Who were the inventors? It is interesting to find out who the individuals were who brought about these changes. Few of them were trained scientists. Education in basic sciences like physics or chemistry was extremely limited until the late nineteenth century, well after the technological inventions described above.
Since these breakthroughs did not require a full knowledge of the laws of physics or chemistry on which they were based, advances could be and were made by brilliant but intuitive thinkers and persistent experimenters. They were helped by the fact that England had certain features which European countries did not. Dozens of scientific journals and published papers of scientific societies appeared in England between and . There was a widespread thirst for knowledge even in the smaller towns.
This was met by the activities of the Society of Arts (founded in ), by travelling lecturers, or in ‘coffee houses’ that multiplied through the eighteenth century. Most inventions were more the product of determination, interest, curiosity, even luck, than the application of scientific knowledge. Some inventors in the cotton industry, like John Kay and James Hargreaves, were familiar with the skills of weaving and carpentry. Richard Arkwright, however, was a barber and wig-maker, Samuel Crompton was not technically skilled, and Edmund Cartwright studied literature, medicine and agriculture, initially wished to become a clergyman, and knew little of mechanics.
By contrast, in the area of steam engines, Thomas Savery, an army officer, Thomas Newcomen, a blacksmith and locksmith, and James Watt, with a strong mechanical bent, all had some knowledge relevant to their inventions. The road-builder John Metcalf, who personally surveyed surfaces for roads and planned them, was blind. The canal builder James Brindley was almost illiterate, with such poor spelling that he could never spell the word ‘navigation’, but he had tremendous powers of memory, imagination and concentration.