The Industrial Revolution. Social relations after it

By the middle of the 18th century England became ripe for a turnover in industry known as the Industrial Revolution. Tremendous wealth accumulated in the country due to colonial warfare and expansion. The expansion of international trade, the growth of the home market led to the accumulation of capital in the City of London. The Bank of England having become a banker’s bank provided money for business purposes. Private banks were started in small towns. Manufacturers were now in an advantageous position. Their capital went to finance inventions, to build machines, roads, canals. The enclosure movement in the 18^th century created an abundant labour supply. Thousands of peasants migrated to the growing towns, where they were consumed by the growing industry. So it was imperative to revolutionise industry on a new basis.

The manufactories of the previous centuries could no longer satisfy the new demands. Large-scale machine production became an urgent necessity and the factory was to become the main new economic unit of production. The changes first affected textiles. A series of remarkable textile inventions soon caused England to become a world leader in producing cotton goods. The new machines required power to drive and the steam engine of James Watt was immediately applied to driving them. So steam-powered machine production in urban factories was the basic element in the pattern of British industrialism.

The social consequences of the Industrial Revolution were dramatic and far-reaching. The owners of the factories, or capitalists were assuming political and economic importance. English society was breaking up into two basic classes — the proletarians and the capitalists.

The Industrial Revolution was gaining strength all the time. But with it the situation of the workers became worse. Hand-workers were losing their jobs to the new mechanics and machines. They attributed them to the machines. Thus a movement emerged in the latter half of the eighteenth century which was associated with the destruction of the hateful machines. The weavers of Manchester, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire gathered in great numbers and began to destroy the looms. The movement known as Luddism (after the name of a certain apprentice (General) Ned Lud) began in 1779 in Nottingham and Sheffield. It spread quickly all throughout the industrial centres of England involving not only handloom weavers, but colliers and other workers. The movement reached its peak in the years between 1811 and 1816.

The English government took severe measures against the Luddites: many of the leaders were executed; the others received long prison sentences or were deported for semi-slave labour to the colonies. Eventually the movement was crushed. However, it was never forgotten: the seed of protest found later expression in the Chartist movement.

The age of the Industrial Revolution saw the origins of working-class organisations when the operatives began to form united groups to defend their economic rights. These were the first organisations of the emerging working-class which later in the nineteenth century formed the basis of the trade union movement in the country.

In 1760 George III (1760 — 1820) became king of England. His reign is associated with serious developments in England which were closely connected with the loss of the American colonies and the impact of the French bourgeois revolution of 1789.

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