Economic expansion and population growth tend to be closely associated: the former seldom occurs without the latter. The accelerating increase in population which began in the mid-eighteenth century is one of the most striking changes of this period, (see fig.2). There was no full census of population in Great Britain before 1801 and no attempt was made to collect age data at the censuses until 1821, hence the population figures for the eighteenth century are imprecise. Although there are enough data available to provide reasonable estimates of the broad trends involved, the specific turning points cannot be located. For England and Wales the estimates are based on the returns of baptisms, marriages and burials. Estimates suggest that Britain's population had been gradually rising from 1500, with periods of increase that were recurrently interpreted by sudden dramatic peaks in the death rate - caused by epidemics, wars or harvest failures in the mid-eighteenth century, these dismal peaks became less and population grew after the 1740's (see figure 1). Thus it can be said that the growth in population cannot be attributed to an influx of people from countries but to a rise in fertility and a fall in mortality.
Between 1740 and 1820, the death rate fell almost continuously from an estimated 35.8 per 1000 for 1730-1740 to 21.1 per 1000 for 1811-1821. Many influences were operating to reduce the incidence of death. The introduction of root crops made it possible to feed more cattle in the winter months and so to supply fresh meat throughout the year. The substitution of wheat for inferior cereals and an increased consumption of vegetables, strengthened resistance to disease, and higher standards of personal cleanliness lessened the dangers in infection. The larger towns were paved, drained and supplied with running water, knowledge of medicine and surgery developed, hospitals and dispensaries increased and more attention was paid to such things as the disposal of refuse and the proper burial of the dead.
Influences on the birth rate are very much directly responsive to economic and social conditions: the rate of marriage (the numbers per 1000 who get married) increased and the average age of marriage decreased. It is suggested that the growth of population, through its effect on the demand for commodities, stimulated the expansion of industry. An increase of people, however, does not necessarily mean either a greater effective demand for manufactured goods or an increased production of commodities (as illustrated by Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century and in many of the underdeveloped countries today).
In Britain in the eighteenth century and later, it so happened that alongside this increase in population, there was taking place an increase in the other factors of production. As a result of this population growth, there was an increased availability of labour which was more mobile and becoming less peasant-orientated. This in itself was important as a predominantly large peasant community holds back progress due to the lack of investment. In this way, with peasants becoming less dominant, investment could expand and when combined with the innovation of others the economy could advance and encourage progress. It is apparent that without this boost in population, industry would have been retarded for lack of labour, and without the increase for demand there would have been less incentive to expand and innovate.
At the same time, there was taking place a rapid increase in capital available for investment. The number of people with incomes, more than sufficient to cover the primary needs of life, was growing. In addition, the power to save money was increasing
- a banking system began to mobilise savings more widely after 1750, thus it is clear that no shortage of savings threatened to constrain the process of economic growth in eighteenth century Britain. The country possessed a rich agriculture from which wealth flowed to investment for improving land and transport, and rising foreign trade from which this commercial wealth flowed to industry. Eighteenth century Britain was not in a position at all comparable to some underdeveloped countries of today, where the economic surplus is so small that the absolute shortage of savings can make the necessary increase in investment for economic growth difficult to achieve.
The increased mobility in capital was socially beneficial, leading, as it did, to a substantial fall in the rate of interest. Between 1625 and 1757, it had fallen from 10% to 3%. The fact that after 1780, the economy could finance both increasing industrialisation and a large war expenditure, without serious inflation confirms that this progress to an industrialised society was the result of a notable acceleration in capital accumulation.
The final 'factor of production' to have facilitated the process of industrialisation was the production of raw materials, with its ever progressing cotton and iron industries. Textile manufactures had constituted an important part of the English national produce for centuries. The cotton industry started out as a domestic one, being treated as a subsidiary occupation, until there was a marked improvement in the foreign market for cotton in the 1750's. This was largely due to the East India Company's difficulties in maintaining the Indian supply. This is the industry which Professor Rostow has described as the, 'original leading sector in the first take-off' to industrialisation, the pacemaker of industrial change. With regard to the iron industry, it is evident that there had to be some progress into industrialisation before this industry could develop and sustain an accelerating momentum comparable to that of the cotton industry. Britain had its own domestic source of iron ore, limestone and coal - all valuable mineral resources necessary for the manufacturing of the iron industry. Through demand for these raw materials, there became an associated demand for transport facilities.
The development of a substantially new transport system was a distinctive feature of the growing economy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This development was a consequence of the growth of towns with their increasing demands for basic food and fuel supplies which had to be drawn from further afield. It can be said that without these improvements, the economy's richest natural resources may have remained inaccessible and underdeveloped.
A sophisticated economy, such as Britains, with its numerous and specialised towns and its specialised farming regions, needed a complex network for industrialisation to proceed. Water transport was far cheaper than land transport in the eighteenth century, so bulky goods went by water if possible. Britain's long, indented coastline, interrupted by a number of navigable rivers was therefore a valuable economic asset. The development of canals can be regarded as one of the foundations of industrialisation, (see fig.3). Roads were extended and improved throughout the eighteenth century, with the growth of turnpikes; they decreased travelling times and therefore reduced the prices of commodities, (see fig.4). These transport improvements affected the productivity of the economy as a whole as they were absolutely crucial in facilitating the cost-reducing innovations that characterized industrialisation. Other developments in transport-railways, steamships, tram-cars, motor-cars and aeroplanes-have had complex economic consequences for Britain's role in the process of industrialisation.
One of the ways, the commonest way perhaps, by which an economy can develop from a pre-industrial to an industrial state is to exploit the opportunities open to it from international trade. In widening the potential market for domestic producers, a country is broadening its economic horizons which creates an incentive to greater productive activity and helps dismantle the economic inertia which often inhibits progress. By the eighteenth century, Britain was self-supporting in foodstuffs and was an exporter of grain. Trade with foreign countries involved the imports of timber, bar iron and hemp for building and maintaining ships; silk, cotton and dyestuffs for the textile industries; and rum, sugar, tea, coffee and tobacco for consumption. In return, Britain manufactured goods of all kinds especially those made of wool, iron and leather. Foreign trade precipitated the process of industrialisation as it created a demand for the products of British industry; it gave access to raw materials which both widened the range and cheapened the products of British industry; it provided poor, underdeveloped countries with the purchasing power to buy British goods; it provided an economic surplus which helped to finance industrial expansion and agricultural improvement; it helped create a business ethic that promoted home-trade as well as foreign trade; and finally, it helped the expansion of large towns and industrial centres.
For all of these factors to work together, other improvements needed to take place and this included the attitudes of the British population. With all the advancements in technology, production and organisation, it was down to the people to show an interest and undertake in business ventures for the nation to work as a whole. Hence it was the willingness of capitalists to invest that played a significant role in the progress towards industrialist society. It was the non-conformists that constituted 50% of earlier capitalists (1780/1790) as their beliefs prevented them from owning land, holding rank in the government and from joining the army, as an officer. In this way, the only option for many was to enter into the field of business and hence create economic growth for their nation.
There are two different views of the role of the state - 'laissez-faire' and interventionist. The conventional view is that minimum state involvement and laissez-faire produces a fertile environment for economic change and the other view is that government intervention is necessary to maximise national prosperity. However in the eighteenth century, Britain became a major military power, acquiring an extensive empire and dominating many branches of world trade. A new kind of British state emerged with a fully organised fiscal and military apparatus, heavy taxation and a professional bureaucracy. The states activity, at this time, was almost all directed at external policy. Internally, the maintenance of order and justice and much economic and social regulation were dealt with locally and the state's power was diffused with a patronage system. The economic activities of the state were sufficient to create an important redistribution of income, to stimulate industry and other sectors of the economy and to support institutions which were of long term significance to the economy as a whole, enhancing the progress of industrialisation.
In the early 1970's, a fresh notion contributed to studies on the origins of industrialisation - this new phenomena has been labelled proto-industrialisation, that is the first phase of industrialisation. It marks the period between feudalistic and capitalist societies. It has been called rural industrialisation because it took place initially in areas of high ground and infertile soils where loose systems of inheritance and population growth created an increasingly proletarianised group whose livelihood could only be supported by manufacturing sidelines. Hence there existed a myriad of small workshops in Britain producing basic consumer goods. Proto-industries can be seen to have paved the way for the development of modern industrialisation, in that there was a reservoir of technical knowledge that could be adapted to modern industry, an abundance of capital from the proto-industrial merchants and an increase in population and hence it became cheaper to re-organise production in central workshops. This is a complex theory to interpret as it is relatively new and as it deals with regions which are difficult to define. It can therefore be said that the proto-industrialisation theory may be useful in understanding the transition to industrial capitalism in the whole of Britain, but not in individual regions.
There are many reasons why other countries in Europe weren't the innovators of industrialisation. In the eighteenth century, many countries in Europe were preoccupied with the Napoleonic Wars (they didn't reach Britain). This involvement prevented them from developing their economies in a way that aided the process of industrialisation in Britain. Additionally, before the 1870's, Germany and Italy were predominantly fragmentations of agrarian states. This social and political disunity hindered the course of economic unity and development that Britain was following at the time. Furthermore, Britain was the first European country to become a colonial empire, thus gaining access to a larger availability of raw materials, enhancing its development, which the rest of Europe didn't gain until later.
The process of industrialisation implies that an Industrial Revolution took place in Britain. This is a notion, in itself, that causes speculation and confusion as it insinuates that there was radical change in a definable time period. This metaphor has long been recognised as misleading, because rather than be labelled a revolution, it should be more relevantly understood as a transition. Industrialisation can be seen as a culmination of movements already long underway as Heaton (1932) states that,
"A revolution which continued for 150 years and had been in preparation for at least another 150 years may well seem to need a new label."
It can therefore be seen that the factors which contributed to industrialisation in Britain were part of a complex, mutually re-enforcing relationship, which incorporated the influences of chance and took advantage of a potentially favourable situation that existed at the time. Britain was to become the prototype for all other industrialised countries, an example which they found hard to follow, and the innovator of change that led to a whole new era of history.
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REFERENCES
1) Landes,D.S. (1969) p42.
2) Heaton,H. (1932), cited by Hudson,P. (1992) p13.
