Alan Xiao 3R
What were the causes of the Industrial Revolution?
The Industrial revolution was a big change in the way people worked and goods produced. It began around 1775 in Britain and spread to Belgium, Germany, northern Italy, and France, and after 1850 to Japan and the USA. Machines in huge factories replaced the craft workers who used to make all kind of goods slowly, one by one, at home. People had to learn new jobs operating machines that could mass-produce very large quantities of clothes, shoes, paper, metal and wooden goods more quickly and cheaply than the hand workers could.
So by 1900, most goods were made in factories. Compared with in 1750, most goods were made in small workshops or at home. This meant that the goods couldn’t be mass produced and that they were made in small quantities. So that the idea was wide spread and no one would buy it. Also it couldn’t be further developed if less people knew about it.
The new industries made inventors and factory owners very rich indeed. The new industries also helped ordinary people as well, since many were poor, hungry and unemployed. Thousands left the countryside to live in fast, growing factory towns. Many hoped to find more pay and regular work. Wages in factories were far better than those on the farms, but factories were often dirty and dangerous and houses in factory towns were crowded, noisy and full of disease.
The main causes of the Industrial Revolution were the Entrepreneurs and Innovation. Britain at that time had talented inventors. The amount of inventors grew as they saw that these new scientific ideas could be used to invent machinery. As the inventors grew in population, so did the amount of inventions. The most important invention was the steam engine. It was developed by James Watt, to turn a wheel. This invention was to power machines in factories. This allowed the machines to work faster than an ordinary worker. This invention was so-called “Sun and Planet gear steam engine” His invention was mainly used in the cotton industry. But it was also had an important role in the powering of the first train, which was made by George and Robert Stephenson. The train was nicknamed “The Rocket” Other inventions such as Richard Arkwright’s water frame which played a role in the cotton industry. Arkwright's machine involved three sets of paired rollers that turned at different speeds. While these rollers produced yarn of the correct thickness, a set of spindles twisted the fibres firmly together. The machine was able to produce a thread that was far stronger than that made by the Spinning-Jenny produced by James Hargreaves. Later on Arkwright used the power of water rather than man. That’s how it was called the water frame. In the Iron industry, coke was applied to all stages of iron smelting, replacing charcoal, and producing pig iron. The Entrepreneurs were people who prepared to risk money in starting up new factories that had no guarantee of success, as they could see the potential profits to be made. Normally rich businessman would invest in these ideas. If the idea made profit, then the businessman would end up richer. The most famous entrepreneur is Richard Arkwright. He is credited with a list of inventions, but these were actually developed by people such as Thomas Highs and John Kay. Arkwright nurtured the inventors, patented the ideas, financed the initiatives, and protected the machines. He created the cotton mill which brought the production processes together in a factory, and he developed the use of power, first horse power and then water power which made cotton manufacture a mechanised industry. Before long steam power was applied to drive textile machinery.
