The Causes of the Industrial Revolution 1750-1850.

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Friday 24th October 2003

The Causes of the Industrial Revolution 1750-1850

Nobody really knows exactly when the industrial revolution happened or what caused it, although it was roughly from 1750-1850 and was caused by many things, which are all linked in different ways. Each of these causes triggered a chain reaction of ideas, inventions and machines, all of which contributed to the industrial revolution. There are lots of causes and even today historians can't work out all the reasons why it happened. Therefore this essay will not talk about all of the aspects. It will talk about population growth, factories, agricultural improvements, inventions and inventors, key figures in the industrial revolution, transport improvements and the expansion of trade.

Population growth played a key role in helping the industrial revolution to happen. It created demand for new products which tempted many people to open factories. Also, before the 1700s most people lived in the country away from the cities with their own plot of land to grow food on. However by the 1800s when the industrial revolution was well underway, the population had tripled, due to agricultural improvements and the fact that there had been no epidemics or outbreaks of diseases, such as the plague. This meant that there was not enough space in the country for each family to have it's own plot of land and that people had to work for other people to earn a living. There was very little choice of employment and most people had to work in "Factories."
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Factories were one of the key elements of the industrial revolution. Instead of individual families working from home (which required skills) factories started employing large numbers of unskilled people to work there. This meant that the producers of goods, the factory owners, employed people to work on recently invented machines, on a very large scale. This gave the victims of the ever growing population, who were starving on the streets, a means to earn some money. In the factories people would usually work very long hours for very little pay, but they had no other choice. They could ...

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