The Industrial Revolution in England

1. The Industrial Revolution in England

2. Roadmap • What’s the Industrial Revolution? • IR & technological progress • Results • Causes • The IR: a discontinuity? • Testing the two views on the IR

3. What was the IR? • The IR in England is one of history's great mysteries. The events are widely known but their interpretations are hotly contested. • First historical instance of the breakthrough from an agrarian, handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacture

4. The IR and Technological Progress • The heart of the IR was an interrelated succession of technological changes: • Use of mechanical devices for human skills • Use of inanimate power, in particular steam, instead of human and animal strength • Improvement in getting and working of raw materials -metallurgy and chemical industries. • New forms of industrial organization • Related to changes in equipment and processes. • Factory was a system of production. • New breed of worker following the demands of the clock.

5. Technological changes • Steam engine (power technology) • Metallurgy (iron and steel) • Textiles • Spinning • Weaving

6. Textiles - inventions

7. Spinning

8. Weaving

9. Causes • Institutions: free trade, elimination of regulations and medieval obstacles. • Agricultural change: increase in agricultural productivity due to technological change. • Demographic growth: growth of population in the 18th century increased the market. • Technological advance • Foreign trade: bigger market due to the colonies.

10. Results • Production of iron and textiles • Innovation • Efficiency

11. Results – Pig Iron Production

12. Results - Textiles

13. Results - Innovation

14. Results - Efficiency • Sudden appearance of a more rapid and sustained rate of efficiency advance than previously seen. • Textiles were the flagship industry of the IR • Spinning: • Old technology: 50,000 hours to spin 100 lbs of cotton. • With the mule only 300 hours in 1790s • efficiency in converting raw cotton into cloth increased fourteenfold from 1760s to 1860s (2.4% per year). • 1760s: 18 man-hours to transform a pound of cotton into cloth • 1860s: 1.5 man-hours

15. The IR in England: a discontinuity? • Two views on the IR in England: • Traditional view: Discontinuity (Toynbee, Ashton and Landes): • IR as a broad change in the British economy and society. • Modern view: gradual • the IR as a result of technical change in only a few industries (Crafts and Harley). • the IR as the result of evolutionary development that affected other European economies almost as much as England. It was the product of the gradual process of settled agrarian societies toward a more rational, economically oriented mindset (Clark).

16. So, it’s gradual, but how much? • GDP per capita growth: • Deane and Cole: 1780s-1860s: GDP per capita increased by about 2.5 times • Crafts and Harley: 1760-1860, output per worker doubled. • Clark: GDP per person grew 28% between 1700s and 1830s. • Productivity: • Crafts and Harley: 0.58% • Clark: 0.39%

17. Productivity growth by Clark

18. Testing the Two views • Use of the Ricardian model of international trade to test the nature of the IR (Temin) • Expected results: • Traditional view: • Britain should have been exporting other manufactures (other than cotton textiles and iron bars). • Comparative advantage in manufacturing. • Modern view: • Britain should have been importing the same goods in the early 19th century. • Comparative advantage in cotton and iron. • Other manufactures not exported because Britain lacked a comparative advantage in manufacturing in general.

19. Testing the Two Views -continued • The traditional view of the IR is more accurate than the new, restricted image. • Other British manufactures were not inefficient and stagnant, or at least they were not all stagnant. • The spirit that motivated cotton manufactures extended also to activities as varies as hardware and haberdashery, arms, and apparel.