Industrial Revolution

• Industrial Revolution


  Unprecedented explosion of new ideas and new technological inventions which created an increasingly industrial and urbanised country in 18th-19th century Britain
• Until the early 18th Century, most people lived off the land as they had done for countless generations - an agricultural existence, defined by the harvests and the seasons, and ruled by a small political and social elite
• In the 150 years that followed, there was an unprecedented explosion of new ideas and new technological inventions which created an increasingly industrial and urbanised country
• This transformation helped to make the world in which we live today
• Factors that helped the industrial revolution happen

  • Inventors, innovators and the spread of scientific and technical knowledge
  • Coal
  • Entrepreneurs
  • Industry and factories
  • Canals
  • Roads
  • Trade
  • Political factors
• Inventors, innovators and the spread of scientific and technical knowledge

  1. Brains

  2. Coal

  3. Entrepreneurs
• Industry and factories


  1. Industry and factories

  2. Canals

  3. Roads
• Coal


  Fuel that kick-started the Industrial Revolution, Britain had an advantage as its mines were near the sea
• Coal


  • More potent form of power than wood, providing up to three times more energy
  • Demand for coal led to deeper and deeper mines and an increased risk of flooding
  • Newcomen's steam engine made deeper mines economically viable
• Intellectual climate


  Britain was characterised by the free expression of new ideas, with a cascade of scientific breakthroughs and a prolific exchange of scientific and technological ideas
• Intellectual climate


  • Britain did not suffer censorship by Church or state, unlike many European countries
  • Established Christian view of a world created by God was being challenged by one which conformed to scientifically proven principles of nature
  • Men of action and men of ideas, industrialists and scientists met to share their ideas and observations, unleashing a wave of free thinking and creativity
• Political factors


  Britain had the right political background for free-market capitalism, with parliamentary government providing stability and a modest role for the state in economic activity
• Political factors


  • Britain was the most powerful empire in the world by 1815, with naval power and imperial possessions enabling it to dominate trans-oceanic trade and profit accordingly
  • Entrepreneurship was at the heart of economic success in the colonies, with merchants able to invest and take profit with little government intervention
• There was a considerable human cost to this free trade, with landowners buying huge numbers of slaves transported from Africa and treating them as a natural resource to be used and exploited in the quest for maximum profit
• Britain's significance for world history rests on three elements: the Industrial Revolution, imperial power, and the development of political liberties which helped bring it about
• Importance of Britain's foreign trade to the industrial revolution

  • Imports and exports
  • Raw materials
  • Main items imported (raw materials and luxury goods)
  • Main items exported
• Industry and factories


  Factories developed to house newer machines like the water frame, mule and power loom which were too large for cottages and small workshops
• Spinning frames would make cotton cheaper, and a growing population increased demand for cotton, especially in America
• Cheaper coal and better ways of making iron improved spinning and weaving machines and made steam engines very profitable
• Steam-powered weaving looms increased profits
• British people began to spend much more in the 18th century, and Britain's expansion of trade meant more people buying British goods
• Entrepreneurs like Thomas Arkwright and Josiah Wedgwood were serious, hard-working, energetic and shrewd
• Development of railways


  Transformed Britain
• The Crystal Palace was destroyed by fire in 1936