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The Industrial Revolution
The transition from a world of artisan manufacture to a factory system, and all its attendant benefits with which we are familiar, is known as the
Industrial Revolution. It began in Britain in the early years of the 18th century. In a little over a century, Britain went from a largely rural, agrarian
population to a country of industrialized towns, factories, mines and workshops. Britain was, in fact, already beginning to develop a manufacturing
industry during the early years of the early 18th century, but it was from the 1730's that its growth accelerated. As well as a revolution in industry,
this period saw many changes and improvements in agricultural practice. So much so, that it can be said that there was a parallel Agricultural
Revolution.
Four Crop Rotation: Between the 15th and 18th centuries there was a gradual increase in the amount of land being enclosed. Enclosed literally
meant that a field was surrounded by a fence or a hedge. It also meant that the enclosed field was worked as a complete unit and no longer divided
into strips. The reasons for the increase in land enclosure were varied. During the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547), monastery land was taken by the
king and sold. Traditionally, wool products had always been England's major export to Europe. As the profit made from the wool trade increased in
the 15th century, more land was enclosed to graze sheep. In the 17th century, it was partly new farming techniques which forced land enclosure.
Charles Townshend. Townshend was an able politician, reaching the position of Secretary of State in the reign of George I. He retired from politics in
1730 and turned his attention to his estate in Norfolk. Townshend introduced a new type of crop rotation which was already practiced in Holland. It
rotated crops on a four year basis and used turnips and clover as two of the crops in the rotation, innovations in this four year system. Turnips were
not a new crop to English farming because they had been grown for use as cattle feed, fodder for livestock, during the winter months, since the
1660's. However, this was the first time they had been used in crop rotation. Charles Townshend was later to be known as "Turnip" Townshend
because of his use of this crop in the four year rotation system.
The gradual enclosure of land, together with the four year rotation system, had two major effects on agriculture. The first was that the harvest
increased in yield. In 1705, England exported 11,5 million quarters of wheat. By 1765, wheat export had risen to 95 million quarters. The second
effect was that livestock, which no longer needed to be slaughtered before the winter months, increased in both quantity and quality.
The Importance of the Agricultural Revolution to the Industrial Revolution
(1) Crop yields increased:
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Enough food was available for people in the cities
Falling food prices meant more money to spend on consumer goods
Healthier population which meant decline in death rate, especially in infants
In the 18th century, the population doubled from 5 million to 10 million
(2) Wool yield increased due to better care of animals and selective breeding:
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More wool was available for the textile industry and at less cost
(3) Ready workforce becomes available:
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Peasants were turned off their land by enclosures
Families moved into the cities
There was much unemployment and many people were looking for work
Labour was cheap
Brief History of the Cotton Industry
During the second half of the 17th century, cotton goods were imported from India.
Because of the competition with the wool and the linen industries, in 1700, the
government placed a ban on imported cotton goods. Cotton had become popular,
however, and a home-based cotton industry sprung up using the raw material imported
from the colonies. Since much of the imported cotton came from New England, ports on
the west coast of Britain, such as Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow, became important in
determining the sites of the cotton industry. Of course, the wool and linen manufacturers
made sure that many restrictions were imposed on the import of cotton, but, as cotton
had become fashionable, there was little they could do to stop the trend.
Two processes are necessary in the production of cotton goods from the raw material - spinning and weaving. At first, these were very much homebased, "cottage" industries. The spinning process, using the spinning wheel, was slow and the weavers were often held up by the lack of thread. In
the 1760's, James Hargreaves improved thread production when he invented the Spinning Jenny. By the end of the decade, Richard Arkwright had
developed the Water Frame. This invention had two important consequences. Firstly, it improved the quality of the thread, which meant that the
cotton industry was no longer dependent on wool or linen to make the warp. Secondly, it took spinning away from the home-bases to specific areas
where fast-flowing streams could provide water power for the larger machines. Not long after the invention of the Water Frame, Samuel Crompton
combined the principals of the Spinning Jenny and the Water Frame to produce his Spinning Mule. This provided even tougher and finer cotton
thread.
These inventions turned the tables, and it was the weavers who found it hard to keep up with the supply of thread. In 1770, John Kay's Flying Shuttle
loom, which had been invented in 1733 and doubled a weaver's productivity and was widely in use.
The textile industry was also to benefit from other developments of the period. As early as 1691, Thomas Savery had made a vacuum steam engine.
His design, which was unsafe, was improved by Thomas Newcomen in 1698. In 1765, James Watt further modified Newcomen's engine to design an
external condenser steam engine. Watt continued to make improvements on his design, producing a separate condenser engine in 1774 and a
rotating separate condensing engine in 1781. Watt formed a partnership with a businessman called Matthew Boulton, and together they
manufactured steam engines which could be used by industry.
In 1785, the Reverend Edmund Cartwright invented the power loom. His invention was perfected over a ten year period by William Horrocks. Henry
Cort replaced the early wooden machines with new machines made of iron. These new iron machines needed coal, rather than charcoal, to produce
the steam to drive them.
By 1800, cotton mills were constructed using the latest technology. The Spinning Mules provided the fine, but strong thread which was used by the
weavers on their power looms. These looms were operated by steam engines. The
steam had been produced using coal as the fuel. In less than one hundred years, the
cotton industry had developed from a home-based, cottage industry to a factory based
industry housed in cotton mills.
The spinners and weavers no longer worked for themselves. The equipment and the raw
materials needed in the industry were far too expensive. The spinners and weavers were
now the workers, or employees, of the person who owned the factory and who could pay
for the raw materials. Instead of working for themselves, at home and at their own pace,
the workers were now paid a wage to carry out a job of in a cotton mill for a specific
period of time each day. This also meant that, in order to find work, many people needed
to move into the areas where the cotton mills had been built.
With the technological advances in both spinning and weaving, it might be supposed that the supply of raw materials could have been a limiting
factor to production. Even in this area, however, technology had lent a hand. A machine called a Cotton Gin, invented by an American, Eli Whitney,
made extracting the cotton from the plant much easier. The cotton growers were able to keep up with the demand for raw materials from across the
Atlantic.
Working Conditions
By the early part of the 18th century much of the easily mined surface coal had been extracted. Increasingly coal had to brought up from deep mines
beneath the earth. As the coal industry expanded, more and more miners went underground to extract coal and often worked very long hours in
hazardous conditions.
In early mines coal was brought up the surface in very primitive ways. Whole families worked at the mines. The father and the boys hewed the coal
(cutting the coal from seams with a pick). The mother and girls ‘hurried’ (carried) the coal to the surface by climbing a spiral staircase with a basket,
filled with coal, on their backs. It was held in place by a strap around the front of their heads. This often made their hair at the front wear away,
creating a bald spot.
In some mines, both the coal and the miners were brought to the surface in wooden buckets which were pulled up the shaft. Sometimes the miners
just had a rope to hold on to. Rope breaks and mistakes with a windlass often led to miners plunging to their deaths. As these awful accidents
became known, there were calls to find out just how bad conditions were in the mines. A commission was set up to investigate the working
conditions in the mines.
In 1842 a Parliamentary Committee which reported on the mines found that many
workers were working in the most appalling conditions. Not only did they work very
long hours, but they were also hired at very young ages. Children as young as five
were used as ‘trappers’ to open and close underground doors in the mine to let the
‘hurriers’, who pulled the loaded wagons, get through. These children worked in the
dark because their families were often too poor to be able to afford candles. They were
in the dark for up to twelve hours each day and often had rats scurrying all over them.
If they fell asleep they were beaten by the miners.
The commission also found that children were employed as coal ‘hurriers’, pulling carts or sledges filled with coal over long distances and through
very small tunnels. Girls as young as thirteen were often used fir this work. The chain around their waist caused damage to their pelvic bones,
distorting them and making them smaller. This often proved fatal in later life when many of them died in childbirth.
The commission discovered that men, women, boys and girls were working together in the most frightening circumstances. Strangely enough, it was
the fact that girls were mixed with ‘near naked’ men which caused the most upset, and not the long hours or the harsh and brutal conditions.
Other commissions, such as the Factories Inquiry Commission of 1833, gathered evidence and
reported that the situation in factories was just as awful. The factory inspectors found that children
worked twelve hour days, generally with only a one hour break. If the factory or mill was busy, they
might work up to eighteen hours a day. The conditions were every bit as bad as in the mines, and
some reports told of children spending their entire working lives doubled up under machinery in cotton
mills. They were often permanently disabled as a result.
The combination of public outrage, political pressure and changes in the law eventually led to better
and safer working conditions.
By the end of the 19th century, conditions had greatly improved. However, this was not achieved without pressure from the workers themselves, who
increasingly gathered to protest about their conditions of work. These gatherings eventually led to organized self-help groups which later became
known as Trade Unions.
Urban Conditions
As the new towns and cities rapidly developed during the
Industrial Revolution the need for cheap housing, near the
factories, increased. Whilst there were some men, such as
Robert Owen, who were willing to create good housing for their
workers, many employers were not. These employers ruthlessly
exploited their workers by erecting poor, and often unsanitary,
shoddily built houses. Workers often paid high rents for, at best,
sub-standard housing.
In the rush to build houses, many were constructed too quickly
in terraced rows. Some of these houses had just a small yard at
the rear where an outside toilet was placed. Others were ‘back
to back’ with communal toilets. Almost as soon as they were
occupied, many of these houses became slums. Most of the
poorest people lived in overcrowded and inadequate housing,
and some of these people lived in cellars. It has been recorded
that, in one instance, 17 people from different families lived in an
area of 5 metres by 4 metres.
Sanitary arrangements were often non-existent, and many toilets were of the ‘earth closet’ variety. These were found outside the houses, as far
away as possible because of the smell. Usually they were emptied by the ‘soil men’ at night. These men took the solid human waste away. However,
in poorer districts, the solid waste was just heaped in a large pile close to the houses. The liquid from the toilets and the waste heaps seeped down
into the earth and contaminated the water supplies. These liquids carried disease-causing germs into the water. The most frightening disease of all
was cholera. The disease was greatly feared by everyone because it spread very quickly and was not confined to any one social class. It could
strike anyone, from the poorest to the wealthiest and the noble.
In an attempt to contain the disease, Health Boards were set up to establish better standards of sanitation. Local government officials were told to
clean up the towns and cities. They were instructed to provide for the removal of solid waste heaps and other household wastes, to clean the streets
(particularly of the large amounts of horse manure) and to whitewash houses wherever possible. Despite these measures the epidemic continued to
spread. Finally the connection between cholera and polluted water was accepted. As a result improved sanitation and the provision of clean drinking
water became an even greater priority. This, together with gradual improvements in housing, enabled cholera, along with other diseases associated
with poor living conditions, to be eradicated.
Industrialization in Europe
In comparison to Britain, industrialization in other regions of Europe took very much longer to get started. In fact, with the exception of Belgium which
began to industrialize in 1806, industrialization on the British model only started after 1830. It needed the combination of a number of factors for the
Industrial Revolution in Britain to take place at all. The special factors which encouraged industrialization in Britain, almost a century before the rest
of Europe are detailed below.
A Work Force - There would be little point in investing enormous sums of money in machines and factories if, at the end, production was not
possible because not enough people could be persuaded to work in them. In Britain there was no such problem because of the hundreds of
thousands of peasants who had been forced off the land (with dramatic consequences for them) and were desperate for any kind of work. In
continental Europe the peasants were not only still on the land, they were determined to stay there.
Money - It is not only necessary to have people with money. They must also be prepared to risk losing that money in
order to make a profit (the risk would have to be small, of course) by investing it in new commercial enterprises. In
Britain this "middle class risk mentality " existed; in the rest of Europe it did not. This was because the British middle
class not only had money, they also had political power (which made them unique in Europe). This meant that they
had the power to abolish the old laws which, up to then, had discouraged trade, commerce and profit, and introduce
new laws which were more to their advantage. Another vital point was that Britain was the only country in Europe to
have a national bank, the Bank of England, and a national Stock Exchange, or bourse, which encouraged people to
invest money in companies in order to earn a profit.
Markets - During the 18th. century Britain had built a large colonial empire. If the populations of this empire wanted to purchase manufactured
products, they had no choice other than to buy British goods. With time this empire grew enormously, at the expense of Britain’s major rivals, France,
Spain and Holland, and the "captive market " for British goods grew in consequence. Even the loss of the U.S. made little difference to Britain
economically. For over half a century, the U.S.A. would be a major market for British manufactured products while the Americans created their own
manufacturing base.
War - The 18th century was a century of wars in Europe. Between 1792 and 1815 continental Europe was a permanent battle-ground, and
international trade cannot develop in this kind of situation. Although Britain was a major protagonist in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, she
was not only protected by her navy from invasion, but trade with the rest of the world carried on as usual. Britain was not only spared the devastation
of war on its soil, it positively profited from war by providing its allies with some of the necessary warfare materials. (Unbelievable as this may seem,
even Napoleon was obliged to buy shoes "unofficially" from Britain to supply his armies. Only when the wars were over in 1815, were conditions in
continental Europe favorable to the development of commerce and international trade. By this time Britain had an enormous advance.
Geographical Isolation - Many regions of Europe were handicapped by their distance from the major axes of communication (rivers) They were
often rich in raw materials but were so far from major rivers (the only important axes of communication) that they were ignored. Britain, by contrast,
was aided by its small size and the fact that it is an island. No place in Britain is more than 110 kilometers from the sea, which meant that wherever
industries were established, they were close to a river, a canal, or the sea, which not only encouraged external trade but internal trade as well.
Landed Gentry - England, after the reign of Henry VIII, was the only country in Europe to have a land owning middle class. They replaced the
traditional nobility. When this landed middle class, or "gentry,” purchased the land they did so with the firm intention of using it to make a profit.
Hundreds of thousands of peasants were forced off the land so that it could be enclosed (fenced off) in order to raise sheep. Sheep provided wool for
the manufacture of textiles, which were England’s traditional export to the rest of Europe. It worked. The landed gentry made enormous profits. This
social class did not exist in other European countries, where land was still owned by the traditional nobility who rented most of it to the peasants.
The first attempt in continental Europe to industrialize on the British model occurred in France just before the Revolution.
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It was impossible to find sufficient qualified technicians to supervise the manufacturing process, particularly since France
and Britain were now on opposing sides in the American Revolutionary War.
The local population was very reluctant to abandon its traditional peasant way of life and the labor force had to be recruited
from far away parts, Lorraine and even Germany. There were serious problems of cohabitation among the workers who
refused to cooperate with those from other regions.
Due to these problems, it was increasingly difficult to attract investment, so there was a serious shortage of money.
During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods, work in the factory nearly stopped. So this first experiment in modern industrialization was a failure.
The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815) were a tremendous handicap to international trade, except for Britain. Her powerful navy
permitted Britain to trade with the rest of the world and remain prosperous. This was why Napoleon, after having to abandon his plan to invade
Britain, due to the destruction of the Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in 1805, decided to defeat Britain by attacking its economy. In 1806 Napoleon
created the "Continental System." This forbade all continental European countries from trading with Britain in an attempt to strangle her commerce
and force Britain to surrender. Ironically, it was France and the rest of continental Europe which suffered most because they had come to depend
upon British manufactured goods, while Britain continued to trade, very profitably, with the rest of the world.
France - After the failure of the first factory, the site was taken over by two British engineers, Manby and Wilson, in 1826. They re-equipped the
factory with modern machines and introduced the latest techniques but all their efforts were in vain, because, during the economic crisis of 1832, it
went bankrupt.
It was the beginning of the "railway age" which was to permit France to develop modern industries on the British model. The first steam railway in
France opened in 1832 and others followed rapidly, although the money to finance this work came from French financiers and banks, the tracks, the
civil engineering work and the locomotives were all built by British companies until the 1850’s.
French industrialization really began in 1836. In this year Eugène Schneider, a wealthy businessman from Alsace, bought the site at le Creusot and
began to manufacture railway equipment. (The period 1830-1846 witnessed "railway mania" throughout Europe). In 1838 the first French locomotive
" la Gironde " was constructed at le Creusot. Despite the successes at le Creusot, French industrialization was never as thorough or complete as
the British or the German. France remained basically a rural economy. So, French industrialization in the 19th century was steady rather than
spectacular. It was also very regional and tended to be concentrated in the big cities such as Paris and Lyon, or the traditional textile regions of Lille,
the iron-producing areas of Lorraine and the coal-producing areas. Nevertheless, by the end of the century, France was the most industrialized
nation in Europe after Britain, Germany and Belgium and this success was, in large part due to government encouragement during the Second
Empire of Napoleon III, (1852-1870).
Germany - It is, in fact, wrong to talk about Germany before 1871 when the German states united around Prussia to form the German Empire.
During the 18th century it was Prussia) that had emerged as the most powerful German state – it was also the largest. Prussia played a major part in
the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars and was one of the four great European powers to emerge victorious after Napoleon’s final
defeat in 1815.
The Congress of Vienna in 1815 dismantled Napoleon’s empire and re-drew the map of Europe. Until 1815 Prussia had been an exclusively north
German Baltic state but in this year it was rewarded for its contribution to the defeat of Napoleon by being given more German territory, - a great
chunk of Saxony and the Rhineland. (What no-one knew at the time was that the Rhineland included some of Europe’s richest coal deposits, which
was vital for industrial development).
Prussia’s early economic development was commercial rather than industrial. It began in 1832 when the Zollverein (a customs union) was created.
This encouraged the growth of free trade between the German states and by 1844 most of them had joined it, with the notable exception of Austria,
which Prussia had deliberately not invited. As in France, it was the coming of the "railway age" after 1830 which stimulated trade, communications
and economic growth among the German states. The first German railway was constructed in 1835 linking Dresden and Leipzig and it proved so
successful that the decade of the 1840’s was one of "railway mania" in all the German states and especially Prussia. By 1850 they had constructed
half as much as Britain and twice as much as France.
Thanks to the Zollverein and the rapidly expanding railway network, the German states began to overtake France and catch up with Britain between
1850 and 1870. This was particularly true of Prussia, which exploited its rich coalfields and iron deposits. In order to create a flourishing steel
industry. Alfred Krupp had established an iron foundry at Essen in 1810. It was a very modest affair and even by 1846 still only employed 140
workmen. By 1870 Krupp of Essen, after investing enormously in the Gilchrist - Thomas process of steel-making, had been transformed into a giant
company employing thousands of workers and making a fortune. In turn, the invention of the electric dynamo in 1866, laid the foundations of a new
electrical industry in which Germany would lead the world.
The defeat of France in 1870 and the creation of a united Germany in 1871 stimulated industrialization even further, because the new politically
united Germany could now exploit the rich iron-fields of Lorraine taken from France. By the opening decade of the 20th century, Germany was
challenging Britain as Europe’s major industrial power. Britain was still producing more coal, but Germany was producing more steel. What was
worrying about this situation for Britain and France was the fact that a great proportion of this industrial production was used to build up Germany’s
military and naval power. Would it be used once more to defeat France and to challenge Britain’s domination of the oceans?
Social Development in the Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution had an enormous effect on the lives of the people of Europe. It is also true to say that, although some people’s lives were
altered for the better, many people were worse off and, in many cases, workers were exploited. As the period progressed more and more people
became victims of oppression.
Whilst writers, such as Charles Dickens in Britain and Emile Zola in France, wrote about the appalling living and
working conditions, social reformers, such as Robert Owen, showed by practical experiment, that alternatives to long
hours, child-labour and maltreatment were available. Others, such as Edwin Chadwick and Seebolm Roundtree,
conducted inquiries into the miserable conditions of the poor. In their own way each of them highlighted the awful
conditions that prevailed and suggested ways of righting them.
In some ways it was the needs of the Industrial Revolution itself which, in the end, came to
the aid of the working classes. As the Industrial Revolution progressed there was an
increasing need for educated workers. In the old days it was not a problem if a farm hand
was illiterate. However, in the new industrial society, mechanics, civil engineers, architects
and builders all needed literate workers who were able to read instructions, take measurements and interpret drawings and
plans.
Most European countries had tried to control education with the ‘ruling class’ preventing access to higher education to
people from the ‘lower orders’ (the middle and working classes). It was inevitable that once the ‘lower orders’ gained access
to education they would become aware of two fundamental flaws in their lives; first, that they were being outrageously exploited and second, that,
whilst they were creating the wealth of the country, they were gaining little benefit for themselves and they had no political power.
In most European countries members of the middle class began to emerge as an increasingly wealthy part of the society. Often their wealth, newly
founded on industrial investment, was considerably more than that of the old upper, or ruling, class. However, in the majority of Europe the upper
class still dominated the newly rich Bourgeoisie (the Nouveau Riche), and kept political power out of its hands. An increasing frustration within the
working class often led to bloody conflict. In Britain, from the early 1800’s, this manifested itself as social unrest.