Key question 1 - What were the causes of the Industrial

Revolution?
Understand the reasons for and impact of the agricultural revolution.

The structure of pre-industrial society

 Simple structure
 Fewer statuses and roles
 Monarchy and aristocracy owned the land
 No rights of ownership over land for lower classes and peasant population.
 Limited production
 Limited communication between communities / isolated
 Absence or primitive level of schools. university, science etc.

Changes to agriculture

 From the mid-eighteenth century until 1815, the agricultural sector changed
significantly.
 Population growth boosted demand for food.
 High prices due to war-time inflation (Napoleonic wars of 1793-1815) served
to encourage investment in agriculture as profits rose.
 A more productive farming system, enclosure, started in the Middle Ages
increased rapidly between 1750 – 1850.
 In that century, Parliament passed over 4000 Acts of Enclosure which led a
further 20 per cent of land being enclosed

The importance of the agricultural revolution

 Agricultural developments were an essential prerequisite for industrial

developments.
  A growing urban population could be fed.
 The home market consumed all the food produced but the supply ensured there
were no shortages and therefore a stable society.
 Agricultural workers provided a market for some of the goods that would be
produced in towns.
 Landowners made considerable profits which were often invested in industrial
enterprises, such as canal building.
 Agriculture was both a supplier to the new industries, e.g. providing wool to the
textile industry and also a customer as agricultural labourers bought the new
products.

Learn about the development of capitalism: investment, trade and

commerce.

The development of capitalism

 The industrial changes that took place in the period from 1750 to 1850 would
not have been possible without capitalism.
 This was essential if money was to be invested in the new machines and
technology.
 At the start of the period this was less of a problem as industrial enterprises,
such as small-scale textile factories, were relatively cheap to establish as the
early machinery was relatively cheap.
 Despite this, it still required sufficient funds to provide the buildings, the
machines and purchase the raw materials.

Learn about early mechanisation: steam engines and spinning machines.

Steam power

 Another major invention which was to prove essential to industrialisation was

the steam engine, which generated power using coal and water.
 There was a great deal of coal in Britain and a huge demand for it.
 Landowners who had coal under their land wanted to extract it for profit.
 The main problem they faced was that their mines filled with water and became
unstable.
 The water had to be pumped out and there was simply no known way of
draining mines properly.

Thomas Newcomen’s steam engine (1712)

 In 1712 Newcomen invented the world's first atmospheric steam engine.

 It became an important method of draining water from deep mines and was
therefore a vital component in the Industrial Revolution in Britain.
 Newcomen's invention enabled mines to be drained to greater depths than had
previously been possible.
 While it had an efficiency of only one per cent, it was cheaper than using horses
to power a pump.
 The first working engine was installed at a coal mine at Dudley Castle in
Staffordshire in 1712.
  The engines were rugged and reliable and worked day and night - a factor which
made them hugely successful.
 By the time Thomas Newcomen died in 1729, there were at least 100 of his
engines working in Britain and across Europe.

Textile Manufactering in Britain

 By the 1740s silk was already being machine-made in factories in the north with
equipment based on pirated Italian designs. But silk was too delicate and
expensive for mass consumption.
 Cotton, on the other hand, was hardwearing, comfortable and inexpensive.
 Unlike wool, its production was not controlled by ancient practices because it
had only become widely available after the East India Company began exporting
it from India in the late 17th century.
 Inventors therefore sought to create cotton-processing machines, and cotton
spearheaded the British industry into the factory system.

Understand the reasons for and impact of early developments in transport:

canals and roads.

 Development of roads
 The inability to move goods quickly and cheaply was a major barrier to
industrialisation.
 Local villages were expected to maintain their roads in the area. They often had
limited interest in doing this and did not have the money to do it anyway.
 The solution, developed in the late 17th century, was a system called ‘Turnpike
trusts’. The company could be formed, which, backed by an act of parliament,
had substantial powers to acquire the land in question.
 In return for radically improving and then maintaining a stretch of Rd, the trust
could charge a fee to all those who travelled on it.
 Between 1750 and 1770 parliament passed her 500 acts creating Turnpike
trusts covering over 24,000 kilometres of road.
 This was in response to major demand from both farming and manufacturing
businesses. The whole of England and Wales was now connected by a well-
maintained road.
 Local citizens invested in these companies, which, in the period 1780, mainly
returned good dividends which encouraged investment in other major projects
and allowed considerable experimentation with different types of foundation
and construction of roads.
 The projects were also a great stimulus to engineering, resulting in the
development of new types of bridge, drainage techniques and ways to deal with
gradient’s.
 The system also helped commercial agriculture under developing retail trade, as
foodstuffs and goods could move around the country more easily.

Rivers and ports

  In the first part of the 18th century major engineering projects were carried out
to improve Britain’s navigable rivers so that bigger cargoes could be carried
further, with expenditure on locks, weirs, dredging and towpaths.
 Most of these vital developments were made by local groups of manufacturers
attaining an Act of Parliament to give them the necessary powers to make the
improvements.
 All the major ports, such as London, Liverpool, Bristol, Newcastle, Glasgow,
underwent redevelopment in the first half of the 18th century.
 This enabled them to deal with the huge increase in both imports and above all,
exports, in the second half of the century.

Development of Canals

 In the years immediately before the rapid industrialization process canals were
perhaps the most important improvement in transport. There was a great
demand for large quantities of coal by the middle of the 18th century. The car
was available, and there were mine owners willing to meet the demand, but it
was difficult to move it by carts or on horseback. Transport costs are extremely
high.
 Between 1759 and 1774, 52 acts of parliament were passed to allow canals to
be built, mainly in the Midlands and the north. By 1800 comment nearly 3000
kilometres of canals have doubled the length of navigable rivers. Cities were
linked to factories and to ports.
 Many of the early canal companies returned huge profits for their shareholders,
as well as providing substantial employment for builders and engineers.

Key question 2 -Why was there a rapid growth of

industrialisation after 1780?
Development of the factory system: steam power and machines

Development of steam power

 Although inefficient, Newcomen engines were pumping water from mines all
over the country. In around 1764, Watt was given a model Newcomen engine to
repair. He realised that it was hopelessly inefficient and began to work to
improve the design. He designed a separate condensing chamber for the steam
engine that prevented enormous losses of steam. His first patent in 1769
covered this device and other improvements on Newcomen's engine.
 Watt's partner and backer was the inventor, John Roebuck. In 1775, Roebuck's
interest was taken over by Matthew Boulton who owned an engineering works in
Birmingham. Together he and Watt began to manufacture steam engines.
Boulton & Watt became the most important engineering firm in the country,
meeting considerable demand. Initially this came from Cornish mine owners, but
extended to paper, flour, cotton and iron mills, as well as distilleries, canals and
waterworks. In 1785, Watt and Boulton were elected fellows of the Royal Society.
 Steam power revolutionised both production and transportation. Arguably there
would have been no ‘revolution’ without steam power in the first place. Steam
power’s impact on the production process really was the key to the factory and
 then mass production. This, of course, led to huge price drops and the creation
of consumer demand in areas like textiles.
 While playing only a minor part in the building and operation of canals, steam
power revolutionised transport with the railway engine. Not only did this
stimulate the movement of raw materials and manufactured goods, but the
railway was an enormous stimulant to the manufacture of steel and the demand
for coal.

Developments in transport: canals, railways and steam ships

Why railways developed so rapidly

 The laissez faire attitude in Britain proved highly supportive. Unrestrained

capitalism was the order of the day. Government realised their value and
parliament was prepared to pass the necessary legislation to enable them to
purchase land for example.
 In spite of several ‘crashes’ a lot of people made a lot of money from rail
investment. The advantages were overwhelming and few opposed.

Development of canals and steam ships

 A large number of MPs invested in railways. Canals had led the way in showing
how capital could be raised and large scale projects managed. All recognised
the value of an efficient transport system which could move not only people, but
bulk cargo as well.
• Intelligent regulation, such as Peel’s Act, helped.
 Factories could be sited where necessary, and not just where there was easy
access to energy supplies etc.
 There had already been considerable technological development in metallurgy
and steam power, and canal building had led to much learning about huge
engineering and man management issues, as well as company management.

Raw materials, e.g. iron and coal

Factors to consider in the improvement of iron

 Capital – Cort was able to borrow £30,000 to fund his experiments

 Energy – there was plentiful cheap coal
 Transport – improvements in all aspects to move the product to market.
 Entrepreneurship - willingness to take risk and develop processes. Cort built on
the work of Peter Onions, Welsh ironmasters took the work of Cort in the 1790s
and developed further.
 All this means GB moves from being an importer of iron to an exporter.

Growth of markets (domestic and international) and growth of free trade

The development of markets

 The 18th 19th centuries witnessed an extension of Britain’s markets both

domestically and overseas.
 The development of railways in particular meant that fresh produce could reach
markets further away.
 Growing markets meant that business flourished, and the profits generated but
often used to fuel further expansion or investment in other industries.

Arguments for free and against free trade

 The absence of tariffs in Britain meant that inefficient producers were not
protected from competition while the consumer gained as prices were not kept
artificially high.
 This policy known as free trade, was promoted by economists such as Adam
Smith and David Ricardo. Smith argued that industrial development and trading
should be left to develop naturally, without government intervention.
 However, this idea clashed with the previous policy of mercantilism whereby
there were tariffs on some goods.

Key question 3 - Why, and with what consequences, did

urbanisation result from industrialisation?
Study the growth of towns and understand their impact on living conditions,
e.g. housing and health.

Context

 Although Britain was heavily urbanised with some 15% of its population living in
towns by 1750, the period from 1750 to 1850 witnessed dramatic growth in
towns, particularly those associated with the industries of the industrial age.
 By 1800, 25% of Britain’s population lived in urban settlements.
 This figure had reached 54% by 1850 and 80% by 1880.
 Most of this was because of the changing occupational structure of the country.
 Despite some terrible living and working conditions that resulted from this rapid
growth, the standard of living rose with most workers able to earn several times
the subsistence level.
 There was also an increase in the average height, which suggests an
improvement in nutrition and, perhaps surprisingly given some of the
conditions, in health.
 Literacy also improved, as it paid to be able to read and write.

Urban conditions

The rapid population and industrial growth led to the typical industrial landscape of
mines, factories and mills set against a backdrop of rows of often poorly built terraced
houses. Unskilled labourers crowded into tenement buildings and sellers for which
they paid low rents. Back to back housing with little privacy sprang up in many of the
great industrial towns, with builders looking to cram in as many as 70 to 80 dwellings
per acre.

Building entrepreneurs, aiming for a quick profit, brought land near factories and plays
as many houses as possible on that land, often multi storied and extremely close
together. There was no civic planning and no control by any authority. The simple aim
was to get as many families as possible into as little space as possible. Virtually no
attention was paid to the need for adequate clean water supplies or sewage disposal.
Factors such as heating and ventilation were ignored. Whole families would live in a
single room.

Why living conditions were so poor

The biggest drawback to the act was that it was permissive. Local governments did
not have to improve living conditions unless they wanted to. Few did. Many people
were reluctant to pay the increased taxes needed to improve living conditions of
others. The rich could simply move out of the squalid towns and build in the suburbs.
These were often to the West of the town as the prevailing winds in most areas came
from the West, so the smell and smoke of the new towns would not affect them.

Housing

The standard of housing in the towns was extremely poor. Builders were unscrupulous
and set out to capitalise on the unprecedented conditions by making huge profits. As
housing was in such great demand, small areas of land were given over to high-
density houses, which were built as quickly as possible.
Sanitation and street pollution

Most towns had totally inadequate systems of drainage and sewage disposal. Sewars
did exist, they were built a porous brick and were consequently incapable of dealing
with the large volume of effluent. The water closets at the wealthy would generally
not connected by pipe to the sewer and the waste was instead fed into the nearest
river or ditch; The outside privies shared by most working people usually drained into
a cesspit or an open ditch. In addition, slaughterhouses filled the open sewers with
awful and blood, whilst the factories pumped in waste products.

Learn about working conditions, e.g. child labour, hours, pay and safety.

Working conditions

 And brought change the working life of many. Factories demanded that there
was discipline.
 Factory owners had invested heavily in machinery and therefore wanted to keep
them working all the time. This required a shift system and workers who worked
regular and unvarying hours unlike the cottage system where they could work
what hours they pleased.
 As mass production increased, factory owners increasingly demanded that
workers worked longer hours.

Women and children

 By 1833 women and children made up two-thirds of the workforce in the textile
industry.
 Most of the work done by women and children was unskilled and wages were
usually between one-third and one-sixth those of men.

Child labour

 For many owners the important traits were the ease with which children could
be disciplined and the low wages they could be paid.
 Many children worked very long hours with harsh discipline, no education or
recreation time and inadequate food. As a result, many were unhealthy and
even deformed as a result of keeping their limbs in unnatural positions for long
periods.

Understand the impacts on different social classes.

The landed class

 Throughout the period the landed classes did well.

 At the start of the period, they were able to consume 30 baskets and that rose
considerably in the first part of the period before becoming stable.
 However, it must be remembered that they spent their income on more
expensive goods or used income to invest in their estates or industrial
enterprises.
 However, although their position did not decline, their relative position did.
The bourgeoisie

 They were the second wealthiest group and although their average real income
declined at the start of this period, they made considerable gains in the period
from 1800 onwards.
 This group included people such as Sir Richard Arkwright.
 These are the very men who made money from business enterprises and
provided most of the investment in the new industrial activities.

Lower middle class and farmers

At the start of the period the lower middle class earned twice the amount of workers
but by the end of the period that gap had narrowed considerably so that people such
as shopkeepers and clerks when earning little more than a skilled Craftsman. Farmers
on the other hand did well increasing their income nearly threefold

Workers

 The experience of different groups of work is varied during the period 1750 to
1850.
 For much of the period the standard of living remained roughly static but this
ignores the considerable inequality among different groups of workers.
 Those who worked in the expanding industrial sectors did much better than
those in the handicraft sectors.

The poor

 The incomes of the poor did rise gradually during the 19th century.
 New methods of production transformed the lives of many.
 The destruction of the cottage industry meant that there was a massive change
for labourers.

Understand the government responses to the consequences of

industrialisation: early moves towards regulation and control of working and
living conditions.

Reform before 1830

 Working conditions and hours, particularly those for children became a central
concern in the early nineteenth century.
 Some attempts were made to control child labour before 1830, with parliament
passing acts in 1802 and 1819 to restrict the hours that children could work and
to stop those under the age of nine from being employed.
 However no effective system of inspectors was created to ensure the rules were
obeyed, and attempts to prosecute law breakers proved difficult and expensive.

Act & Date Description Terms of the Act

1833 Factory Act By the 1830s, the No children were to work
determination within in factories under the age
Parliament to regulate of nine (though by this
factory conditions had stage numbers were few).
strengthened. To a large A maximum working week
extent it was driven by the of 48 hours was set for
battle for political reform those aged 9 to 13, limited
and by the anti-slavery to eight hours a day; and
campaign. Campaigners for children between 13
began comparing the and 18 it was limited to 12
treatment of mill workers, hours daily.
including children, with Children under 13 to
that of slaves. receive elementary
Even mill-owners were schooling for two hours
beginning to speak up for each day.
improved conditions. The
'Ten-Hour Movement’ grew
which aimed to reduce the
working day for children
under 16. In 1831 a
Factory Act was passed,
limiting the working day to
12 hours for all those
under 18. Yet again, there
were no procedures for
enforcement.
Further parliamentary
inquiry and a Royal
Commission produced
reports full of details of the
appalling abuse and
mistreatment of children
in factories. In 1833
Parliament passed a new
Factory Act.
Previous Acts had been
restricted to the cotton
industry, but the 1833 Act
also applied to the older
woollen producing
communities ignored in
previous legislation.
What made the 1833 Act
so important was that it
established a system to
ensure that regulations
were enforced. A small,
four-man 'inspectorate of
factories' was created,
responsible to the Home
Office, with powers to
impose penalties for
infringements.
In its early days the
inspectorate was far too
small to enforce the Act in
4,000 mills, and so the Act
was widely evaded. It did,
however, create the
beginnings of a much-
 needed system of
government control.
Factories Act 1844 In 1844, Parliament All dangerous machinery
passed a further Factories was to be securely fenced
Act which in effect was the off, and failure to do so
first health and safety act regarded as a criminal
in Britain. offence.
No child or young person
was to clean mill
machinery while it was in
motion.
No child or young person
was to clean mill
machinery while it was in
motion. The Act limited
the hours worked by
children to six and a half,
with three hours'
schooling, and set a
maximum 12-hour day for
young people between 13
and 18. The 12-hour rule
also applied to women.
1847 Factory Act The ongoing ten-hour day Women and children (from
campaign for women and 13-18 years old) only
young people aged worked 10 hours a day
between 13 and 18, finally
achieved its objective in
the 1847 Factory Act.
However, it had to be
followed up by further Acts
to remove ambiguities
regarding definition of the
working day that were still
being exploited by factory
owners and employers.

Key question 4 -Why, and with what consequences, did

industrialisation result in popular protest and political
change?
Reactions to mechanisation and economic change, e.g. Luddites and Captain
Swing riots

Name Objective Description Actions Government

Reaction &
impact
Luddites The aim was The Luddites were an The most serious Although the
to destroy early 19th-century outbreaks were in the government saw
machines labour movement that lace making regions revolutionary
that the rallied against the ways of Nottinghamshire in intent behind
workers that mechanised 1811, which then these protests, it
 believe were manufactures and their spread to the woollen is more likely
making them unskilled labourers industry of Yorkshire that it had
unemployed. undermined the skilled and Lancashire in economic
craftsmen of the day. 1812 to 13. The causes as the
Known as Luddites, after protests were height of protest
Ned Ludd who had certainly well coincided with
broken machines in organised and the peak of the
Nottingham in 1779. The became increasingly rise in bread
original Luddites were violent. Protests hit prices.
British weavers and their height in 1812
textile workers who the factory near IMPACT: No real
objected to the Leeds being burned impact was
increased use of down and other made.
mechanised looms and factories in the city
knitting frames. seeing machinery
destroyed.
The Wanted to They were called the The threatening As with the
Captain return to the Swing riots after the letters were sent to Luddites, the
Swing pre-machine eponymous Captain farmers and government was
Riots days when Swing. The made-up landowners which anxious; some
human name symbolised or demanded that 2000 were
labour was represented the anger of wages increase, and arrested, 500
used. the poor labourers in which often told were
rural England. farmers to desist in transported to
their employment of Australia, 600
threshing machines. were imprisoned
Landowners and and 19
farmers also had executed.
their farm buildings
and hayricks set IMPACT: Unlike
alight. The first of the the Luddites it
Swing riots occurred appears the
on the night of the Swing Riots did
28th of August 1830, have an impact
with the destruction as the
of a threshing widespread
machine in Lower introduction of
Hardres, near threshing
Canterbury. machines was
delayed for
twenty years
and there were
some
improvements in
wages.
The riots would
also provide part
of the context
for the passing
of the Great
Reform Act of
1832.

Demands for political reform including Chartists

The Chartists

In 1832, voting rights were given to the property-owning middle classes in Britain.
However, many people wanted further political reform. Chartism was a working class
movement, which emerged in 1836 and was most active between 1838 and 1848. The
aim of the Chartists was to gain political rights and influence for the working classes.
Chartism got its name from the People’s Charter, that listed the six main aims of the
movement.

6 AIMS

1. a vote for all men (over 21)

2. the secret ballot
3. no property qualification to become an MP
4. payment for MPs
5. electoral districts of equal size
6. annual elections for Parliament

Origins of organised labour, e.g. trade unions and cooperative societies.

Early Trade Unionism

 Skilled workers in Britain began organising themselves into trade unions in the
17th century.
 During the 18th century, when the industrial revolution prompted a wave of new
trade disputes, the government introduced measures to prevent collective
action on the part of workers.
 The Combination Acts, passed in 1799 and 1800, during the Napoleonic wars,
made any sort of strike action illegal - and workmen could receive up to three
months' imprisonment or two months' hard labour if they broke these new laws.
 Despite the Combination Acts, workers continued to press for better pay and
working conditions during the early part of the 19th century, and trade unions
grew rapidly in London and elsewhere.
 Finally, after violent Luddite protests in 1811 and 1812, parliament repealed the
combination act in 1824 and 1825.
 Trade unions could now no longer be ignored as a political force, their employers
remained reluctant to treat workers representatives as their equals.
 During the 1830s labour unrest and trade union activity reached new levels.
 For the first time men began to organise trade associations with nationwide
aims, such as Robert Owen's short lived Grand National Consolidated Trades
Union, formed in February 1834.
 Agricultural workers were also adopting new forms of collective action a notable
example being the Swing Riots in 1830-31.

The Tolpuddle Martyrs

 Hey March 1834, with the connivance of the Whig government six agricultural
labourers who had formed a trade union in the Dorset village of Tolpuddle were
arrested on trumped up charges and transported to Australia.
  The unfair treatment of the Tolpuddle martyrs as they became known triggered
brief public protests throughout Britain.
 But the harsh sentences discouraged other workers from joining trade unions
and many of the nationwide organisations, including the Grand National
Consolidated Trades Union, collapsed.

Government reaction to demands for change.