Great Britain & the Industrial Revolution

Presentation created by Robert Martinez

Primary Content Source: Prentice Hall World History

Images as cited.

Why did the Industrial Revolution begin in Britain? Historians have identified a

number of key factors that helped Britain

lead the way.

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Britain was a small nation in size. However, it had large supplies of coal to power steam

engines. It also had plentiful iron to build the new machines. In addition to natural resources, a

labor supply was necessary. Large numbers of workers were needed to mine the coal and iron,

build the factories, and run the machines.

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The agricultural revolution of the 1600 and 1700s freed many people in Britain from farm labor and led to a population

boom.

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In the 1700s, Britain had plenty of skilled mechanics who were eager to meet the growing demand for new,

practical inventions. Technology was an important part of the Industrial Revolution, but it did not cause it. After

all, other societies, such as the ancient Greeks or Chinese, had advanced technology for their time but did

not move on to industrialization. Only when other necessary conditions existed, including demand and

capital, did technology pave the way for industrialization.

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From the mid-1600s to 1700s, trade from a growing overseas empire helped the British economy prosper. Beginning with the slave

trade, the business class accumulated capital, or wealth to invest in enterprises such as

shipping, mines, railroads, and factories. Many

were ready to risk their capital in new ventures.

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At home, the population explosion boosted demand for goods. However, a growing

population alone would not have resulted in increased production. General economic

prosperity also helped make the new consumer goods affordable to members of every social

class.

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Britain had a stable government that supported economic growth. It built a strong navy to

protect its empire and overseas trade. Although the upper class tended to look down on business people, it did not reject the wealth

produced by the new entrepreneurs.

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Religious attitudes also played a role. Many entrepreneurs came from religious groups that encouraged thrift and hard work. At the same time, many people focused more on worldly

concerns than on the afterlife. Thus, risk takers such as inventors and bankers felt free to

devote their energies to material achievements.

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The Industrial Revolution first took hold in Britain’s largest industry, textiles. In the 1600s, cotton cloth imported from India had become popular. British

merchants tried to organize a cotton cloth industry at home. They developed the “putting-out” system, in which raw cotton was distributed to peasant families who spun it into thread and then wove the thread into cloth. Skilled

artisans in the towns then finished and dyed the cloth.

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As the demand for cloth grew, inventors came up with a string of

remarkable devices that revolutionized the British textile

industry. For example, using John Kay’s flying shuttle, weavers worked so fast that they soon

outpaced spinners. James Hargreaves solved that problem by

producing the spinning jenny in 1764, which spun many threads at the same time. A few years later, Richard Arkwright invented the water frame, which used water

power to speed up spinning still further.

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The new machines doomed the “putting-out” system. They were too large and expensive to be operated at home. Instead, manufacturers built long sheds to house the machines. At first, they located the sheds near rapidly moving streams,

which provided water power to run the machines. Later, machines were powered by steam engines.

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Spinners and weavers came each day to work in these first factories – places that brought together workers and machines to produce

large quantities of goods. Early observers were awed at the size and output of these

establishments.

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As production increased, entrepreneurs needed faster and cheaper methods of moving goods from place to

place. Some capitalists invested in turnpikes, which were privately built roads that charged a fee to travelers who

used them. Others had canals dug to link rivers or connect inland towns with coastal ports. Engineers also built stronger bridges and upgraded harbors to help the

expanding overseas trade.

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The great revolution in transportation was the invention of the steam locomotive. It was this

invention that made possible the growth of railroads. In the early 1800s, pioneers like

George Stephenson developed steam-powered

locomotives to pull carriages along iron rails.

The railroad did not have to follow the course of a river. This meant that tracks could go places rivers did not, allowing factory owners and merchants to ship

goods over land.

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The world’s first major rail line, from Liverpool to Manchester, opened in England in 1830. In the following decades, railroad travel became faster and railroad building boomed. By 1870,

rail lines crisscrossed Britain, Europe, and

North America.

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Other inventors applied steam power to improve shipping. In 1807, and American,

Robert Fulton, used Watt’s steam engine to power the Clermont up the Hudson River in New York. Fulton’s steamboat traveled at a

record-breaking speed of more than five miles an hour…

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Designing steamships for ocean voyages was more difficult. The coal needed for the voyage took up much of the cargo space. But by the

late 1800s, steam-powered freighters with iron hulls were carrying 10 to 20 times the cargo of

older wooden ships.

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