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In the years preceding 1750 England, although a wealthy nation still suffered from poverty and a poor economy. Despite the fact that there were manufacturers, not enough produce could be made, and so England remained poverty stricken. The 2 main areas of productivity were agriculture and woollen textiles, the larger earner of these two being wool. The manufacture of woollen cloth had been the main industry since the middle ages, when England was one of the worlds greatest producers of raw wool.
However the garments were made in the peoples homes and the progress was very slow. All the tools were worked by hand and were small enough to be used in the home. Not only was this process slow, but such was the demand for yarn that it was constantly in short supply, as wool production was hard to mechanism, on the other hand cotton which was a new material being brought into Britain was much easier to make and faster. Not only was it easier and faster but also it was also more comfortable to wear.
This new material would have been easier to mechanism but the raw materials had to be imported and this was more expensive but still the demand was there, so much so that in 1700 a law was passed banning all imports of cotton and in 1721 the wearing of cotton was actually banned. Due to the banning of these imports local producers were allowed to step into the market and so began the rise of the cotton industry in Britain. The process was still too slow and was still done in peoples homes; this had to be changed if the cotton was to be a success. There were people who invented various items to make things easier and quicker, people like John Kay. John Kay made the work easier by inventing the flying shuttle in 1733. Before this the weavers had to throw the shuttle across the loom.
James Hargreaves then invented a new machine, called the Jenny in 1764. This machine was still used in the home. A machine was needed to work on a larger scale in a factory. This machine arrived in 1769 in the form of a water mill through the brains of a man called Richard Arkwright; he also opened a factory at Comfort, Derbyshire. By 1782 this factory employed 5000 workers, making him one of the greatest pioneers of the industrial revolution.
By 1779 Samuel Crompton had combined both the Jenny and the wheel, this became known as Cromptons wheel, Britain could now produce pure fine cotton. The invention of these machines was to lead to further in inventions in how to power them. Various people came and invented machines powered by steam. Although this form of power was short lived it still had a huge impact on the industrial revolution. Thanks to the increase in the demand for coal these new machines were to find there way into society in the factories, and so expand the industrial revolution. Men like Thomas Save invented steam machines, but there were problems with his machine, it used a lot of coal and it was likely to blow up, as it had no safety valve fitted.
Thomas Newcomen improved on this machine by adding a safety valve, this machine was widely used by all the coalmines, but still it used a lot of coal. A name with which everyone would be familiar with now enters the scene, James watt. In 1763 he started to make improvements on Newcomens engine, with finance from a man called John Roebuck, who owned the carron iron works. This was mainly done because Roebuck could see the uses of these machines in the iron industry. The funding was to stop as Roebucks factory closed down and he lost his money. Thankfully Matthew Boulton was to step in and help Watts, the result of which was the Watts and Boulton steam engine, which had a better fuel consumption.
William Murdoch who worked in Boulton's factory was to improve this engine even further. Up to now the machine was slow, it relied on a lot of noisy movement, Murdoch's idea was to put gears onto the machine to make it more efficient and quieter by giving it a rotary motion, this was added in 1781 and was known as the sun and planet gear. Roebucks view of these engines being used in the iron industry was not wrong at all. Before the industrial revolution iron was not as prominent as it is now, there were other metals more widely in use such as tin and copper. These metals had their uses but they were no good for things like engines, iron was needed and good quality iron at that.
The iron trade relied on the old methods of power such as burning with charcoal, and so as a result the trade was confined to areas such as woodland and were there was water for water power. The growth of the industry relied on the removal of these bottlenecks and the invention of a new fuel, and a new power source, and so enters coal and the steam engine. Up till 1700 the iron industry was facing decline, there was no demand for iron. The only time there was a demand for iron was when there was a war on. Britain was rich in iron ore; nevertheless iron ore was imported from Sweden.
This is explained by the fact that British iron ore was of such poor quality and the lack of wood to burn in the furnaces. The owners of the iron factories knew that the process of burning charcoal to melt the iron ore would be replaced by coal, but British iron was already brittle enough and the transference of all the sulphur and phosphorous made it even worse. The first person to use coal to melt iron ore successfully was Abraham Darby in 1709. He used Shropshire clod to produce enough heat to melt the iron. This process was slow and used to much coal, so it was not profitable enough to be widely adopted. Abraham Darby 11 improved upon his fathers invention by strengthening the blast in the furnace using wooden bellows in place of the leather ones.
In 1749 he was able to produce small quantities of iron bar and it was during this period that England had many wars including the seven year war, which ended in 1763. This gave the industry a boost and made new methods more profitable to use. 1767 seen the first iron rails used and in 1781 the first iron bridge was built, under the direction of Abraham Darby 111. Although Coalbrookedale went on to success, the iron industry still suffered a decline. During this period people tried using iron for just about everything to encourage people to buy it, One such person was John Wilkinson or better known as iron mad Wilkinson.
He made a coffin out of iron with a bell attached, so that if you were buried alive you could ring the bell and someone would come and dig you out. The most significant factor in the development of the iron industry has to be linked back to the steam engine and Boulton and Watts. Because of the addition of the rotary motion to the engine it allowed it to work the bellows and therefore produce more heat, and so more iron. So if not for coal and the steam engine it is possible that the revolution in the iron industry might have taken a lot longer to come about. It was also still possible that the iron trade could have faced decline at the end of the wars but they looked elsewhere for the uses of iron, the most obvious being the rail industry, this was another up and coming important element for the future of iron. In conclusion the industrial revolution all started in the textile industry, which needed to produce more quantities of cotton, and so therefore needed new inventions and engines that spurred on the coal business that in turn made the iron trade a success.
The dictionary definition of industrial revolution is the transformation of Britain and other countries into industrial nations, and as Britain was really the first nation to be so done it thanks to all the inventors, it underwent a major change and a giant leap into the industrial revolution.
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Research essay sample on The Industrial Revolution In England
