 750 BC iron working techniques reached Britain from southern Europe. Iron was stronger and more plentiful than bronze, and its introduction marks the beginning of the Iron Age. Iron working revolutionised many aspects of life, most importantly agriculture. Iron tipped ploughs could turn soil more quickly and deeply than older wooden or bronze ones, and iron axes could clear forest land more efficiently for agriculture. There was a landscape of arable, pasture and managed woodland. There were many enclosed settlements and land ownership was important. It is generally thought that by 500 BC most people inhabiting the British Isles were speaking Common Brythonic, on the limited evidence of place-names recorded by Pytheas of Massalia and transmitted to us second-hand, largely through Strabo.
Prehistoric Britain | Iron Age
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
In the early years of the Industrial Revolution entrepreneurs began to resist the restrictions of the apprenticeship system, and a legal ruling established that the Statute of Apprentices did not apply to trades that were not in existence when it was passed in 1563, thus excluding many new 18th century industries. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge founded many charity schools for poor students in the 7 to 11 age group. These schools were the basis for the development of modern concepts of primary and secondary education. The Society also was an early provider of teacher education.
History of education in England | Eighteenth century
The earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of "Homo antecessor", dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago. Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years. After the last ice age only large mammals such as mammoths, bison and woolly rhinoceros remained. Roughly 11,000 years ago, when the ice sheets began to recede, humans repopulated the area; genetic research suggests they came from the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula.
England | Prehistory and antiquity
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
England has been continually inhabited since the last Ice Age ended around 9,000 BC, the beginning of the Middle Stone Age, or Mesolithic era. Rising sea-levels cut off Britain from the continent for the last time around 6500 BC. The population by then was exclusively anatomically modern humans, and the evidence suggests that their societies were increasingly complex and they were manipulating their environment and prey in new ways, possibly selective burning of then omnipresent woodland to create clearings for herds to gather and then hunt them. Hunting was mainly done with simple projectile weapons such as javelin and possibly sling.
History of England | Stone Age
Its continuity suggests it was not accompanied by substantial movement of population; crucially, only a single Hallstatt burial is known from Britain, and even here the evidence is inconclusive. On the whole, burials largely disappear across England, and the dead were disposed of in a way which is archaeologically invisible: excarnation is a widely cited possibility. Hillforts were known since the Late Bronze Age, but a huge number were constructed during 600–400 BC, particularly in the South, while after about 400 BC new forts were rarely built and many ceased to be regularly inhabited, while a few forts become more and more intensively occupied, suggesting a degree of regional centralisation.
History of England | Later Prehistory
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
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
Yet, it was accompanied by significant socio-economic change. Proto-urban, or even urban settlements, known as oppida, begin to eclipse the old hillforts, and an elite whose position is based on battle prowess and the ability to manipulate resources re-appears much more distinctly. In 55 and 54 BC, Julius Caesar, as part of his campaigns in Gaul, invaded Britain and claimed to have scored a number of victories, but he never penetrated further than Hertfordshire and could not establish a province. However, his invasions mark a turning-point in British history. Control of trade, the flow of resources and prestige goods, became ever more important to the elites of Southern Britain; Rome steadily became the biggest player in all their dealings, as the provider of great wealth and patronage.
History of England | Later Prehistory
England in the Middle Ages concerns the history of England during the medieval period, from the end of the 5th century through to the start of the Early Modern period in 1485. When England emerged from the collapse of the Roman Empire, the economy was in tatters and many of the towns abandoned. After several centuries of Germanic immigration, new identities and cultures began to emerge, developing into kingdoms that competed for power. A rich artistic culture flourished under the Anglo-Saxons, producing epic poems such as "Beowulf" and sophisticated metalwork. The Anglo-Saxons converted to Christianity in the 7th century and a network of monasteries and convents was built across England.
England in the Middle Ages | Introduction
Around this time the earliest mentions of Britain appear in the annals of history. The first historical mention of the region is from the Massaliote Periplus, a sailing manual for merchants thought to date to the 6th century BC, and Pytheas of Massilia wrote of his voyage of discovery to the island around 325 BC. Both of these texts are now lost; although quoted by later writers, not enough survives to inform the archaeological interpretation to any significant degree. Contact with the continent was less than in the Bronze Age but still significant. Goods continued to move to England, with a possible hiatus around 350 to 150 BC.
History of England | Later Prehistory
As the century progressed and the combination of mechanisation, economic decline, political chaos and religious faith made Britain an increasingly unpleasant place in which to live, the population increasingly came to look back to pre-industrial times as a golden age. As part of this trend, artists became drawn to pre-industrial subjects and techniques, and art buyers were particularly drawn to artists who could make connections between the present day and these idealised times such as to the Middle Ages, which were seen as the period in which the key institutions of modern Britain had begun and which had been popularised in the public imagination by the novels of Sir Walter Scott.
Victorian painting | Classical revival
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
Troops stationed in Scotland under the command of George Monck eventually marched on London to restore order. According to Derek Hirst, outside of politics and religion, the 1640s and 1650s saw a revived economy characterized by growth in manufacturing, the elaboration of financial and credit instruments, and the commercialization of communication. The gentry found time for leisure activities, such as horse racing and bowling. In the high culture important innovations included the development of a mass market for music, increased scientific research, and an expansion of publishing. All the trends were discussed in depth at the newly established coffee houses.
History of England | English Civil War
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
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
The era was preceded by the Regency era and succeeded by the Edwardian period. Historians like Bernard Porter have characterized the mid-Victorian era, (1850–1870) as Britain's 'Golden Years.'. There was peace and prosperity, as the national income per person grew by half. Much of the prosperity was due to the increasing industrialization, especially in textiles and machinery, as well as to the worldwide network of trade and engineering that produce profits for British merchants and experts from across the globe. There was peace abroad (apart from the short Crimean war, 1854–56), and social peace at home. Reforms in industrial conditions were set by Parliament.
History of the United Kingdom | Victorian era
Medieval foreign policy was as much shaped by relations with the Flemish textile industry as it was by dynastic adventures in western France. An English textile industry was established in the 15th century, providing the basis for rapid English capital accumulation.
History of England | Norman England
This era saw a Greco-Roman culture prevail with the introduction of Roman law, Roman architecture, aqueducts, sewers, many agricultural items and silk. In the 3rd century, Emperor Septimius Severus died at Eboracum (now York), where Constantine was subsequently proclaimed emperor.
England | Prehistory and antiquity
Sir Francis Pettit Smith of Kent invented the screw propeller. Faversham Oyster Fishery is the oldest company in the world. Maidenhead Railway Bridge is known for its flat arch, built in 1839 with 39-metre spans. The Wealden iron industry in the Weald was the site of the first blast furnace in Britain in 1491, and produced much of Britain's cast iron until the 1770s. Portsmouth Block Mills were the site of the world's first metal machine tools, built for the manufacture of wooden pulleys, invented by Henry Maudslay, and the site of the world's first industrial assembly line in 1803.
South East England | Industrial heritage
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
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
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
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
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
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
Although their families were large, they squeezed in lodgers. The rural migrants preferred employment in the city to the lack of employment where they were born. Accompanying the Industrial Revolution was one in the countryside, as agriculture was mechanised. The medieval system of guaranteed shared land was being replaced by larger farms with tied cottages for fewer employed labourers.
Pre-regulation terraced houses in the United Kingdom | History
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
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 matters, and they contributed the Industrial Revolution in Britain. This included ironmaking by Abraham Darby I and his family; banking, including Lloyds Bank (founded by Sampson Lloyd), Barclays Bank, 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 the United Kingdom | Industrial Revolution
In medieval times (c. 11th–15th century), the wool trade was the major industry of England and the country exported wool to Europe. Many market towns and ports grew up on the industry. Starting in 1555 with John Lok, England entered into the slave trade. John Hawkins is often considered to be the pioneer of the British slave trade, because he was the first to run the Triangular trade, making a profit at every stop. Poor infrastructure hampered the development of large scale industry. This changed when the canals and railways began to be built, in the late 18th century and early 19th century.
Economy of England | History
Human intervention had established wood pastures, an ancient system for managing woods and animals, and coppicing, a more intensive approach to managing woodlands. Other agricultural lands included arable fields and pastorage, while in some parts of the country, such as the South-West, waste moorland remained testament to earlier over-farming in the Bronze Age. England's environment continued to be shaped throughout the period, through the building of dykes to drain marshes, tree clearance and the large-scale extraction of peat. Managed parks for hunting game, including deer and boars, were built as status symbols by the nobility from the 12th century onwards, but earlier versions of parks, such as hays, may have originated as early as the 7th century.
England in the Middle Ages | Geography
In the 1930s the Whiggish view of the English economy was challenged by a group of scholars at the University of Cambridge, led by Eileen Power. Power and her colleagues widened the focus of study from legal and government documents to include "agrarian, archaeological, demographic, settlement, landscape and urban" evidence. This was combined with a neo-positivist and econometric leaning that was at odds with the older Victorian tradition in the subject. Power died in 1940, but Michael Postan, who had previously been her student but later became her husband, brought their work forward, and it came to dominate the post-war field.
Economy of England in the Middle Ages | Historiography
Vol 2 covers the period following the establishment of the Magna Carta, through to the auto-destruction of the Plantagenet dynasty in the Wars of the Roses. This could be described as the time when the English Nation was reinvented, after two centuries of Franco-Norman subjugation. Volume 1 takes the story back to the foundation of the first English kingdoms, the heptarchy: Kent, Northumberland, East Anglia, Mercia, Essex, Sussex, and Wessex; and to the Romano-Welsh imperium these kingdoms supplanted.
The History of England (Hume) | The Early History of England
Bow and arrow was known in Western Europe since least 9000 BC. The climate continued to warm and the population probably rose. The New Stone Age, or Neolithic era, began with the introduction of farming, ultimately from the Middle East, around 4000 BC. It is not known whether this was caused by a substantial folk movement or native adoption of foreign practices or both. People began to lead a more settled lifestyle. Monumental collective tombs were built for the dead in the form of chambered cairns and long barrows. Towards the end of the period, other kinds of monumental stone alignments begin to appear, such as Stonehenge; their cosmic alignments show a preoccupation with the sky and planets.
History of England | Stone Age
The universities of Oxford and Cambridge were established during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, drawing on the model of the University of Paris. Technological advances proceeded in a range of areas. Watermills to grind grain had existed during most of the Anglo-Saxon period, using horizontal mill designs; from the twelfth century on many more were built, eliminating the use of hand mills, with the older horizontal mills gradually supplanted by a new vertical mill design. Windmills began to be built in the late twelfth century and slowly became more common. Water-powered fulling mills and powered hammers first appeared in the twelfth century; water power was harnessed to assist in smelting by the fourteenth century, with the first blast furnace opening in 1496.
England in the Late Middle Ages | Technology and science
The British Isles became inhabited more than 800,000 years ago, as the discovery of stone tools and footprints at Happisburgh in Norfolk has revealed. The earliest evidence for early modern humans in North West Europe, a jawbone discovered in Devon at Kents Cavern in 1927, was re-dated in 2011 to between 41,000 and 44,000 years old. Continuous human habitation in England dates to around 13,000 years ago (see Creswellian), at the end of the Last Glacial Period. The region has numerous remains from the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age, such as Stonehenge and Avebury. In the Iron Age, all of Britain south of the Firth of Forth, was inhabited by the Celtic people known as the Britons, including some Belgic tribes (e.g.
History of England | Introduction
During the Exclusion Crisis of the late 1670s and early 1680s, the theory of the ancient constitution was upheld by Whig writers such as William Petyt, Algernon Sidney and James Tyrrell. The Royalist writer Robert Brady criticised them in his "Introduction to the Old English History" (1694) and in the first volume of his "History of England" (1695). Following the studies of feudal history made by Henry Spelman and William Dugdale, Brady argued that William I at the Norman Conquest had completely changed English law and had introduced feudal tenures. Whereas Petyt maintained that a class of freeholders had survived from Anglo-Saxon times despite the Norman Conquest, Brady argued that during the Middle Ages the population was entirely feudal, with no freeholders.
Ancient constitution of England | Political role
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
Of the main conditions of industrial labour in early Anglo-Saxon England details are scanty. Monastic industrial communities were added in Christian times to village industrial communities. While generally husbandry was the first object of toil, and developed under elaborate regulation in the manorial system, still a considerable variety of industries grew up, the aim being expressly to make each social group self-sufficing, and to protect and regulate village artisans in the interest of village resources. This protective system, resting on a communal or co-operative view of labour and social life, has been compared as analogous to the much later and wider system under which the main purpose was to keep England as a whole self-sufficing.
History of labour law in the United Kingdom | Anglo-Saxon England
The advantages that Europe had developed by the mid-18th century were two: an entrepreneurial culture, and the wealth generated by the Atlantic trade (including the African slave trade). By the late 16th century, silver from the Americas accounted for the Spanish empire's wealth. The profits of the slave trade and of West Indian plantations amounted to 5% of the British economy at the time of the Industrial Revolution. While some historians conclude that, in 1750, labour productivity in the most developed regions of China was still on a par with that of Europe's Atlantic economy, other historians such as Angus Maddison hold that the per-capita productivity of western Europe had by the late Middle Ages surpassed that of all other regions.
Human history | 1750–1914
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
English kings in the 14th and 15th centuries laid claim to the French throne, resulting in the Hundred Years' War. At times England enjoyed huge military success, with the economy buoyed by profits from the international wool and cloth trade, but by 1450 the country was in crisis, facing military failure in France and an ongoing recession. More social unrest broke out, followed by the Wars of the Roses, fought between rival factions of the English nobility. Henry VII's victory in 1485 conventionally marks the end of the Middle Ages in England and the start of the Early Modern period.
England in the Middle Ages | Introduction
Upon being crowned, on Christmas Day 1066, William immediately began consolidating his power. By 1067, he faced revolts on all sides and spent four years crushing them. He then imposed his superiority over Scotland and Wales, forcing them to recognise him as overlord. The English Middle Ages were characterised by civil war, international war, occasional insurrection, and widespread political intrigue among the aristocratic and monarchic elite. England was more than self-sufficient in cereals, dairy products, beef and mutton. Its international economy was based on wool trade, in which wool from the sheepwalks of northern England was exported to the textile cities of Flanders, where it was worked into cloth.
History of England | Norman England
Prominent historical and science texts began to be translated into English for the first time in the second half of the 14th century, including the "Polychronicon" and "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville". The universities of Oxford and Cambridge were established during the 11th and 12th centuries, drawing on the model of the University of Paris. Technological advances proceeded in a range of areas. Watermills to grind grain had existed during most of the Anglo-Saxon period, using horizontal mill designs; from the 12th century on many more were built, eliminating the use of hand mills, with the older horizontal mills gradually supplanted by a new vertical mill design.
England in the Middle Ages | Technology and science
The monarchy was restored in 1660, with King Charles II returning to London. However, the power of the crown was less than before the Civil War. By the 18th century, England rivaled the Netherlands as one of the freest countries in Europe. In 1665, London was swept by the plague, and in 1666 by the Great Fire for 5 days which destroyed about 15,000 buildings.
History of England | Restoration of the monarchy
It is thus debatable whether civilisation has left the Industrial Age already or is still in it and in the process of reaching the Information Age.
Industrial Age | Introduction
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
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
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 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
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
The village holds special importance for economic historians, for not only did it house the workshops of the skilled Davies brothers, it was one of the cradles of the Industrial Revolution. This is the place where British iron making began in 1670, where smelting iron ore with coke began in 1721, and where John Wilkinson, the 'Iron Mad' pioneer of the Industrial Revolution, set up shop in 1761. For many years the area was one of the most important iron manufacturing centres in the world. The Bersham Ironworks Museum tells the story of the man who bored cannon for the American War of Independence and cylinders for James Watt's revolutionary steam engine that changed the face of the world.
Bersham | Historical significance
Charles Andrews points out in his History of England that in the era of Elizabeth, England entered its period of "modern history" and had "become a power of first rank". The Spanish Armada had been defeated in 1588. At the same time, coinage became standardized. The English East India Company launched its first spice trading expedition in 1598, and England began its first colonization attempts in North America. In commerce, industry and wealth, England experienced unprecedented growth and all of these areas were, by the 1590s, all "regulated and controlled by the state". As England became more powerful and regulated, the accurate measurement of time became crucial to the country's well-being.
Sonnet 60 | Context
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
Following the formation of the United Kingdom, the history of England is no longer the history of a sovereign nation, but rather the history of one of the countries of the United Kingdom.
History of England | Modern England, 18th–19th centuries
The culture of England is defined by the cultural norms of England and the English people. Owing to England's influential position within the United Kingdom it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate English culture from the culture of the United Kingdom as a whole. However, since Anglo-Saxon times, England has had its own unique culture, apart from Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish culture. Rich in history and culture and birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, many of the world's most celebrated scientists, inventions, and thinkers originated from England. England has also played an important role in cinema, literature, technology, engineering, democracy, social science and mathematics.
Culture of England | Introduction
"Concerning Man's Origins", a book based on his Presidential Address at the British Association in 1927, contains a chapter entitled 'Capital as a Factor in Evolution' in which he proposes an interesting explanation for Britain's leading role in the development of industrial society. Essentially he argues that the cold unwelcoming climate of Britain selected those who came here for a special ability to store food and supplies for the winter – those who didn't died out. This 'capitalism' provided a secure way of life with time to think and experiment, for a population that had been selected for inventiveness and resourcefulness.
Arthur Keith | "Concerning Man's Origins" (1927)
Hazlitt's subject was the traditional sports and rural diversions native to the English. In "Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England" (1844: translated as "The Condition of the Working Class in England"), Friedrich Engels wrote sarcastically of Young England (a ginger-group of young aristocrats hostile to the new industrial order) that they hoped to restore "the old 'merry England' with its brilliant features and its romantic feudalism. This object is of course unattainable and ridiculous ..." The phrase "merry England" appears in English in the German text. William Cobbett provided conservative commentary on the rapidly changing look and "mores" of an industrialising nation by invoking the stable social hierarchy and prosperous working class of the pre-industrial country of his youth in his "Rural Rides" (1822–26, collected in book form, 1830).
Merry England | Cultural revivals
A prolonged agricultural depression in Britain at the end of the 19th century, together with the introduction in the 20th century of increasingly heavy levels of taxation on inherited wealth, put an end to agricultural land as the primary source of wealth for the upper classes. Many estates were sold or broken up, and this trend was accelerated by the introduction of protection for agricultural tenancies, encouraging outright sales, from the mid-20th century.
History of England | 20th and 21st centuries
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
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
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
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
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
There were a few armed invasions of hordes of migrating Celts. There are two known invasions. Around 300 BC, a group from the Gaulish Parisii tribe apparently took over East Yorkshire, establishing the highly distinctive Arras culture. And from around 150–100 BC, groups of Belgae began to control significant parts of the South. These invasions constituted movements of a few people who established themselves as a warrior elite atop existing native systems, rather than replacing them. The Belgic invasion was much larger than the Parisian settlement, but the continuity of pottery style shows that the native population remained in place.
History of England | Later Prehistory
New mining methods were developed and horse-powered pumps were installed in English mines by the end of the Middle Ages. The introduction of hopped beer transformed the brewing industry in the fourteenth century, and new techniques were invented to better preserve fish. Glazed pottery became widespread in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with stoneware pots largely replacing wooden plates and bowls by the fifteenth century. William Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde began using the printing press during the late fifteenth century. Transport links were also improved; many road bridges were either erected or rebuilt in stone during the long economic boom of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
England in the Late Middle Ages | Technology and science
Britain emerged from the Napoleonic Wars a very different country than it had been in 1793. As industrialisation progressed, society changed, becoming more urban and less rural. The postwar period saw an economic slump, and poor harvests and inflation caused widespread social unrest. Europe after 1815 was on guard against a return of Jacobinism, and even liberal Britain saw the passage of the Six Acts in 1819, which proscribed radical activities. By the end of the 1820s, along with a general economic recovery, many of these repressive laws were repealed and in 1828 new legislation guaranteed the civil rights of religious dissenters.
History of the British Isles | George IV and William IV
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
The sea level was lower than now and Britain was connected by land bridge to Ireland and Eurasia. As the seas rose, it was separated from Ireland 10,000 years ago and from Eurasia two millennia later. The Beaker culture arrived around 2,500 BC, introducing drinking and food vessels constructed from clay, as well as vessels used as reduction pots to smelt copper ores. It was during this time that major Neolithic monuments such as Stonehenge and Avebury were constructed. By heating together tin and copper, which were in abundance in the area, the Beaker culture people made bronze, and later iron from iron ores.
England | Prehistory and antiquity
In the preindustrial era, production was mostly for home use and women produce much of the needs of the households. The second stage was the "family wage economy" of early industrialization, the entire family depended on the collective wages of its members, including husband, wife and older children. The third or modern stage is the "family consumer economy," in which the family is the site of consumption, and women are employed in large numbers in retail and clerical jobs to support rising standards of consumption.
History of women in the United Kingdom | Industrial Revolution
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
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
On the one hand there was, under royal charters, the burgh or municipal organisation and control of artisan and craft labour, passing later into the more specialised organisation in craft guilds; on the other hand, there was a necessity, sometimes acute, to prevent undue diminution in the numbers available for husbandry or agricultural labour. To the latter cause must be traced a provision appearing in a succession of statutes (see especially an act of Richard II., 1388), that a child under twelve years once employed in agriculture might never be transferred to apprenticeship in a craft. The steady development of England, first as a woolgrowing, later as a cloth-producing country, would accentuate this difficulty.
History of labour law in the United Kingdom | Medieval England
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
Windmills began to be built in the late 12th century and slowly became more common. Water-powered fulling mills and powered hammers first appeared in the 12th century; water power was harnessed to assist in smelting by the 14th century, with the first blast furnace opening in 1496. New mining methods were developed and horse-powered pumps were installed in English mines by the end of the Middle Ages. The introduction of hopped beer transformed the brewing industry in the 14th century, and new techniques were invented to better preserve fish. Glazed pottery became widespread in the 12th and 13th centuries, with stoneware pots largely replacing wooden plates and bowls by the 15th century.
England in the Middle Ages | Technology and science
Coalbrookdale, a small area of Shropshire has been claimed as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, because of Abraham Darby I's development of coke-smelting and ironfounding there in the early eighteenth century. Shropshire is the "geological capital" of the UK, as just about every rock type in Northern Europe is found within its borders, as are coal, lead, copper and iron ore deposits. In addition to this, the River Severn flows through the county and has been used for the transportation of goods and services for centuries. A result of this was that the Ironbridge Gorge became a focal point of new industrial energies in the 18th century.
History of Shropshire | The Industrial Revolution
Although some work examined the successful industries of the industrial revolution and the role of the key entrepreneurs, in the 1970s scholarly debate in British business history became increasingly focused on economic decline. For economic historians, the loss of British competitive advantage after 1870 could at least in part be explained by entrepreneurial failure, prompting further business history research into individual industry and corporate cases. The Lancashire cotton textile industry, which had been the leading take-off sector in the industrial revolution, but which was slow to invest in subsequent technical developments, became an important topic of debate on this subject.
Historiography of the United Kingdom | Business history
These saboteurs were known as "Luddites".
History of England | Industrial Revolution
The importance of civilian manufacturing and support services in a nation's capacity to fight a war first became apparent during the twenty-five years of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars when the United Kingdom was able to finance and, to a lesser extent, arm and supply the various coalitions which opposed France. Although Britain had a much smaller population than France, its global maritime trade and its early industrialisation meant that its economy was much larger than that of France, which allowed Britain to offset the French manpower advantage. Durin the American Civil War, the capacity of Northern factories and agriculture proved as decisive in winning the war as the skills of the generals of either side.
Home front | History
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 Age is a period of history that encompasses the changes in economic and social organization that began around 1760 in Great Britain and later in other countries, characterized chiefly by the replacement of hand tools with power-driven machines such as the power loom and the steam engine, and by the concentration of industry in large establishments. While it is commonly believed that the Industrial Age was supplanted by the Information Age in the late 20th century, a view that has become common since the Revolutions of 1989, much of the Third World economy is still based on manufacturing.
Industrial Age | Introduction