Brit Civ - Lesson Two Monday, Oct 9, 2023

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Mrs Benfodda 1 Year – Master Literature and Civilisation

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

 Read the article carefully then answer the questions below.

Key Terms

• Industrial Revolution: a period of increased output of goods made by machines and

British economy was based on the Cottage Industry or Domestic System. The main industries
(cotton and woollen) were organised in small units spread all over the country and based on
families that spun and wove cotton and wool in their homes; Merchants would travel around,
buying raw materials, delivering them to people who would work on them, and then collecting
the finished goods to sell, or typically to ship to another market.

Cottage industry was very common in pre-industrial Britain when a large proportion of the
population was engaged in agriculture – the farmers (and their families) often had both the
time and the desire to earn additional income during the part of the year (winter) when there
was little farming work to do.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain in the late 1700s,
manufacturing was often done in people’s homes, using hand tools or basic machines.
Industrialization marked a shift to powered, special-purpose machinery, factories and mass
production. The iron and textile industries, along with the development of the steam engine,
played central roles in the Industrial Revolution, which also saw improved systems of
transportation, communication and banking. While industrialization brought about an
increased volume and variety of manufactured goods and an improved standard of living for
some, it also resulted in often grim employment and living conditions for the poor and
working classes.

Major causes in the development of the Industrial Revolution in England

- Growth of population
- Technological innovations: Use of a new form of energy – steam power
Inventions of: steam engine (1769 – J. Watt patented a new steam engine more
powerful and efficient than the preceding one), the spinning jenny, the spinning frame
and then the water frame (machines used to transform raw materials such as linen or
cotton into threads), the power loom (a machine used to transform/weave threads into
cloth)
- Great availability of coal (a new type of fuel used to operate the steam engine)
- The British Empire had a wide supply of markets
- Great Britain had the ability to make capital investments
- Geography, natural resources and a strong navy
- A strong, supportive and stable government allowed for growth

England after the Industrial Revolution

From about 1780 to 1820, there was a gradual transformation of the British economy from an
agrarian and maritime economy into an industrialised one, i.e. based on the factory system.
The production process was concentrated in huge factories in Lancashire and Yorkshire. The
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factory became the main unit of this new system; A new discipline was imposed on workers
with the mechanisation and the rational division of labour; mainly women and children were
employed in the factories, where they worked up to 16 hours a day.

Steam engines began to appear in the 1700s. This important invention used wood or coal as
fuel to heat water in a boiler. Steam from the hot water powered the engine, which ran the
machines. Since a steam engine could be placed anywhere, factories no longer had to be built
along rivers. They could be built near fuel, raw materials, or labor.

Industrial Revolution Included:

• (1) the use of new basic materials, chiefly iron and steel

• (2) the use of new energy sources, including both fuels and motive power, such as
coal, the steam engine, electricity, petroleum, and the internal-combustion engine

• (3) the invention of new machines, such as the spinning jenny and the power loom that
permitted increased production with a smaller expenditure of human energy

• (4) a new organization of work known as the factory system, which entailed increased
division of labour and specialization of function-- the worker acquired new and
distinctive skills, and his relation to his task shifted; instead of being a craftsman
working with hand tools, he became a machine operator, subject to factory discipline

• (5) important developments in transportation and communication, including the steam

• (6) the increasing application of science to industry

In the 18th century, English merchants were leaders in world commerce. It created a demand
for more goods and a cheaper system of production. Besides, there were new ideas in
England: an interest in scientific investigation and invention, and the doctrine of “laissez-
faire”: letting business be regulated by supply and demand rather than by laws. Most
important of all, new machines and techniques were developed by British inventors (for
example: James Hargreaves, James Watt, John Blenkinsopp…)

Consequences of the Industrial Revolution

• Loss of thousands of jobs – Luddite Riots (1811-1812)

• Rise of a working class movement

• Transport Revolution - (3,000 miles of canals built between 1760 and 1820)

• Introduction of new farming techniques - Industrialisation of agriculture

• Migration of small farmers and farm labourers to factory towns

• Urbanisation - bad living conditions for workers and their families

Factory system

The factory system was a method of manufacturing first adopted in England at the beginning
of the Industrial Revolution. Fundamentally, each worker created a separate part of the total
assembly of a product, thus increasing the efficiency of factories. Workers, paid by wage, and
machines were brought together in a central factory. All the processes of production would be
carried out under one roof, and would continue as long as it was practical.

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The factory system was a new way of organizing labour made necessary by the development
of machines which were too large to house in a worker's cottage. Working hours were as long
as they had been for the farmer, that is, from dawn to dusk, six days per week.

The Power Loom

The power loom was designed in 1784 by Edmund Cartwright and first built in 1785. It was a
mechanized loom. It was one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution. It was
initially limited by its reliance on water power, which required workshops equipped with
power looms to be located near a source of running water. By the start of the 19th century,
however, the steam engine enabled the use of power looms anywhere that steam power
could be installed. The power loom allowed large amounts of cloth to be made in a shorter
time than a human could do it.

Spinning Jenny

The spinning jenny was one of the innovations that started the industrial revolution. It is a
multi-spool spinning wheel. It was invented in 1764 by James Hargreaves in Stanhill, near
Blackburn, Lancashire in the north west of England. The device dramatically reduced the
amount of work needed to produce yarn, with a single worker able to work eight or more
spools at once.

The spinning frame and the water frame

The spinning frame, which produced a stronger thread than the spinning jenny, was a new
spinning-machine. Too large to be operated by hand, the spinning frame needed a new
source of power. Arkwright at first experimented with horses, but decided to employ the
power of the water wheel, which gave the invention the name of water frame.

James Watt’s Steam Engine

Watt’s steam engine propelled the Industrial Revolution in Britain and the world.

Living conditions of the working class during the industrial revolution

- Many towns were created in the industrial areas of the North and the Midlands where
more and more people arrived from the countryside in search of a job.
- Intolerable overcrowding: houses were built back to back and side by side. They also
lacked toilets, sewers and piped water.
- Terrible living conditions: many workers were so poor that they couldn’t even afford to
pay low rents so they lived in damp, airless cellars.
- Easy transmission of infectious diseases: outbreaks of cholera and typhus were very
common among the lower classes because of the very poor sanitary conditions they
lived in.

Child labour exploitation

The Industrial Revolution led to a population increase, but the chance of surviving childhood
didn't improve throughout the industrial revolution. There was still limited opportunity for
education, and children were expected to work. Employers could pay a child less than an
adult even though their productivity was similar. There was no need for strength to operate
an industrial machine, and since the industrial system was completely new there were no
experienced adult labourers.

This made child labour the labour of choice for manufacturing in the early phases of the
industrial revolution. Child labour had existed before the Industrial Revolution, but with the
increase in population and education it became more visible. Before the passing of laws
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protecting children, many were forced to work in terrible conditions for much lower pay than
their elders. Reports were written detailing some of the abuses, particularly in the coal mines
and textile factories and these helped to popularize the children's plight. The public protest,
especially among the upper and middle classes, helped change the young workers' condition.

Politicians and the government tried to limit child labour by law, but factory owners resisted;
some felt that they were aiding the poor by giving their children money to buy food to avoid
starvation, and others simply welcomed the cheap labour. In 1833 and 1844, the first general
laws against child labour, the Factory Acts, were passed in England: children younger than
nine were not allowed to work, children were not permitted to work at night, and the work
day of youth under the age of 18 was limited to twelve hours. Factory inspectors supervised
the execution of the law. About ten years later, the employment of children and women in
mining was forbidden. These laws decreased the number of child labourers; however, child
labour remained in Europe up to the 20th century.

Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/

Questions

1/ What is the main idea of the article?