Several key factors enabled industrialisation. High agricultural productivity—exemplified by the
British Agricultural Revolution—freed up
labor and ensured food surpluses. The presence of skilled
managers and
entrepreneurs, an extensive network of ports, rivers, canals, and roads for efficient transport, and abundant natural resources such as coal, iron, and water power further supported industrial growth. Political stability, a legal system favorable to business, and access to
financial capital also played crucial roles. Once industrialisation began in Britain in the 18th century, its spread was facilitated by the eagerness of British entrepreneurs to export industrial methods and the willingness of other nations to adopt them. By the early 19th century, industrialisation had reached Western Europe and the United States, and by the late 19th century, Japan.
Important technological developments The commencement of the Industrial Revolution is closely linked to a small number of innovations, The
cotton gin increased productivity of removing seed from cotton by a factor of 50. resulting in
economies of scale. The steam engine began being used to power blast air in the 1750s, enabling a large increase in iron production by overcoming the limitation of water power. The
rolling mill was fifteen times faster than hammering wrought iron. Developed in 1828,
hot blast greatly increased fuel efficiency in iron production. •
Invention of machine tools – the first
machine tools were the
screw-cutting lathe, the cylinder
boring machine, and the
milling machine. Machine tools made the economical manufacture of
precision metal parts possible, although it took decades to develop effective techniques for making interchangeable parts. The share of value added by the cotton industry in Britain was 2.6% in 1760, 17% in 1801, and 22% in 1831. Value added by the woollen industry was 14% in 1801. Cotton factories numbered about 900 in 1797. In 1760, approximately one-third of cotton cloth manufactured was exported, rising to two-thirds by 1800. In 1781, cotton spun amounted to 5 million pounds, which increased to 56 million pounds by 1800. In 1800, less than 0.1% of world cotton cloth was produced on machinery invented in Britain. In 1788, there were 50,000 spindles in Britain, rising to 7 million over the next 30 years.
Silk 's silk mill site today in
Derby, rebuilt as
Derby Silk Mill Arguably the first highly mechanised factory was
John Lombe's
water-powered silk mill at
Derby, operational by 1721. Lombe learned silk thread manufacturing by taking a job in Italy and acting as an industrial spy; however, because the Italian silk industry guarded its secrets, the state of the industry at that time is unknown. Although Lombe's factory was technically successful, the supply of raw silk from Italy was cut off to eliminate competition. To promote manufacturing, the Crown paid for models of Lombe's machinery which were exhibited in the
Tower of London.
Cotton Parts of India, China, Central America, South America, and the Middle East have a history of hand-manufacturing cotton textiles, which became a major industry after 1000 AD. Most cotton was grown by small farmers alongside food and spun in households for domestic consumption. In the 1400s, China began to require households to pay part of their taxes in cotton cloth. By the 17th century, almost all Chinese wore cotton clothing, and it could be used as a
medium of exchange. In India, cotton textiles were manufactured for distant markets, often produced by professional weavers. Cotton was a difficult
raw material for Europe to obtain before it was grown on
colonial plantations. On the eve of the Industrial Revolution, spinning and weaving were done in households, for domestic consumption, and as a cottage industry under the
putting-out system. Under the putting-out system, home-based workers produced under contract to merchant sellers, who often supplied the raw materials. In the off-season, the women, typically farmers' wives, did the spinning and the men did the weaving. Using the
spinning wheel, it took 4–8 spinners to supply one handloom weaver.
Invention of textile machinery in a museum in
Wuppertal. Invented by
James Hargreaves in 1764, the spinning jenny was one of the innovations that started the revolution. in
Greater Manchester in
Leeds, West Yorkshire The
flying shuttle, patented in 1733 by
John Kay, doubled the output of a weaver, worsening the imbalance between spinning and weaving. It became widely used around Lancashire after 1760 when John's son,
Robert, invented the dropbox, which facilitated changing thread colors. The jenny worked similarly to the spinning wheel, by first clamping down on the fibres, then drawing them out, followed by twisting. It was a simple, wooden-framed machine that only cost £6 for a 40-spindle model in 1792 and was used mainly by home spinners. The demand for cotton presented an opportunity to
planters in the US, who thought upland cotton would be profitable if a better way could be found to remove the seed.
Eli Whitney responded by inventing the inexpensive
cotton gin. A man using a cotton gin could remove seed in one day, which previously took two months. These advances were capitalised on by
entrepreneurs, of whom the best known is Arkwright. He is credited with a list of inventions, but these were developed by such people as Kay and
Thomas Highs. Arkwright nurtured the inventors, patented the ideas, financed the initiatives, and protected the machines. He created the cotton mill which brought the production processes together in a factory, and developed the use of power, which made cotton manufacture a mechanised industry. Other inventors increased the efficiency of spinning, so the supply of
yarn increased greatly. Steam power was then applied to drive textile machinery.
Manchester acquired the nickname
Cottonopolis during the early 19th century owing to its sprawl of textile factories. Though mechanisation dramatically decreased the cost of cotton cloth, by the mid-19th century machine-woven cloth still could not equal the quality of hand-woven Indian cloth. However, the high productivity of British textile manufacturing allowed coarser grades of British cloth to undersell hand-spun and woven fabric in low-wage India, destroying the Indian industry.
British iron production In the UK in 1720, there were 20,500 tons of
charcoal iron and 400 tons with coke. In 1806, charcoal iron production had dropped to 7,800 tons and coke cast iron was 250,000 tons. However, the coke pig iron made was not suitable for making wrought iron and was used mostly for the production of cast iron goods. He had the advantage over his rivals in that his pots, cast by his patented process, were thinner and cheaper. In 1750,
coke had replaced charcoal in the smelting of copper and lead and was in widespread use in glass production. In the smelting and refining of iron, coal and coke produced inferior iron to that made with charcoal because of the coal's sulfur content. Low sulfur coals were known, but they still contained harmful amounts. Coke pig iron was hardly used to produce wrought iron until 1755, when Darby's son
Abraham Darby II built furnaces at
Horsehay and
Ketley where low sulfur coal was available, and not far from Coalbrookdale. These furnaces were equipped with water-powered bellows, the water being pumped by
Newcomen atmospheric engines.
Abraham Darby III installed similar steam-pumped, water-powered blowing cylinders at the Dale Company when he took control in 1768. The Dale Company used Newcomen engines to drain its mines and made parts for engines which it sold throughout the country. The blowing cylinder for blast furnaces was introduced in 1760 and the first blowing cylinder made of cast iron is believed to be the one used at Carrington in 1768, designed by
John Smeaton. Watt developed a rotary steam engine in 1782, they were widely applied to blowing, hammering, rolling and slitting. As cast iron became cheaper and widely available, it began being a structural material for bridges and buildings. A famous early example is
The Iron Bridge built in 1778 with cast iron produced by Abraham Darby III. the efficiency gains continued as the technology improved. Hot blast raised the operating temperature of furnaces, increasing their capacity. Using less coal or coke meant introducing fewer impurities into the pig iron. This meant that lower quality coal could be used in areas where
coking coal was unavailable or too expensive; however, by the end of the 19th century transportation costs fell considerably. Shortly before the Industrial Revolution, an improvement was made in the production of
steel, which was an expensive commodity and used only where iron would not do, such as for cutting edge tools and springs.
Benjamin Huntsman developed his
crucible steel technique in the 1740s. The supply of cheaper iron and steel aided a number of industries, such as those making nails, hinges, wire, and other hardware items. The development of machine tools allowed better working of iron, causing it to be increasingly used in the rapidly growing machinery and engine industries.
Copper smelting Smelting of copper in
reverberatory furnaces using coal was pioneered in
Bristol in the 1680s.
Swansea in Britain developed in the 19th century into the World's prime hub of copper smelting importing ore from places like Chile, Cuba and Australia. Reverberatory furnaces were introduced to Chile around 1830 by
Charles Saint Lambert. This revolutionized
Chilean copper mining to such degree that the country came to supply 19% of the copper produced worldwide in the 19th century. The use of mineral coal instead
charcoal in reverberatory furnances introduced by Saint Lambert also meant a decrease in the dependency on the scarce firewood to be found on
Atacama Desert and its surrounding
semi-arid areas as was the case with earlier smelting technology.
Steam power , invented by
James Watt, who transformed the
steam engine from a
reciprocating motion that was used for pumping to a
rotating motion suited to industrial applications; Watt and others significantly improved the efficiency of the steam engine. was the first practical piston steam engine; subsequent steam engines were to power the Industrial Revolution. The development of the
stationary steam engine was important in the Industrial Revolution; however, during its early period, most industrial power was supplied by water and wind. In Britain, by 1800 an estimated 10,000 horsepower was being supplied by steam. By 1815 steam power had grown to 210,000 hp. The first commercially successful industrial use of steam power was patented by
Thomas Savery in 1698. He constructed in London a low-lift combined vacuum and pressure water pump that generated about one
horsepower (hp) and was used in waterworks and a few mines. The first successful piston steam engine was introduced by
Thomas Newcomen before 1712. Newcomen engines were installed for draining hitherto unworkable deep mines, with the engine on the surface; these were large machines, requiring a significant amount of capital, and produced upwards of . They were extremely inefficient by modern standards, but when located where coal was cheap at pit heads, they opened up a great expansion in coal mining by allowing mines to go deeper. The engines spread to Hungary in 1722, then Germany and Sweden; 110 were built by 1733. In the 1770s John Smeaton built large examples and introduced improvements. 1,454 engines had been built by 1800. Despite their disadvantages, Newcomen engines were reliable and easy to maintain and continued to be used in coalfields until the early 19th century. A fundamental change in working principles was brought about by
James Watt, a
Scotsman. With financial support from his business partner, the
Englishman Matthew Boulton, he had succeeded by 1778 in perfecting
his steam engine, which incorporated radical improvements, notably closing the upper part of the cylinder making the low-pressure steam drive the top of the piston instead of the atmosphere and the celebrated separate steam condenser chamber. The separate condenser did away with the cooling water that had been injected directly into the cylinder, which cooled the cylinder and wasted steam. These improvements increased engine efficiency so Boulton and Watt's engines used only 20–25% as much coal per horsepower-hour as Newcomen's. Boulton and Watt opened the
Soho Foundry for the manufacture of such engines in 1795. In 1783, the Watt steam engine had been fully developed into a
double-acting rotative type, which meant it could be used to directly drive the rotary machinery of a factory or mill. Both of Watt's basic engine types were commercially successful, and by 1800 the firm
Boulton and Watt had constructed 496 engines, with 164 driving reciprocating pumps, 24 serving blast furnaces, and 308 powering mill machinery; most of the engines generated from . Until about 1800, the most common pattern of steam engine was the
beam engine, built as an integral part of a stone or brick engine-house, but soon self-contained rotative engines were developed, such as the
table engine. Around the start of the 19th century, at which time the Boulton and Watt patent expired, the Cornish engineer
Richard Trevithick and the American
Oliver Evans began to construct higher-pressure non-condensing steam engines, exhausting against the atmosphere. Watt himself had refrained from building any such engine for fear of its dangers, holding back the development of self-propelled machines. High pressure yielded an engine and boiler compact enough to be used on mobile road and rail
locomotives and
steamboats. Small industrial power requirements continued to be provided by animal and human muscle until widespread
electrification in the 20th century. These included
crank-powered,
treadle-powered, and horse-powered machinery in workshops and small plants.
Machine tools 's early
screw-cutting lathes, developed in the late 1790s , developed around 1818 by Robert Johnson and Simeon North Over time it was shown that wooden components had the disadvantage of changing dimensions with temperature and humidity, and the joints tended to work loose. As the Industrial Revolution progressed machines with metal parts and frames, making them more common. Other uses of metal parts were in firearms and threaded
fasteners, such as machine screws, bolts, and nuts. There was need for precision in making parts, to allow better working machinery,
interchangeability of parts, and standardization of threaded fasteners. The demand for metal parts led to the development of several
machine tools. They have their origins in the tools developed in the 18th century by clock and scientific instrument makers, to enable them to batch-produce small mechanisms. Before machine tools, metal was worked manually using the basic hand tools: hammers, files, scrapers, saws, and chisels. Consequently, use of metal machine parts was kept to a minimum. Hand methods of production were laborious and costly, and precision was difficult to achieve. In the half-century following the invention of the fundamental machine tools, the machine industry became the largest industrial sector of the U.S. economy.
Chemicals Large-scale production of chemicals was an important development. The first of these was the production of
sulphuric acid by the
lead chamber process, invented by
John Roebuck in 1746. He was able to increase the scale of the manufacture by replacing expensive glass vessels with larger, cheaper chambers made of
riveted sheets of lead. Instead of a small amount, he was able to make around in each chamber, a tenfold increase. The production of an
alkali on a large scale became an important goal, and
Nicolas Leblanc succeeded in 1791 in introducing a method for the production of
sodium carbonate (soda ash). The
Leblanc process was a reaction of sulfuric acid with
sodium chloride to give
sodium sulfate and
hydrochloric acid. The sodium sulfate was heated with
calcium carbonate and coal to give a mixture of sodium carbonate and
calcium sulfide. Adding water separated the soluble sodium carbonate from the calcium sulfide. The process produced significant pollution, nonetheless, this synthetic soda ash proved economical compared to that from burning plants, Aspiring chemists flocked to German universities in 1860–1914 to learn the latest techniques. British scientists lacked research universities and did not train advanced students; instead, the practice was to hire German-trained chemists.
Concrete , which opened in 1843;
portland cement concrete was used in the world's first underwater tunnel. In 1824
Joseph Aspdin, a British
bricklayer turned builder, patented a chemical process for making
portland cement, an important advance in the building trades. This process involves
sintering clay and
limestone to about , then
grinding it into a fine powder which is mixed with water, sand and
gravel to produce
concrete. In the 1840s, Joseph's son
William Aspdin developed his father's invention. Portland cement concrete was used by English engineer
Marc Isambard Brunel when constructing the
Thames Tunnel, the world's first underwater tunnel.
Gas lighting Though others made a similar innovation, the large-scale introduction of
gas lighting was the work of
William Murdoch, an employee of Boulton & Watt. The process consisted of the large-scale gasification of coal in furnaces, purification of the gas, and its storage and distribution. The first gas lighting utilities were established in London between 1812 and 1820. They became one of the major consumers of coal in the UK. Gas lighting affected social and industrial organisation because it allowed factories and stores to remain open longer. Its introduction allowed nightlife to flourish in cities and towns as interiors and streets could be lighted on a larger scale than before.
Glass making of 1851 Glass was made in ancient Greece and Rome. A new method of
glass production, known as the
cylinder process, was developed in Europe during the 19th century. In 1832 this process was used by the
Chance Brothers to create
sheet glass; they became the leading producers of window and plate glass. This advancement allowed for larger panes of glass to be created without interruption, thus freeing up the space planning in interiors as well as the fenestration of buildings.
The Crystal Palace is a significant example of the use of sheet glass in a new and innovative structure.
Paper machine A machine for making a continuous sheet of paper, on a loop of wire fabric, was patented in 1798 by
Louis-Nicolas Robert in France. The
paper machine is known as a Fourdrinier after the financiers, brothers Sealy and
Henry Fourdrinier, who were
stationers in London. The Fourdrinier machine is the predominant means of production today. The method of
continuous production demonstrated by the paper machine influenced the development of continuous rolling of iron, steel and other continuous production processes. although per-capita food supply in much of Europe remained stagnant until the late 18th century. Key innovations included Jethro Tull's early 18th-century mechanical seed drill (1701), which ensured more even sowing and depth control, Joseph Foljambe's iron Rotherham plough (c. 1730) lower labour requirements resulted in lower wages and fewer labourers, who faced near starvation, leading to the 1830
Swing Riots.
Mining Coal mining in Britain started early. Before the steam engine,
pits were often shallow
bell pits following a seam of coal along the surface, which were abandoned as the coal was extracted. If the geology was favourable, the coal was mined by means of an
adit or
drift mine driven into the side of a hill.
Shaft mining was done in some areas, but the limiting factor was the problem of removing water. It could be done by hauling buckets up the shaft or to a
sough (a tunnel driven into a hill to drain a mine). The water had to be discharged into a stream or ditch at a level where it could flow away. Introduction of the steam pump by Thomas Savery in 1698 and the Newcomen steam engine in 1712 facilitated removal of water and enabled deeper shafts, enabling more coal to be extracted. These developments had begun before the Industrial Revolution, but the adoption of Smeaton's improvements to the Newcomen engine, followed by Watt's steam engines from the 1770s, reduced the fuel costs, making mines more profitable. The
Cornish engine, developed in the 1810s, was more efficient than the Watt engine. The Industrial Revolution improved Britain's transport infrastructure with turnpike road, waterway and rail networks. Raw materials and finished products could be moved quicker and cheaper than before. Improved transport allowed ideas to spread quickly.
Canals and improved waterways , which proved very commercially successful, crossed the
Manchester Ship Canal, one of the last canals to be built. Before and during the Industrial Revolution navigation on British rivers was improved by removing obstructions, straightening curves, widening and deepening, and building navigation
locks. Britain had over of navigable rivers and streams by 1750. Canals began to be built in the UK in the late 18th century to link major manufacturing centres. Known for its huge commercial success, the
Bridgewater Canal in
North West England, was opened in 1761 and mostly funded by
The 3rd Duke of Bridgewater. From
Worsley to the rapidly growing town of
Manchester its construction cost £168,000 (£ ), but its advantages over land and river transport meant that within one year, the coal price in Manchester fell by half. This success inspired
Canal Mania, canals were hastily built with the aim of replicating the commercial success of Bridgewater, the most notable being the
Leeds and Liverpool Canal and the
Thames and Severn Canal which opened in 1774 and 1789 respectively. By the 1820s a national network was in existence. Canal construction served as a model for the organisation and methods used to construct the railways. They were largely superseded by the railways from the 1840s. The last major canal built in the UK was the
Manchester Ship Canal, which upon opening in 1894 was the world's largest
ship canal, and opened Manchester as a
port. However, it never achieved the commercial success its sponsors hoped for and signalled canals as a dying transport mode in an age dominated by railways, which were quicker and often cheaper. Britain's canal network, and its mill buildings, is one of the most enduring features of the Industrial Revolution to be seen in Britain.
Roads road in the U.S. in 1823. In the foreground, workers are breaking stones "so as not to exceed 6 ounces in weight or to pass a two-inch ring". France was known for having an excellent road system at this time; however, most roads on the European continent and in the UK were in bad condition, dangerously rutted. Much of the original British road system was poorly maintained by local parishes, but from the 1720s
turnpike trusts were set up to charge tolls and maintain some roads. Increasing numbers of main roads were turnpiked from the 1750s: almost every main road in England and Wales was the responsibility of a turnpike trust. New engineered roads were built by
John Metcalf,
Thomas Telford and
John McAdam, with the first '
macadam' stretch of road being Marsh Road at
Ashton Gate,
Bristol in 1816. The first macadam road in the U.S. was the "Boonsborough Turnpike Road" between
Hagerstown and
Boonsboro, Maryland in 1823.
Railways in 1830, the first inter-city railway in the world and which spawned
Railway Mania due to its success Railways were made practical by the widespread introduction of inexpensive puddled iron after 1800, the rolling mill for making rails, and the development of the high-pressure steam engine. Reduced friction was a major reason for the success of railways compared to wagons. This was demonstrated on an iron plate-covered wooden tramway in 1805 at Croydon, England. A good horse on an ordinary turnpike road can draw two thousand pounds, or one ton. A party of gentlemen were invited to witness the experiment, that the superiority of the new road might be established by ocular demonstration. Twelve wagons were loaded with stones, till each wagon weighed three tons, and the wagons were fastened together. A horse was then attached, which drew the wagons with ease, in two hours, having stopped four times, in order to show he had the power of starting, as well as drawing his great load. Wagonways for moving coal in the mining areas had started in the 17th century and were often associated with canal or river systems for the further movement. These were horse-drawn or relied on gravity, with a stationary steam engine to haul the wagons back to the top of the incline. The first applications of steam locomotive were on wagon or plate ways. Horse-drawn public railways begin in the early 19th century when improvements to pig and wrought iron production lowered costs. Steam locomotives began being built after the introduction of high-pressure steam engines, after the expiration of the Boulton and Watt patent in 1800. High-pressure engines exhausted used steam to the atmosphere, doing away with the condenser and cooling water. They were much lighter and smaller in size for a given horsepower than the stationary condensing engines. A few of these early locomotives were used in mines. Steam-hauled public railways began with the
Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825. travelling by train from
Peterborough East, 1845 The rapid introduction of railways followed the 1829
Rainhill trials, which demonstrated
Robert Stephenson's successful locomotive design and the 1828 development of
hot blast, which dramatically reduced the fuel consumption of making iron and increased the capacity of the blast furnace. On 15 September 1830, the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the first inter-city railway in the world, was
opened. The railway was engineered by
Joseph Locke and
George Stephenson, linked the rapidly expanding industrial town of Manchester with the port of Liverpool. The railway became highly successful, transporting passengers and freight. The success of the inter-city railway, particularly in the transport of freight and commodities, led to
Railway Mania. Construction of major railways connecting the larger cities and towns began in the 1830s, but only gained momentum at the very end of the first Industrial Revolution. After many of the workers had completed the railways, they did not return to the countryside but remained in the cities, providing additional workers for the factories. ==Social effects==