Industrial Revolution Notes

Farming Methods Before Industrialisation

Before the Industrial Revolution, land ownership was concentrated among wealthy landowners who employed tenant farmers as laborers. As the population increased, so did the necessity to expand food production, which demanded larger land areas.

Most villages were structured around an open field system, dividing land into three or four large fields of strips. Basic tools were utilized. The open field system subsequently transitioned to enclosures where strips of land were consolidated into larger units, employing crop rotation to justify the use of machinery. Food production was at a subsistence level, with farmers producing only enough to feed their families.

Changes Brought by the Agricultural Revolution

Machinery led to greater crop production for commercial purposes including export and trade. Because basic needs were met, most people stayed on farms, and production was primarily by hand, known as the cottage industry. New farming methods using machinery reduced reliance on manual labor, leading many laborers to migrate to towns in search of factory work, marking the start of urbanization.

Impact of Railways

1. Railways reduced the cost of transporting goods.
2. Cheaper goods increased demand, creating more jobs to meet that demand.

Source B (1997) indicates how railways created more jobs:

• Reduced cost of moving goods.
• Increased affordability of goods, boosting sales.
• More jobs created to produce goods.
• Greater distances could be traveled for work and leisure.

Social and Economic Effects of Railways:

• Townspeople received newspapers from London, speeding up postal services.
• Railways provided work for navvies during construction and ongoing jobs for drivers and guards.
• Seaside resorts developed due to cheap day trips.
• Turnpike Trusts, canals, and stagecoach companies could not compete with the speed of the railways.

The birth rate decreased as people moved to cities for jobs, leading to a population decrease in areas like Itene Abbas.

Goods could be sold for less; with more people employed, more could afford to buy these goods. Businesses employed more people to meet the increased demand.

Railways shortened journey times. For example, a trip to Edinburgh that previously took 43 hours by road was reduced to approximately 12 hours by railway.

Eventually, train travel became accessible to the working class. This enabled trips to destinations like Blackpool and Whitby.

With the advent of railways, time standardization became necessary to prevent train crashes, leading to the adoption of London GMT in train stations.

Increased exposure to newspapers led to greater public interest in Parliament and social reforms, contributing to the growth of political parties.

Railways influenced the diets of the working class by making fresh foods like eggs, milk, and fish more accessible. Fish and chips became a working-class staple.

Differences between regions blurred as people mixed, diminishing local accents.

Railways facilitated the transport of fresh meat, fish, milk, and vegetables.

Industry expanded, and railway engineering towns like Swindon and Crewe grew. Coal and iron were in high demand for railways, which in turn, allowed factories to transport goods to market more efficiently.

Factory Mills

During the Industrial Revolution, machines were too large to be housed in homes, and mills were built as specialized factories for textile manufacturing. These mills required large workforces and were initially poorly constructed. Workers were crammed into tight, poorly ventilated spaces, filled with smog and soot from the machines. Early factory workers faced very unsafe working conditions.

Urbanization

Urbanization occurred with the growth of cities during the Industrial Revolution. Cities became slums characterized by low life expectancy due to poor town planning and lack of proper sanitation. Sewage drained into the streets, contaminating drinking water and causing cholera outbreaks. Early governments did not address the treatment of people. Crime and alcoholism were prevalent, and high mortality rates were exacerbated by the lack of hospitals and limited infirmaries.

Social Changes: New World of Work and Exploitation

During the 1700s, many businesses in Britain began hiring children, some as young as 5 years old, and women because they could be paid less. They worked in dirty, poorly lit factories, mills, and mines. Many children worked to support their unemployed parents and often missed the chance to attend school. Children also worked in coal mines for up to 12 hours a day, opening and closing trapdoors to ventilate the tunnels and prevent explosions. Children as young as 11 pushed trolleys of coal weighing over 200 kilograms. Thousands of children, often orphans, worked in cotton mills.

Growth of Urban Areas and Social Problems

Most people moved from farms to towns to find work in factories, resulting in urbanization. Factories were built in the cities, using steam power, and houses for workers were built nearby. Due to low wages and housing shortages, whole families shared houses, sometimes even rooms. Houses lacked running water, which came from communal pumps in the street. Toilets were typically pits or buckets in wooden huts in backyards, often contaminating the local water supply and rivers. Disease spread quickly in the dirty, overcrowded conditions, with common diseases including Tuberculosis (TB), cholera, and typhoid fever.

Trade Unionism and Labor Resistance

In the early decades of the Industrial Revolution, few laws protected workers, who had no political rights. The Luddite movement emerged in 1811, with workers protesting the changes by destroying textile machines because they felt their jobs were threatened. The Swing Riots in the 1830s involved agricultural workers demanding higher wages and protesting against new agricultural methods that disrupted traditional rural life. They demanded an end to the threshing machine, which interfered with their winter employment. Rioters burned threshing machines, maimed cattle, and burned haystacks, sending threatening letters signed "Captain Swing." These protesters faced criminal punishment, including imprisonment, transportation to Australia, or even death.

Grand National Consolidated Trade Union

By the end of the 18th century, trade unions began to develop in Britain. A trade union is an organization of workers formed to protect its members' interests. They discussed working conditions and ways to defend themselves against employers. The government and factory owners, fearing the growing strength of workers, banned the unions and gave factory owners unlimited power to cut wages. There were numerous strikes organized by trade unions in the early 1800s, and strikes often led to violent battles. Robert Owen believed that if trade unions united, they could achieve more for the workers. The goals of the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union were to streamline the structure of combinations, achieve general control of movements for wage increases, and coordinate assistance for strikes, especially those against wage reductions.

As the trade union movement grew, the government resisted, leading to a loss of momentum. The government arrested six people and sent them to work in Australia. Eventually, due to political changes and the struggles of workers, the anti-union laws were repealed.

Cartoon Analysis: Death's Dispensary

The cartoon "Death's Dispensary" depicts a skeleton, symbolizing death and royalty, distributing contaminated water to the poor for free. The girl in the cartoon coughs and looks ill, symbolizing that the water is unsafe for consumption. The cartoonist portrays the event negatively, indicating that the authorities at the time were giving contaminated water to the poor, leading to their deaths.

Tolpuddle Martyrs

The Tolpuddle Martyrs were six English farm laborers sentenced to seven years' transportation to Australia in 1834 for organizing a trade union. Their case became a major public issue, leading to mass protests and eventually a full pardon. The Tolpuddle Martyrs represented a Friendly Society of Agricultural Laborers who protested against the lowering of agricultural wages. Australia was used as a penal colony for convicts who committed crimes in the UK.

Industrial Revolution Overview

The Industrial Revolution, spanning roughly from the 1750s to the 1850s, introduced machinery and mechanized processes that replaced traditional manual labor across various industries. Driven by technological innovations such as steam engines and improved transportation, it began in Britain before spreading to Western Europe and influencing regions worldwide. The Industrial Revolution laid the foundation for modern industrial society.

Inventions in the textile industry include:

• 1764: James Hargreaves invented the 'Spinning Jenny'.
• 1769: Richard Arkwright made a 'Water Frame'.
• 1785: Edmund Cartwright invented a 'Power Loom'.

Power and Energy

The first machines were made from wood and some were powered by water. The concept of using steam to power machinery was introduced in the early 1700s with James Watt's invention of the steam engine. Coal was needed to boil water to make steam, and iron was needed to make machines that could withstand the heat of the steam.

Coal and iron ore were mined before the Industrial Revolution, but much greater quantities were now needed. Steam pumps were used to pump water out of mines, and factories were built close to coal and iron ore mines for easier transport of materials and smoother production.

Transportation

Before the Industrial Revolution, Britain relied on a river transport system. In 1761, the construction of canals began, creating a network that interconnected with the rivers. By 1800, approximately 5,000 kilometers of canals had been established throughout England. Flat-bottomed boats, called barges, were used to carry goods along the canals and were pulled by horses walking beside them.

Goods manufactured in factories needed to be transported to seaports. Transportation relied on coaches and wagons pulled by horses along dirt roads. John MacAdam invented 'tarmac' roads, and by 1830, thousands of kilometers of new hard-surface roads had been built between factory towns and seaports. George Stephenson developed a steam-powered engine that could travel along rails. In 1830, his steam engine called the 'Rocket' pulled a train of wagons along a railway line. As railway travel became faster, trains became the main way that unprocessed and manufactured goods were transported.

Urbanization and the Working Class

Urbanization is the movement of people from rural areas to towns and cities. Factories were built in or near coal and iron ore mining towns, leading displaced agricultural workers to relocate near these mines and factories for employment. New towns were unpleasant places to live, with cramped housing built for workers near factories. Houses were joined together in double rows. Each street had one water pump, and an open sewer ran down the middle. Towns were characterized by filth and poor sanitation, leading to the rapid spread of diseases. Factory workers worked long hours for low wages, forcing entire families (including women and children) to work. Factory owners became rich, but the workers lived in poverty. Workhouses existed to help the very poor in exchange for unpaid labor. Factory owners sometimes used orphan children from workhouses in their factories.

Before the 18th century, British society had two social classes: rich nobles and small farmers/laborers. The growth of trade led to the development of a wealthy middle class of merchants and factory owners. People who worked in mines and factories became the working class.

Mines were dangerous places to work, and children and women were employed to pull and carry coal along tunnels. Before the Mines Act of 1842, children under ten were employed in mines. Thousands of children worked in factories, sometimes as young as five years old.

Labor Resistance

Factory and farm workers were poorly paid and always at risk of unemployment. It was illegal for workers to resist by organizing. The Swing Riots in 1830 were prompted by unemployment among farm workers and involved the destruction of threshing machines. Rioters used the name "Captain Swing" to remain anonymous and sent threatening letters to farm owners. The Luddites resisted the factory system by destroying factories and machines, blaming their actions on a man named Ned Ludd.

Workers first rioted and protested against bad working conditions, then began organizing. Unions were initially called 'Friendly Societies'. The unions united in 1833 when the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union was formed. The British government responded with harsh prison sentences, which discouraged union membership. Despite setbacks, the trade union movement in Britain became powerful towards the end of the 19th century.

Economic Impact

Britain was the first industrialized nation. In the first half of the 19th century, Western European countries industrialized using British inventions. By 1851, Britain organized the 'Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations' in London. The exhibition was held in the Crystal Palace, which symbolized Britain's technological superiority. The Industrial Revolution significantly changed Britain's economy, illustrating its rise as a leading industrial nation.

National Income in Britain:

• Before the Industrial Revolution:
  • Agriculture: 40\%
  • Trade and Transport: 27\%
  • Mining and Manufacturing: 6\%
  • Other: 21\%
• After the Industrial Revolution:
  • Agriculture: 24\%
  • Trade and Transport: 40\%
  • Mining and Manufacturing: 30\%
  • Other: 12\%