industrial revolution

• By 1900 there were five times as many people in Britain as there were in 1750
• There was a move from the countryside to the towns
• The fast developing iron, coal and textile industries were creating new work
• The population of Manchester increased from 18,000 to 90,000 people between 1750 and 1800
• The rise in population and the move to the cities led to a rise in the demand for food and for factory goods
• New communities developed due to the growth of the coal and iron industry
• The population of Glasgow rose from 77,000 in 1800 to 904,000 by 1900
• Cloth making before the Industrial Revolution

  • Work had always been done in small workshops or in people's cottages
• New inventions that changed textile production

  1. 1769 - The water frame invented by Richard Arkwright

  2. 1784 - The Spinning mule invented by Samuel Crompton

  3. 1786 - The power loom invented by Edmund Cartwright
• Impact of new textile inventions

  • They could make stronger, higher quality thread at a faster and cheaper rate
  • Factories were made to house these new machines, spelling the end of the domestic weaving and spinning industry
• Improvements to steam engines

  1. 1766 - James Watt made big improvements in the design of steam engines

  2. 1781 - James Watt found a way of getting a steam engine to turn a wheel

  
• Impact of steam power

  • It was faster and more reliable
  • Factories no longer had to build next to fast-flowing rivers - they could be built anywhere
• Richard Arkwright


  • Invented the 'Water Frame' spinning machine
  • Built the first cotton spinning mill in Cromford, Derbyshire in 1771
  • Became known as the 'Father of the Factory System'
• Isambard Kingdom Brunel


  • Designed the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol
  • Designed and built the Great Western Railway and two grand stations
  • Launched three record-breaking steam-powered ships that crossed the Atlantic
• Henry Bessemer


  • Invented the 'convertor' machine that turned iron into steel
  • Enabled a huge increase in steel production in Britain
• After 1745, more coal was needed in Britain
• Coal was necessary for powering machines, making bricks/pottery/glass, heating homes, and powering trains and ships
• Some mine owners referred to coal as 'black gold' due to the high profits
• As coal supplies near the surface ran out, miners had to dig deeper underground, making the work harder and more dangerous
• Miners faced risks of gas explosions, falling rocks, drowning, suffocation, and being crushed to death
• Wages in factories were higher than on farms, but life wasn't easy - workers could be laid off at an hour's notice, with no sick pay or government help
• Conditions in factories were grim, with no thought given to the health and safety of the workers
• Children in particular suffered at the hands of factory overseers
• In the mines, women and younger children hauled coal along dark tunnels, and children as young as 8 worked as 'trappers'
• Miners faced long hours, low ceilings, coal dust causing coughing and vomiting, and common injuries like swollen knees, bruised ribs, broken fingers, and bleeding heads
• In the new industrial towns, houses were built quickly and cheaply, with no regulations, leading to poor living conditions
• The unhealthy living conditions in the new industrial cities led to the spread of serious diseases like smallpox, typhoid, cholera, and tuberculosis
• The average age of death for a Leeds labourer in the 1840s was 19
• Britain's first cholera epidemic in 1831-32 killed 31,000 people
• Many businessmen believed politicians had no right to interfere with working conditions, but reformers campaigned for laws to protect workers
• Reports to Parliament on the awful conditions led to new laws and acts to improve things for the working classes
• Discoveries about disease transmission, like John Snow's link between cholera and water, led to the 1875 Public Health Act
• The Industrial Revolution created two new classes - the new wealthy factory owners/traders, and the working classes
• Reformers began holding meetings to gain support for widening the franchise (allowing more people to vote)
• The government initially responded with violence, passing the 1819 Six Acts to ban meetings and criticism
• The Great Reform Act of 1832 broadened the franchise, but still excluded many working class people
• The Chartists continued to campaign for further reform, but their petitions to Parliament were rejected
• The Six Points of the People's Charter contained many values of the modern British democratic system

  
• The spinning jenny was a multi-spindle spinning frame invented by James Hargreaves in 1764.
• The cotton gin, invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, revolutionized the cotton industry by speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber.