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G R E E N 1 S T Y E A R - 2 0 1 3

Industrial Revolution

What’s in a name?

The name “Industrial Revolution” is used to describe one of the biggest changes in history.

It describes the time when people went from making goods by hand to making them with machines.

W H Y I N B R I T A I N ?

Why did the Industrial Revolution happen?

The IR began in Great Britain for a number of reasons.

The most dramatic changes in industry began in Great Britain in about 1750.

Scientists had been inventing things during earlier years. But most of their work centered around theories and ideas.

Now science and invention took a more practical turn.

Inventors developed machines especially designed to increase production of goods and to help people make a profit.

Great Britain had the natural resources needed for industry…

Great Britain had a good supply of coal and iron and it had the transportation that industry needed.

Sources of water

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1. Navigable rivers

All the major rivers of Great Britain were navigable during the Industrial Revolution.

The Severn was used for the movement of goods to the Midlands which had been imported into Bristol from abroad and the export of goods from centres of production in the Black Country, e.g. iron goods from Coalbrookdale.

Trows

Trows, small sailing vessels, could navigate the Bristol Channel to the South Wales ports and Somerset ports.

2. Natural harbours

Ships can move easily, make trade easier

Raw materials and numerous markets

3. Colonies supplied with abundant raw material

Britain colonies supplied raw materials to the factories in London and other cities. And the British government was eager to support growing industry.

The colonies were regarded as a source of necessary raw materials for England and were granted monopolies for their products, such as tobacco and sugar, in the British market.

4. Colonies demanded goods from the textile and iron industries

The Navigation Act of 1651 stated that all colonial exports had to be shipped on English ships to the British market, and all colonial imports had to come by way of England.

English factories converted raw goods to products which were then shipped back to the colonies. This provided the British with a profitable market, free from competition.

COAL

5. Abundant deposits of coal which are easily mined and transported.

Coal provides three times more energy than wood.

Coal kick-started a revolution in XIII century Britain, a revolution which transformed not only the country but the world itself.

Coal could produce the energy to keep the new steam engines running and coal was needed to produce iron. Iron could be used to improve machines and tools and it could be used to build railroad tracks, bridges and ships.

6. In Britain the mines were near the sea, so ships could carry coal cheaply to the most important market, London.

Scientific and technological new ideas

7. The demand for coal became larger, but the deeper the miners went the more water there was underground, so it was necessary to pump water out of the mine.

8. Initially people used horse-driven pumps, but they needed a more effective way to draw water from much deeper.

9. In 1712 Thomas Newcomen invented the atmospheric engine

The first commercially successful steam engine was the atmospheric engine, invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712.

The new engine did the work of 20 horses and pumped water from hundreds of feet below the ground - making deeper mines economically viable.

10. James Watt developed (1763–75) an improved version of Newcomen's engine, with a separate condenser.

Boulton and Watt’s early machines used less coal than Newcomen’s

Textile Manufacturing before IR

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The Textile Industry before the IR

In the earliest days, British merchants imported cloth from other lands. Because of the costs of shipping finished goods, cloth was very expensive.

In the 1600s, Britain began importing raw cotton. The British spun their own threads and then wove their own cloth.

Farm families did the work. They set up spinning wheels and looms in their cottages. Both spinning wheel and loom were operated by hand: they were called the “cottage weavers”.

Textile manufacturing in factories

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The textile industry during the IR

In the 1700s some new machines were invented which changed the textile industry. Spinners and weavers left their cottages and went to work in new factories.

The textile industry moved out of the English cottages. Mills and factores were built. Workers were no longer their own bosses. They became factory hands. They worked in large mills that often employed up to 600 people.

11. Flying shuttle

Spinning tool before the IR

12. Spinning Jenny

The Spinning Jenny was invented the first machine to produce yarn.

Created in the s. XVIII, it represented one of the most important technical innovations in the textile industry and therefore can be considered one of the leaders of the industrial revolution.

13. The water frame

14. The mule

In 1779 Samuel Crompton combined the spinning jenny and the water frame into one machine. He called it the “mule”. It could spin much finer threads very rapidly.

Steam-powered loom

With so much thread being produced, the textile industry needed a better loom. In 1785 Edmund Cartwright invented a steam-powered loom.