England During The Industrial Revolution example essay topic

The Era known as the Industrial Revolution was a period in which fundamental changes occurred agriculture, textiles and metal manufacture, transportation, economic policies and the social structure in England. This period is appropriately or inappropriately classified as a "revolution", for this period completely destroyed the old ways of doing things; yet these changes did not occur in an abrupt change as the word "revolution" implies. The transformation that occurred during the period of (1760-1850) occurred very slowly with small gradual changes. 1760 the year generally accepted as the "eve" of the Industrial Revolution was not the "eve" at all. In reality, this "eve" people talked about occurred more than two hundred years ago.

The ninety years labeled the Industrial Revolution is simply a time where the ideas and discoveries of those who had long passed on, such as Galileo, Bacon, Descartes and others was brought to a national level. The large question that becomes apparent when studying these years is why then. Why if many of the ideas of the Industrial Revolution had been known for nearly two hundred years did they come into common use now As I answer this question I will examine advances applied during the Industrial Revolution and shed some light as to why it occurred in the late eighteenth century. Agriculture held a prominent position in the way of life during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

England was no aception as most of the population depended on the tilling of soil for their livelihood. Not only was Agriculture's importance rooted in to the livelihood of the population, but it was an indispensable source of material for the growing textile industry. The production of wool and cotton for the purpose of manufacturing into cloth increased every year during the Industrial Revolution. The yield of food crops increased as well, mainly due to the enclosure movement taking hold in English villages. Enclosure is the process of enclosing pieces of land by the use of stone walls, tall shrubs ect. This process helped to increase production because now farmers were able to introduce new technologies to farming, that before they were unable to do.

Before enclosure there were large farms where villagers worked together to farm. With the coming of enclosure, farmers were allowed to rent a piece of land and work that land by themselves. Enclosure gave incentive to try new ways of farming because the more they produced on their piece of land, the more grain they could sell at the market, and in turn the more profit they could make. For example, a widely common practice in agriculture at the time was to allow the land to lie fallow after it had been exhausted of minerals through cultivation. Soon it was discovered that the growing of clover and other types of legumes would help restore the fertility of the land. The improved use of manure also helped replenish land that had been exhausted of minerals.

Many of these innovations had been known for some time but had never been widely used before. The improvements came into universal use due to the pressure from a rising population. The improvements in agriculture, led to a greater supply of grain during the winter months to sustain livestock. This increased the amount of meat on the market throughout the year. All of these advances made it possible to feed the new populations of people attracted to industrial centers and large cities. With enough food to sustain a larger work force than ever seen before, England was on its way for the Industrial Revolution to expand.

Before 1760 the process of manufacturing textiles occurred in the homes. It was a long and tedious process starting with raw material to finished product. For example woolen cloth had to be sorted, cleaned and dyed, carded and combed, spun into thread, then woven into cloth... Even more processes were performed on the wool to change the texture and color.

Most of each stage of production was performed either by women or children. The textile industry in England before the Industrial Revolution was complicated and grossly inefficient. The process of manufacturing was different from one locality to another. Generally, a merchant employed putters who distributed the raw materials to spinners and weavers who were scattered throughout the countryside. Changes in the process of manufacturing textiles were already occurring in the late seventeen century; however these changes were not accepted with arms wide open by many Englishmen. John Kay's flying-shuttle, which enabled one weaver to do the work of two, and Lewis Paul's roller spinner, which was to make spinning more efficient (later to be perfected by Richard Arkwright), were the precursors of the inventive spirit and the application of new technology to the textile industry.

By the 1760's the textile industry was experiencing rapid change. James Hargreaves' jenny, a device which enabled the operator to simultaneously spin dozens of threads, was becoming readily adopted. By as early as 1788, 20,000 of Hargreaves jenny were being employed in England and Scotland. Soon the water frame was developed by Arkwright and others, which performed similarly to Paul's roller spinner but now was powered by water rather than muscle. Arkwright, Samuel Need and Jedidiah Struct set up a water-powered factory that utilized his invention. The factory, located in C romford, had more than six-hundred workers, most of whom were women and children.

The factory spun cotton thread faster than the human workers could supply the carded and combed raw material. The adage "necessity is the mother of invention" is appropriate for what was happening in England during the Industrial Revolution. With larger yields in agriculture more people could be fed, so in turn England's population rose. With that rise in population came a large demand for clothing, mainly cotton clothing.

Old textile methods simply could not produce enough cotton to supply the demand. England's non-industrialized textile manufacturing had reached its limits of production, so something had to be done to expand the limits of production. The development of new technologies and the movement from textile manufacturing in the home to factories was the cure to England's problem. The changes and development of the textile industry must certainly center about the inventions and their inventors, though not necessarily be limited to them. The inventions that were perfected and applied led to tremendous changes in the world of work. Gone were the old days of domestic system, yielding to the ways of the factory system.

Developments and improvements in the iron industry came in the early eighteenth century. Abraham Darby successfully produced pig iron smelted with coke. This was a huge breakthrough, for before this discovery pig iron was smelted with the use of charcoal. Charcoal, made from the charring of wood in a kiln, was a good source of energy to smelt the iron. The downside to using wood to fuel the kiln was the serious depletion of England's forests. This new technique developed by Darby was gaining widespread use during the late eighteenth century, though problems still existed.

The iron produced through the new method was impure and brittle, making it totally unsuitable for the forgmasters to fashion it into implements. Soon its use was limited to castings, nevertheless Darby's breakthrough changed the iron industry forever. Later, improvements would occur which produced high quality material and improved techniques in fashioning it. Although there were many developments in the making of iron, the organization of iron factories remained nearly the same", The scale of operations has increased enormously: the sapling has become an oak, deep-rooted and widespread; technique has been revolutionized.

But in structure and organization there is no fundamental change". (TFIR pg. 103) All of this made iron and steel more common than ever before and soon large factories were popping up all over the English countryside. Improvements in transportation stimulated the course of the Industrial Revolution. Products, raw materials, food and people needed a reliable, quicker and less costly system of transportation. In England canals and rivers had long been used as a popular means of internal transportation. In the mid eighteenth century the first construction of canals between industrial districts began...

However, canals days were numbered with the coming of the railroad. The principles of rail transportation were in already in use by the late 1700's. Tramways, using cast iron rails were being used in many coal mines in England, they were the prec users to railway transportation. A number of people were involved in the development of railroads in England. Between 1804 and 1820 we find a few attempts that can be concluded as partially successful. For example: Richard Trevithick's "New Castle", a steam driven locomotive that proved to be too heavy for the rails, John Blenkinsop's locomotive, which employed a radical toothed, gear like wheel, and William Hedley's "Puffing Billy", which soon came to be used for hauling coal wagons from the mines.

George Stephenson was a pioneer that bears mentioning. He was invited by the Stockton and Darlington Railway to build a railway between the two cities. This line became the first public railroad to use locomotive traction and to carry passengers as well as material. Soon, however, the line became to unprofitable to maintain and was closed. Railroads became the dominate mode of transportation in England, .".. in the seven years 1831-7 between 400 and 500 miles of railway were opened to traffic". (TFIR pg. 172) The railroad system is another example of economic necessity producing innovation.

The development of reliable, efficient rail service was crucial to the survival and development of specific industries and the overall English economy. The greatest technical achievement of the Industrial Revolution has to go to the development and application of steam power. Many developing industries needed the ability to apply enormous power, more than could be produced through human muscle. James Watt is generally credited with the invention and development of the steam engine.

In fact James improved upon a design which was developed by Thomas S avery and Thomas Newcomen. The development of a practical, efficient steam engine and its application to industry and transportation caused a great leap for industrialization. Its application was virtually limitless, and it was responsible for lifting industries from infancy to adolescence. The eighteenth century saw a rise in population faster and larger than ever. Four primary reason are responsible for this increase: decline in the death rate, increase in the birth rate, virtual elimination of the dreaded plagues and an increase in the availability of food. The increase in the availability of food is the most significant of these reasons, for people in England and Scotland were eating a much larger and healthier diet than ever before.

Industry provided higher wages than what could be found in the villages, this allowed many young people in the urban areas to marry much younger than before and produce children earlier. With the factory system becoming more and more common in England during the eighteenth century we find a shift in population. Factories were created and soon settlements popped up around these factories. In a few cases housing was provided for the workers by the employers. Factories were usually located near a readily available source of power.

The most readily available source of power in England at this time was moving water. Thus, we find factories popping up near streams and rivers all over the English countryside. When steam power was introduced factories could then be located near any source of water moving or not. In many ways the driving force of the Industrial Revolution was investment of capitol, "One of the most significant differences between a pre-industrial economy and an industrialized economy is that the latter had a larger stock of capital; in other words, each member of the industrial labour force has a great deal more physical capital to assist him in the process of production". (TFIR pg. 72) Before industrialization land was the primary source of wealth in England. A new wealth grew from the Industrial Revolution, that which came from the ownership of factories and machinery.

These people had the daring to seize the opportunity to invest in new ventures, it was these capitalists who gave the necessary money to ensure the speedy growth of the Industrial Revolution, "Its development depended on the unfettered response of private enterprise to economic opportunity". (TFIR pg. 98) The lack of an adequate banking system in many remote industrial centers provided many headaches for these new capitalists. By the early nineteenth century, however, England had established new banks in more remote areas near large factories solving many problems. Once the Industrial Revolution started, capitol was the fuel that kept it going strong for nearly a century. It is hard to say what exactly caused the Industrial Revolution to happen. There was no one event that sparked all this change.

The Industrial Revolution was a slow process taking nearly a century to accomplish. The strongest cause for the start of the Industrial Revolution is the rapid growth in population that England experienced during the late eighteenth century. With more people in the country, pressure was put on many different parts of the economy to produce enough to sustain these new people. With breakthrough methods in agriculture becoming widely used, farmers could produce enough food to feed a larger population.

This in my mind is where the barrier of the old ways was broken. Once food production modernized, textiles modernized to cloth the larger population and soon a snowball effect was in full force. Industrialization of England was an effect of a rising population, spurred on by the virtual elimination of plagues and an increased food availability. 1.

The British Industrial Revolution: An Economic Perspective by Joel Mokyer 2. The Industrial Revolution and British Society, by Roland Quinault 3. The First Industrial Revolution, by Phyllis Deane