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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