During the period of time from 1700 to 1830, Great Britain was the first country to industrialized, making products by machine instead of by hand. You may ask: Why was Britain the first to Industrialize? Well, I’m here to answer that. Britain was the first to industrialize because it had the right resources and the right environment for industrialization, meeting all the factors of production: land, labor, and capital (money). It had the correct natural resources (coal and iron), a powerful workforce, and a favorable economic climate.
First of all, Britain was lucky to have all the necessary natural resources to make industrialization happen. Those resources were coal, iron, rivers, and ships. Iron and coal were used to operate and make machines
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During the Enclosure Act, passed by the government, landowners had to enclose their lands with fencing, and those who could not afford to build this fencing would not be able to farm. This lead the poor farmers to sell the land and leave to work in the city. The increase in agricultural efficiency also drove peasants into the city to look for work. With an increase in agricultural efficiency, the rich landowners needed less farmers to work their farms, leaving the many unemployed farmers to look for work in the city. All these workers coming to the city usually ends up working in a factory, increasing the workforce of the factory industry. According to England’s Factory Commission, “People left other occupations and came to spinning for the sake of high wages”. Workers came to spinning in factories to increase their wages, increasing the workforce of the spinning factories. Stearns suggests, in his book The Industrial Revolution in World History, that “British landlords successfully pried land away from smallholding farmers through the government’s Enclosure Acts”. The British landowners drove off small farmers with the Enclosure Act, and these small farmers would then go to the city to look for a new job, usually ending up in a factory. All these workers moving to the city and working in factories aided the factory industry, improving the industrialization …show more content…
All of these factors were important for industrialization and caused Britain to become the first to industrialized, the one leading the Industrial Revolution. Leading the revolution that changed the ways of producing goods, the transfer from making goods by hand to making goods by machine with great efficiency. These machines and factories that originated from the Industrial Revolution in Britain will produce numerous goods used by billions of people all over the world
Much of Western Europe quickly industrialized after Great Britain. If they did not, they were immediately outclassed by the British in trade and military strength. Industrialization makes good use of the natural resources in a state. Some nations industrialized a while after Great Britain and were falling behind. Two of these states are Russia and Japan.
Starting in the mid 1700s and continuing to the late 1850s, arguably still ongoing today, industrialization is centered on the development of machinery and urbanization. This new era found its roots in Great Britain, and later in the entirety of Western Europe once the French Revolution and the Congress of Vienna were resolved. Development was essential in Great Britain simply because it was not connected to continental Europe and Britain had the resources, like coal, to fuel the industrial revolution. Once the idea of industrialization was sparked, it burned like wildfire and spread to the rest of Europe. The results of industrialization were exceptional and robust; calling for others to join.
Industrialization is the process of developing machine production of goods. Extensive natural resources such as water power, coal, iron ore, rivers, and harbors were required for industrialization. Britain had not only these resources but in addition it had an expanding economy to support industrialization, a large population of workers, and political stability which gave Britain an advantage. All these things are called the factors of production.
The period during which there was an increased output of machine-made goods, also known as the Industrial Revolution, played a critical role in reshaping Britain’s economy. The Industrial Revolution, stimulated by advancements that were made during the Agricultural Revolution, began in Great Britain for many reasons. In addition to Britain’s broad availability of natural resources, the count...
A growing population resulted in a greater demand for Great Britain. They were the first to start the Industrial revolution. With their invention of the steam engine transportation of goods and people boomed, railroad, canals, etc. which resulted in a new class system. Before people lived in small communities and their lives revolved around farming, but with the start of the revolution more people and laborers moved to the city which had become urban and industrialized. New banking techniques such as corporations, partnerships, credit, and stocks were invented. Everything used to be made in people’s homes using handmade tools, yet now everything is done in factories using mass production. The three major materials cotton, coal, and iron were the up and coming new products used during the industrial revolution. Cotton was used for the textile industry, coal for steam power, and iron for the new types of transportation. There was also an improvement in living standards for some, but the poor and working people had to deal with bad employment and living conditions. When the laborers moved to the cities clocks and
The Industrial Revolution brought mass advancements in technology to the people in Great Britain, Europe and in other places in the world during the time of 1750-1850. Britain’s wealth, population, technology, education and resources led to it as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. While the Industrial Revolution increased work wages, it also consequently resulted in harsh punishments, poor living conditions, and deadly accidents.
From the late 18th century to the mid 19th century, the economy in England was transformed from an agricultural to a manufacturing –based economy. In 1801, agriculture provided employment for 36% of the British population. By 1851, only 10% of the British population was employed in agriculture, while over 40% was employed in industry (Hopkins, 36). As a direct result of this transformation, a surplus of jobs were created and displaced farming families moved in to fill them. Factory and Mine owners exploited the situation by offering families a means to make more money, by putting their children to work. Industry profited from this arrangement by saving money, since child labor was more “cost effective”. According to one historian, Clark Nardinelli, “in 1835 56,000 children under the age of thirteen were working in textile factories alone. By 1874, the number of child laborers in the market hit its peak with over 122,000 children between the ages of 10 and thirteen working in textile factories (4).”
The Industrial Revolution, as stated above, began in Europe. This may have been one of the reasons for the rapid growth and success of the revolution. At the time, Europe was the perfect starting ground. This was for three main reasons. First of all, agriculture in this region was flourishing. This allowed for the first “sparks” of innovation to occur. Secondly, due to this increased agriculture, the population in this region was larger. This created the minds and the work force behind the revolution. With all three of these combined, the industrial revolution was formed, allowing for numerous inventions and innovations.
In conclusion, the industrial revolution brought many changes to Britain. The changes included the textile industry, the steam powered engines, which helped create steam-powered locomotives and steam boats. Because of this major improvement in the industrial revolution railroads began to sprout and was a more efficient way to transport goods and people across Britain. The Industrial Revolution no doubt brought rapid changes to people’s lives in Britain.
The industrial revolution of 17th and 18th centuries saw the transformation of Britain from a Neolithic nation into an industrious nation. However, this spread quickly throughout the world, introducing the modernisation of agriculture, revolution in power and manufacturing of textile.
One of the darker causes for the Industrial Revolution was the slave trade with overseas colonies at the time. For many merchants who saw the easy money to be made from the voyages, the merchants became extremely rich – and as it is in human nature – these rich merchants wanted to become even more rich, the seemingly best way to do this was to invest profits from the slave trade into the new factories that were arising, this is called “Commercial Revolution”. Britain was one of the few countries that was able to bring in profits from other countries and keep profits in their country, aiding them into being the first country to Revolutionise Industrially.
Great Britain was the first country to experience industrialization due to its abundant natural resources such as coal and iron, immense expansion throughout the world and subsequent economic growth from trade, and its governmental and financial strength. The industrial revolution was fast and maintained strength in Great Britain, whereas other Western countries experienced industrialization much more gradually and with more difficulty, due to political, social, and economic instability. Great Britain’s natural resources were a major factor in its early industrialization. One of the main resources was the abundance of both coal and iron. These two elements could be easily used in many different aspects of industrialization, and the amount of each led innovators to use them in all aspects of manufacturing in order to lower costs.
First, Britain had some tremendous natural attributes. It was naturally endowed with many deposits of coal and iron ore, which were used heavily in the early stages of factory production. In addition, Britain was situated at a critical point for international trade. Its position between the United States and the rest of Europe allowed them to have a serious impact in all matters of trade. Likewise, a multitude of navigable waterways, easy access to the sea, and a mild climate all contributed to the onset of industrialism. Britain's topography was conducive to industrialism because its diversity allowed for the production of many agricultural products, preventing any sort of shortage or famine. Evans remarks, “Each single such advantage could be replicated in other European countries and some could be accentuated, but no other nation enjoyed such a rich combination of natural bounties” (111). Furthermore, the nation was free of many trade tariffs that hampered industry in other European nations while featuring a real opportunity for upward movement in society which provided a great incentive for acquiring wealth. Britain also experienced tremendous population growth which provided a potential workforce as well as an increase in the demand for goods.
Britain, specifically England, was a politically stable society at the time and became the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution for a number of other reasons. They had merchants who already had the capital for investing in the means of production and producing factories, they held more colonies than any other nation (some already rich in their own textile industries), they had the key raw materials needed for production, and there was a large number of readily available workers (Zmolek
In the late eighteenth century, the Industrial Revolution made its debut in Great Britain and subsequently spread across Europe, North America and the rest of the world. These changes stimulated a major transformation in the way of life, and created a modern society that was no longer rooted in agricultural production but in industrial manufacture. Great Britain was able to emerge as the world’s first industrial nation through a combination of 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.”