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Cody Roberts

History 2204

Instructor Henry

10 April 2015

Industrialization and Urbanization: Why England Was First

It is often wondered why the Industrial Revolution happened in England instead of China,

considered to be just as advanced as Europe at the time, and why China has been much less

urbanized than other industrial countries. Both England and China have experienced periods of

industrialization followed by great urbanization. Factories and people filled massive cities in

areas which previously only contained small towns. The difference is that in China this

happened 150 years later than in England. Several factors cause this difference in time. English

governmental policies prior to the Industrial Revolution allowed it to develop while Chinese

policies delayed industrialization and urbanization.

The Industrial Revolution was preceded by an agricultural revolution. The traditional

view of the English has been that institutional changes led to the productivity-raising innovations

of the Industrial Revolution.1 One of these institutional changes was the enclosure system. In

the 18th century, the British Parliament authorized the enclosure of farmland, allowing individual

farmers to privatize common land and consolidate their strips of farmland into large fields which

they had complete control over. According to this view, they were then able to make their own

decisions about the land and the farmers introduced new practices to increase efficiency using

1 Robert C. Allen, "Involution, revolution, or what? Agricultural productivity, income, and Chinese economic development." Mimeograph, Department of Economics, Nuffield College, Oxford, September (2002): 2

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crop rotation and fertilizers.2 In reality it was not just the enclosures, but all English farms that

became more productive in this period. The open farms actually produced slightly more per day

than the enclosures.3 Chinese farms in 1600 were already as productive as English farms in 1800

and China had its own agricultural revolution in this period.4 Farmers began applying oil cakes

on their crops which was less laborious than traditional fertilizers, and yet productivity per day

did not increase between 1600 and 1800 as it did in England. As population increased, farms

were subdivided, so to make up for it farmers worked more days so the output per hectare rose

by almost half between 1400 and 1770. Output per day still fell due to the smaller farms.5

Farms became too small to employ the whole family in agriculture so they also manufactured

textiles. As more workers turned to textile manufacture, textile surplus grew greatly, forcing

prices down and wages with them. The real wage of Chinese workers fell from an equivalent of

11,533 calories per day in 1600 to just 5273 in 1750. Peasant farmers still earned about 10,567

calories per day. Meanwhile in England, the real wage of the average worker rose from 9160 to

9961 calories per day and family farms who rented in 1800 had an income of 16,789 calories per

day.6 The difference was that in China most of the population were still peasants working their

small farms, while in England, most people became landless laborers because of the enclosures.7

The laborers of England were free to move into the cities where food from farms would

be shipped and they could afford it because of their high wages. Human waste built up in the

cities due to the rising population. To remove that waste, it was sold to farmers who would use it

2 Brian Levack, Edward Muir, and Meredith Veldman, The West Encounters & Transformations. 3rd ed. Vol. 2. (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson, 2010) 663.3 Allen, "Involution, revolution, or what? Agricultural productivity, income, and Chinese economic development," 2, 6, 164 Ibid., 7, 165 Ibid., 2-3, 7, 166 Ibid., 3, 13, 167 Ibid., 13

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as fertilizer, which created more fertile soil, allowing them to support a greater urban population.

This created a feedback loop which resulted in big cities in England.8 Trade also had an impact

on England. Exportation of cloth through London caused London to grow from 50,000 to

200,000 between 1500 and 1600. English trade expanded farther through imperialism, leading to

even greater urbanization throughout England, and London was nearing a population of one

million by 1800.9 Between 1500 and 1800 the percentage of England living in settlements of

more than 10,000 people increased from 7% to 29%. Both England and the Netherlands focused

their economies on international trade and among European countries, they alone had increasing

wages as population grew.10

An important variable in setting the stage for an English Industrial Revolution was the

ratio of the wage rate for a building worker to the price of the cheapest available fuel source.

The ratio of the cost of labor relative to the cost of energy in 18th century London was seven

times that of Beijing. Cities with local coalfields such as Newcastle upon Tyne had even cheaper

energy, giving them a labor to energy cost ratio almost three times London’s and twenty times

Beijing’s. The higher price of coal in London was due to the cost of shipping from Newcastle.

This created a need a great incentive to invent ways to substitute labor for energy in

manufacturing, such as productivity raising machines.11 The situation in China was reversed

where labor was cheap and energy was expensive.12 Higher wages also had another effect on

England. The incentive for technology to produce more goods also came from demand for more

8 Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World (New York: Riverhead Books, 2006) 5.

9 Robert C. Allen, The British industrial revolution in global perspective. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) 25-50.

10 Ibid.11 Ibid., 138-14312 Ibid., 140, 145-146

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of these industrial goods. Lower class English families had more income to afford the

manufactured products, which allowed the demand to develop.13

Some scholars place importance on the convenient location of coal deposits and arable

soil in England in contrast to China. Urban growth in China was limited by the amount of

surplus that could be extracted from their land, but China was not necessarily at a natural

disadvantage here. While farmland was scarce in China Proper and increasingly limited by the

growing population, Manchuria in the 18th century was still mostly undeveloped woodland

containing fur-bearing animals, coal, and gold. It also had fertile soil and plentiful water for

farming. Grain prices were only half of the price in China Proper.14 Yong Xue, a specialist in

Chinese History at Suffolk University, writes:

If the Qing government had coordinated a series of agricultural projects in Manchuria

instead of prohibiting immigration into the region, if commercial institutions in China

had been effective enough to channel the large amount of capital needed to develop the

frontiers and establish large plantations as the British did in North America, then a large

amount of Manchurian grain could have flowed into Beijing.15

The utilization of this land would have provided the coal they needed at a convenient, near-

coastal location and given them more fertile land to spread out into larger farms. The usefulness

of the land was recognized at the time. In 1745, imperial censor He Qizhong reported “abundant

coal resources in Fengtian (modern Liaoning), which were located fairly close to seaports. He

13 Brian Levack, Edward Muir, and Meredith Veldman, 664-665.14 Peer Vries, Escaping poverty: the origins of modern economic growth. (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013) 348-350.15 Ibid.

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urged that this natural bounty be exploited to relieve the shortage of firewood in the region.” But

the government did not allow that to happen.16

Part of England’s success and drive to industrialize can be attributed to its coal and

colonies with which it expanded its market, but China had its own coal and colonies. It was the

Qing government that hindered China’s use of them. Unlike England, China did not support

entrepreneurs. Qing rulers prohibited the opening of mines and closed those already open. They

also did not support merchants selling overseas which would have expanded their market.17 The

value of Manchuria would be proven later. Now known as Northeast China, Manchuria went on

to become China’s main industrial base in the 20th century.18

Government policies guided each country’s ability to industrialize and urban, though not

in the intended ways or as traditionally thought. The laborers made landless by the Enclosure

Acts and the high wages they were able to maintain as a result fueled England’s rise. Natural

resources and limitations certainly played their role too, but China still had the opportunity to

overcome them. The decisions of the Qing dynasty likely kept China from a much earlier

industrialization. England, through its fortunate circumstances, was given the right physical and

political climate to necessitate industrial and urbanization before any other country.

16 Peer Vries, Escaping poverty: the origins of modern economic growth. (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013) 348-350.17 Ibid.18 Henk R. Randau and Olga Medinskaya, China Business 2.0: Analyze the Economy, Understand the Society, and Manage Effectively. (Springer, 2014) 23.

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Bibliography

Allen, Robert C. "Involution, revolution, or what? Agricultural productivity, income, and

Chinese economic development." Mimeograph, Department of Economics, Nuffield College, Oxford, September (2002).

Allen, Robert C. The British industrial revolution in global perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2009.

Johnson, Steven. The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It

Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World. New York: Riverhead Books, 2006.

Levack, Brian, Edward Muir, and Meredith Veldman. The West Encounters & Transformations.

3rd ed. Vol. 2. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson, 2010.

Randau, Henk R., and Olga Medinskaya. China Business 2.0: Analyze the Economy, Understand

the Society, and Manage Effectively. Springer, 2014.

Vries, Peer. Escaping poverty: the origins of modern economic growth. Vandenhoeck &

Ruprecht, 2013.