NCERT Textbook - The Industrial Revolution | Old & New NCERTs for IAS Preparation (Must Read) - UPSC PDF Download

 Page 1


196?? THEMES IN WORLD HISTORY
???? ??????????
?? ?? ???? ??
THE transformation of industry and the economy in Britain
between the 1780s and the 1850s is called the ‘first industrial
revolution’*. This had far-reaching effects in Britain. Later,
similar changes occurred in European countries and in the USA.
These were to have a major impact on the society and economy
of those countries and also on the rest of the world. 
This phase of industrial development in Britain is str ongly
associated with new machinery and technologies. These made
it possible to produce goods on a massive scale compared to
handicraft and handloom industries. The chapter outlines the
changes in the cotton and iron industries. Steam, a new source
of power, began to be used on a wide scale in British industries.
Its use led to faster forms of transportation, by ships and
railways. Many of the inventors and businessmen who brought
about these changes were often neither personally wealthy nor
educated in basic sciences like physics or chemistry, as will be
seen from glances into the backgrounds of some of them. 
Industrialisation led to greater prosperity for some, but in
the initial stages it was linked with poor living and working
conditions of millions of people, including women and children.
This sparked off protests, which forced the government to enact
laws for regulating conditions of work.
The term ‘Industrial Revolution’ was used by European
scholars – Georges Michelet in France and Friedrich Engels
in Germany. It was used for the first time in English by the
philosopher and economist A rnold Toynbee (1852-83), to
describe the changes that occurred in British industrial
development between 1760 and 1820. These dates coincided
with those of the reign of George III, on which Toynbee was
giving a series of lectures at Oxford University . His lectures
were published in 1884, after his untimely death, as a bo ok
called Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England: Popular
Addresses, Notes and Other Fragments.
Later historians, T.S. Ashton, Paul Mantoux and Eric
Hobsbawm, broadly agreed with T oynbee. There was
remarkable economic growth from the 1780s to 1820 in the
cotton and iron industries, in coal mining, in the building of
roads and canals and in foreign trade. A shton (1889-1968)
celebrated the Industrial Revolution, when England was ‘swept
by a wave of gadgets’.
*In the second one,
after about 1850,
new areas like the
chemical and
electrical industries
expanded. In that
period, Britain fell
behind, and lost its
position as the
world’s leading
industrial power, as
it was overtaken by
Germany and the
USA.
?????
?
2022-23
Page 2


196?? THEMES IN WORLD HISTORY
???? ??????????
?? ?? ???? ??
THE transformation of industry and the economy in Britain
between the 1780s and the 1850s is called the ‘first industrial
revolution’*. This had far-reaching effects in Britain. Later,
similar changes occurred in European countries and in the USA.
These were to have a major impact on the society and economy
of those countries and also on the rest of the world. 
This phase of industrial development in Britain is str ongly
associated with new machinery and technologies. These made
it possible to produce goods on a massive scale compared to
handicraft and handloom industries. The chapter outlines the
changes in the cotton and iron industries. Steam, a new source
of power, began to be used on a wide scale in British industries.
Its use led to faster forms of transportation, by ships and
railways. Many of the inventors and businessmen who brought
about these changes were often neither personally wealthy nor
educated in basic sciences like physics or chemistry, as will be
seen from glances into the backgrounds of some of them. 
Industrialisation led to greater prosperity for some, but in
the initial stages it was linked with poor living and working
conditions of millions of people, including women and children.
This sparked off protests, which forced the government to enact
laws for regulating conditions of work.
The term ‘Industrial Revolution’ was used by European
scholars – Georges Michelet in France and Friedrich Engels
in Germany. It was used for the first time in English by the
philosopher and economist A rnold Toynbee (1852-83), to
describe the changes that occurred in British industrial
development between 1760 and 1820. These dates coincided
with those of the reign of George III, on which Toynbee was
giving a series of lectures at Oxford University . His lectures
were published in 1884, after his untimely death, as a bo ok
called Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England: Popular
Addresses, Notes and Other Fragments.
Later historians, T.S. Ashton, Paul Mantoux and Eric
Hobsbawm, broadly agreed with T oynbee. There was
remarkable economic growth from the 1780s to 1820 in the
cotton and iron industries, in coal mining, in the building of
roads and canals and in foreign trade. A shton (1889-1968)
celebrated the Industrial Revolution, when England was ‘swept
by a wave of gadgets’.
*In the second one,
after about 1850,
new areas like the
chemical and
electrical industries
expanded. In that
period, Britain fell
behind, and lost its
position as the
world’s leading
industrial power, as
it was overtaken by
Germany and the
USA.
?????
?
2022-23
??197
???? ????????
Britain was the first country to experience modern industrialisation. It had
been politically stable since the seventeenth century, with England, Wales
and Scotland unified under a monarchy. This meant that the kingdom had
common laws, a single curr ency and a market that was not fragmented by
local authorities levying taxes on goods that passed through their area,
thus increasing their price. By the end of the seventeenth century, money
was widely used as the medium of exchange. By then a large section of the
people received their income in the for m of wages and salaries rather than
in goods. This gave people a wider choice for ways to spend their ear nings
and expanded the market for the sale of goods.
In the eighteenth century, England had been through a major economic
change, later described as the ‘agricultural revolution’. This was the pr ocess
by which bigger landlords had bought up small farms near their
own properties and enclosed the village common lands, thus creating very
large estates and increasing food production. This forced landless
farmers, and those who had lived by grazing animals on the
common lands, to search for jobs elsewhere. Most of them
went to nearby towns.
? ?????? ? ????? ???? ???????
From the eighteenth century, many towns in Eur ope were
growing in area and in population. Out of the 19 Eur opean
cities whose population doubled between 1750 and 1800,
11 were in Britain. The lar gest of them was London, which
served as the hub of the country’s markets, with the next
largest ones located close to it.
London had also acquired a global significance. By the
eighteenth century, the centre of global trade had shifted fr om
the Mediterranean ports of Italy and France to the Atlantic
ports of Holland and Britain. Still later , London replaced
Amsterdam as the principal source of loans for inter national
trade. London also became the centr e of a triangular trade
network that drew in England, Africa and the W est Indies. The
companies trading in America and Asia also had their offices
in London. In England the movement of goods between markets
was helped by a good network of rivers, and an indented coastline with
sheltered bays. Until the spr ead of railways, transport by waterways was
cheaper and faster than by land. As early as 1724, English rivers pr ovided
some 1,160 miles of navigable water, and except for mountainous ar eas,
most places in the country wer e within 15 miles of a river . Since all the
navigable sections of English rivers flow into the sea, cargo on river vessels
was easily transferred to coastal ships called coasters. By 1800, at least
100,000 sailors worked on the coasters.
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
?? ?? ? ?? ?? ? ?? ?? ??? ?
???? ?????
? ????? ??? ?? ?????? ????
????? ????? ?????????
?????? ???? ???? ?????? ???
????? ?? ????????? ???????
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???? ??????? ???
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2022-23
Page 3


196?? THEMES IN WORLD HISTORY
???? ??????????
?? ?? ???? ??
THE transformation of industry and the economy in Britain
between the 1780s and the 1850s is called the ‘first industrial
revolution’*. This had far-reaching effects in Britain. Later,
similar changes occurred in European countries and in the USA.
These were to have a major impact on the society and economy
of those countries and also on the rest of the world. 
This phase of industrial development in Britain is str ongly
associated with new machinery and technologies. These made
it possible to produce goods on a massive scale compared to
handicraft and handloom industries. The chapter outlines the
changes in the cotton and iron industries. Steam, a new source
of power, began to be used on a wide scale in British industries.
Its use led to faster forms of transportation, by ships and
railways. Many of the inventors and businessmen who brought
about these changes were often neither personally wealthy nor
educated in basic sciences like physics or chemistry, as will be
seen from glances into the backgrounds of some of them. 
Industrialisation led to greater prosperity for some, but in
the initial stages it was linked with poor living and working
conditions of millions of people, including women and children.
This sparked off protests, which forced the government to enact
laws for regulating conditions of work.
The term ‘Industrial Revolution’ was used by European
scholars – Georges Michelet in France and Friedrich Engels
in Germany. It was used for the first time in English by the
philosopher and economist A rnold Toynbee (1852-83), to
describe the changes that occurred in British industrial
development between 1760 and 1820. These dates coincided
with those of the reign of George III, on which Toynbee was
giving a series of lectures at Oxford University . His lectures
were published in 1884, after his untimely death, as a bo ok
called Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England: Popular
Addresses, Notes and Other Fragments.
Later historians, T.S. Ashton, Paul Mantoux and Eric
Hobsbawm, broadly agreed with T oynbee. There was
remarkable economic growth from the 1780s to 1820 in the
cotton and iron industries, in coal mining, in the building of
roads and canals and in foreign trade. A shton (1889-1968)
celebrated the Industrial Revolution, when England was ‘swept
by a wave of gadgets’.
*In the second one,
after about 1850,
new areas like the
chemical and
electrical industries
expanded. In that
period, Britain fell
behind, and lost its
position as the
world’s leading
industrial power, as
it was overtaken by
Germany and the
USA.
?????
?
2022-23
??197
???? ????????
Britain was the first country to experience modern industrialisation. It had
been politically stable since the seventeenth century, with England, Wales
and Scotland unified under a monarchy. This meant that the kingdom had
common laws, a single curr ency and a market that was not fragmented by
local authorities levying taxes on goods that passed through their area,
thus increasing their price. By the end of the seventeenth century, money
was widely used as the medium of exchange. By then a large section of the
people received their income in the for m of wages and salaries rather than
in goods. This gave people a wider choice for ways to spend their ear nings
and expanded the market for the sale of goods.
In the eighteenth century, England had been through a major economic
change, later described as the ‘agricultural revolution’. This was the pr ocess
by which bigger landlords had bought up small farms near their
own properties and enclosed the village common lands, thus creating very
large estates and increasing food production. This forced landless
farmers, and those who had lived by grazing animals on the
common lands, to search for jobs elsewhere. Most of them
went to nearby towns.
? ?????? ? ????? ???? ???????
From the eighteenth century, many towns in Eur ope were
growing in area and in population. Out of the 19 Eur opean
cities whose population doubled between 1750 and 1800,
11 were in Britain. The lar gest of them was London, which
served as the hub of the country’s markets, with the next
largest ones located close to it.
London had also acquired a global significance. By the
eighteenth century, the centre of global trade had shifted fr om
the Mediterranean ports of Italy and France to the Atlantic
ports of Holland and Britain. Still later , London replaced
Amsterdam as the principal source of loans for inter national
trade. London also became the centr e of a triangular trade
network that drew in England, Africa and the W est Indies. The
companies trading in America and Asia also had their offices
in London. In England the movement of goods between markets
was helped by a good network of rivers, and an indented coastline with
sheltered bays. Until the spr ead of railways, transport by waterways was
cheaper and faster than by land. As early as 1724, English rivers pr ovided
some 1,160 miles of navigable water, and except for mountainous ar eas,
most places in the country wer e within 15 miles of a river . Since all the
navigable sections of English rivers flow into the sea, cargo on river vessels
was easily transferred to coastal ships called coasters. By 1800, at least
100,000 sailors worked on the coasters.
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
?? ?? ? ?? ?? ? ?? ?? ??? ?
???? ?????
? ????? ??? ?? ?????? ????
????? ????? ?????????
?????? ???? ???? ?????? ???
????? ?? ????????? ???????
?????? ???? ???? ???????
?????????? ???? ???????
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
?????? ??? ??????? ?????
???? ??????? ???
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?????? ????????
?? ??? ?? ?? ?? ?? ??? ??? ??? ?? ??? ??
????????? ????? ???????
2022-23
198?? THEMES IN WORLD HISTORY
The centre of the country’s financial system was the Bank of England
(founded in 1694). By 1784, there wer e more than a hundred provincial
banks in England, and during the next 10 years their numbers trebled. By
the 1820s, there were more than 600 banks in the provinces, and over 100
banks in London alone. The financial r equirements to establish and maintain
big industrial enterprises wer e met by these banks.
The industrialisation that occurr ed in Britain from the 1780s to the
1850s is explained partly by the factors described above – many poor people
from the villages available to work in towns; banks which could loan money
to set up large industries; and a good transport network.
The following pages will describe two new factors: a range of technological
changes that increased production levels dramatically and a new transport
network created by the construction of railways. In both developments, if
the dates are r ead carefully, one will notice that there is a gap of a few
decades between the development and its widespr ead application. One must
not assume that a new innovation in technology led to it being used in the
industry immediately.
Of the 26,000 inventions r ecorded in the eighteenth century, mor e than
half were listed for the period 1782-1800. These led to many changes. W e
shall discuss the four major ones: the transfor mation of the iron industry,
the spinning and weaving of cotton, the development of steam ‘power’ and
the coming of the railways.
????? ???? ????
England was fortunate in that coal and iron ore, the staple materials for
mechanisation, were plentifully available, as wer e other minerals – lead,
copper and tin – that wer e used in industry. However, until the eighteenth
century, there was a scarcity of usable iron. Iron is drawn out fr om ore as
pure liquid metal by a process called smelting. For centuries, char coal
(from burnt timber) was used for the smelting pr ocess. This had several
problems: charcoal was too fragile to transport acr oss long distances; its
impurities produced poor-quality iron; it was in short supply because
Coalbrookdale: blast-
furnaces (left and
centre) and charcoal-
ovens (right); painting
by F.Vivares, 1758.
ACTIVITY 1
Discuss the
developments in
Britain and in
other parts of the
world in the
eighteenth
century that
encouraged
British
industrialisation.
2022-23
Page 4


196?? THEMES IN WORLD HISTORY
???? ??????????
?? ?? ???? ??
THE transformation of industry and the economy in Britain
between the 1780s and the 1850s is called the ‘first industrial
revolution’*. This had far-reaching effects in Britain. Later,
similar changes occurred in European countries and in the USA.
These were to have a major impact on the society and economy
of those countries and also on the rest of the world. 
This phase of industrial development in Britain is str ongly
associated with new machinery and technologies. These made
it possible to produce goods on a massive scale compared to
handicraft and handloom industries. The chapter outlines the
changes in the cotton and iron industries. Steam, a new source
of power, began to be used on a wide scale in British industries.
Its use led to faster forms of transportation, by ships and
railways. Many of the inventors and businessmen who brought
about these changes were often neither personally wealthy nor
educated in basic sciences like physics or chemistry, as will be
seen from glances into the backgrounds of some of them. 
Industrialisation led to greater prosperity for some, but in
the initial stages it was linked with poor living and working
conditions of millions of people, including women and children.
This sparked off protests, which forced the government to enact
laws for regulating conditions of work.
The term ‘Industrial Revolution’ was used by European
scholars – Georges Michelet in France and Friedrich Engels
in Germany. It was used for the first time in English by the
philosopher and economist A rnold Toynbee (1852-83), to
describe the changes that occurred in British industrial
development between 1760 and 1820. These dates coincided
with those of the reign of George III, on which Toynbee was
giving a series of lectures at Oxford University . His lectures
were published in 1884, after his untimely death, as a bo ok
called Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England: Popular
Addresses, Notes and Other Fragments.
Later historians, T.S. Ashton, Paul Mantoux and Eric
Hobsbawm, broadly agreed with T oynbee. There was
remarkable economic growth from the 1780s to 1820 in the
cotton and iron industries, in coal mining, in the building of
roads and canals and in foreign trade. A shton (1889-1968)
celebrated the Industrial Revolution, when England was ‘swept
by a wave of gadgets’.
*In the second one,
after about 1850,
new areas like the
chemical and
electrical industries
expanded. In that
period, Britain fell
behind, and lost its
position as the
world’s leading
industrial power, as
it was overtaken by
Germany and the
USA.
?????
?
2022-23
??197
???? ????????
Britain was the first country to experience modern industrialisation. It had
been politically stable since the seventeenth century, with England, Wales
and Scotland unified under a monarchy. This meant that the kingdom had
common laws, a single curr ency and a market that was not fragmented by
local authorities levying taxes on goods that passed through their area,
thus increasing their price. By the end of the seventeenth century, money
was widely used as the medium of exchange. By then a large section of the
people received their income in the for m of wages and salaries rather than
in goods. This gave people a wider choice for ways to spend their ear nings
and expanded the market for the sale of goods.
In the eighteenth century, England had been through a major economic
change, later described as the ‘agricultural revolution’. This was the pr ocess
by which bigger landlords had bought up small farms near their
own properties and enclosed the village common lands, thus creating very
large estates and increasing food production. This forced landless
farmers, and those who had lived by grazing animals on the
common lands, to search for jobs elsewhere. Most of them
went to nearby towns.
? ?????? ? ????? ???? ???????
From the eighteenth century, many towns in Eur ope were
growing in area and in population. Out of the 19 Eur opean
cities whose population doubled between 1750 and 1800,
11 were in Britain. The lar gest of them was London, which
served as the hub of the country’s markets, with the next
largest ones located close to it.
London had also acquired a global significance. By the
eighteenth century, the centre of global trade had shifted fr om
the Mediterranean ports of Italy and France to the Atlantic
ports of Holland and Britain. Still later , London replaced
Amsterdam as the principal source of loans for inter national
trade. London also became the centr e of a triangular trade
network that drew in England, Africa and the W est Indies. The
companies trading in America and Asia also had their offices
in London. In England the movement of goods between markets
was helped by a good network of rivers, and an indented coastline with
sheltered bays. Until the spr ead of railways, transport by waterways was
cheaper and faster than by land. As early as 1724, English rivers pr ovided
some 1,160 miles of navigable water, and except for mountainous ar eas,
most places in the country wer e within 15 miles of a river . Since all the
navigable sections of English rivers flow into the sea, cargo on river vessels
was easily transferred to coastal ships called coasters. By 1800, at least
100,000 sailors worked on the coasters.
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
?? ?? ? ?? ?? ? ?? ?? ??? ?
???? ?????
? ????? ??? ?? ?????? ????
????? ????? ?????????
?????? ???? ???? ?????? ???
????? ?? ????????? ???????
?????? ???? ???? ???????
?????????? ???? ???????
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
?????? ??? ??????? ?????
???? ??????? ???
????????????? ??????? ??? ????
?????? ????????
?? ??? ?? ?? ?? ?? ??? ??? ??? ?? ??? ??
????????? ????? ???????
2022-23
198?? THEMES IN WORLD HISTORY
The centre of the country’s financial system was the Bank of England
(founded in 1694). By 1784, there wer e more than a hundred provincial
banks in England, and during the next 10 years their numbers trebled. By
the 1820s, there were more than 600 banks in the provinces, and over 100
banks in London alone. The financial r equirements to establish and maintain
big industrial enterprises wer e met by these banks.
The industrialisation that occurr ed in Britain from the 1780s to the
1850s is explained partly by the factors described above – many poor people
from the villages available to work in towns; banks which could loan money
to set up large industries; and a good transport network.
The following pages will describe two new factors: a range of technological
changes that increased production levels dramatically and a new transport
network created by the construction of railways. In both developments, if
the dates are r ead carefully, one will notice that there is a gap of a few
decades between the development and its widespr ead application. One must
not assume that a new innovation in technology led to it being used in the
industry immediately.
Of the 26,000 inventions r ecorded in the eighteenth century, mor e than
half were listed for the period 1782-1800. These led to many changes. W e
shall discuss the four major ones: the transfor mation of the iron industry,
the spinning and weaving of cotton, the development of steam ‘power’ and
the coming of the railways.
????? ???? ????
England was fortunate in that coal and iron ore, the staple materials for
mechanisation, were plentifully available, as wer e other minerals – lead,
copper and tin – that wer e used in industry. However, until the eighteenth
century, there was a scarcity of usable iron. Iron is drawn out fr om ore as
pure liquid metal by a process called smelting. For centuries, char coal
(from burnt timber) was used for the smelting pr ocess. This had several
problems: charcoal was too fragile to transport acr oss long distances; its
impurities produced poor-quality iron; it was in short supply because
Coalbrookdale: blast-
furnaces (left and
centre) and charcoal-
ovens (right); painting
by F.Vivares, 1758.
ACTIVITY 1
Discuss the
developments in
Britain and in
other parts of the
world in the
eighteenth
century that
encouraged
British
industrialisation.
2022-23
??199
forests had been destroyed for timber; and it
could not generate high temperatures. 
The solution to this problem had been sought
for years before it was solved by a family of iron-
masters, the Darbys of Shropshire. In the course
of half a century, three generations of this family
– grandfather, father and son, all called
Abraham Darby – brought about a revolution
in the metallurgical industry. It began with an
invention in 1709 by the first Abraham Darby
(1677-1717). This was a blast furnace that
would use coke, which could generate high
temperatures; coke was derived from coal by
removing the sulphur and impurities. This invention meant that
furnaces no longer had to depend on charcoal. The melted iron
that emerged from these furnaces permitted finer and larger castings
than before.
The process was further refined by more inventions. The second
Darby (1711-68) developed wrought-iron (which was less brittle) from
pig-iron. Henry Cort (1740-1823) designed the puddling furnace (in
which molten iron could be rid of impurities) and the r olling mill, which
used steam power to roll purified iron into bars. It now became possible
to produce a broader range of iron products. The durability of iron
made it a better material than wood for
everyday items and for machinery. Unlike
wood, which could burn or splinter, the
physical and chemical properties of iron could
be controlled. In the 1770s, John Wilkinson
(1728-1808) made the first ir on chairs, vats for
breweries and distilleries, and ir on pipes of all
sizes. In 1779, the third Darby (1750-91) built
the first iron bridge in the world, in
Coalbrookdale, spanning the river Severn*.
Wilkinson used cast iron for the first time to
make water pipes (40 miles of it for the water
supply of Paris).
The iron industry then came to be
concentrated in specific regions as integrated
units of coal mining and iron smelting.  Britain
was lucky in possessing excellent coking coal
and high-grade iron ore in the same basins or
even the same seams. These basins were also
close to ports; there were five coastal coalfields
which could deliver their products almost
straight into ships. Since the coalfields wer e near
the coast, shipbuilding increased, as did the
shipping trade.
*This area later grew
into the village
called Ironbridge.
The Cast Iron Bridge
near Coalbrookdale,
painting by William
Williams,1780.
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
MAP 1: Britain: The
iron industry
2022-23
Page 5


196?? THEMES IN WORLD HISTORY
???? ??????????
?? ?? ???? ??
THE transformation of industry and the economy in Britain
between the 1780s and the 1850s is called the ‘first industrial
revolution’*. This had far-reaching effects in Britain. Later,
similar changes occurred in European countries and in the USA.
These were to have a major impact on the society and economy
of those countries and also on the rest of the world. 
This phase of industrial development in Britain is str ongly
associated with new machinery and technologies. These made
it possible to produce goods on a massive scale compared to
handicraft and handloom industries. The chapter outlines the
changes in the cotton and iron industries. Steam, a new source
of power, began to be used on a wide scale in British industries.
Its use led to faster forms of transportation, by ships and
railways. Many of the inventors and businessmen who brought
about these changes were often neither personally wealthy nor
educated in basic sciences like physics or chemistry, as will be
seen from glances into the backgrounds of some of them. 
Industrialisation led to greater prosperity for some, but in
the initial stages it was linked with poor living and working
conditions of millions of people, including women and children.
This sparked off protests, which forced the government to enact
laws for regulating conditions of work.
The term ‘Industrial Revolution’ was used by European
scholars – Georges Michelet in France and Friedrich Engels
in Germany. It was used for the first time in English by the
philosopher and economist A rnold Toynbee (1852-83), to
describe the changes that occurred in British industrial
development between 1760 and 1820. These dates coincided
with those of the reign of George III, on which Toynbee was
giving a series of lectures at Oxford University . His lectures
were published in 1884, after his untimely death, as a bo ok
called Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England: Popular
Addresses, Notes and Other Fragments.
Later historians, T.S. Ashton, Paul Mantoux and Eric
Hobsbawm, broadly agreed with T oynbee. There was
remarkable economic growth from the 1780s to 1820 in the
cotton and iron industries, in coal mining, in the building of
roads and canals and in foreign trade. A shton (1889-1968)
celebrated the Industrial Revolution, when England was ‘swept
by a wave of gadgets’.
*In the second one,
after about 1850,
new areas like the
chemical and
electrical industries
expanded. In that
period, Britain fell
behind, and lost its
position as the
world’s leading
industrial power, as
it was overtaken by
Germany and the
USA.
?????
?
2022-23
??197
???? ????????
Britain was the first country to experience modern industrialisation. It had
been politically stable since the seventeenth century, with England, Wales
and Scotland unified under a monarchy. This meant that the kingdom had
common laws, a single curr ency and a market that was not fragmented by
local authorities levying taxes on goods that passed through their area,
thus increasing their price. By the end of the seventeenth century, money
was widely used as the medium of exchange. By then a large section of the
people received their income in the for m of wages and salaries rather than
in goods. This gave people a wider choice for ways to spend their ear nings
and expanded the market for the sale of goods.
In the eighteenth century, England had been through a major economic
change, later described as the ‘agricultural revolution’. This was the pr ocess
by which bigger landlords had bought up small farms near their
own properties and enclosed the village common lands, thus creating very
large estates and increasing food production. This forced landless
farmers, and those who had lived by grazing animals on the
common lands, to search for jobs elsewhere. Most of them
went to nearby towns.
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From the eighteenth century, many towns in Eur ope were
growing in area and in population. Out of the 19 Eur opean
cities whose population doubled between 1750 and 1800,
11 were in Britain. The lar gest of them was London, which
served as the hub of the country’s markets, with the next
largest ones located close to it.
London had also acquired a global significance. By the
eighteenth century, the centre of global trade had shifted fr om
the Mediterranean ports of Italy and France to the Atlantic
ports of Holland and Britain. Still later , London replaced
Amsterdam as the principal source of loans for inter national
trade. London also became the centr e of a triangular trade
network that drew in England, Africa and the W est Indies. The
companies trading in America and Asia also had their offices
in London. In England the movement of goods between markets
was helped by a good network of rivers, and an indented coastline with
sheltered bays. Until the spr ead of railways, transport by waterways was
cheaper and faster than by land. As early as 1724, English rivers pr ovided
some 1,160 miles of navigable water, and except for mountainous ar eas,
most places in the country wer e within 15 miles of a river . Since all the
navigable sections of English rivers flow into the sea, cargo on river vessels
was easily transferred to coastal ships called coasters. By 1800, at least
100,000 sailors worked on the coasters.
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
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2022-23
198?? THEMES IN WORLD HISTORY
The centre of the country’s financial system was the Bank of England
(founded in 1694). By 1784, there wer e more than a hundred provincial
banks in England, and during the next 10 years their numbers trebled. By
the 1820s, there were more than 600 banks in the provinces, and over 100
banks in London alone. The financial r equirements to establish and maintain
big industrial enterprises wer e met by these banks.
The industrialisation that occurr ed in Britain from the 1780s to the
1850s is explained partly by the factors described above – many poor people
from the villages available to work in towns; banks which could loan money
to set up large industries; and a good transport network.
The following pages will describe two new factors: a range of technological
changes that increased production levels dramatically and a new transport
network created by the construction of railways. In both developments, if
the dates are r ead carefully, one will notice that there is a gap of a few
decades between the development and its widespr ead application. One must
not assume that a new innovation in technology led to it being used in the
industry immediately.
Of the 26,000 inventions r ecorded in the eighteenth century, mor e than
half were listed for the period 1782-1800. These led to many changes. W e
shall discuss the four major ones: the transfor mation of the iron industry,
the spinning and weaving of cotton, the development of steam ‘power’ and
the coming of the railways.
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England was fortunate in that coal and iron ore, the staple materials for
mechanisation, were plentifully available, as wer e other minerals – lead,
copper and tin – that wer e used in industry. However, until the eighteenth
century, there was a scarcity of usable iron. Iron is drawn out fr om ore as
pure liquid metal by a process called smelting. For centuries, char coal
(from burnt timber) was used for the smelting pr ocess. This had several
problems: charcoal was too fragile to transport acr oss long distances; its
impurities produced poor-quality iron; it was in short supply because
Coalbrookdale: blast-
furnaces (left and
centre) and charcoal-
ovens (right); painting
by F.Vivares, 1758.
ACTIVITY 1
Discuss the
developments in
Britain and in
other parts of the
world in the
eighteenth
century that
encouraged
British
industrialisation.
2022-23
??199
forests had been destroyed for timber; and it
could not generate high temperatures. 
The solution to this problem had been sought
for years before it was solved by a family of iron-
masters, the Darbys of Shropshire. In the course
of half a century, three generations of this family
– grandfather, father and son, all called
Abraham Darby – brought about a revolution
in the metallurgical industry. It began with an
invention in 1709 by the first Abraham Darby
(1677-1717). This was a blast furnace that
would use coke, which could generate high
temperatures; coke was derived from coal by
removing the sulphur and impurities. This invention meant that
furnaces no longer had to depend on charcoal. The melted iron
that emerged from these furnaces permitted finer and larger castings
than before.
The process was further refined by more inventions. The second
Darby (1711-68) developed wrought-iron (which was less brittle) from
pig-iron. Henry Cort (1740-1823) designed the puddling furnace (in
which molten iron could be rid of impurities) and the r olling mill, which
used steam power to roll purified iron into bars. It now became possible
to produce a broader range of iron products. The durability of iron
made it a better material than wood for
everyday items and for machinery. Unlike
wood, which could burn or splinter, the
physical and chemical properties of iron could
be controlled. In the 1770s, John Wilkinson
(1728-1808) made the first ir on chairs, vats for
breweries and distilleries, and ir on pipes of all
sizes. In 1779, the third Darby (1750-91) built
the first iron bridge in the world, in
Coalbrookdale, spanning the river Severn*.
Wilkinson used cast iron for the first time to
make water pipes (40 miles of it for the water
supply of Paris).
The iron industry then came to be
concentrated in specific regions as integrated
units of coal mining and iron smelting.  Britain
was lucky in possessing excellent coking coal
and high-grade iron ore in the same basins or
even the same seams. These basins were also
close to ports; there were five coastal coalfields
which could deliver their products almost
straight into ships. Since the coalfields wer e near
the coast, shipbuilding increased, as did the
shipping trade.
*This area later grew
into the village
called Ironbridge.
The Cast Iron Bridge
near Coalbrookdale,
painting by William
Williams,1780.
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
MAP 1: Britain: The
iron industry
2022-23
200?? THEMES IN WORLD HISTORY
The British iron industry quadrupled its output between 1800
and 1830, and its product was the cheapest in Europe. In 1820, a
ton of pig iron needed 8 tons of coal to make it, but by 1850 it could
be produced by using only 2 tons. By 1848, Britain was smelting
more iron than the rest of the world put together.
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The British had always woven cloth out of wool and flax (to make
linen). From the seventeenth century, the country had been importing
bales of cotton cloth from India at great cost. As the East India
Company’s political control of parts of India was established, it began
to import, along with cloth, raw cotton, which could be spun and
woven into cloth in England. 
Till the early eighteenth century, spinning had been so slow and
laborious that 10 spinners (mostly women, hence the wor d
‘spinster’) were required to supply sufficient yarn to keep a single
weaver busy. Therefore, while spinners were occupied all day,
weavers waited idly to receive yarn. But a series of technological
inventions successfully closed the gap between the speed in
spinning raw cotton into yarn or thread, and of weaving the yarn
into fabric. To make it even more efficient, production gradually
shifted from the homes of spinners and weavers to factories.
From the 1780s, the cotton industry symbolised British industrialisation
in many ways. This industry had two features which were also seen in
other industries.
Raw cotton had to be entirely imported and a large part of the
finished cloth was exported. This sustained th e process of colonisation,
Manpower (in this
picture, woman-
power) worked
the treadmill that
lowered the lid of
the cotton press.
ACTIVITY 2
Ironbridge Gorge
is today a major
‘heritage site’.
Can you suggest
why?
2022-23