Causes of the Industrial Revolution in England Unit 5 Day 1

Overview: Industrial Revolution What was the industrial revolution? The industrial revolution was a period of rapid transformation and development of technology, organization of labor, transportation, and investment that resulted in widespread social, economic, and cultural changes. These changes were marked by a consolidation of wealth in the hands of a new group of industrial entrepreneurs and the emergence of a wage-earning working class who provided labor for the growing industrial economy.

Preconditions of the Industrial Revolution Question: What factors helped to set the stage for the Industrial Revolution’s breakthrough in England? Stable Government and Relative Peace Experienced Business Class and Agricultural Wage Laborers Central Bank and Credit Institutions Large Domestic Market Extensive Transportation Network of Rivers increasingly connected by Canals No Internal Tariffs High Standard of Living down to Lower Classes including Limited Disposable Income Few Prejudices Against Working to Earn Money among Wealthy

The Industrial Revolution in England The early development of the Industrial Revolution in England took shape around four interrelated, roughly contemporaneous developments The Development of Agricultural Techniques and Enclosure of Arable Land The Expansion of Foreign Trade The Reorganization of Labor around Factories The Invention and Refinement of the Steam Engine

The Agricultural Revolution and Enclosure During the Middle Ages feudal agriculture in England was primarily organized around a three-field system.

The Agricultural Revolution and Enclosure Under the Three Field System- Land was owned by lords who divided up the arable (plowable) land into three fields worked by serfs who lived in the manor village. Two of these fields were farmed each year, while the third lay fallow (unplanted). Each year the crops planted were rotated so a field was fallow every three years. This gave the land an opportunity to replace depleted minerals. The fields were subdivided into strips. These strips were randomly distributed among the lord and serfs who could keep the produce from their strips in return for working the lord’s land. A third area was not plowed and reserved as pasture land for grazing animals. This was not reserved for anyone but held in common for the use of all.

The Agricultural Revolution and Enclosure The Agricultural Revolution had two key components that worked together Technological – over time farmers in the Low Countries had developed a four-field continuous rotation cycle which substituted the growing of legumes (clover, beans, etc.) for fallowing which restored depleted nutrients by “fixing” nitrogen into the soil without allowing the field to go unplanted Organizational – throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries land owners passed several enclosure acts by which the strips of land in open fields formerly reserved as compensation for serfs was fenced in or enclosed for the use of the owner alone. Common pasturage was also privatized for the owner’s livestock in the wake of the booming wool industry. Former serfs were either retained as wage laborer or let go. The effects of these were twofold As a result of improved productivity much more food was available to be sold for profit – often to city dwellers. Since fewer workers were needed to farm the land, many former serfs were left without a means of support, providing a ready source of available labor. This process is referred to as proletarianization.

“Foreign” Trade British successes in wars over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries gave them both freedom of navigation (Anglo-Dutch Wars) and an extensive colonial empire (War of Spanish Succession – 1713, Seven Years’ War – 1756 to 1763) in North America, Africa, and India. This allowed England to vastly expand the scope of trade in the eighteenth century. However, the majority of this trade was NOT with other countries, which had high tariffs, but rather with its OWN COLONIES.

British Colonial Holdings after the Napoleonic Wars (1815) “Foreign” Trade British Colonial Holdings after the Napoleonic Wars (1815)

Factories The textile craft was the first trade to be extensively “industrialized” and to organize work around factories. Prior to the Industrial Revolution most of the work of making cloth was “put out” to workers (often women) who worked from home. Merchant-manufacturers who often made cloth from thread (weaving) themselves would distribute raw materials to workers who would make it into thread (spinning), which was a very time consuming process. Workers would be paid by the piece.

Factories A woman spinning cloth on a home loom as part of the “putting out system”

Arkwright’s Water Frame Factories Disadvantages of the “putting out system” Difficult to monitor production As technology improved (especially steam power) it became impossible for ordinary workers to afford to have this technology in the home. As a result manufacturers began organizing workers into centrally located factories. Hargreaves’s Spinning Jenny Arkwright’s Water Frame

Factories The city of Manchester, England became the extreme example of factory organization. The entire city was home to the thriving cotton industry, which thanks to the technological breakthrough of the steam engine made cotton garments affordable to almost everyone. As early as 1820 (left) people moved to Manchester (nicknamed Cottonopolis) to work in the factories there. By 1851 (right) factories filled the horizon. Between 1750 and 1850 the population of Manchester increased 20 times – from 20,000 to 400,000.

A replica of Watt’s improved engine (1788) The Steam Engine The steam engine as designed by Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen and refined by James Watt dramatically increased the amount of energy available to industry in the eighteenth century. Even an extremely inefficient engine could do 27 times the work of an average worker. A replica of Watt’s improved engine (1788)

The Steam Engine A Simple Steam Engine Boiler Engine