Industrial Revolution!!!

Industrial revolution

Change from agrarian based economy to factory/urban industry based upon machine power and mass production.

Key technological developments

Powered by burning coal to generate steam (previously powered by animals/humans/wind/water
Boost in popularity of fuels like gas, diesel, and petrol
Higher need for factories and increase in mines

Key social impacts of revolution

Expansion of middle class
Social groups pressed for change

Major underlying causes of the industrial revolution in Britain

Stable food supply
Capitalism
Coal

How did the stable food supply help industrialization?

stable food supply = excess food to feed city workers + growing population
Boosted by British agricultural innovations
No war on British soil -> political stability
Stable food = population rising

How did Capitalism help industrialization?

Britain had a strong central bank, low interest loans, empire that provided markets for manufactured British goods.
Innovation needed investment
British capitalism culture allowed entrepreneurs to take risks
Lots of capital = lots of investment

How did coal help industrialization?

Britain had an abundance of coal reserves
No fuel limits to fuel industrial innovation
1709: New fuel: coke - byproduct of coal
Coking replaced need for wood and iron

Enclosure

The enclosing of land by hedges or fences in order to divide up large open fields

Crop rotation

The four-way system planting of different crops in a field each year to maintain the soil's fertility. Replaced the three-way rotation and provided more food. Created by 'Turnip' Townshend.

Selective breeding

More meat on livestock
Made animals more efficient
People became obsolete on farms -> go to cities for work

Population increases

1701- 5.3 million
1771- 6.9 million
1801- 9.2 million
1831- 13.9 million

Abraham Darby

1709: used coal instead of charcoal to smelt iron. Produces new coal-fueled furnaces.

Darby's furnaces

Cheaper to fuel and could be much larger than earlier charcoal furnaces. Significant as eventually, all industrial era industries will be fueled by coal

Francis Edgerton, Duke of Bridgewater

connected Worsley to Manchester via canal. Project started 1761 and ended 1776.

Canal Mania

1790-1810
Era of privately funded canal construction schemes

Why were canals so important?

1. Only needed 1 captain, 1 child laborer, and 1 horse to operate it
2. More reliable than roads or rivers (no bandits, tree snags etc)
3. lots of employment to build the canals
4. connected rural areas of Britain with the cities
5. cheap to transport -> cheap goods
6. Allowed trade within Britain to improve
7. Improved coal supply

Benefit of spinning Machines

better spinning machines = more thread + less requirement for skilled workers. Previously, only one thread could be spun at a time.

Spinning Jenny

It can spin more than one yarn at a time. The idea for multiple-yarn spinning was conceived about 1764 by James Hargreaves, later used in Arkwright's combination of the Spinning Jenny and water wheel to create an even more efficient machine in 1769.

Steam development

1781 - James Watt took out his patent for a tweak on his original design of steam powered pumps that allowed rotative motion

Steam power benefits

More efficient than water power
Textile factories can now be built anywhere
Basis for locomotive technology

Wealth of Nations

1776 book by enlightenment thinker Adam Smith. Offered ideologies of nature and causes of wealth for a nation.

Key ideas from the Wealth of Nations

Freedom of self interest = invisible hand will ensure improvement for all of society
Government interference is inefficient
Division of labor is more efficient

How much development was there in the period to 1800?

Limited transport development until 1790s
Few factories- still domestic system
Limited use of steam power
Agricultural improvements
Increased demand for goods
textile industry sees technological changes
increased investment

Impact of mechanised textile production

increased British manufacturing
Manchester becomes textiles hub
Collapse of handloom trade

factors that caused the factory system to expand after 1780

-Watts patent on steam engine ends
-Factory system beneficial to employers

• Factory system shows success in textile industry to other industries
• Improvements in transportation
• Increasing coal supply
• Growing markets

How did the end of Watt's patent help increase the adoption of the factory system?

• Expiry on his patent allowed others to adapt, improve and develop his design.
• Newer engines were more fuel efficient, lighter, and cheaper
• lead to transported goods to be more efficient -> superiority of factory system

Advantages factory system had over domestic system

• could supply the higher demands for goods
• wage laborers could be brought together on a single site
• increase in production and profit
• Quality was easier to control
• no need for highly skilled and trained workers

Turnpikes

Privately built roads that charged a fee to travelers who used them

Road development

1750-1770 : increase in road building
1770-1830 : turnpikes continued to increase in quantity but doesn't match the sudden growth from 1750-1770

Why were canals eclipsed by railways?

• 1825, Stockton to Darlington line opened -> cost of coal dropped by >50% in the area
• 1830, George Stephenson's project

social impacts of railways (pg 69-73 textbook)

• cheaper for the public
• time efficient
• Government supports industrialization

Economic impacts of railways

• construction was not cheap
• without the capitol from the middle class, growth of the market would have been unlikely
• cheaper for the public
• stimulated economy

Main 3 raw materials

coal, iron, cotton

Cotton

Imported to Britain from its Indian colonies and South of the USA
Increased slavery in the US (1820-1860) to keep up with the high cotton demand

Iron

• By 1806, 7% of Britain's national income came from exporting iron.
• 1780: Cort's puddling made iron more efficient and cheap
• Steam engine -> demand for iron products to increase
• Growth of railways

Coal

• Reliable
• Every aspect of the revolution needed coal and Britain had plenty
• 1800, Britain produced about 90% of the global output of coal
• Extracting coal provided lots of jobs (216000 workers in 1850) but had detrimental health issues (eg black lung). Life expectancy was less that 40.

Why were people willing to work in the mines?

Jobs that required skill had become obsolete to the factory system. Decrease in textile & agricultural jobs leads to people being displaced -> only work is in mines

Why was iron production increased after 1780?

• iron was used to make machines
• Britain exporting Iron (7% of economy)
• Puddling

Why did coal mining rely on employing lots of workers?

mining was a slow process. Only 2% of the coal was being extracted manually. more workers = more production.

Why did British market growth increase?

Internal trade:

• population growth
• Transportation infrastructure -> cheap goods
• People consumed more goods
  External trade:
• High demand for British textiles abroad
• More raw materials from growing empire

Laissez-faire

Policy that government should interfere as little as possible in the nation's economy. Self regulating economy and a 'invisible hand' would guide the economy in its best interests.

Protectionism

the theory or practice of shielding a country's domestic industries from foreign competition by taxing imports.

Benefits of protectionism

Reduce trade deficit.
Protected local industries.
Protect domestic jobs.

Example of protectionism

Navigation Acts (passed in 1651) which restricted colonial trade and required goods to be transported to and from England in English ships.

Why did Laissez-Faire defeat protectionism

• Wealth of Nations (influential)
• Improved transport made free trade feasible
• Evidence that it was effective kept growing
• Industrialists gained political power
• Viewed positively by lower classes

Corn laws

series of tariffs (1815) that protected British agriculture. Prevented imported coal until British corn reached a certain price.

Why did the lower class dislike the corn laws?

The corn laws kept corn prices artificially high which greatly affected the workers but benefitted the landowners.

Why was housing and overcrowding a problem?

-Towns like Manchester struggled to cope with the rise in population

• No building regulations -> houses packed onto small plots of land

Lodging houses

Large houses that were split into smaller rooms and rented out. Many lodging houses were dirty and overcrowded with people sharing beds and sleeping on the floor

Why was health and disease an issue in industrial Britain?

-Poor ventilation in houses -> damp environments -> chest infections & tuberculosis

• Little personal hygiene -> fleas & body lice -> spread of typhus
• Pre 1850, it was difficult to get enough fresh food

How did water and sanitation decrease the living standard in industrial cities?

• Disposal of human waste was an issue
• Communal outhouses rather than sewage systems
• All water was unsafe to drink in the 19th century as human waste would seep into the water supplies and factories would discharge their waste products into the rivers.
  -Smog from factories was so thick that rainwater was unsafe as well.
• Spread of cholera
• Landlords were only willing to pay the bare minimum to water companies

Cholera

• spreads rapidly through contaminated water
• people caught it when they drank the water infected with excrement of people carrying the disease.
• estimated that more than 30,000 people died from the disease in the 1831-1832 epidemic
• Second epidemic in 1848-1849 killed over 60,000 people

Factory work hours and pay

12-14 hours a day with extra time during busy periods
workers required to clean machines during meal times
15 shillings a week for a male
7 shillings a week for females
3 shillings a week for children

Mine work hours and pay

Wages so low that women would give birth down in the mines and be back to work the next day.

Factory safety

• Up to 40% of accidents at Manchester Infirmary in 1833 were factory accidents
• Damp environments -> pneumonia easily spread
• Factory owners had no legal responsibility for their workers

Mine safety

Frequent accidents such as roof falls, explosions, shaft accidents and drowning.
Fire damp left mines at risk of explosion eg Gateshed
Black lung from breathing in coal dust

Friendly societies

miners started pooling their money together to create a makeshift 'insurance' fund for families of miners who died in accidents.

Factory discipline

Fines imposed for talking, having little dirt on a machine etc
some employers demanded overseers collect a minimum amount from fines each week.

Physical discipline- e.g nailing ears to tables, hanging iron weights from necks etc

Mine discipline

Blacklisting and fines

Child labor