The Industrial Revolution.

5.4.1. By the middle of the XVIII century industry began to use coal for changing iron ore into good quality iron or steel. This laid the foundation for the Industrial Revolution. This made Britain the leading iron producer in Europe. Increased iron production made it possible to manufacture new machinery for other industries. In the middle of the century other countries were buying Brit­ish uniforms, equipment and weapons for their ar­mies.

5.4.2. The industry most often associated with the Industrial Revolution is the textile industry. A series of extraordinary innovations reduced and then replaced the human labor required to make cloth. British inventor John Kay created a device known as the flying shuttle, which partially mechanized the process of weaving. The British inventor and industrialist James Hargreaves had invented the spinning jenny, a machine that spins a number of threads at once. The most important results of these changes were enormous increases in the output of goods per worker. A single spinner or weaver, for example, could now turn out many times the volume of yarn or cloth that earlier workers had produced.

5.4.3. J ames Watt, a laboratory assistant from Scotland, developed a new type of steam engine. At first the engine was used only for stationary work, but later on it was modified by George Stephenson to drive locomotives. In 1825 the first railway was built. The development of technology was advanced further by outstanding engineers like Isambard Brunel. He was responsible for building more than 1,600 km of railway in the West Country, the Midlands, South Wales, and Ireland. His approach to engineering was always creative. Brunel Junior is best remembered for his outstanding contribution to marine engineering. Later in life, he designed three huge ships. The Great Eastern built in 1858 is probably the most well-known of the three. It was the largest steamship in the world in the second half of the XIX century.

5.4.4. The social consequences of the Industrial Revolution were dramatic and far-reaching. English society was breaking up into 2 basic classes – the owners of factories (the capitalists) and the workers (the proletarians). While the owners gained profits the working conditions were terrible and the wages were very small. Hand-workers were losing their jobs to the new machines. The enclosure movement created an abundant labour supply. Thousands of peasants became landless and ruined and were forced to migrate to the growing towns where they were consumed by the growing industry.

LECTURE 06

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