Term Paper on "Industrial Revolution in Great Britain"

Term Paper 6 pages (1922 words) Sources: 1

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Industrial Revolution in Great Britain. Specifically it will discuss the economic development of Britain during the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution is one of the most well defined and well-known areas of British history, and it had great ramifications for all of British society. What first began in Britain traveled around the world and changed the way people lived and worked forever.

The Industrial Revolution began in the mid 18th century and lasted through the mid 19th century (roughly 1750 through 1850), and it was one of the most influential aspects of British history, influencing just about every part of life in the British Isles and beyond. Essentially, the Industrial Revolution was the transformation of a society that relied on good produced by hand to goods produced by machines. These machines were often gathered together in groups, known as "factories," and these machines and their factories were indeed revolutionary for the time (Thackeray & Findling, 2002, p. 1). The revolution began because Britain had the right area and situation that encouraged economic growth - they had readily available coalmines and streams, both necessary to power the machinery of the future. In addition, they had a readily available workforce, which turned out to be a key ingredient for the Industrial Revolution to take off, because the machinery, though efficient, was actually very labor intensive. Economically, Britain had a strong economy at the time, and enough investment capital for entrepreneurs to invest in opening new factories, as well. Finally, there were growing markets for the products Britain was producing, enhancing the attractiveness in investing in these new technologies.



The Industrial Revolution changed Britain from an agricultural and rural economy to a city-based urban economy, and changed the population, as well. The first real industry to benefit from the Industrial Revolution was the British textile industry. Before the revolution, independent weavers, dyers, and spinners in homes throughout rural Great Britain created most of British textiles as a "cottage" industry. This helped the rural agricultural families supplement their income, and it produced good quality products. Of course, it took a long time, and there were sometimes problems between the producers and the merchants who bought the finished goods, such as merchants cheating peasant workers and vice versa. When a new cloth, cotton, appeared from India, the entire system suffered. The cloth, imported from India, was so popular that the British wanted to produce it themselves, and imported the fibers, but the cottage industry labor could not produce enough fabric to meet the fantastic demand, and so, merchants had to come up with a new way to produce the cloth. Historians Thackeray and Findling continue, "Specifically, the weaving process was too slow. Under pressure of increased demand, this bottleneck was overcome in the 1730s when John Kay invented the flying shuttle, which allowed a single weaver to operate a loom instead of the two men that had been required before" (Thackeray & Findling, 2002, p. 4). With the advent of the flying shuttle, the weaving process became too slow, and another innovation, the spinning jenny came into being allowing the worker to spin fine, multiple threads. These innovations led to other developments and larger machines that could not fit into the small cottages of the rural workers and the advent of the factory had begun.

Economically, this was a great innovation for Great Britain. They could develop enough cloth quickly so that they could meet the demand in their own country and still export fabrics to other locations around the world. Along with this great increase in products for sale, there were other innovations that helped the Industrial Revolution really take hold. In the 1730s, a British engineer developed a steam engine that was used to pump water out of the coalmines. However, it soon became apparent that the engine had many other useful applications, and it began to develop into the modern steam engine in the mid 18th century, with help from redesign and input from other engineers. With the development of train travel, transporting raw materials and finished goods in and out of production centers became much easier and quicker, which meant production only increased, and so did profits. Iron was also essential for the Industrial Revolution to grow and continue, and innovations in iron manufacture during the late 18th century helped give the revolution even more impetus to develop and prosper.

Clearly, the implications for the British economy are clear. First, "The percentage of the male labor force engaged in agriculture and industry approximately reversed during this period, the former falling from about 50% to 25%; the latter moving from 25% to 50%" (Thackeray & Findling, 2002, p. 7). In addition, the economy more than doubled its output per person between 1750 and 1850; in fact, it grew more quickly than the population grew (Thackeray & Findling, 2002, p. 7). Thus, the British economy became larger and more stable as a result of the Industrial Revolution, and they began to be recognized as a trade leader around the world. Their innovations spread around the world, too, and they continue even today in the modern industrialization of third world countries.

There is another aspect of the Industrial Revolution that changed the economy and lifestyle as far as work habits were concerned. Workers no longer worked at their own pace in their own homes. The authors continue, "Increased work discipline and the modification of people's habits is one basic change in the British way of life often associated with the factory. Workers could no longer celebrate 'St. Monday'; that is, take Mondays off after wild weekend carousing, as sometimes alleged in rural life" (Thackeray & Findling, 2002, p. 11). This new work ethic translated to even more efficiency and production at the factories, but it also resulted in long hours for little pay, children working at very young ages, and the conditions that would eventually lead to the formation of labor unions to help control industry and make it more equitable for the workers. Thus, the Industrial Revolution led directly to the urban work ethic that still exists today, especially in America, one of the hardest working countries in the world. The rural economy allowed for more freedom and choice, while the urban economy created sweatshops, poor, crowded living conditions, and the need for worker's rights.

In addition, tariffs on exports and imports decreased or were eliminated during the Industrial Revolution. Free trade was pushed by the merchants, not because they felt the tariffs were too high, but because they recognized the prices for imported goods, such as grain to produce bread, would drop, and it would cost less for their factory workers to live, which meant they could pay them even less (Thackeray & Findling, 2002, p. 15). Thus, the entire economic idea of free trade did not evolve as a result of the growing economy, or even an overflow of trade goods or goodwill toward neighboring importers. They began because the industrialists who owned and operated the factories wanted to make more money, at the expense of their workers. The idea of over capitalism and greed seem to have been born in the roots of the Industrial Revolution, as well.

While the British economy greatly benefited from the Industrial Revolution, and so did a majority of British merchants and entrepreneurs, life for those in the factories really did not improve. There was a great influx of people from the rural areas to find jobs as the revolution continued. The authors note, "At the outset of the Industrial Revolution in 1760 only a fifth of the overall British population resided in cities; by 1840 this proportion had risen to one-half" (Thackeray & Findling, 2002, p. 13). Since the cottage jobs were drying up in the country, more people had to come to the city for work, and the age of the industrialized city began. People were crowded into small, unsanitary living conditions, and the factories were often dark, dangerous places to work. A contemporary writer visiting Manchester during the revolution wrote, "Everywhere half or wholly ruined buildings, some of them actually uninhabited, which means a great deal here; rarely a wooden or stone floor to be seen in the houses, almost uniformly broken, ill-fitting windows and doors, and a state of filth!" (Engels). The people were paid miniscule wages, and so often, everyone in the family, even the children, had to work in order to survive.

The industrialized city included the working-class slums that became so popular in much fiction and non-fiction during the Industrial Revolution. The revolution represented a basic change in society, from a rural society based in trade and handcraft, to an urban society based on mechanisms and factories. Tradesman like weavers and spinners no longer had any demand, and the whole face of society changed. Where at least some tradesman would have owned their own homes and equipment in their old lives, in the factories, they were just more workers to be controlled, and so, the face… READ MORE

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