Why was Britain the First Industrial Nation?
From 1780 for just over a century Britain experienced rapid growth and
industrialization, which is popularly known as the Industrial Revolution.
This rapid economic growth was due to a number of main factors
including; the geographical diversity of Britain, population growth,
inventions, transport improvements, and the Government. All of these
factors influenced in E.J. Hobsbawn’s opinion ‘the most fundamental
transformation of human life in the history of the world recorded in
written documents’. These factors encourage or induce change in Britain,
and gave it the incentive to become the first industrial nation by many
different means.
Britain’s geographical diversity gave it a natural advantage over other
countries, and a great benefit to its industrialization. Coal, iron, and wood
was found in large amounts in Britain, this gave the island a raw material
which would prove to be valuable in overseas trade. As an island Britain
was surrounded by sea, this was good for defensive purposes, and a great
advantage. As Britain had no mainland territory to defend, it could
concentrate on defending its country. Navigable Rivers were found in
Britain, which proved to be very useful in the transportation of goods to be
sold. The good global position of Britain made it easy to trade with other
countries in its empire. The British Empire grew rapidly in the 18th century,
thus Britain’s well-established overseas trade market grew as well. The
value of exports of Britain had risen from £5,000,000 in the 1700s, to
£10,000,000 in the 1780s. In 1830 over 50% of these exports was cotton,
which had originally been imported from the Americas, spun in Britain, and
then re-exported to other colonies or foreign countries. By 1850 England
dominated world trade in manufacture and proudly proclaimed itself to be
the ‘Workshop of the World’, a position that the country held until the end
of the 19th century.
The population growth of Britain is a factor, which enthused the already
growing wealth of Britain. During the period of 1780 to 1850 the population
of England and Wales increased, from 7,500,000 million to 18,000,000,
hence causing a greater demand in goods such as food and housing. This
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population increase was mainly in the middle and working class people,
probably due to the rising medical knowledge, and the fact that more
hospitals were set up, consequently decreasing the death rate. Many
historians argue that when the population began to expand, after 1750 it
provided the critical ingredient necessary to trigger off
indus t rializ at ion .
The population growth in England and Wales had several positive effects for
Britain’s move into industrialization. The increased population provided a
large cheap labor force, which supplied the demand of factory workers.
The more people in the country caused a stimulus of investment in
industry and agriculture. As the demand for food and goods increased,
entrepreneurs saw their chance to increase their income and businesses,
and this also allowed social mobility for keen business stakeholders.
Population growth inspired Britain’s speculation in industry and
agriculture, as there were growing demands for both. For the duration of
the 18th century experimental work was carried out to improve crops
yields and make animals capable of yielding more milk and better meat.
New scientific principles were applied to farming such
as selective
breeding, these new methods of farming were written in journals, which
spread the methods, by the likes of Charles ‘Turnip’ Townsend, who
stressed the value of turnips and other field crops in a rotation system of
planting rather than letting land lay fallow.
New up and coming inventions also helped, to plunge Britain into the
industrial revolution, and the textile industry of Britain to grow rapidly. The
requirement for quicker methods of manufacture was growing, especially
in the cotton industry. The cotton supply from the Southern American
colonies was becoming faster due to inventions such as the Cotton Gin, and
so more rapid ways to spin the cotton was vital, to the sustainability of
Britain’s wealth. The first cotton related invention of England came in
1733, when John Kay’s Flying Shuttle, a machine used to increase to speed
of textile weaving machines, came into use. After which more new
scientific and technical knowledge was applied to i n d u s t r y .
In 1764 James Hargreves invented the Spinning Jenny, which was small
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enough to enable cotton to be spun domestically, in ones home. In 1769
Richard Arkwright the so-called ‘Father of the Factory System’ realized the
power potential of water and created the Water Frame. As the Water
Frame could only be used on a large scale, near fast flowing water, and
wasn’t suited to domestic use, more factories were built, which provided
employment for the ever-expanding population. Arkwright and his partner
Jedidiah Strutt opened the first cotton-spinning factory at Cromford,
Derbyshire. The Water Frame revolutionized the way cotton was spun,
because previous to the invention of the Water Frame all the machines
were hand powered on a small scale. But once the waterpower potential
was realized the spinning production of cotton increased, from 4,000
pounds to 4,500 p o u n d s .
In 1782 James Watt invented the rotary steam engine, which used steam to
produce a rotary motion, or power, factories no longer had to be built by
fast flowing steams. Factories could now be built anywhere; therefore this
encouraged the growth of industrial towns. During 1700 to 1760 many new
inventions were created, and over 379 patents were awarded, which gave
inventors exclusive rights, of their inventions. But this only gives a small
suggestion of the total inventions of the 18th century, due to the fact that
registering patents was very expensive. For example when Samuel
Crompton invented the Spinning Mule in 1775, cotton production increase
further and continued to increase right up until 1850, but Crompton didn’t
register his Spinning Mule until 1780.
The improvement of internal communications and transport of Britain led
to the linking of the major centers of trading and industry. The condition of
roads weren’t very well maintained, due to under-funding. Local people
thought, those who used the road should pay for maintenance. The result
of this was that, Turnpike roads were introduced, financed by private
turnpike trusts; that charged a fee for the repair of the roads.
But the problem still facing early industrialists was the cost of carrying
heavy, bulky goods such as coal or iron ore. The solution was to use water
transport, on rivers, coastal areas, and from the 1760s canals. The first
phase of canal development took place in the 1760s and early 1770s. The
second phase, in 1790s has been dubbed ‘Canal Mania’ with the
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completion of several important canals and the setting-up of 51 new
schemes. By 1820, the canal network linking all the major centres of
industrial production was largely completed. The canal network created a
cheaper system of transport available for goods and passengers, resulting
in the fall in prices of raw materials, like coal, timber, iron, wood and
cotton.
The railway was another growing form of transport, which was in
competition with canals. In 1830 the world’s first passenger railway,
between London and Manchester was opened. The railway had immediate
success, which stimulated a railway investment boom. By 1850 over 6,000
miles of track had been laid and the ‘railway age’, had arrived.
Miles of track-covered Britain, and even London to Glasgow was
linked by the popular transportation. In 1852 the results of the
investment in railways was apparent, the railways offered more speed than
the canals, this ensured that trade was working at its fastest. The railways
also enforced national organization, for example clocks had to be the same
all around the country, and otherwise train schedules wouldn’t have been
able to exist.
An additional reason why Britain became the first industrial nation was the
government it possessed. At the time of the industrial revolution Britain
had a well- established government who greatly encouraged economic
expansion. The English Government allowed the domestic economy to
function with few restrictions and encouraged technological change.
Many British merchants had large amounts of capital for investment in
new industrial enterprises, compared with Europeans. This was due to the
free internal trade in Britain, unlike Europe, where a merchant would have
to pay tax when crossing the border of a country. The British Government
used a ‘Laissez- Faire’ policy on its country; in other words the Government
just let England be, and kept it a united, stable and peaceful country.
Even though Britain’s industrial revolution benefited Britain’s economy
and stimulated change, there were side effects to this extent of economic
change. Arnold Toynbee was a historian of the period of change, whose
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publication in 1884, Lectures on the Industrial Revolution painted a picture
of the industrial revolution that had had catastrophic consequences for the
mass of the people. This period, he wrote, had been ‘as disastrous and as
terrible as any through which a nation passed’. The 1880s was a decade in
which poverty was ‘rediscovered’, after half a century of economic growth
which had brought the nation untold wealth, the lives of so many people
were lived in poverty, squalor and ill health. For Toynbee as well as other
historians such as Beatrice Webb and Barbara Hammond, the industrial
revolution had had consequences, which were nasty, mean and brut is h .
Overall Britain was the first industrial nation and became the ‘Workshop of
the World’ due to many crucial factors. It is very difficult to suggest a factor
that was the foremost important, and influential of all. The three biggest
factors, which were an affect to each other and resulted in the
industrialization of Britain, were overseas trade, the geographical diversity
of Britain, and population growth. These factors were the basis of the
economic growth in Britain, and they provoked other factors, which led to
the industrialization of Britain; Population growth stimulated demand that
entrepreneurs were able to satisfy. Investment in industry often brought
good returns. The state made little attempt to control growth. Foreign
trade provided the raw materials and profits that could be invested in each
enterprise. The industrialization of Britain was a revolutionary process,
which would prove to be easily gained by other countries and ultimately
detrimental to Britain’s supremacy prospects.
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