The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain

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“The shift, during the 18th century, from making goods by hand to making them by machine.”

The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain in the late 18th century because of the country’s large labour supply, plentiful natural resources, and overseas markets for manufactured goods. Great Britain was during this time one of the world’s richest countries, and there were lots of rich men who wanted to invest in new companies. When many new companies and factories were started, Great Britain needed even more raw materials and natural resources which made it easy to spread and get more countries involved in the industrial revolution. These factors made Great Britain a perfect country to carry out the revolution.

The first industry to adopt the new factory system was the textile industry. Machines, as the Spinning Jenny (James Hargreaves, 1764), and the Flying Shuttle (John Kay, 1733), replaced human labour which led to faster manufacturing. The machines could do the work four times faster than human labour. But there were not only positive effects with the new machines. Children as young as five years old worked in the big factories and their small hands could easily be caught and injured in the big machines.

Cities grew rapidly as rural people sought factory jobs. They could not stay in the country because there were no jobs or transportations into the cities. This urbanization and rapid industrialization brought problems, which brought demand for reform. The need for new means of transportation grew.

The most important invention was the steam engine, invented 1709 by Thomas Newcomen, to pump water out of the mines. However James Watt got the honour. Watt made the steam engine more effective so that it could pump water at the same time it runs other machines. This invention was used to run the machines in for example the textile factories and to run the locomotives.

During the beginning of 19th century the first railway lines were built and the first locomotive to haul a train of wagons on rails was demonstrated in 1804 by Richard Trevithick. The train could not only carry goods but also workers, which did it possible for people to live in the country and work in the city. This lowered the urbanization of the country side.

During and after the industrial revolution the United Kingdom was to be called The Black Country, on account of that the industry used coal to run the steam engines and the locomotives which made the landscape dirty, and the cities grey, ugly, and really polluted.

The United States and Germany soon became leading industrial powers and millions of immigrants from Europe moved to the United States in search of occupation and opportunity.

Today’s industrialized countries and developing countries are connected with the industrialization. The manufacturing of goods has made some countries very rich, while countries that did not industrialize are very poor. Due to that, the industrial revolution still affects countries. The...