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Industrial Revolution in England

  • Roberts LoomRichard Roberts was born at Llanymynech, on the border between England and Wales. His father William Roberts worked as a shoemaker and kept the New Bridge…
  • Lewis PaulLewis Paul died in 1759, but his story began much earlier with a family steeped in medicine and faith. His father served as the physician to Lord…
  • Cotton-spinning machineryThe spinning wheel appeared in the Islamic world by 1030. It traveled to China by 1090 and reached Europe and India during the 13th century.
  • Lunar Society of BirminghamMatthew Boulton and Erasmus Darwin met during 1757 or 1758, possibly through family connections as Boulton's mother's family were patients of Darwin.
  • John Kay (flying shuttle)John Kay entered the world on the 17th of June 1704 in the Lancashire hamlet of Walmersley. His father Robert owned the Park estate there before dying before…
  • Textile manufacture during the British Industrial RevolutionIn 1734, John Kay stood in a workshop in Bury, Lancashire, and invented the flying shuttle. This device allowed a single weaver to produce cloth twice as…
  • Richard Roberts (engineer)Richard Roberts was born on the 22nd of April 1789 at Llanymynech, Powys. This village sat directly on the border between England and Wales.
  • James WattJames Watt was born on the 19th of January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire. He entered the world as the eldest of five surviving children to Agnes Muirhead…
  • Richard ArkwrightRichard Arkwright opened a small shop on Churchgate in Bolton during the early 1760s. He worked as a barber and wig-maker for local customers.
  • Boulton and WattMatthew Boulton and James Watt signed a formal agreement in 1775 to commercialize the separate condenser patent. This partnership formed the core of what…
  • Matthew BoultonMatthew Boulton was born on the 3rd of September 1728 in Birmingham, England. His father, also named Matthew, ran a small workshop specializing in buckles…
  • Calico ActsThe English East India Company introduced Britain to cheap calico and chintz cloth after the restoration of the monarchy in the 1660s.
  • The Condition of the Working Class in EnglandFriedrich Engels walked the streets of Salford and Manchester between 1842 and 1844. He saw children dying from smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, and…
  • The Iron BridgeThe last ice age ended when Lake Lapworth overflowed, carving the deep Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire. This geological event exposed coal, iron ore…