Industrial Revolution Essay

The Industrial Revolution began in England around the 17th and early 18th centuries, which brought wealth and great power to this nation. It was the most far-reaching, influential transformation of human culture since the advent of agriculture eight or ten thousand years ago. Great Britain was at the forefront of the industrial revolution through numerous factors such as natural resources, inventions, transport systems, and the population surge. It changed the way people worked and lived, and a revolution was started. As stated by Steven Kreis in Lecture 17, “England proudly proclaimed itself to be the ‘Workshop of the World,’ a position that country held until the end of the 19th century when Germany, Japan and United States overtook it.”

A major cause for the Industrial Revolution was due to the population growth in England. Before the revolution most people lived in small villages, working either in agriculture or as skilled craftsmen. The family worked as a unit doing everything themselves and by hand. The Enclosure Movement allowed farmers and landlords to fence in their fields and control their production. This meant that for the farmer with little hands couldn’t keep up with the enclosure law had t uproot his family and leave his land to work for someone else or go to town. Charles Townshend pointed out the use of turnips, barley, clove, wheat and other field crops in a rotation system of planting rather than letting the land stay empty which helped the livestock thus the people. Now, since England was becoming so industrialized, the population was increasing dramatically, people flocked to the towns to find jobs in the factories. The new means of production demanded new kinds of skills, new regulation in work, and a large...

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...ds, but had an absolute monarchy, which wielded great control over economic and political life. In Britain people believed that through industrial production they could create untold wealth - and the government believed that it was its responsibility to make this happen.

In conclusion, the Industrial Revolution started in England then spread to the European nations later on in the centuries to come. According to BBC, “Until the early 18th century, most people lived off the land as they had done for countless generation-an agricultural existence, defined by the harvests and the seasons, and ruled by a small political and social elite”. It significantly changed the daily lives of everyone involved and up until today. All of these factors such as the natural resources, populations, inventions and transport systems made England the leader in the Industrial Revolution.