Industrial Revolution

• 1. Origins And Etymology

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  In 1799, French envoy Louis-Guillaume Otto announced that France had entered the race to industrialise. This marked the earliest recorded use of the phrase Industrial Revolution. The term did not enter everyday language until decades later. Friedrich Engels wrote about an industrial revolution in his book The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. His work was not translated into English until the late 19th century. Credit for popularizing the expression goes to Arnold Toynbee. He delivered detailed lectures on the subject in 1881. Historians debate when the revolution actually began. Leigh Shaw-Taylor argues Britain was already industrialising in the 17th century. Eric Hobsbawm held that it started in the 1780s and was fully felt by the 1830s. T.S. Ashton claimed it occurred between 1760 and 1830. Some historians like John Clapham argue these changes happened gradually. They believe calling it a revolution is a misnomer.

• 2. Technological Foundations

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  Mechanised cotton spinning powered by water increased output per worker by a factor of around 500. The power loom increased output by a factor of 40. The cotton gin increased productivity of removing seed from cotton by a factor of 50. In 1764, James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny in Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire. It cost only £6 for a 40-spindle model in 1792. Richard Arkwright patented the water frame in 1769. Samuel Crompton invented the spinning mule in 1779. This hybrid machine produced finer thread than hand spinning at lower cost. Steam engines transformed iron production when Abraham Darby used coke to fuel blast furnaces at Coalbrookdale in 1709. The puddling process produced structural grade iron at lower cost than the finery forge. Henry Cort developed rolling in 1783 and puddling in 1784. Hot blast, patented by James Beaumont Neilson in 1828, reduced fuel consumption significantly. John Wilkinson invented a cylinder boring machine in 1774. This allowed precision manufacturing of steam engine cylinders. Henry Maudslay perfected the slide rest lathe which cut machine screws with different thread pitches.

• 3. Transportation Networks

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  The Bridgewater Canal opened in 1761 and was mostly funded by The 3rd Duke of Bridgewater. Its construction cost £168,000 but coal prices in Manchester fell by half within one year. By the 1820s a national canal network existed across Britain. Canals were largely superseded by railways from the 1840s. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened on the 15th of September 1830 as the first inter-city railway in the world. It linked Manchester with the port of Liverpool. Joseph Locke and George Stephenson engineered this railway. The Stockton and Darlington Railway began steam-hauled public transport in 1825. In 1816, Marsh Road at Ashton Gate became the first macadam road in England. Thomas Telford and John McAdam built new engineered roads during this period. The Boonsborough Turnpike Road between Hagerstown and Boonsboro opened in Maryland in 1823. These improvements allowed raw materials to move quicker and cheaper than before. Productivity of road transport tripled for long-distance carrying between 1690 and 1840.

• 4. Factory System Emergence

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  Most textile factory workers during the Industrial Revolution were unmarried women and children including many orphans. They worked for 12, 14 hours with only Sundays off. Early machinery like a 40 spindle jenny cost about six pounds in 1792 and was affordable for cottagers. Later machines such as spinning frames and power looms were expensive giving rise to capitalist ownership of factories. Before the revolution most people were employed in agriculture as self-employed farmers or tenants. Merchant capitalists typically provided raw materials and paid workers by the piece under the putting-out system. Embezzlement of supplies by workers and poor quality were common limitations. Lack of adequate transportation made it difficult to recruit and retain workers. Karl Marx viewed the change in social relationships unfavourably but recognized increased productivity from technology. By the mid-19th century unskilled labour forces were common in Western Europe. British industry moved upscale needing more engineers who could handle technical instructions.

• 5. Living Standards Debate

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  Some economists say living standards of ordinary masses began sustained growth for the first time in history. Others argue living standards did not grow meaningfully until the late 19th century. Studies estimate wages in Britain increased only 15% between the 1780s and 1850s. Life expectancy did not dramatically increase until the 1870s. Average height declined during the Industrial Revolution because nutrition was decreasing. The percentage of Londoners who died before age five decreased from 75% in 1730, 49 to 32% in 1810, 29. Food consumption per person also declined during an episode known as the Antebellum Puzzle. Malnutrition limited life expectancy in France to 35 years until about 1750. In Britain life expectancy reached 40 years at that same time. The US population had a life expectancy of 45, 50 though this slightly declined by the mid 19th century. Between 1813 and 1913 there was a significant increase in wages according to some studies.

• 6. Urbanization And Sanitation

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  London's population more than doubled between 1800 and 1850 making it by far the largest city in the world. People moved in so rapidly there was not enough capital to build adequate housing. Low-income newcomers squeezed into overcrowded slums where clean water and sanitation were inadequate. Cholera from polluted water and typhoid became endemic diseases. Friedrich Engels described backstreets of Manchester where people lived in shanties with dirt floors and no sanitary facilities. John Snow traced a cholera outbreak in Soho, London to fecal contamination of a public water well in 1854. Michael Faraday wrote a letter to The Times in 1855 about the foul condition of the River Thames. The modern sewage system began construction in London in 1859 under chief engineer Joseph Bazalgette. It included miles of main and street sewers diverting waste to the Thames Estuary. By the 1890s it featured revolutionary biological treatment to oxidise the waste. The Public Health Act 1875 led to more sanitary terraced houses.

• 7. Global Economic Impact

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  By the mid-18th century Britain controlled a global trading empire with colonies in North America and the Caribbean. Indian textiles were in demand in Europe but cotton goods consumed in Europe remained minor until the early 19th century. British cloth could not compete with Indian cloth because India's labour cost was approximately one-fifth that of Britain's. The high productivity of British textile manufacturing allowed coarser grades to undersell hand-spun fabric in low-wage India destroying the Indian industry. Sea island cotton was exported from Barbados from the 1650s. A strain of cotton seed brought from Mexico to Natchez, Mississippi in 1806 became parent genetic material for 90% of world production today. The Corn Laws enacted between 1815, 46 imposed tariffs on imported grain keeping prices high to benefit domestic producers. These laws were repealed in the early years of the Great Irish Famine. Germany took leadership in chemical innovation after 1860 building a strong chemical industry. Aspiring chemists flocked to German universities between 1860, 1914 to learn latest techniques. British scientists lacked research universities and instead hired German-trained chemists.