The Industrial Revolution

The INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (John Watney) History/facts: - time, when Britain was transformed from a largely agricultural country into one that was predominantly industrial - 1730-1850 and causes/results beyond - Britain was the first country to be industrialised: o Had two essential natural resources: coal and iron o Island: free from distractions of invasions o Land-owning aristocracy: more amenable to change than in other countries o Already had an affluent merchant class.

o Colonies: raw materials an captive markets o Infrastructure: navigable rivers, later canals; pioneer of railways o Temperate climate: plus in productivity o Work ethics of the many Nonconformist mill and factory owners o Inventions: steam power most important (Europeans had invented them, but Britain knew how to use them. ) The Agrarian Revolution: - There would have been no Industrial Revolution without an Agrarian: it had to feed the population of the new industrial towns.

- Enclosure Acts (late 18th early 19th): o Large areas of common land to landowners a encouraged to consolidate holdings and to make more economical and rational use of it - Now avoided soil exhaustion by crop rotation, which also encouraged fertility a provided fodder a fresh meat in winter - Improved breeds - More agr. land: farming became an economically viable cash crop industry attracting investment. a profits for landowners a invest in Ind. Rev. - Agricultural tools and machinery improved (e. g. iron plough brought saving in time and labour, seed drills, potato machines, reapers (Mahmaschine), binders (Mahbinder), threshers a reduced labour, increased productivity) - Then steam power was used: machinery, tractors.

- Distribution because of good infrastructure a Enclosure Acts and efficient farm management: thousand dispossessed a migrated to the towns and factories!

The first steam engines - first practical steam engine: pump to draw water out of Cornish mines - crude and wasteful in operation, but saved many mines from ruin - beam (Balken) engine: o from this all later ones descended o could only produce vertical up-and-down movement and it was expensive to run (only a paltry 1% of its heat was converted into work) o principally used for pumping out coal mines a needed only low pressure steam, most work done by atmospheric pressure; reliable, long-lived - Denis Papin: developed a primitive piston (Kolben) driven by steam Ironbridge, Birthplace of the Industrial Revolution - wood becoming scarce (to build houses, ships, machines) a drove up costs - making smelting iron with charcoal too expensive a make it out of cheap coke and iron ore (pig iron); then Darby s son managed to make wrought (Schmiede-) iron out of coke and iron ore - great success, exports, - Darby s grandson later built the first iron bridge 1779; the construction was the fore-runner of the steel-framed buildings of the present day a supply of cheap and plentiful iron was necessary for the Industrial Revolution Maritime ...