Why does industrial revolution started in england

Data Policy. Your Ad Choices. Barron's Archive. Corporate Subscriptions. All Rights Reserved. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Goods that had once been painstakingly crafted by hand started to be produced in mass quantities by machines in factories, thanks to the introduction of new machines and techniques in textiles, iron making and other industries. Modern historians often refer to this period as the First Industrial Revolution, to set it apart from a second period of industrialization that took place from the late 19th to early 20th centuries and saw rapid advances in the steel, electric and automobile industries.

Thanks in part to its damp climate, ideal for raising sheep, Britain had a long history of producing textiles like wool, linen and cotton. Starting in the midth century, innovations like the flying shuttle, the spinning jenny, the water frame and the power loom made weaving cloth and spinning yarn and thread much easier. Producing cloth became faster and required less time and far less human labor.

In addition to textiles, the British iron industry also adopted new innovations. Chief among the new techniques was the smelting of iron ore with coke a material made by heating coal instead of the traditional charcoal.

An icon of the Industrial Revolution broke onto the scene in the early s, when Thomas Newcomen designed the prototype for the first modern steam engine. Watt later collaborated with Matthew Boulton to invent a steam engine with a rotary motion, a key innovation that would allow steam power to spread across British industries, including flour, paper, and cotton mills, iron works, distilleries, waterworks and canals.

Just as steam engines needed coal, steam power allowed miners to go deeper and extract more of this relatively cheap energy source.

The demand for coal skyrocketed throughout the Industrial Revolution and beyond, as it would be needed to run not only the factories used to produce manufactured goods, but also the railroads and steamships used for transporting them. In the early s, Richard Trevithick debuted a steam-powered locomotive, and in similar locomotives started transporting freight and passengers between the industrial hubs of Manchester and Liverpool.

The latter part of the Industrial Revolution also saw key advances in communication methods, as people increasingly saw the need to communicate efficiently over long distances. In , British inventors William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patented the first commercial telegraphy system, even as Samuel Morse and other inventors worked on their own versions in the United States.

Banks and industrial financiers rose to new prominent during the period, as well as a factory system dependent on owners and managers. A stock exchange was established in London in the s; the New York Stock Exchange was founded in the early s.

In , Scottish social philosopher Adam Smith , who is regarded as the founder of modern economics, published The Wealth of Nations. In it, Smith promoted an economic system based on free enterprise, the private ownership of means of production, and lack of government interference.

Apart from above factors, faster means of communication, commodification of labour with introduction of wage System, development of new sources of energy like coal, new durable materials like steel were the other supporting factors for the rise of Industrial Revolution. History behind the tradition of Bonfire Night. Impact of the Industrial Revolution. Every revolution has some advantages and disadvantages.

Therefore Industrial Revolution had also some disadvantages which are given below:. Social Impact: This Revolution supported the rise of new urban centres like Manchester but also indirectly helped in the emergence of terms like slums, nuclear family, urbanization, exploitation of women and children.

Economic Impact: Profit making became the core of all economic activities. Hence, it had helped in the emergence of capitalist ideology and transnational trade. Political Impact: This revolution divided the world in terms of economic activities into developed and under-developed. In short, changes in history like The Fall of Rome, The Black Plague , signing of the Magna Carta , breaking with the Catholic Church , and the Glorious Revolution , had initially small, but profound cumulative effects over time.

In a sense, it can be likened to Chaos Theory where small changes in initial conditions can result in a very different result when all else is equal. Of course, the path of history is not always linear.

There had been regressive points in British history before the Industrial Revolution. However, this did cement the Protestant work ethic in British culture, and more powers had been granted to the British Government from the Monarch in its aftermath. According to Acemoglu and Robinson, once the path had been set for greater rule of law, development of inclusive institutions in society, property rights and lack of fear of creative destruction from ruling classes, the Industrial Revolution was all but guaranteed in the United Kingdom.

But it had been bought and paid for in much blood and political struggle beforehand. Whilst inclusive institutions were vitally important to allow it to happen, they were not the whole story. Other factors played their part too. The seeds were sown, quite literally, thanks to the agricultural revolution that enabled the production of food surplus and population growth.