Q. Explain why England became the harbinger of Industrial Revolution. Also throw light on its social consequences. [Syllabus topic: Industrial revolution, UPSC-GS1]

Q. Explain why England became the harbinger of Industrial Revolution. Also throw light on its social consequences.
Ans:

In Industrial Revolution, which started in England in the 18th century, machines changed people’s way of life as well as their methods of manufacturing.

England became the harbinger of Industrial Revolution:

• The Agricultural Revolution:
  • Enclosure Movement:
    • The Enclosure Movement was a push in the 18th to take land that had formerly been owned in common by all members of a village and change it to privately owned land, usually with walls, fences or hedges around it.
    • The enclosure of common village fields into individual landholdings, or the division of unproductive land into private property concentrated the ownership of the land into the hands of a few, and made it possible to institute improved farming techniques on a wider scale.
  • The improved yields also increased the amount of food available to sustain livestock through the winter.
    • This increased the size of herds for meat and allowed farmers to begin with larger herds than they had previously.
  • Other advances in agriculture included the use of sturdier farm implements fashioned from metal, control of insects, improved irrigation and farming methods, developing new crops and the use of horsepower in the fields to replace oxen as a source of power.
  • These changes which have occurred in agriculture made it possible to feed all of the people that were attracted to the industrial centrers as factory workers. ©crackingcivilservices.com
  • By providing enough food to sustain an adequate work force, England was preparing the way for expansion of the economy and industry.
• Population Growth and British Empire:
  • The upshot of Britain’s success in the global economy was the expansion of rural manufacturing industries and rapid urbanization leading to population growth.
  • Growing population resulted in more people from the countryside being freed up to work for wages in the new cities— and eventually increased demand for products such as clothing.
  • This expansion depended on:
    • vigorous imperialism, which expanded British possessions abroad,
    • the Royal Navy, which defeated competing naval and mercantile powers, and
    • the Navigation Acts, which excluded foreigners from the colonial trades.
  • The British Empire was designed to stimulate the British economy–and it did. Colonies worked as a source of raw material as well as market for finished goods.
• Government Policies:
  • Government policies in England toward property and commerce encouraged innovation and the spread of global trade.
  • The government created patent laws that allowed inventors to benefit financially from the “intellectual property” of their inventions.
  • The British government also encouraged global trade by expanding the Navy to protect trade and granting monopolies or other financial incentives to companies so they would explore the world to find resources.
• Financial Innovations, risk taking private sector and presence of enterprising people:
  • Financial institutions such as central banks, stock markets, and joint stock companies encouraged people to take risks with investments, trade, and new technologies.
  • Businessmen were willing to take a chance on new things and they were also supported by the government.
  • Enterprising people can invest, manage large enterprises and labour force.
• The Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution:
  • It encouraged scholars and craftspeople to apply new scientific thinking to mechanical and technological challenges.
  • In the centuries before the Industrial Revolution, Europeans gradually incorporated science and reason into their world view. These intellectual shifts made English culture, in particular, highly receptive to new mechanical and financial ideas.
• Practical bent of mind of the English Researchers:
  • They made inventions keeping in view the needs of the time.
  • This was in complete contrast to the continental scientists who concentrated on research in chemicals etc. which were not of immediate applies relevance. France made luxurious items which had limited demand.
• Better means of transport:
  • Government spent a considerable amount on the improvement of roads, canals etc.
  • New method of road making:
    • creating a firm foundation by dumping large stones in road bed and then covering with smaller stones and then with gravel and clay.
    • Such road can withstand heavy loads and much traffic.
  • Navigable Rivers and Canal in Great Britain quickened the pace and cheapened the cost of transportation of raw materials and finished products.
• Availability of Coal and Iron mines:
  • Coal and Iron deposits were plentiful in Great Britain and proved essential to the development of all new machines made of iron or steel and powered by coal—such as the steam-powered machinery in textile factories, and the locomotive.
  • The availability of cheap coal and iron ores in large quantities helped growth of numerous industries.
• World Trade:
  • Success in international trade created Britain’s high wage, cheap energy economy, and it was the spring board for the Industrial Revolution.
    • High wages and cheap energy created a demand for technology that substituted capital and energy for labour. These incentives operated in many industries.
• Availability of capital:
  • England accumulated capital from trade and agricultural surplus which enabled her to make large outlays on machinery and building.
  • England also possessed a large loanable capital obtained by Bank of England from rich trade with other countries and National Debt at a nominal rate of interest.
• The Cottage Industry
  • It served as a transition from a rural to an industrial economy.
  • Like the later industrial factories, the cottage industry relied on wage labor, cloth production, tools and rudimentary machines, and a market to buy and sell raw materials (cotton) and finished products (clothes).
  • The damp, mild weather conditions of the North West of England provided ideal conditions for the spinning of cotton, providing a natural starting point for the birth of the textiles industry.
• Political and societal factors:
  • The stable political situation in Britain from around 1688 (after Glorious Revolution), and British society’s greater receptiveness to change (when compared with other European countries) can also be said to be factors favouring the Industrial Revolution.
  • Unlike Germany or Italy, England was not politically fragmented.
  • England was one of the earliest in abolishing slavery which had positive social and economic impact.
• Geographical factor:
  • The island geography (an island separated from the rest of mainland Europe) provided favourable protection from predation on a national scale.
  • Since it was away from European continent, it did not indulge in useless war of the European continent which gave it relative political and economic stability.
  • Any conflict resulted in most British warfare being conducted overseas, reducing the devastating effects of territorial conquest that affected much of Europe.
• Napoleonic Wars:
  • Blockade by Napoleon against British trade and any British import pushed Britain for further innovation to be self-reliance.
  • Britain emerged from the Napoleonic Wars as the only European nation not ravaged by financial plunder and economic collapse, and possessing the only merchant fleet of any useful size (European merchant fleets having been destroyed during the war by the Royal Navy).
  • It is said that: “Napoleon career enabled Industrial Revolution to go forward in England and Industrial Revolution enabled England to overthrow Napoleon.”
• English church got itself separated from Roman catholic church:
  • In England, church land was confiscated and 1/4th of national resources were brought into productive use.
• Protestant Work Ethics:
  • British advance was also due to the presence of an entrepreneurial class which believed in progress, technology and hard work. ©crackingcivilservices.com
  • The existence of this class is often linked to the Protestant work ethic and the particular status of dissenting Protestant sects.

Social consequences of Industrial Revolution

• Widening social gap between rich and poor:
  • One of the most influential social changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution; a widening of the gap between the rich and the poor.
  • Through the new market enterprise, those in charge continuously took advantage of the less fortunate, gaining wealth without fail. Whereas those who were poor only continued to become more so.
• Working conditions:
  • The working class—who made up majority of society—had little or no bargaining power with their new employers. The new factory owners could set the terms of work because there were far more unskilled laborers, who had few skills and would take any job, than there were jobs for them.
  • Since the textile industries were so new at the end of the 18th century, there were initially no laws to regulate them. Desperate for work, the migrants to the new industrial towns had no bargaining power to demand higher wages, fairer work hours, or better working conditions.
  • Worse still, since only wealthy people in Great Britain were eligible to vote, workers could not use the democratic political system to fight for rights and reforms. In 1799 and 1800, the British Parliament passed the Combination Acts, which made it illegal for workers to unionize, or combine, as a group to ask for better working conditions.
  • Many of the unemployed or underemployed were skilled workers became useless because they could not compete with the efficiency of the new textile machines.
  • For the first generation of workers—from the 1790s to the 1840s—working conditions were very tough, and sometimes tragic. Most laborers worked 10 to 14 hours a day, six days a week, with no paid vacation or holidays.
  • Each industry had safety hazards too. Under dangerous conditions, accidents on the job occurred regularly.
• Worker’s Income:
  • Life did not improved for the working class in the first phase of the Industrial Revolution, from 1790 to 1840. Real wages also did not increase for workers during this time period.
  • But, after 1840 or 1850, as England entered the second phase of the Industrial Revolution, it appears that real wages began to increase. Also working conditions slightly improved.
• Living conditions:
  • Working in new industrial cities had an effect on people’s lives outside of the factories as well. As workers migrated from the country to the city, their lives and the lives of their families were utterly and permanently transformed.
  • For workers, the quality of life decreased a great deal during the Industrial Revolution. Working-class people had little time or opportunity for recreation.
  • Living conditions were, by far, worst for the poorest of the poor. In desperation, many turned to the “poorhouses” set up by the government. The Poor Law of 1834 created workhouses for the destitute. Poorhouses were designed to be deliberately harsh places to discourage people from staying on “relief” (government food aid). Families, including husbands and wives, were separated upon entering the grounds. They were confined each day as inmates in a prison.
• Urban overcrowding and diseases:
  • Despite the growth in wealth and industry, urbanization had some negative effects. On the whole, working-class neighborhoods were bleak, crowded, dirty, and polluted.
  • In the first half of the 19th century, urban overcrowding, poor diets, poor sanitation, and essentially medieval medical remedies all contributed to very poor public health for the majority of English people.
  • The densely packed and poorly constructed working-class neighborhoods contributed to the fast spread of disease.
• Women:
  • Before the Industrial Revolution farm women and girls made a living for their families; spinning yarn, weaving cloth etc. However, with the new technology in manufacturing goods, these women were displaced by factories that could produce the same products at a much quicker pace and at greater quantities. While these factories took away one part of their livelihood, they attempted to make up for it by offering employment to them.
  • Long hours in the factories, year after year, led to a physically and emotional premature breakdown of these women. When it came time to raise their own children who were to be the next generation, many times they had to continue working or were ill after the added stress that child birth put on them.
• Child Labor:
  • Industrial working-class families, though not working together, did serve an economic purpose of raising money to support each other. Children and women often worked to earn some income for the family.
  • Child labor was the cheapest labor of all. Some of these machines were so easy to operate that a small child could perform the simple, repetitive tasks.
  • The tedious and dangerous factory work had negative effects on the health of children.
• The Emerging Middle Class:
  • Gradually, a middle class emerged in industrial cities, mostly toward the end of the 19th century.
  • However new urban industries gradually required more of “white collar” jobs, such as business people, shopkeepers, bank clerks, insurance agents, merchants, accountants, managers, doctors, lawyers, and teachers.
• Other effects of Industrialisation:
  • Capitalism and two class society (Proletariat: Wage Earners. Bourgeois: Capitalists) were by product of Industrial Revolution.
  • Industrial Revolution gave rise to new colonialism to search for more market and source for raw material.
  • Socialism emerged as a critique of capitalism. Marxism began essentially as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution.
  • Trade Unionism of workers developed due to Industrial Revolution.
  • Reforms movements and Chartism in Britain was also result of Industrial Revolution.
  • Many new philosophic doctrines developed due to ill effects of Industrial Revolution including Socialism, Romanticism.
  • Ecological effect:
    • It was the fossil fuel coal that fueled the Industrial Revolution, forever changing the way people would live and utilize energy.
    • While this propelled human progress to extraordinary levels, it came at extraordinary costs to our environment, and ultimately to the health of all living things.
  • Reforms for Change in Britain:
    • During the Industrial Revolution, factories were criticized for long work hours, deplorable conditions, and low wages.
    • Finally seeing a problem, the British parliament passed many acts. The first factory act Health and Morals of Apprentices Act 1802 tried to help the condition for workers.
    • British Parliament set up a commission in 1832 to investigate child labor in factories. As a result, the government passed The Factory Act of 1833 to regulate excessive child labor.
      • The Factory Act of 1833
      • Mines and Collieries Act 1842
      • Factories Act 1844
      • Ten Hours Bill 1847
    • Reform in education sector:
      • As the British government increasingly regulated child labor in factories, they also gradually instituted a public school system.
      • The 1870 Education Act set up school districts.
      • The 1880 Education Act made school compulsory for children up to age 10.
    • Reform in health sector:
      • The British government addressed public health by passing regulatory laws to curb the ills of working-class urban living.
      • The Public Health Act of 1848 set up local health boards, investigated sanitary conditions nationwide.
    • Other reforms:
      • Artisans’ Dwelling Act (1875) which allowed for a large clearance of slums in England. In 1888 local government was introduced to England.
      • Medical tests for pupils at schools and free treatment provided (1907).
      • Workers were compensated for injuries at work (1906).
      • In 1908 old age pension was introduced for those over 70.
      • In 1911 the government introduced the National Insurance Act that provided insurance for workers in time of sickness. ©crackingcivilservices.com