martedì 30 novembre 2010
Images of the Great Fire of London
Images of the Great Fire of London
"It made me weep to see it." Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) painted by John Hayls in 1666, the year of the Great Fire.
giovedì 11 novembre 2010
The Agricultural Revolution
The Agricultural Revolution
There were three main developments during this Agricultural Revolution: the introduction of the four field system by Viscount Townshend ("Turnip" Townshend), the invention of the Seed Drill by Jethro Tull and the selective breeding of animals by Robert Bakewell.
Four Year Crop Rotation
From medieval times, peasants had used a system of three year strip rotation of crops. The peasants worked land which had been granted to them by a landowner, often a nobleman.
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. Soon after the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485), some noblemen sold their land because they were short of money. Later, during the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547), monastery land was taken by the king and sold. Traditionally, wool and woollen 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. When fodder crops, such as turnips, were grown in the open field system, communal grazing would benefit other people's livestock. Between 1700 and 1845, 600000 acres (2,4 million hectares) of land was enclosed in England.
The new landlords, either noblemen or the new landed gentry, turned the peasants off their land. This left many people homeless and with no means of making a living. Most were forced to beg in order to survive. The landowners, however, could now farm entire, enclosed fields.
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
Crop yield increased
- 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
Wool yield increased due to better care of animals and selective breeding
- More wool was available for the textile industry and at less cost
Ready workforce available
- 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
Add the mindmap of the Agricultural Revolution to the one created for the Industrial Revolution.
Working conditions
Working Conditions
As the coal industry expanded, more and more miners went underground to extract coal and often worked very long hours in hazardous conditions.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 organised self-help groups which later became known as Trade Unions.
Urban Conditions
Blast furnaces light the iron making town of Coalbrookdale
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.
Over London by Rail Gustave Doré c. 1870. Shows the densely populated and polluted environments created in the new industrial cities
Over London by Rail Gustave Doré c. 1870. Shows the densely populated and polluted environments created in the new industrial cities 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.
- Create a mindmap which summarizes the problems of the Industrial Revolution in Britain.
The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution
There was a time when almost all products were hand-made and the factory system did not exist. 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.
The Search for New Power Sources
At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution there were very few forms of power, other than human or animal power. The only two other power sources available were wind and water. Of the two, water was the older power source. Water wheels had been in use since the Roman period. Windmills had only came into general use in Europe around the 12th century. Steam
The breakthrough in the search for new power sources came in 1698 when Thomas Savery, using the newly discovered concept of vacuum, invented a vacuum-powered mine pumping engine. He called it "The Engine for Raising Water by Fire".
Thomas Newcomen had also been experimenting with steam. Newcomen formed a partnership with Savery and, in 1705, they developed an entirely new form of atmospheric engine.
The 1698 Savery Engine – the world's first commercially useful steam engine: built by Thomas Savery
Coal
It was realised that if an independent power source could be found it would be possible not only to power the mill factories with it, but also to locate the factories near good road networks and population centres. In other words, the place where a mill was built would become independent of any natural power source.
At this time there was an increasing need for fuel for heating and other purposes. Traditionally, wood had been the universal fuel, but, by the 18th century, the forests had become severely depleted and supplies of wood were becoming scarce and more expensive. Coal was therefore becoming more important as a fuel, but as its production increased, so did the difficulty of extracting it from the ground, which led eventually to the vertical shaft mine.
The deep miners were faced by two main problems: flooding and the need of fresh air which were solved subsequently.
Roads and Railways
Puffing Billy, an early railway steam locomotive, constructed in 1813-1814 for colliery work.Canals were built to carry heavy freight more easily. At the same time, road builders reacted to the competition. The existing roads were upgraded, and the Turnpike Act ensured that new roads were built. These new and improved roads allowed stagecoaches to travel much faster and speeded up communication. Canals were never seriously used as passenger carriers because they were too slow.
Iron and Steel Manufacture
The development of the railway stimulated the economy in two important ways. First, the advent of cheap and efficient transport lowered the carriage cost of goods. This meant that goods were cheaper in the shops and this increased the demand. The increase in demand led to the expansion of factories which required more energy. The prime energy source at the time was coal. As the Industrial Revolution began to speed up, the need for coal grew because it provided power for the factory engines, steam powered ships and steam locomotives. Second, the demand for iron increased. Iron was needed to make the railway tracks, steam locomotives and the giant Watt steam engines that pumped the mines and provided energy to run factory machinery. At a later stage, iron was needed to construct the steamships.
The developers of the early steam engines and steam railways would never have been so successful without parallel developments taking place in the iron industry. Without the ironmasters' expertise in creating new methods of iron casting and working iron, it would have been impossible to have produced steam power in the first place. All of these developments which drove the Industrial Revolution were dependent on each other for their success. New inventions in one field led to advancements in another. These, in turn, stimulated further research and development.
The Textile Industry
Whilst farmers were developing new and better methods of agriculture, life in other areas of work had changed little for hundreds of years. Early in the 18th century, most of the population still lived in small, rural settlements. Few people lived in towns, as we now know them.
Many people worked as producers of woollen cloth. They cleaned, combed, spun, dyed and wove the raw material into cloth. They did this work in their own houses. This type of production has become known by the general term of the Domestic (or Cottage) Industry.
Work within the Cottage Industry was usually divided up between the members of one family. The women and girls were responsible for cleaning the sheep fleeces, carding the wool and spinning it. The process of weaving was physically hard work and, traditionally, it was the men who were responsible for it.
Generally, at regular intervals, each hand loom weaver's cottage was visited by a cloth merchant. He would bring the raw material and take away the finished cloth to sell at the cloth hall.
Everything changed with the new inventions: the spinning jenny, Crompton’s mule, ….. made family production too small and too slow. Textile factories which could best exploit the new weaving tools and the new sources of power were built and called for large numbers of workforce.
Most of it was made by women and girls, for their better skills in dexterity and precision. Thus brought also to the development of huge housing estates (mushroom towns) near the textile industries, the first real industries in Britain and to the formation of a new category, that of the industrial entrepreneur who had enough money and enough ‘courage’ to risk it on new ways of producing.
Use a mindmap to show the connections and the relationships among the different aspects of the Industrial Revolution. Start from ----- Innovations -----
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