A
British History: industrial revolution
In 1837 Louis-Auguste Blanqui used the phrase to describe the changes Britain had undergone during the previous half-century in her social and economic life. Widespread use of the term followed from Arnold Toynbee's Lectures on the Industrial Revolution of the Eighteenth Century in England published in 1884. Debates about the precise period and its meaning reflected efforts to identify what brought about the transformation from a predominantly rural society, whose major source of livelihoods derived from the land, to a rapidly urbanizing country whose wealth came from commerce and manufacturing.
Symbolic of the industrial revolution was the use of coal as a source of energy. The conversion of coal to coke made cheaper iron ore smelting possible and simultaneously produced town gas, used from the early 19th cent. for lighting. Coal-fuelled boilers provided steam-power for mines drainage, factory machinery, and locomotives, making speed and repetitive activities less arduous and greatly augmenting output. Particularly associated with such changes were cotton textiles, made cheaply in large quantities.
Social changes occurred simultaneously. Many new jobs were created between the later 18th and the mid-19th cent. from the ever widening applications of technical innovations such as in gas-making, in the chemical industry, in canal and railway transport, and in textiles. New methods of industrial production also required many people to move to urban locations. Some existing towns such as Manchester expanded very rapidly, whilst new towns emerged, such as St Helens (Merseyside). Rapid urban growth posed many unforeseen problems of overcrowded houses, inadequate sanitation, and law and order.
Many historians, geographers, and political economists have sought to explain the origins of the changes during the second half of the 18th cent. and why they should have occurred in Britain. The search for one main underlying cause...
View Full Essay
