Going Back in Time in Britain during the Industrial Revolution Essay

What a wonderful thing is this Time Machine! I can travel wherever I want and choose any historical period. Oh, I am so excited! But what is this? “… You are allowed stop the machine only once. If you don’t do this correctly, you will be trapped in another land and time with no hope of return!”

What is happening? Where am I? Britain? 1799? Is it a kind of a joke? This Time Machine is a total disaster. I wanted to see constructing of the pyramid of Cheops or dinosaurs. Oh, at least, they speak English here! Ok, let’s see what the Britons’ life looked like a few centuries ago.

It seems I must be thankful for possessing my Time Machine which is unfortunately broken exactly to the Britain industrial revolution that got up to speed a few decades ago. As one might see, Britons have done a great job. Everything looked so thrivingly and optimistically!

The main thing that might be noticed is that machines were everywhere. A lot of factories and plants, workers including children contributed to the city development. The main changes that occurred in Britain were related to technological, socioeconomic, and cultural areas of life.

The most noticeable technological changes consisted in wide usage of new materials, such as coal, iron and steel, petroleum as well as invention of a great number of machines including steam, internal-combustion engine, spinning jenny, power loom. These machines helped to decrease expenditure of human resources. There were established a great number of the factories with division of professions. Development of transportation and communication consisted in designing such machines as a steam locomotive, steamship, automobile, airplane, telegraph, and radio, inventing a railway, etc.

As for socioeconomic life, one can notice that Britain has undergone very drastic improvements that were mainly expressed in shifting from agricultural and industrial production (Manolopoulou). The living conditions became much more comfortable but life of people living in the villages and average workers was still very difficult. The standards of living seemed to raise for many people but particularly for the middle and upper classes (history.com). The quality of life of unskilled workers was quite low, they faced a lot of challenges for the reason of small wages. In the villages, a vast unemployment, malnourishment and diseases were a common thing. The socioeconomic changes occurred, first of all, in the field if agriculture. The improvements enabled an easier production and shipping of food and goods for a larger population on very remotes areas. All the economic changes resulted in increase of the international trade and overall development of Britain and increasing its status as one of the world’s most influential leaders. Urbanization, that is, growth of cities was one the features by which actually industrial revolution could be noticed.

As I understood, there still existed division between poor and rich people. This was a disadvantage of the industrial revolution but an undeniable advantage consisted in emergence of a large number of working places that gave a possibility to people from the villages to move to the fast developing cities and create better life conditions for them and their families. Another important advantage is that thanks to the progress the industrial revolution brought with itself life became much more comfortable. The scientific discoveries made in the past centuries and technological innovations created possibilities for a dramatic economic development. You might be wondering why Britain has become that chosen country where the industrialization started.

Britain actually wasn’t a single country that possessed deposits of coal and iron. Why didn’t the industrialization begin with China or North America? Were the reasons geographical, political or cultural? Actually, the political life in Britain promoted an industrial revolution to a great extent. And here is why. Britons were able to build a big and strong empire with a lot of colonies. It was a stable society that could organize its life on the highest level comparing to other countries. Also, Britain could use its colonies as a source for raw materials and as a marketplace to export its goods.

There were a lot of debates on these and other questions. The possible reasons why Britain might lay in the political plane. Britain aristocracy was сcommercial-minded with high literacy rates. Due to the fact that Britain was a limited monarchy, on this territory there existed a system of free enterprise. The government supported for commercial projects, for a strong navy to protect ships. At the same time, government involvement was quite limited. It didn’t interfere individual business significantly. Britain could grow a civil society with a rule of law and protection of assets and other (Stokes Brown).

All these political reasons are important but the most crucial one that lied strictly in the economical field was related to wood.The thing is that before the 1750-ies when industrial revolution started people in Britain were using mostly trees to build houses and ships, to cook and heat their houses. Though they were running out of this resource which, moreover, could not provide citizens, especially, those who lived in the growing villages and cities with all the needed energy, building material, etc. (Stokes Brown).

A new resource expected to replace wood was coal. Britain had great deposits of coal essential for industrialization. The factories used coal as a production material that powered machines producing the steam power on which all branches of industry depended. Improved mining technologies caused increased amount of coal extracted. With help of coal, the railway trains and steamships were run.

Other basic materials industrial revolution gave to the world were synthetic materials such as lighter metals, some new alloys, plastics and other (Braudel, Wallace).Two, perhaps, the most important segments of Britain industry were iron and textile industries. They became much more mechanized featuring automatic operationing. An innovation that brought textile industry on the higher level was spinning jenny invented by James Hargreaves, its modernized version, a spinning mule created by Samuel Compton, and power loom developed by Edmund Cartwright. Thanks to these machines, productivity has increased significantly while need for human energy has lowered.

Industrialization enabled mass production as iron industries were established. The development of the steam engine played, probably, a central role in the industrial revolution.Production was improved by replacing water and animal power with steam power. James Watt was the one who improved the steam engine collaborating with Matthew Boulton who created the rotative engine. With these machines production became much efficient requiring less human power.

The metal industry gave to the Britain the highest profit comparing to other industries. Many metals were produced including copper, steel and other. It was like an Iron Age but of a much bigger scale. The metalworking industry was flourishing and variety of metal products was produced such as brass fittings, buttons, guns, nails and pins, etc. They were some of the most important goods used in other industries and during the wars. In Britain, there even was an area called ‘Black Country’, an industrial centre where an iron ore was found in the extremely big amounts.One more sector that has undergone drastic changes was system of transportation, communication and banking. The first railway steam locomotive constructed by an engineer Richard Trevithick made transportation of goods easier as they could be carried to any place in the country and passengers were able to use this service as well. Communication became easier thanks to the invention of the telegraph by Brits and William Cooke. Numerous banks and industrial financiers started operating and stock exchange was established in London twenty years ago, in the 1770s. The New York Stock Exchange was founded just recently, in the early 1790s.

Conclusion

Starting in 17 century, industrial revolution in Britain spread on all the areas of Britons’ life starting with economy and politics and finishing with cultural environment.

References

Braudel F., Wallace Anthony F.C. Industrial Revolution. 29.04.2018. Retrieved from:www.britannica.com

Manolopoulou A. The Industrial Revolution and the changing face of Britain. 29.04.2018. Retrieved from: www.britishmuseum.org

Industrial Revolution. 29.04.2018. Retrieved from: https://www.history.com

Stokes Brown C. The Industrial Revolution. Fossil Fuels, Steam Power, and the Rise of Manufacturing. 29.04.2018. Retrieved from: www.khanacademy.org

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016.

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

freeessays.club (2016) The terms offer and acceptance [Online].
Available at:

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]
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