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  • The Beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England

    The Beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England



    “The age is running mad after innovation.” Samuel Johnson


    In the Beginning


    Why study economic theory and analysis, read economic history, and make economic forecasts? The short answer is because of the Industrial Revolution and the attempt to understand its dynamics and structure. Economics is an attempt to understand the material world we live in, the environment created by the Industrial Revolution.


    THE BEGINNING OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION


    The Industrial Revolution began in England in the late 1700s. It then spread to America and western European countries. This post will summarize its origins in England and describe the early decades of the Industrial Revolution in America.


    The Industrial Revolution was a radical break in history. But in England, many of the preconditions were already in place, as can be seen by the history of the Wedgwood company.


    The revolutionary generation that first adopted steam engines saw the following trends and changes:


    Manufacturing was being modernized by a small group of entrepreneurs. Much of the new raw material processing and manufacturing was concentrated in a small area in the middle of England, away from London. These modernizing entrepreneurs formed a new economic, intellectual and social network.


    Modernizing entrepreneurs like Wedgwood, Darby, Wilkinson, and others tended to be members of Dissenting sects or Nonconforming churches (not members of the Church of England), Whig (liberals) in politics, and believers in “progress.” They were optimistic about the future, influenced by the ideas of Hume, Rousseau, Locke and Adam Smith. They believed their society could be reformed and they were active agents for improvement.


    They believed in studying and understanding the material world through reason, data, experience, and experimentation. They had personal ties with scientists and intellectuals. 


    Like Wedgwood, many came from poor backgrounds. Because of their backgrounds and religious beliefs, they could not attend Oxford or Cambridge. They were cut off from the traditional avenues of social advancement – government official, army or navy officers, and the Church of England. They were not large landowners. The Industrial Revolution gave them opportunities for economic success denied them under a pre-industrial society. Entrepreneurs could develop these opportunities because of a long political struggle in England to establish the rule of law, individual rights, property rights and limits on governmental power.



    The Industrial Revolution began when steam power was applied to drive newly invented metal machinery. A greatly improved steam engine was developed and patented by James Watt. Watt was convinced by a Midlands metal manufacturer named Matthew Boulton to start of company producing his new steam engine. The cylinders of the steam engines were produced for Boulton and Watt by John Wilkinson, who had perfected a method of boring more exact cylinders, first applied to making cannon for the English navy. 

    Steam engines replaced less powerful waterwheels. They also could be used where there were no rivers or streams to drive the waterwheels. The first use in London was to greatly expand a bakery.

    This became the starting point for the development and mass production of everyday products and services. The motivation was private profit. 


    The buildings housing power-driven machinery were the beginning of another innovation – the modern factory with a disciplined industrial labor force. Advancements in production planning, management and control exploiting the new production technology led to increased output and lower unit cost.  


    The most important discovery of the Industrial Revolution in England – what made it a revolution – was the invention of…invention. But inventions then had to be turned into innovations, the design of power-driven machinery, metal tools and machines, and large-scale production of useful products and services that people besides the rich could afford. Final products had to be continuously improved from prototypes to commercial products that customers found to be valuable (however defined), easier to use, and cheaper. Capital inputs and production methods changed together to mass-produce the products at lower real cost.  New markets were created. Companies competed on coming out with new and better products. 


    A detailed look at the early years of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain reveals a hurricane of inventive activity. Hundreds of mechanics, engineers and tinkerers attempted to improve on the new and existing technology, develop variations, solve specific technical problems, propose new applications, and apply for patents to protect their ideas. Better machine tools and larger, faster machines were invented. New production systems and methods produced large quantities of new and improved goods at lower and lower real cost. The main reason for this explosion was the opportunity to profit from the sale and application of technical knowledge.


    The first industry to be transformed was the cloth industry. Cotton cloth, an expensive luxury product before the Industrial Revolution, was mass-produced by power-driven iron textile machinery. Huge increases in productivity led to a large fall in price and increased demand. Cotton cloth became England’s largest export throughout the 19th century. Power-driven metal machinery would transform the production of many traditional industries.


    We can measure the long-run results of ceaseless innovation in the weaving of cloth. A weaver today using modern looms can produce 100

    times the amount of cloth per hour produced by a hand-loom weaver 200 years ago.


    Many of the advances came together to create the railroad in the 1830s. Railroad locomotives were make possible by the development of high-pressure steam engines, an improvement James Watt decided to ignore and denounce. It took 25 years of experimentation and development to work out the technical details of an efficient locomotive and a practical railroad. Even failures often showed at least one technical improvement, solving one technical problem.


    The first general-purpose railroad was built in 1830 between the port of Liverpool and the new manufacturing center of Manchester. The railroad’s main function was to transport imported cotton to Manchester and cotton cloth back to Liverpool for export.




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    For two excellent books describing the invention and development of the Industrial Revolution in England, see


    William Rosen, The Most Powerful Idea in the World:  A Story of Steam, Industry and Invention. 2010.


    Gavin Weightman, The Industrial Revolutionaries:  The Making of the Modern World, 1776-1914.  2007.



    Related Blog Posts:

    Adam Smith’s Pin Factory At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Why Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations does not explain the origins of the Industrial Revolution. How pin and nail production evolved later.

    For an excellent example of an innovative entrepreneur at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England, see


    Josiah Wedgwood, the Wedgwood Pottery Company, and the Beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

    How England lost its economic and technological leads. Moral – keep innovating or fall behind.


    A Cautionary Tale – England and the Industrial Revolution.

    Why America was in an excellent position to take advantage of the Industrial Revolution that began in England.

    The Beginning of the Industrial Revolution in America.


    For a list of related posts, see the Guide to Posts. There are essays on American Economic History, American History, China’s Economy, and the English East India Company. And much more.






  • Josiah Wedgwood, the Wedgwood Pottery Company, and the Beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England

    Josiah Wedgwood, the Wedgwood Pottery Company, and the Beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England


    Wedgwood Anti-Slavery Cameo

    A better introduction to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution than Adam Smith is the history of Josiah Wedgwood and the Wedgwood Pottery Company.


    This is how one company actually ushered in the Industrial Revolution.


    The revolutionary generation that first adopted steam engines saw the following trends and changes:


    Manufacturing was being modernized by a small group of entrepreneurs. Much of the new raw material processing and manufacturing was concentrated in a small area in the middle of England, away from London. These modernizing entrepreneurs formed a new economic, intellectual and social network.


    Modernizing entrepreneurs like Wedgwood tended to be members of Dissenting sects (like Quakers) or Nonconformist churches (not members of the Church of England), Whigs (liberals) in politics, and believers in “progress.” They were optimistic about the future, influenced by the ideas of Hume, Rousseau, Locke and Adam Smith. They believed their society could be reformed and they were active agents for improvement.


    In 1787, Wedgwood produced a ceramic medallion to support the abolition of slavery. It had a chained African pleading, “Am I not a man and a brother?” This was in the country that became rich by dominating the African slave trade and raising Caribbean sugar with slaves working under brutal conditions. 


    They believed in studying and understanding the material world through reason, data, experience, and experimentation. They had personal ties with scientists and intellectuals. 


    Like Wedgwood, many came from poor backgrounds. Because of their backgrounds and dissenting religious beliefs, they could not attend Oxford or Cambridge. They were cut off from the traditional avenues of social advancement – government official, army officer, and the Church of England. 


    The Industrial Revolution gave them opportunities for economic success denied them under the pre-industrial society. Entrepreneurs could develop these opportunities because of a long political struggle in England to establish the rule of law, individual rights, property rights, patents and limits on governmental power. It also helped that they were largely ignored by the king and the landowning aristocracy.


    The Industrial Revolution was a radical break in history. But in England, many of the preconditions were already in place, as can be seen by the history of the Wedgwood company.  


    Josiah Wedgwood came from a family of potters. He founded the famous Wedgwood pottery company in 1759. 


    Wedgwood and many of his business associates and acquaintances were modernizing entrepreneurs. Wedgwood and others built large factories recruited and industrial labor force, and understood the division of labor. They were constantly looking to improve their businesses – better machines, larger and more efficient production, new and improved products, new materials and marketing.


    A limiting factor was power to run the machinery. Waterwheels were inefficient, with not enough power to drive the larger, faster, heavier machinery. English rivers were flat, sluggish, and sometimes dry because of droughts. The solution – Watt’s steam engine, which was first manufactured in 1775.

    


    James Watt invented and patented a more efficient steam engine but it was Matthew Boulton, a friend and sometime business partner of Josiah Wedgwood, who partnered with Watt and built the factory that produced Watt’s steam engines. Boulton heard about Watt’s engine through a mutual acquaintance in his network of correspondents. Boulton, a successful manufacturer, established and ran a new company (Boulton and Watt) that dominate steam engine production and marketing for a generation. Watt concentrated on improving his steam engine and inventing related technology. Like many later industrial companies, Boulton and Watt was the combination of a businessman and an inventor/mechanic.


    Innovation at Wedgwood was based on science and experimentation. Josiah Wedgwood carried out thousands of experiments in his lifetime analyzing all aspects of pottery manufacturing and decoration, and record the results in detailed notebooks. He read chemistry books and knew and corresponded with the foremost chemists of his day. He tried to reduce the traditional hit or miss methods of producing pottery to more scientific measurement and control. (This tradition of careful observation and scientific understanding of the natural world was passed on to Josiah Wedgwood’s grandson, Charles Darwin.)


    Josiah Wedgwood used power-driven machinery and early assembly line techniques to mass-produce pottery. He was the first manufacturer to install a Watt steam engine.


    Wedgwood was always on the lookout for new styles, better machinery (lathes and kilns) and new production methods. He believed in retaining employees and training them to become increasingly productive. To keep employees, he provided housing and retirement benefits. Wedgwood cooperated with other manufacturers he knew to introduce new materials and new processes into the production of pottery.

    


    Wedgwood expanded sales and profits by selling in foreign markets. He provided a large amount of specially designed pottery to the English and Russian royal families. Wedgwood turned a luxury product for royalty and the very rich into a mass market product for the expanding upper middle class. In addition to European countries, Wedgwood made a special effort to sell to the American colonies. He designed different styles at different price points for different markets. Today we would call this market segmentation.  


    His experiments with new materials and production methods led to the creation of new styles of pottery, which he believed were necessary to increase sales. Wedgwood changed styles every few years, backed by innovations in marketing such as showrooms and branding that were to become standard in the selling of consumer goods.


    In summary, he exploited new production technology and combined it with scientific production control and management. His innovative design and selling strategies became standard for future consumer goods companies.


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    See the related post, Adam Smith’s Pin Factory.

    For the rise of England as a global economic and political power in the 1600s, see

    England in the 1600s:  The Beginning of England’s Rise to Global Power and Wealth

    These posts analyze the factors behind the start of the Industrial Revolution in England and America.  Pre-conditions were important. They illustrate some of the reasons why, in the long run, America was able to continue industrializing better than England, why England fell behind.


    The Beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England


    The Beginning of the Industrial Revolution in America


    Innovate or Fall Behind. A Cautionary Tale – England and the Industrial Revolution

    Some related posts: