The INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (John Watney)
History/facts:
- time, when Britain was transformed from a largely agricultural country into
one that was predominantly industrial
- 1730-1850 and causes/results beyond
- Britain was the first country to be industrialised:
o Had two essential natural resources: coal and iron
o Island: free from distractions of invasions
o Land-owning aristocracy: more amenable to change than in other countries
o Already had an affluent merchant class.
o Colonies: raw materials an captive markets
o Infrastructure: navigable rivers, later canals; pioneer of railways
o Temperate climate: plus in productivity
o Work ethics of the many Nonconformist mill and factory owners
o Inventions: steam power most important
(Europeans had invented them, but Britain knew how to use them.)
The Agrarian Revolution:
- There would have been no Industrial Revolution without an Agrarian: it had to
feed the population of the new industrial towns.
- Enclosure Acts (late 18th - early 19th):
o Large areas of common land to landowners à encouraged to consolidate holdings
and to make more economical and rational use of it
- Now avoided soil exhaustion by crop rotation, which also encouraged fertility
à provided fodder à fresh meat in winter
- Improved breeds
- More agr. land: farming became an economically viable cash crop industry
attracting investment. à profits for landowners à invest in Ind. Rev.
- Agricultural tools and machinery improved (e.g. iron plough brought saving in
time and labour, seed drills, potato machines, reapers (Mähmaschine), binders
(Mähbinder), threshers à reduced labour, increased productivity)
- Then steam power was used: machinery, tractors.
- Distribution because of good infrastructure
à Enclosure Acts and efficient farm management: thousand dispossessed à
migrated to the towns and factories!
The first steam engines
- first practical steam engine: pump to draw water out of Cornish mines
- crude and wasteful in operation, but saved many mines from ruin
- beam (Balken) engine:
o from this all later ones descended
o could only produce vertical up-and-down movement and it was expensive to run
(only a paltry 1% of its heat was converted into work)
o principally used for pumping out coal mines à needed only low pressure steam,
most work done by atmospheric pressure; reliable, long-lived
- Denis Papin: developed a primitive piston (Kolben) driven by steam
Ironbridge, Birthplace of the Industrial Revolution
- wood becoming scarce (to build houses, ships, machines) à drove up costs
- making smelting iron with charcoal too expensive
à make it out of cheap coke and iron ore (pig iron); then Darby's son managed
to make wrought (Schmiede-) iron out of coke and iron ore
- great success, exports,.
- Darby's grandson later built the first iron bridge 1779; the construction was
the fore-runner of the steel-framed buildings of the present day
à supply of cheap and plentiful iron was necessary for the Industrial
Revolution
Maritime trade
- Industrial Revolution was well served by Britain's mercantile fleet
- 1815: greatest in the world
- brought raw materials and took goods outwards
- did not profit from I.R. (but prowess (Tapferkeit) in war, politics,
colonization, protection, expanding empire)
- not until 1838 that steam powered ships crossed the Atlantic
- 1869: Suez Canal opened, not suitable for sail
King Cotton
- the mechanization of the textile industry was the first and outstanding
feature of the I.R., particularly the production of cotton goods
- speed up production as demand outstripped supply à more expensive
- 1767: "spinning jenny"
- 1769: spinning frame operated by water; mostly operated by women and
children; 13-hour-shifts
- system then widely copied, 1780: 120 mills
- 1785: power loom, wool-combing machine à 2 major developments
- dependent on raw materials on the work done by Negro slaves in southern
states of America
- after Watt: steam instead of water could be used to power factory machines
The fuel of the Revolution
- until 1700: coal mining was a rural activity (seasonly for heating)
- later 18th century: landowners exploited coal under their land
- many industries needed coal, to power steam engines, later for railways and
steam ships
- call for larger labour force à relatively high wages
- many women and children worked in appalling (erschreckend) conditions below
ground; later a Bill prohibited this
- problem: carry up coal: first by man, then shaft cages, later much safer wire
cables
- hazardous and dangerous environment: risk of roof collapse or gas explosion
- Davy's safety lamp: absorbed heat of the flame before it could ignite the gas
à won by great hardship and death
Canals: arteries of industry
- bad road system, time of railways still ahead à artificial rivers, canals
- first purely industrial canal from Worsley mines to Manchester à prosperity
to region, halved price of coal à a viable (rentabel) proposition into booming
cotton industry
- scheme to link large rivers
- enabled new mines, industries, . to be established deep inland
- also civil engineering
à made fortunes for their owners and manufacturers and merchants they served
à later: no economic significance anymore: railways
Steam comes of age
- 1764: Watt was asked to repair a model of a Newcomen engine à struck by
inefficiency
o reduce heat loss which made it expensive to run à separate cylinder in which
the steam could condense
o "sun and planet" gear: beam engine: rotary action à increase shaft speed and
save fuel
o Watt developed it further
- steam: factories could be build everywhere as it was not dependent on a anymore
- machines that were compact and produced more power à potential to serve as
locomotive engines
- 1808: engine that ran a 30-metre radius circular railroad in London (10 mph)
The rise of the factory
- invention of the I.R.
- former times: manufacturing in cottages/small guild workshops: few
apprentices and paid hands; families worked at home; regulated it themselves;
enough money to rent a plot of land; close relationship employers - workers à
personal responsibility
- then the demand for new goods grew à make them faster and cheaper
- new inventions enabled mass production by a disciplined workforce (Arkwright's
waterframe, .)
- first: textile industry: spinners and weavers concentrated there
- factories: poor lighting/ventilation, unguarded machinery, little sanitation,
high noise levels - bad conditions
- cities developed: houses nearby factories (workers: no long way to work)
- sometimes the conditions were good: villages/settlements with houses, shops, .
à social/recreational amenities; experiments: free schooling, dancing classes, .
- Manchester: first industrialised city, fastest growing
- Most powerful forces in commercial and political life: capitalists who had
the money to finance the factories
Steel: the missing link
- iron + carbon: tougher and harder
- required for: tools, bearings, bridges, railroads, . à method needed for a
cheap production à 1856: converter, only the fuel needed to melt the iron;
price: 8% of that before
- steam hammer: form steal (1.5 tons lifted up and then let fall; operated with
precision, operated by only one man)
Railway mania
- first forms: waggonways, tram roads: from and to mines and quarries
- at the beginning not successful, failings
- locomotive: specially designed for heavy traffic, but slow
- economic benefits of steam: led investors to railway rather than to canals
- started railway export business
- 1830: railway Manchester - Liverpool
- becoming faster
- many people travelled
- canal operators bankrupt or bought
The price of success
- upper calls profited
- new educated middle class: acquired to a certain extent the same privileges
and advantages
- "low" persons that were inventive could start a career
- new society of industrialists, merchant venturers, capitalists wrested much
of the landowner's political power
- Many ordinary people moved to the cities because of the agrarian revolution.
There they worked in factories: long working hours, monotonous repetitive
labour, no proper rest and sustenance; soon slums were created because of
overcrowding - bad living and working conditions
- Many accidents: unprotected machinery, no safety regulations
- New technology, over-production caused unemployment à families starved
- Much pollution, hardly no clean water, no sanitation à diseases: cholera, .
- No check as there was no local government until the 18th century
- Women: low wages, no rights
- Penalties for destroying machinery, .
- Later: limited working hours for women and children; compulsory education
because there was the growing need for an educated workforce
The great exhibition
- 1851 in Hyde Park
- wealth, magnificence
- Crystal Palace as the exhibition's building, of iron and glass à innovative
construction techniques à one of the greatest wonders of the I.R.
Work of 5,000 men in ten months
- Britain showed what it was able to do, but one also saw that Europe and
America were not far behind
A heritage revived
- models in Science museums
- 1970s: interest in salvaging (retten) and preserving sights and products of
the I.R.
- 1975: railway museum
- steam engines, . work for visitor's pleasure
- UNESCO World Heritage Site: first Ironbridge
