The Debate on the ‘Industrial Revolution’

Until the 1970s, historians used the term ‘industrial revolution’ for the changes that occurred in Britain from the 1780s to the 1820s. From then, it was challenged, on various grounds. Industrialisation had actually been too gradual to be considered a ‘revolution’. It carried processes that already existed towards new levels.

Thus, there was a relatively greater concentration of workers in factories, and a wider use of money. Until well into the nineteenth century, large regions of England remained untouched by factories or mines and therefore the term ‘industrial revolution’ was regarded as inaccurate: England had changed in a regional manner, prominently around the cities of London, Manchester, Birmingham or Newcastle, rather than throughout the country. Could the growth in the cotton or iron industries or in foreign trade from the 1780s to the 1820s be called revolutionary? The impressive growth of cotton textiles, based on new machinery, was in an industry that relied on a non-British raw material, on sales abroad (especially ACTIVITY Argue the case for and against government regulation of conditions of work in industries.

India), on non-metallic machinery, and with few links to other branches of industry. Metallic machinery and steam power was rare until much later in the nineteenth century. The rapid growth in British imports and exports from the 1780s occurred because of the resumption of trade with North America that the War of American Independence had interrupted. This growth was recorded as being sharp only because it started from a low point.

Indicators of economic change occurring before and after - suggest that sustained industrialisation was to be seen after rather than before these dates. The decades after had experienced the disruptive effects of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Industrialisation is associated with a growing investment of the country’s wealth in ‘capital formation’, or building infrastructure and installing new machinery, and with raising the levels of efficient use of these facilities, and with raising productivity. Productive investment, in these senses, grew steadily only after , as did levels of productivity.

The cotton, iron and engineering industries had accounted for less than half of the industrial output until the 1840s. Technical progress was not limited to these branches, but was visible in other branches too, like agricultural processing and pottery. In searching for an answer as to why British growth may have been faster after than before, historians have pointed to the fact that from the 1760s to , Britain tried to do two things simultaneously – to industrialise, and to fight wars in Europe, North America and India - and it may possibly have failed with one. Britain was at war for out of years from .

Capital that was borrowed was used to fight the wars rather than invested. As much as per cent of the cost of the war was met by taxing people’s incomes. Workers were transferred out of factories and farms to the army. Food prices rose so sharply that the poor had little money left for buying consumer goods.

Napoleon’s policies of blockade, and British reactions to them, closed the European continent, the destination for more than half of British exports, to British traders. The word ‘industrial’ used with the word ‘revolution’ is too limited. The transformation extended beyond the economic or industrial sphere and into society and gave prominence to two classes: the bourgeoisie and the new class of proletarian labourers in towns and in the countryside. In , visitors thronged the Great Exhibition at the specially constructed Crystal Palace in London to view the achievements of British industry.

At that time, half the population was living in towns, but of the workers in towns as many were in handicraft units as in factories. From the 1850s, the proportion of people living in urban areas went up dramatically, and most of these were workers in industry – the working class. Only per cent of Britain’s workforce now lived in rural areas. This was a far more rapid rate of industrialisation than had been witnessed in other European countries.

In his detailed study of British industry, the historian A.E. Musson has suggested that