The Industrial Revolutions(s) unquestionably began in Great Britain. But why? What was it about the British Isles that led to such an incredibly significant social, cultural, economic, and technological shift during the 18th and 19th centuries? During this task, you’ll work to understand some of the reasons why Great Britain was the first country to industrialize.
1. Beginning at the End.
This early industrialization of Great Britain is clearly a central part of modern British self-identity. If you don’t believe me, just watch this opening segment from the 2010 London Olympics– traditionally, the host country uses their Opening Ceremony to represent some aspect of their national history. The portion of British history the UK chose to represent was the transition to an industrial society. Watch at least the first ten minutes of this segment, called “Pandemonium” by its director Danny Boyle, and then answer the associated questions in your packet. Pay close attention to what the director might or might not being saying about the consequences of industrialization:
1. Beginning at the End.
This early industrialization of Great Britain is clearly a central part of modern British self-identity. If you don’t believe me, just watch this opening segment from the 2010 London Olympics– traditionally, the host country uses their Opening Ceremony to represent some aspect of their national history. The portion of British history the UK chose to represent was the transition to an industrial society. Watch at least the first ten minutes of this segment, called “Pandemonium” by its director Danny Boyle, and then answer the associated questions in your packet. Pay close attention to what the director might or might not being saying about the consequences of industrialization:
Now that you perhaps have an understanding of the importance of the Industrial Revolution(s) to both Britain and the rest of the world, let’s look at some of the primary reasons why industrialization begins in Great Britain.
2. Major Reason #1: Population Growth
First, read the following article: “Overview: Empire and Seapower, 1714 – 1837: Population Explosion.” You only need to read the portion of the article which deals with the demographic changes of Britain during the 1700 and 1800s. Use the information in this article to answer the associated questions in your packet.
Then, please analyze the two following graphs of population and life expectancy in Britain in the 18th century and answer the associated questions in your packet. These graphs are derived from The Economic History of Britain since 1700, volume 1: 1700-1860, “British population in the eighteenth century,” by R.D. Lee and R.S. Schofield, published by Cambridge University Press in 1981.
2. Major Reason #1: Population Growth
First, read the following article: “Overview: Empire and Seapower, 1714 – 1837: Population Explosion.” You only need to read the portion of the article which deals with the demographic changes of Britain during the 1700 and 1800s. Use the information in this article to answer the associated questions in your packet.
Then, please analyze the two following graphs of population and life expectancy in Britain in the 18th century and answer the associated questions in your packet. These graphs are derived from The Economic History of Britain since 1700, volume 1: 1700-1860, “British population in the eighteenth century,” by R.D. Lee and R.S. Schofield, published by Cambridge University Press in 1981.
3. Major Reason #2: Finance and Property
First, let’s start by looking at the beginnings of industrial capitalism. Please watch the Crash Course video on Capitalism and Socialism, and answer the associated questions in your packet.
First, let’s start by looking at the beginnings of industrial capitalism. Please watch the Crash Course video on Capitalism and Socialism, and answer the associated questions in your packet.
Next, please read the following passage from Adam Smith’s seminal work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. Use the following to answer the associated questions in your packet.
Some of the best English writers upon commerce set out with observing, that the wealth of a country consists, not in its gold and silver only, but in its lands, houses, and consumable goods of all different kinds. In the course of their reasoning, however, the lands, houses, and consumable goods seem to slip out of their memory, and the strain of their argument frequently supposes that all wealth consists in gold and silver, and that to multiply those metals is the great object of national industry and commerce. The two principles being established, however, that wealth consisted in gold and silver, and that those metals could be brought into a country which had no mines only by the balance of trade, or by exporting to a greater value than it imported; it necessarily became the great object of political economy to diminish as much as possible the importation of foreign goods for home consumption, and to increase as much as possible the exportation of the produce of domestic industry. Its two great engines for enriching the country, therefore, were restraints upon importation, and encouragements to exportation….
BY restraining, either by high duties, or by absolute prohibitions, the importation of such goods from foreign countries as can be produced at home, the monopoly of the home market is more or less secured to the domestic industry employed in producing them. Thus the prohibition of importing either live cattle or salt provisions from foreign countries secures to the grazers of Great Britain the monopoly of the home market for butcher’s meat. The high duties upon the importation of grain, which in times of moderate plenty amount to a prohibition, give a like advantage to the growers of that commodity. The prohibition of the importation of foreign woollens is equally favorable to the woollen manufacturers. The silk manufacture, though altogether employed upon foreign materials, has lately obtained the same advantage. The linen manufacture has not yet obtained it, but is making great strides towards it. Many other sorts of manufacturers have, in the same manner, obtained in Great Britain, either altogether, or very nearly a monopoly against their countrymen….That this monopoly of the home-market frequently gives great encouragement to that particular species of industry which enjoys it, and frequently turns towards that employment a greater share of both the labor and stock of the society than would otherwise have gone to it, cannot be doubted. But whether it tends either to increase the general industry of the society, or to give it the most advantageous direction, is not, perhaps, altogether so evident….
THOUGH the encouragement of exportation, and the discouragement of importation, are the two great engines by which the mercantile system proposes to enrich every country, yet with regard to some particular commodities, it seems to follow an opposite plan: to discourage exportation and to encourage importation. Its ultimate object, however, it pretends, is always the same, to enrich the country by an advantageous balance of trade. It discourages the exportation of the materials of manufacture, and of the instruments of trade, in order to give our own workmen an advantage, and to enable them to undersell those of other nations in all foreign markets; and by restraining, in this manner, the exportation of a few commodities, of no great price, it proposes to occasion a much greater and more valuable exportation of others. It encourages the importation of the materials of manufacture, in order that our own people may be enabled to work them up more cheaply, and thereby prevent a greater and more valuable importation of the manufactured commodities….
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. The maxim is so perfectly self-evident, that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it. But in the mercantile system, the interest of the consumer is almost constantly sacrificed to that of the producer; and it seems to consider production, and not consumption, as the ultimate end and object of all industry and commerce….
In the system of laws which has been established for the management of our American and West Indian colonies the interest of the home-consumer has been sacrificed to that of the producer with a more extravagant profusion than in all our other commercial regulations. A great empire has been established for the sole purpose of raising up a nation of customers who should be obliged to buy from the shops of our different producers, all the goods with which these could supply them. For the sake of that little enhancement of price which this monopoly might afford our producers, the home-consumers have been burdened with the whole expense of maintaining and defending that empire. For this purpose, and for this purpose only, in the two last wars, more than two hundred millions have been spent, and a new debt of more than a hundred and seventy millions has been contracted over and above all that had been expended for the same purpose in former wars. The interest of this debt alone is not only greater than the whole extraordinary profit, which, it ever could be pretended, was made by the monopoly of the colony trade, but than the whole value of that trade, or than the whole value of the goods, which at an average have been annually exported to the colonies. It cannot be very difficult to determine who have been the contrivers of this whole mercantile system; not the consumers, we may believe, whose interest has been entirely neglected; but the producers, whose interest has been so carefully attended to; and among this latter class our merchants and manufacturers have been by far the principal architects.
The importation of gold and silver is not the principal much less the sole benefit which a nation derives from its foreign trade. Between whatever places foreign trade is carried on, they all of them derive two distinct benefits from it. It carries out that surplus part of the produce of their land and labor for which there is no demand among them, and brings back in return for it something else for which there is a demand. It gives a value to their superfluities by exchanging them for something else, which may satisfy a part of their wants, and increase their enjoyments. By means of it, the narrowness of the home market does not hinder the division of labor in any particular branch of art or manufacture from being carried to the highest perfection. By opening a more extensive market for whatever part of the produce of their labor may exceed the home consumption, it encourages them to improve its productive powers and to augment its annual produce to the utmost, and thereby to increase the real revenue and wealth of the society.
4. Major Reason #3: Natural Environment
First, examine the maps below of some of Britain’s natural features. Use these maps to answer the associated questions in your packet.
First, examine the maps below of some of Britain’s natural features. Use these maps to answer the associated questions in your packet.
Now, examine the following map. Using the information from the above maps and the information you have learned thus far about the Industrial Revolution(s) in Great Britain, answer the associated questions in your packet.
5. What Do You Think?
Please use what you have learned during this task in order to complete the following poll. There is no correct answer:
Please use what you have learned during this task in order to complete the following poll. There is no correct answer:
Now, let’s talk specifics and move on to Task Three: The First Industrial Revolution.