Industrial Revolution

• Industrial Revolution

  Drastic change
• Before the Industrial Revolution, most people lived in rural areas and farmed to feed their families
• The Industrial Revolution enabled Britain to make goods in factories called Industrialization
• The Industrial Revolution saw the development of towns/cities as people moved there to find work
• Men and even children worked in these factories during the Industrial Revolution
• Why the Industrial Revolution started in Britain

  • Britain had a huge empire, colonies provided raw materials and a bigger market
  • Britain had a powerful navy to protect merchant ships and transport goods
• The Industrial Revolution could never have happened without the wealth generated through the slave trade
• The slave trade happened in 3 stages

  1. Slaves taken from Africa

  2. Taken to America to work on cotton fields

  3. Raw materials taken to Britain to be manufactured, final product sold

  
• The merchants in Britain became wealthy through the products produced by slaves, and this wealth was used to finance big factories
• Economy before the Industrial Revolution

  • Half the population lived in small farming villages
  • They used simple farming tools and produced only enough to feed themselves (subsistence farming)
  • Farmland was shared (common land)
• Beginning of 18th Century, Britain was growing richer due to slave trade and population was growing


  Increase demand for food
• New inventions were needed to enable more crops to be grown to feed the growing population
• Enclosure system


  Instead of farmers sharing fields there was a move to enclose and fence off land that belonged to one person
• Enclosed farms were more efficient and meant better produce for growing population
• Most farms were enclosed by 1800, which meant no more common land
• Small farmers were forced to move to industrial towns to find work as miners or factory workers
• Cottage industry


  Handcrafts that were made at home, most people involved were wives of farm workers
• Making of woollen cloth for clothes was one of the oldest cottage industry products
• Cottage industry process


  1. Merchant trader buy fleece from farmer

  2. Women prep the wool

  3. Spinsters spin the wool

  4. Weavers weave wool into cloth

  5. Merchant sells final product
• Britain's population was increasing which provided a demand for more manufactured goods, but Cottage Industries couldn't keep up
• Changes during the Industrial Revolution

  • Machines: New inventions like the weaving and spinning machines increased production and made it faster
  • Factories: new machines were too big to fit into peoples houses, so large factories were built and people left their homes to work in them
  • Power and energy: The steam engine was used to power machines in the factories, machines on the farms, in the mines and the first railway
  • Mining: Britain possessed a large supply of iron and coal which could be mined for industry, and could be used to make machines
  • Transportation: Invented new tar roads, steam trains and ships to carry raw materials and manufactured goods to and from colonies
• Urbanisation is the movement from rural areas to cities, as people were forced to move to mining towns to find work
• The houses in the industrial towns were built poorly and cheaply, with little ventilation and no toilets, leading to overcrowding and disease
• Mines were a very dangerous place to work, and children were hired to pull and carry coal.Factories were often damp, with poor ventilation

  (therefore disease).
• Factories had long working hours, 14-18 hours a day, for little pay, and were often damp and had poor ventilation, so women and children were the preferred labourers as they had no rights and could be exploited and were submissive
• Children started to work from as young as 4 or 5 years old, did not go to school, and many became crippled from working with heavy machinery
• Labour resistance and trade unions

  • Swing riots: protests by workers in 1830
  • Luddites: weavers and other workers destroyed factories in 1811
  • Trade Unions: the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union was formed in 1833, but was illegal so the organization collapsed
• Britain became the most industrialized nation in the world, and held the Great Exhibition of the works of Industry of all Nations in London in 1851
• Steam engine created by James Watt in 1770
• Urbanisation


  Movement from rural areas to cities. People forced to move to mining towns to find work.
• Back-to-back houses


  • Built poorly and cheaply
  • Very small (most only had one or two rooms – this included the kitchen)
  • Most houses only had one window (little ventilation)
  • Did not have toilets so people had to share communal toilets
• Communal toilets


  1. Did not flush

  2. When someone used it they would sprinkle ashes on top

  3. Once a week the soil cart would come and empty the toilet
• The communal toilets were unhealthy and caused many diseases
• Wages


  Not much, so many could not afford the rent of the houses
• In most cases there was more than one family who would share a house
• Slums


  Poor, overcrowded, dirty and full of disease