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Industrial Revolution
In Britain in the second half of the 18th century, machines began to do work that people and animals had always done. Spinning machines, steam engines and iron smelted with coke moved production from the home into the factory, and in 1830 a steam railway began carrying passengers between Liverpool and Manchester. Within a few generations work and daily life changed more than in the thousand years before.
Cotton and machines
THEME ONE
The revolution began with cotton cloth. James Hargreaves's spinning jenny (around 1764), Richard Arkwright's water frame (1769) and Samuel Crompton's mule (1779) let one worker spin dozens, then hundreds of threads at once. In 1771 Arkwright opened his water-powered mill at Cromford, a model for the factory system. The raw cotton came more and more from slave plantations in the American South.
Steam and iron
THEME TWO
Steam engines had pumped water from mines since Thomas Newcomen's design of 1712, but they wasted fuel. James Watt's separate condenser, patented in 1769, made them far more efficient, and with Matthew Boulton he built engines that could turn machines anywhere, not only beside rivers. Iron smelted with coke instead of charcoal became cheap, and in 1779 the first iron bridge was built across the Severn.
Canals and railways
THEME THREE
Factories needed coal and raw materials and sent out heavy goods. From the 1760s a network of canals cut the cost of transport, starting with the Bridgewater Canal. Then came rails: the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened in 1825, and in 1829 George and Robert Stephenson's locomotive Rocket won the Rainhill trials. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway of 1830 was the first to run all its trains by steam on a timetable.
Factory towns and workers
THEME FOUR
Manchester grew from about 25 000 people in the 1770s to over 300 000 by 1850, with housing, water and sewers far behind. Men, women and children worked twelve hours or more a day to the rhythm of machines. Luddites smashed machines between 1811 and 1816, workers formed unions, and the Factory Act of 1833 banned work for children under nine in textile mills.
Periods
Beginnings in Britain
1760 – 1790
Spinning machines, water-powered mills, Watt's engine, canals and cheap iron.
Steam takes over
1790 – 1815
Steam-powered mills spread, the power loom comes into use, and the cotton gin in the United States feeds British factories.
The railway age begins
1815 – 1840
The first public railways, industry in Belgium, France and the German states, the first factory laws and the first workers' movements.
Key dates
- 1769Watt patents his condenser, Arkwright his water frame.
- 1771Arkwright's mill opens at Cromford.
- 1779The Iron Bridge spans the River Severn.
- 1785Edmund Cartwright patents the power loom.
- 1825The Stockton and Darlington Railway opens.
- 1830The Liverpool and Manchester Railway opens.
Questions and answers
Why did the Industrial Revolution start in Britain?
Several conditions came together: cheap coal and iron ore, high wages that made labour-saving machines worth building, a large market at home and in the colonies, banks and capital, secure property rights and a culture of practical invention. Historians weigh these factors differently.
What was life like for factory workers?
Hard. Shifts of twelve to fourteen hours, six days a week, were common, children worked in mills and mines, and towns grew faster than their housing, water and sewers. Wages rose only slowly before the 1840s, and life expectancy in industrial cities was lower than in the countryside.