The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain
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After 1780 and in parallel with political revolutions, there was a revolution in industry that meant a radical change in the way of production. It consisted of replacing the manual work done in small workshops with machine work done in large factories.
The Industrial Revolution was a slow but steady change; besides industry, it affected other economic sectors and all social groups. As a result of this process, the structures inherited from previous centuries were replaced by a new economic model: capitalism.
The origin of the Industrial Revolution falls somewhere around 1760, although it was not consolidated in English regions until 1780. During the nineteenth century, industrialization generalized to the rest of Great Britain and disseminated after 1830 through Belgium, France, and Germany. In other European countries, the establishment of new industries was limited to highly localized enclaves. Outside Europe, it spread to the United States, Japan, and Russia.
Causes of the Industrial Revolution
In Britain, the Industrial Revolution was fueled by a series of political, demographic, and economic factors.
The political situation, after the revolutions of the seventeenth century, reconciled the interests of the landed aristocracy and the bourgeoisie. Both developed laws favorable to economic development. The growth of population during the eighteenth century, thanks to improved feeding and reduced mortality, increased product demand and labor available to work in industry.
Improvements in transport and communications and the promotion of trade favored the formation of an internal market. Foreign trade, spurred by British colonial dominance, brought to the industry capital, raw materials, and markets for the sale of industrial products.
The availability of abundant energy and mineral resources like coal and iron ore also favored British industrial development. Agrarian transformations, spurred by population growth, provided labor to the industry and contributed capital that could be invested in the creation of factories.