Chapter 7: The industrial revolution
Further reading
The British industrial revolution
There is a huge literature on the British industrial revolution. Here are three standard works:
P. Mathias, The First Industrial Nation: an Economic History of Britain, 1700–1914
(London, Methuen, 1969) is the best summary; E.J. Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire
(London, Penguin, 1990) is written from a Marxist perspective, but is lively and soundly
based; M.W. Flinn, Origins of the Industrial Revolution (London, Longman, 1966) examines
various explanations of why the industrial revolution began when it did. A significant
contribution to the debate in the impact of the industrial revolution on ordinary people’s lives
has been provided by Emma Griffin, Liberty’s Dawn: People’s History of the Industrial
Revolution (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2013). It is based the experiences of 350
individuals recounted by them. They bring out the new opportunities provided by the
industrial revolution as well as the hardships they encountered. Nicholas Phillipson’s
biography Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life (London, Allen Lane, 2010) sheds new light on
Adam Smith, who was not primarily an economist but a moral philosopher, and on The
Wealth of Nations which is not an uncritical defence of the free market as it is sometimes
portrayed.
The industrial revolution in Europe
A.S. Milward and S.B. Saul, The Economic Development of Continental Europe, second
edition (London, Allen & Unwin, 1979) provides useful studies of particular industries and
countries. W.O. Henderson, The Industrial Revolution on the Continent (London, F. Cass,
1961) is mainly confined to France, Germany and Belgium. C. Trebilcock, The
Industrialisation of the Great Powers 1780–1914 (London, Longman, 1981) is a strongly
analytical comparative study of reasons for industrialisation. D.S. Landes, The Unbound
Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from
1750 to the Present (Cambridge University Press, 1969) puts industrial changes 1750–1850
in perspective.
Science and the industrial revolution
A good introduction to the changes in economic ideas is Charles Singer, A Short History of
Scientific Ideas to 1900, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1962. On the development of
chemistry see Paul Strathurn, Mendeleyev’s Dream: the Quest for the Elements (London,
Hamish Hamilton, 2000). Consult the internet for individual scientists and inventions.
Richard Holmes, The Age of Wonder (London, HarperCollins, 2008) has the subtitle How the
Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, which gives a clear
indication of the book’s theme. It ranges widely, covering the geographical discoveries of
Captain Cook in the Pacific Ocean and Mungo Park’s explorations in West Africa. There is
an account of the first balloonists. The astronomical discoveries of William Herschel, ably
assisted by his sister and the patronage of George III, are fully explored, as is the work of Sir
Humphrey Davy. Linking them all is the patronage provided by the Royal Society and Sir
Joseph Banks, its president for 41 years (1778–1819).
The effects of industrialisation
E.J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution, 1789–1848 (New York, Mentor Books, 1962) is a
stimulating comparison of the effects of the French Revolution and the industrial revolution
on living conditions, ideology, the arts and science. See also essays on the challenge of
industrialisation and the growth of population in P.M. Pilbeam (ed.), Themes in Modern
History (London, Routledge, 1995). P. Johnson, The Birth of the Modern (London, Phoenix,
1991) is a vivid if quirky panorama of the world between 1815 and 1830, with much
fascinating source material. J. Droz, Europe between Revolutions (London, Fontana, 1967)
has useful chapters on liberalism and socialism.
Websites
Inventions
Richard Guest, A Compendious History of the Cotton Manufacture Manchester (1823),
Internet Modern History Sourcebook, www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1823cotton.html
John Lord, Capital and Steam Power (1923), www.history.rochester.edu/steam/lord/8.html
Science
Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, Elements of Chemistry in a new systematic order, translated by R.
Ker, 1802, Google Books
John Dalton, A New System of Chemical Philosophy, vol. 1, Manchester, 1803, Google Books
Michael Faraday, Experimental Researches in Electricity, 1859, Google Books
Social consequences
The physical deterioration of textile workers, 1833
A cotton manufacturer in the Hours of Labour, 1836
Evidence given before the Sadler Committee on the Textile Industry, 1842
Testimony given before Lord Ashley’s Mines Commission, 1842
The Benefit of the Factory Legislation, 1879
Edwin Chadwick, Report on Sanitary Conditions, 1842
All the above can be found at www.victorianweb.org/history/workers2.html
Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Classes in England, 1844,
www.gutenberg.org/etext/17306 (for full text). See also
www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1844engels.html for excerpts
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 1848,
www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html