Q.

Industrialization in BRITAIN
Agriculture in the 18th Century England
In England, improvements in agricultural productivity could be seen from the rising crop yields per acre, and
from a greater diversification in agriculture and specialization of particular areas. More corn was produced
along with a rise in animal husbandry. Though there was an over production crisis for the more specialized
corn producers between 1730 and 1750s, the fundamental improvements continued to spread at an
accelerated pace after the mid-18th century. As the economic advantages of enclosures became more
apparent, the government comprising great landlords, overcame most of the obstacles to open field
farming, including present tenures. The holders of these large lands, had the resources as well as the
desire to introduce innovations so as to get more profit from their land. After the mid-18th century, when the
corn prices moved up after a long-term stability, the large tenant farmers and their landlords, expanded
corn production. In Eastern countries, they ploughed up the old commons and waste with corn. The
improvements in fodder crops and the rearing of more Welsh and Scottish cattle, led to an increase in meat
and dairy produce.
The agrarian change in England was associated with the rapid movement away from a society of peasants
to one of middling and large farmers, who were employing a little wage labour and producing for the
market. In England after the 1760s, the rapid adaption of capitalist farmers to a rising demand for corn,
increased its supply and greatly augmented the incomes of the farmers and landlords.
The agricultural improvements in the 18th century was the work of a number of pioneers, publicists, country
gentlemen, owner occupiers and large tenant farmers, rather than by large landlords. But it was the
enlightened landlords who provided fixed capital and security of tenure so that improvement could extend.
The essential contribution of the landlord were provision of fixed capital and creation of a favourable
environment for the adoption of better farming. As in agriculture, in industry to the landlords encouraged
enterprise and efficiency, and provided the basic capital facilities necessary for progress. Though they were
not prominent as innovators, it was their attitude towards economic development which was of great
significance. But in some vital spheres of economy, e.g. mining, iron, transport and agriculture, their role
was crucial, especially in their attitude. To a great extent the interest of landlords in commercial industrial
activity was a logical extension of the development of their estates. In general, there was no sharp
separation between agriculture and non-agricultural activities, and some agricultural products such as wool,
malting. barley, hides and tallow, formed the vital raw materials of large industries, while the demesne
woods served a variety of useful purposes from the making of furniture to the tanning of leather. The mining
of coal, the establishment of iron works or quarrying of building stone, were a part of estate exploitation, as
letting of land was to tenant farmers.
In the late 18th century, the landlords resorted to the courts to obtain full rights to minerals under commons
and wasteland, and bought out the small freeholders or customary tenants, whose rights hindered
exploitation. The development of mining was also a factor in the decline of peasant ownership. But some of
the landlords did oppose schemes which encouraged development of internal transport, believing that an
improved communication would increase competition in their local markets and cause prices and rents to
fall.
These advances in agriculture did not shatter the traditional framework of the pre-industrial economy,
though agriculture remained the most important economic activity before 1750, and even after. Though
food prices were high, in spite of improvements in the real income, these were not sufficient to generate a
pressure of demand before 1750 which could be strong enough to bring about a fundamental breakthrough
in the economic development. Since neither population, nor the export trades were growing very much after
1700, the effective demand in the economy could be raised only by growth of incomes at home. The real
transformation of the economy came after 1750 when growing agricultural productivity, accelerating
population growth and the expansion of overseas trade occurred simultaneously.
Still, Britain's greater emphasis on agricultural exports between 1700 and 1750, did influence its economic
triumphs indirectly in the next century. It was the conscious focus on foreign trade (grain) that led to
Britain's emphasis on the navy and the colonies, which in turn helped the overall British economy to
succeed against the French. Agricultural expansion by itself did not provide a strong stimulus to economic
development since it did not cater to an elastic demand. So, introduction of improved methods of
production did not increase sales except through diversification of crops and specialization. Indirectly,
though, agricultural expansion helped generate additional demands for transport and communications, here
too, other factors influenced it, i.e. expansion of coal shipments between London and Newcastle.
So, though there were developments in agricultural techniques and organization and an increase in the
agricultural output, the English economy before 1750, was not transformed. But such conditions did
prepare the way for the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th century. This was done by permitting the
gradual release of factors of production into industry and commerce, by contributing to a modest rise in the
effective demand among the wage earners and the receivers of incomes from non-agricultural sources, and
also by fostering the growth of a market economy.
Regional specialization in agriculture depended on a system of good communication to distribute its
products. Few major agricultural products could bear the cost of long distance transport except by
waterway. If supplies from outside were not assured, the regions specializing in produce other than corn,
would starve. In England no point was a great distance from the sea as it was in France. From 1660,
improvements in river navigation took place, which were further accelerated in the 18th century. London on
Thames, depended for its food on the surrounding region, while the Great Ouse and its many tributaries
carried corn from Eastern England to various English ports. In the North, the rivers Trent and Ouse, carried
goods to Humber and the sea. But these river improvements were not wholly for agricultural purposes and
were carried out to transfer lead from the Pennines to the sea; to provide cheaper transport for the wool
and the woollens of the Yorkshire manufacturing area; to bring Cheshire salt down to the Mersey and Dee
estuaries; to open up the Midland coalfields; above all, to carry corn and fodder and transfer the corn from
surplus to deficit areas, and thus generally level down the price differences all over the country. The further
improvements in river navigation in the 1740s and 1760s, and the beginning of canal building with the
Sankey Navigation of 1757 and the Bridgewater Canal of 1761—67, were prompted mostly by the need to
bring food and raw materials to the rising districts of the North and the Birmingham area. Road
improvements also began to strengthen the links of towns with the waterways and accelerated long
distance passenger traffic.
In the 18th century, the agricultural sector in England, accounted for 40 to 50 per cent of the national
production so that its state affected the industrial sector of the economy. Modern historians see the
important economic developments in the 17th and 18th centuries, as a result of the long-term advance and
the short term fluctuations of agriculture. Generally speaking, agriculture was overwhelmingly dominated by
corn production, and the demand for corn was also very inelastic (fixed). In the densely populated parts of
Southern and Midland England, agriculture was dominated by corn production, though not so in the hilly
parts of England, where other crops were also grown. In England, during the first half of the 18th century,
the quantity of other crops was being increased. Regarding the inelastic demand for corn, corn was
essential (in flour and bread, etc.) and so after enough had been bought, whatever the price, people spent
the rest of their income on other food or on industrial products. So change in incomes was affected by
prices of grain. Cheaper grain meant less profit, and vice versa, and it greatly influenced the total of all
incomes that were available to be spent on agriculture as well as on manufacturing services and imported
goods (cheaper grain for wage earners meant far more money for other items). The large capitalist farmer
could divert resources away from corn production if long-term prospects seemed bad (a series of good
harvests led to a drop in corn prices). The small peasant usually interested in producing enough corn to
feed his family, since his rent and other expenses were met from the proceeds of subsidiary products such
as grapes, flax, pig, by wage labour or industrial employment. Good crops did add to the peasant income
apart from by-employments. In a year of cheap corn, the people spent less on corn and hence more on
other foodstuffs, while the same peasant would get more money for his sale of other produce. When
English writers of the 18th century wrote about a series of good harvests being harmful to producers, they
were really thinking only of the big fanners. Most of the English people even in the 1 8th century, belonged
to small and modest or even poor subsistence peasants, who usually gained from a harvest of cheap corn.
The effects of lowered corn prices on other incomes, i.e. wage earners were favourable. Half the population
in England were regular wage earners but since wages of both land or industrial labourers did not fall along
with food prices, with incomes maintained, the wage earners could buy more things, so that their total
additional demands were large. English writers emphasize expansion in the demand for industrial goods as
being due to this reason. But Ralph Davis (Davis: 1973) believed that the wage earners would rather
improve the quality of their food, and that rural labourers and workers in small towns would rather buy their
local products, than those of national or large scale industries. So, according to Ralph Davis, in England the
wage earners were not the ones to make a large contribution to the industrial demand.
Some English historians believe that good harvests and low corn prices of the mid-18th century led to a
reduction in the farmer's and landlord's income. They also hold that industrial demand expanded because
of the rise in the wage earner's incomes, and because, other urban demands outweighed the fall in the
spreading of the rural producers. But good harvests were good for the industry and for the economy as a
whole, since a greater mass of people were adequately fed, with some having a surplus. The most powerful
effect on the industrial expansion was exerted by the Increased purchasing power of the middle classes.
Purchasing power was released by the cheapening of basic foodstuffs and the raising of real incomes. The
increased demand for food of better quality and more varied kinds. and for manufacture and craft products.
reinforced the purchasing power of cattle raisers and dairy farmers (more meat and milk products
consumed), artisans and wage earners and their employers. In England where before 1760, the total rents
were not rising at the pace of those in France, the maximum level of rents was set by what the large
commercial farmer would pay. rather than by peasant demand, i.e. it reflected the low prices he was getting
for his produce. Maximum commercial rents had some tendency to fall. But the total of rental income was
rising moderately with the continuing process of dispossessing small holders, breaking up open fields and
transferring inefficiently cultivated lands (that had produced low rents), into the hands of commercial
farmers who would pay the maximum market rent.
A number of secular factors as the growth of population, the development of industry and commerce and
technical changes in farming itself, compelled and created opportunities for changes in the countryside.
The growth of population and markets, especially the rising demands of town-folk for milk, dairy produce,
vegetables, meat and fruit, enabled small farmers to survive. Many freeholders also attempted to prevent
fragmentation of their land by following the laws of primogeniture, while others divided their land among
their children. But the impact of growing population and urbanization was felt more after 1750s. Districts
which had goods communications with towns and ports, had been engaged in commercial farming from the
first half of the 18th century. Large scale farming which employed advanced techniques of cultivation,
become more profitable with expanding demand for food and raw materials. Large owner occupiers, like
other enterprising farmers, extended their agricultural operations by buying or renting additional land. The
intensive methods of cultivation, rotation and heavier manuring which needed more labour and also bigger
acreage and a greater amount of capital, developed in areas where conditions of soil, relief, communication
and climate were favourable. But more important than technical advances were the movement to
consolidate and enclose farms, which influenced the farming community the greatest, since it led to a force
of landless labourers. But after 1760, rising prices and expansion of markets made farming more profitable
to small occupiers as well. Many freeholders bought or rented more land. The rapid development of
industries increased employment and helped small men to improve their incomes.
In towns. though many urban people being minor beneficiaries of the income of great estates, derived their
income ultimately from land, there was an increasing number of dealers, carriers and shopkeepers,
following the widening of market areas and the growth of industrial producers and craftsmen. The rise of
these middle income groups was a conspicuous feature of the English social development in the 18th
century. While the rich spent their income on luxury craft and service, and the poor on local products, these
middle strata contributed to the great demand for produce of good quality. but cheaper in price. The great
rural textile industries of the 18th century produced vast quantities of woollen and linen cloth, stockings,
sheets and blankets for the middling strata. The metallurgical industries too grew as a result of the
demands of this middling group for cutlery, locks, metal ornaments and buttons. as did the industries for the
making of hats, soap and paper. Real wages which rose in the late 17th and the early 18th century as grain
prices fell and money wages rose, were linked with increased agricultural productivity, sluggish population
growth and a buoyant demand for labour. This rise was significant in two ways. Any improvement in the
real income of the wage earner made a significant contribution to the level of effective demand in the
economy, since wage earners constituted a large and growing proportion of the population. Rising real
incomes resulted in an increased demand for commodities ahead being consumed. There was also
diversification of demand, for as wage earners became more prosperous, they consumed more meat and
dairy produce and more imported commodities such as tobacco, tea, sugar, and better manufactured
goods (Clarkson: 1971).
Thus by the 18th century, aided by low interests and the development of the long-term mortgages,
agriculture emerged with a sounder structure and significantly improved techniques. Rising real incomes
led to capital accumulation by many of the larger landlords, some of whom developed mineral resources on
their land, while others invested in transport and urban housing. Rising real incomes also led to increased
demand for food and for a limited range of manufactured goods among the lower orders of agricultural
society (Owen: 1974). By the mid-18th century, the gradual but steady spread of major improvements in
husbandry techniques and agrarian organization, gave England a decisive advantage over other European
countries (Lis: 1979). The English agriculture provided both for the internal and export market. Favourable
conditions after 1750 (with food prices increasing as a result of demographic expansion), allowed the
landlords and capitalist farmers to raise agricultural output through extension of arable and a more
intensive use of land already cultivated. Most estate owners rented out their land to large tenants who could
realize profit and accumulate capital. These large capitalist tenants employed technical improvements to
raise productivity. The growing profits of capitalist farmers allowed landowners to gradually raise rents. The
tenants too had the security that they would retain their tenure if they functioned efficiently, so that they
could safely devote a part of their profits to improve stocks and equipment on their farms. Meanwhile, the
traditional peasant economy was being systematically undermined. Agrarian improvements which went
hand in hand with the concentration and consolidation of farms, gradually eliminated the small landholders
and copyholders with qualified property rights.
By 1790, the English landlords controlled three quarters of all cultivated land, occupying freeholders held
only 15 to 20 per cent and there was no peasantry left. Parliamentarian enclosures formed the most
dramatic aspects of agrarian change in England. Between 1761 and 1815, about 600.000 hectares of
waste and commons were enclosed by the Parliamentary Acts. The small farmers became proletarianized
or landless labourers, and had to make way for capitalist farmers, who were the tenants of the great
landlords. Agrarian capitalism undoubtedly ended dearth and starvation in England. Increasing agricultural
production and productivity allowed a greater population to be fed and also fostered the growth of the
internal markets, which was essential for a sustained industrial growth. Improvements in agricultural
techniques and agrarian organization, made it possible for a growing portion of the population to be put to
industrial tasks. As a result, it led to the dislocation and the final dissolution of the old peasant culture. For
the first time in history, the landowners and great tenants shared the same ideology of their interests.
Pursuit of profit required rejection of cottagers from commons and dispossession of small holders, and
hence these became matters of social discipline. Total economic dependence was the best guarantee of
the permanent submission of the lower classes.

Socio-PoliticaI Framework
The Civil War indirectly asserted the authority of the parliament in the government of the country.
parliament was undemocratic, but it represented the interests of the landowners and the merchants who
influenced economic legislation. The English trade made great progress due to the protection it received
from the parliament, so that by the end of the 17th century, the parliament gained control of the public
finance, and evolved a system of taxation that rested lightly on property and profits. Even though the
parliament lacked a unanimous voice on economic questions, its views, on matters affecting the economic
life of the country, could not be ignored.
Landed property was the foundation of the 18th century society, and income from land conferred a higher
social status on its owner than an equivalent income from any other source, except that of a high
government office. Land conferred social status, wealth and power and also enabled the landowning
classes to control all local governments except in larger towns. Land was also a qualification for the
membership of parliament. Since land was immovable and indestructible, the very permanence of land,
gave stability to the society, that was based upon it (Owen: 1974). Since the social status depended on the
possession of wealth and ownership of large estates, successful traders in the late 17th and the early 18th
century, purchased estates from hard pressed gentry. The custom of primogeniture ensured that the
younger sons became links between the gentry and the ruling class, industry and commerce. In France, the
children of the nobility were nobles, while in England only the first born of the nobility was considered noble,
the rest being commoners. Many gentry families were connected by marriage to the mercantile families in
the towns, and hence their sympathetic attitude to trade and industry.
The diverting of most of the capital towards purchase of land which brought social prestige, resulted in
diversion of much of the capital away from commerce and industry. But despite this, the merchant landlords
used their business acumen in the development of their land and agriculture. One aspect of the structure of
the English society was well suited to the economic development—the English family comprised one unit
made up of parents and unmarried children only, and not of extended families, which had important
demographic and economic implications elsewhere in Europe. The new family (after marriage) had to look
for either a new farm or a new industrial or commercial work. The restricted family did not consume all its
products, which could therefore be sold. The family worked on its own farm, workshop or 'putting out
system', sometimes even hiring labour. A mobile labour force was thus created, in which the people began
to look for a living.
Regarding the social structure of the Hanoverian England, there were broadly landed classes— peerage,
gentry, freeholder and tenant farmers; the commercial and manufacturing classes which included artisans,
handicraftsmen and shopkeepers; the professional classes, army, naval officers, clergy and lawyers; and
the labourers and the poor. To reach the top, time as well as enterprise, was required, while to establish a
titled landed family took several generations. The overlapping of income blurred social distinctions, and
encouraged intermarriage between peers and wealthier gentry (Mingay: 1963). Generally, the English
social system did not obstruct the development, and permitted the economically successful people to rise to
the top. The fundamental difference was between the gentry and non-gentry. The gentry (related to the
aristocracy) possessed practically all the political power and social prestige. The nobility was the highest
among the gentry, followed by the baronets, knights and esquires, while the lowest were the parish gentry
who lived off the rents from their estates and hence were called gentry (Clarkson: 1971). Among the non-
gentry who formed the bulk of the population, the most respected were the yeomen and the tenant farmers
in the country and the artisan shopkeepers and small traders in the town. Below these, were the rural and
urban labourers who were a growing class. At the base of the social hierarchy, were the very old, sick and
unemployed who depended upon public or private charity.
In the 18th century as an outcome of the English Civil War and the limitations put on the Crown by the
Revolution Settlement (1689), the political power of the landowners remained virtually unchallenged for the
next hundred years. It was only after 1760, that there was a sharp rise in the number of merchants and
lawyers in the Commons. In the 18th century parliament, two-third of the Commons were landowners, one-
fifth of the whole House were Irish peers and sons of the English and Scottish peers, while a large
proportion of hundred members or so, whose profession was trade or the armed services, were connected
by family ties with the aristocracy. Thus the great landlords virtually dominated the House of Lords, through
the Cabinet, while some of the sons of the wealthiest members became members of the Commons, lord
lieutenants and deputy lieutenants, or magistrates and parish officers. Thus landowners with the help of the
Crown patronage, controlled almost the entire policy making and executive machinery of central and local
governments. Except in London and a few large towns, the landed classes dominated the political life of the
nation. But most of the landed majority in the Commons were more concerned with being Justices of Peace
and with the legislation of social significance, i.e. turnpikes and enclosures, than with national policies. If
the landed interests as a whole seemed to monopolize political power, it was in the interest of the nation,
since there was a constant mobility between all sections of the landed classes, and those engaged in trade,
industry and professions.
Much of the homogeneity of outlook of the ruling classes in the 18th century England, sprang from a
common system of education and the acceptance of common cultural values. The public schools and
university education were not exclusive and were not the preserve of great wealth. There was greater
division between landed interests itself—between the large landowners who shaped the national policy and
the small gentry and farmers who complained of war expenses, the extravagances of the government
pensions and sinecures, and also complained of the neglect of agricultural questions, which concerned
them greatly. Economically too, nobody possessed such great resources as the great landholders, who
controlled agriculture, the very basis of economy and the single largest source of wealth. It was towards the
end of the 18th century, when the relative importance of agriculture in the economy declined significantly
and there was a rise of 'mercantile and financial interest', that some merchants could rival the wealth of the
nobility of the rich gentry. By 1790, the growth of population, industry and commerce had shifted the
balance of the economy perceptibly. The character and balance of the society was also altered by
urbanization and the growth of non-agricultural incomes. All this greatly affected agriculture as well as the
landowners. Although wartime influences affected the supply of money for mortgages and land purchase,
and created fluctuation in the land market, the general level of land sales in peace years was much lower in
the 18th century than in the 16th and 17th centuries. Stricter family settlements, the greater ease of
obtaining long-term mortgages, and lower rates of interests, reduced the need for the sale of land and
made it less easy for newcomers to find estates to buy. Thus the inflow of new families into the ranks of
landowners was much lower between 1730s and the end of the 18th century, than in the 16th and 17th
centuries. Marriage and inheritance were the most prominent factors in the rise and permanence of the
families with the greatest wealth. The wealth of the mercantile families by marriage was important in
replenishing the wealth of the great families. Government office and overseas adventuring also made rapid
rise possible, though office was of secondary importance to the great landlords.
Owing to the heterogeneity of the landed property its varied terms and conditions (property was scattered
while a number of conventions influenced estate management and certain changes were forbidden in the
lifetime of a tenancy), professional centralized management could not improve the position significantly. So
income per acre from the estates of the great landowners was possibly lower those of the gentry in the 18th
century, though wartime taxation and agricultural difficulties 01' the period made things difficult for smaller
landowners with smaller resources, compelling them to sell their land. The weight of land tax which was on
incomes from rents, was especially felt in South-East England. It was less of a burden on larger proprietors,
because rents formed a smaller proportion of their income, and some of them passed it on to their tenants.
The effects of taxation and price fluctuation in the first half of the 18th century were especially heavy on the
lesser gentry, who had mortgaged their land, and who thus barely managed on their incomes. Thus a large
section of lesser gentry was becoming a depressed class and their modest income could barely support
their titles, their social position and political and administrative responsibilities. But among the owner
occupiers some felt the pressures of rising living standards and taxes, while others in the South-East
managed 10 prosper.
According to H.J. Habakkuk (Habakkuk: 1963), in English landownership, the freeholders like the small
gentry were also weakened by war taxation. The landlords who consolidated their farms, preferred to let
them out in complete units to large tenants, rather than piecemeal to neighbouring freeholders. The great
landlords rarely farmed themselves. It was their tenants who did. Their leasing land to large tenants
reduced the amount The enclosures of the second half of the 18th century, affected the small owners more.
because before 1760 almost all enclosures were carried out by. agreements between the owners of land in
a village [age, and exchanges were made with other owners so that enclosures could take place. But after
1760, landlords resorted to enclosure acts to speed up the process which was always at the expense of the
small owners. Owing to the process of economic expansion since the 15th century, there was an
intermingling of trade, industry and professions with land. Much of the industry till the 18th century, was
carried on in a rural setting and involved some relationship with land and landlords, Until the end of the 18th
century, there was no great social difference between the old and the new gentry. The new blood and new
wealth integrated into the old society. maintained the vitality of the gentry as a social class. The real
division in the English landed society according to Mingay (Mingay: 1963). was not between old landed
families and the new, but between those proprietors of severely limited estates and interests, who could not
keep up with the times, and the more enterprising people who took advantage of economic expansion and
social fluidity.
After 1688, the heroic age of English politics was over. With the defeat of the two extremes—— the divine
right Toryism under Monmouth. and the extreme Whigs under Shaftsbury, there was a rise to power of men
of moderation. of property and of compromise—the Whig oligarchy and the Bank of England. The Whigs
increasingly became the party of the big business, while the Tories began to sponsor reforms against
placement and demanded a wider franchise in boroughs. The heroic age of religion was also over, But the
Toleration Act of 1689, was an unsatisfactory compromise, as it was not extended to Roman Catholics,
Unitarians, Jews or Atheists. It also excluded Protestant dissenters from public life unless they were
prepared to communicate with the Church of England at least once a year. Christopher Hill (Hill: 1967a)
believed that the propertied class was divided into opposing landed and monied interests, and that the
power of the gentry had become very great after 1688. After 1688, any change seemed dangerous to the
ruling oligarchy. The management of the parliament was controlled by monied interests and since the
Commons were no longer under the control of the Crown. it had to be bribed. The prosperity and
concentration of wealth in the early 18th century. together with the relative economic decline of the lesser
gentry, made politics too expensive for some of those whose exclusive preserve it had been earlier. The
monied interests left the details of the administration to those, whose traditional function it had been,
because they (monied interests) were secure through their control of the Bank of England and the great
companies, which advanced money to the government. The gentry accepted the leadership of one of the
big families. But the new wealthy classes offered challenge to the great Whig dynasties only in the 19th
century.

Industry
In the 18th century, England was still overwhelmingly agricultural and rural despite the growing importance
of colonial re-exports, and was still largely dependent upon cloth trade with Europe. Manufacture was still
small scale and organized on purely domestic basis. Though the Royal Society had been founded in 1660,
it provided little in technological advance. The creation of the Bank of England, and the funding of the
national debt, facilitated the harnessing of national wealth for the purpose of foreign aggrandizement and
imperial expansion. But the new organization of public credit aroused a widespread suspicion, so that there
was a bitter and prolonged conflict between landed and monied interests. Till 1760, there was little hint of
factory production in textiles, for most of the different processes of textile production were still carried on at
home. But fulling and dressing took place in mills, while dyeing required vats and other larger equipment.
Some of these processes were part-time occupations for those engaged primarily in agriculture. In Britain
diversification away from the old textile industry was especially marked, though owing to lower wages the
woollen and worsted industry of West Yorkshire was still one of the most active growing sectors of the
economy. Other old centres of textile industry—Devon, Wilshire, Gloucester and East Anglia, declined,
because of the demands for wage increase. By the mid-18th century, the new industrialization of the North
of England, pushed wages up rapidly and thus led to a search for ways to economize labour. Kay's flying
shuttle designed in 1733, came into common use in 1750s and 1760s.
The manufacturing industries responded to the growing demand both at home and abroad by increasing
the output. The production of English woollen cloth and linen, French, Scottish and Irish linen increased. In
England the production of cotton manufacture especially began to increase in the second half of the 18th
century. Mining of coal and iron and iron industry also grew, and it was only in England that coke was used
for smelting iron (a technological improvement). This growth of manufacturing industry occurred along
traditional lines. Proto-industrialization or pre-industrial industry, was a cottage industry and made up of
small manufacturers who produced for the market and organized their household as a family economy. The
proto-industrial family was only partially market oriented because it abandoned its proto-industrial activity
whenever its standards of subsistence were reached, thus affecting the labour supply. With the proliferation
of proto-industrialization, rural manufacturing industries began to produce for supra-regional markets in the
18th century. Regions which were purely agricultural, were now transformed into regions of mixed zones in
which agricultural and rural manufacture existed side by side. The small masters in industry flourished
because they exhibited a greater responsiveness to changing textile fashions than the Great West Country
clothiers. They managed to take over the large home market as well as government contracting for their
goods. In 1740s and 1750s, they began to adapt themselves to export markets. The export of English
woollens which was declining in the mid18th century, covered in 1770s with the introduction of a new kind
of cloth which was an imitation of the German cloth. Linen industry developed in England, Scotland and
Ireland, so as to reduce the import of French linen to England. The English silk industry developed after the
imposition of prohibitive duties on French goods and by the immigration of Huguenot craftsmen in the last
quarter of the 17th century. At this time cotton industry was still in its infancy.
The limited use of iron was the main obstacle holding back the advance of industry. and the machinery
could only be produced on a large scale when the obstacles to the use of coal for mass production of iron
had been overcome. The high cost of farm tools was also an obstacle to the growth of agriculture. Coal and
iron industries were owned by landowners who preferred ostentatious expenditure and quick returns, to
investment of funds in the exploitation of mineral resources. The property rights of kings and great
landlords, prevented the smaller capitalists from developing the English mining. The strict settlement, which
was a legal device for entailing land on to the eldest son, especially held back capital investment in mining,
as well as in agricultural improvements. The merchants too, were not interested in financing speculative
projects on other people's lands. Advance in these sectors took place with the slow accumulation by
humbler freeholders and lessees. Coal product exports doubled between 1714 and 1760. through Abraham
Darby's discovery in 1709, of a method for smelting iron ore with coke. But it was long concealed within his
Quaker Circle and became popular only from the mid- 1 8th century, after which cast iron was produced
cheaply and sufficiently and replaced wood in machines. Progress in coal mining was slow in spite of the
substantial natural resources, because of the lack of mechanical devices and the technical problems
involved with the presence of gas and water in the mines. The problem of drainage was only gradually
overcome by the increased use of Thomas Newcomen's pumping engine invented in 1708. But it was more
widely used in the tin mines of Cornwall than in the coal mines of the Midlands and the North. Since fuel
was basic to most processes of production, the relatively meagre supply of coal hampered the industrial
development in other spheres.
By 1770s, the general replacement of timber by coal as an industrial and domestic fuel (in towns), led to an
expansion of coal production from two and a half million tons in 1700, to six million tons in 1770. Big
industrial towns grew at Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, and Sheffield. The most striking advances were
in metal industries. Birmingham and Sheffield were two areas of heavy concentration producing nails,
buttons, small arms, locks, cutlery, tools, chains, etc. London had a variety of metal workshops. Tyneside
made great quantities of metal fittings of ships, while blacksmiths in every village accounted for a large part
of the total output. Before 1770s, the production of English iron lagged behind Swedish and Russian iron,
which was cheaper. But with the greater use of Derby's process for smelting pig iron with coke instead of
charcoal, castings began to be produced cheaply in England. The growing demand from the American
colonies also pushed the metal industries forwards. The increasing output helped in securing considerable
economies from the division of labour, and thus lowered costs which further stimulated demands.
The English iron industry was faced with the formidable problem of charcoal being scarce and expensive.
Charcoal was replaced by coke, and Abraham Darby invention of a process by which iron could be
produced with the help of coke in 1709 was adopted only after several decades. James Watt's steam
engine made it possible to fit the first mechanized bellows to furnaces. Henry Cort developed the process
of puddling and rolling, and thus enabled iron masters to also use coal for the next production stage, i.e. the
making of wrought iron. Thus coal became the primary source of energy of the first Industrial Revolution,
when the steam engine converted coal into power for industrial use. Similar advances were made in copper
and tin. Growing colonial demand was very important in the expansion of the metal industries though the
home demand was more important. The "home" industries maintained a steady production in the output of
starch, paper and candle. Special pottery also developed. But it was the invention of Hargreaves and
Arkwright, which produced unique results, because they practically annihilated labour costs in cotton
spinning, reducing them by 90 per cent and more, and thus reduced cotton spinning by hand and replaced
it with machines. The machines reduced the price of cotton goods so rapidly that they transformed the
market situation. Cheap cottons flooded the English market from where they were quickly bought. The new
machines produced ten times as much yarn in 1790 as they had done in 1770, and thus needed ten times
the supply of raw cottons, and of weaving and bleaching. This led to further labour saving inventions. In
1780s and 1790s, changes were introduced in the woollen industry and though these newer inventions
were of smaller nature, they did lead to further improvements. The cotton spinning inventions also brought
about revolutionary social changes. The larger inventions required water power which could work hundreds
of machines side by side, so that it led to the establishment of factories where hundreds of employees,
worked regular hours to conform with the needs of the machinery. Thus the factory and its disciplined life
for wage earners was to change the life of society.
Agricultural expansion which raised the British national income, was the indispensable support of the
Industrial Revolution in England. The cotton industry gave a stimulus to innovate other industries, first in
competing textiles, then in metallurgy and engineering, to meet the needs of the cotton mills for machinery,
power and transport. It was the example of what power machinery could do to the productivity of an
industry in factories, and the profits of those who first introduced it, that brought imitation. By 1760, the
greater part of the expanding trade was sustained by rural and semi-rural industries organized on a
domestic basis. The rise of the British economy was based historically on the conscious and successful
application of strength (war which was the most important non-economic factor that shaped Britain's
economic destiny in the 18th century). to colonies, and home demand in an era of rising real wages, were
responsible for expansion. Thus between 1714 and 1760, there was a significant expansion in all principal
sectors of the economy— agriculture, commerce and industry. A national economy as distinct from a
collection of local economies was beginning to emerge. By the end of the 18th century, the prevailing
system of production had reached the limits of its capacity. Under the increasing pressures of demand both
at home and abroad, the inner contradictions of the proto-industrial system especially in England, where its
output was reduced when its subsistence needs were satisfied, brought about the transformation of the
proto-industrial system. Decline of proto-industrial productivity in the late 18th century could be made up to
some extent with the help of additional labour, so new forms of organization had to be found. Thus a
greater mechanization of production was made possible through centralization. The cotton industry became
the pacemaker of the first phase of industrialization from 1760s. The "Flying Jenny" was still primarily
operated in the proto-industrial workshop but Arkwright's wat (But till 1760, the availability and mobility of
capital was limited, roads terrible, river transport slow and expensive and individual industries dependent
upon primitive technology. Only a few industries apart from brewing, soap boiling and sugar refining, were
essentially urban in character and were still conducted on a domestic or semi domestic basis. But a spirit of
enterprise prevailed, and a few major entrepreneurs and a few factories on a limited scale appeared. There
was an increased specialization and diversification, and spread of a wide variety of industrial activities and
skills. Export trade especially frame and Crompton's "mule" began to appear in factories and solved the
problem of control and supervision of production. Arkwright opened his factory in 1769 and soon there were
300 people working there. Around 1780, there were some twenty water-powered cotton mills. The home
market was the decisive factor at this time.
After 1750, England experimented a gradual but irrevocable transition from proto-industry, based on family
economy, to the factory system, characterized by concentration of labour and mechanization of production.
Domestic industry offered certain competitive advantages, especially cheap labour, and the ease with
which workers could be laid off, thus allowing minimal investment of fixed capital. The proto-industrial
system contained the seeds of its own ruin. The excessive geographical dispersal of workshops entailed
considerable loss of time and problems of control, resulting in embezzlement of stock and delivery of
inferior produce. Even more important was the fact that since the rural work force was partially engaged in
agriculture and was not inclined towards continuous industrial employment, during the harvest season,
many cottage workers abandoned manufacture. The cottagers who were influenced by family economy did
not seek monetary profit, but only sought basic necessities with the help of labour. If their incomes rose,
they did not work harder beyond a point, preferring consumption and free time. The enclosure movement
disestablished peasants, while subsidy for the export of grain, raised grain prices, thus forcing the poor to
work harder. By the mid-18th century in England, the opportunities for geographical expansion were
exhausted and merchants had to depend upon labour from other places. The growth of capitalist agriculture
created an extensive rural proletariat, which no longer held land and depended totally on wage labour for
subsistence. Thus, either proto-industrialization would limit itself to areas where cottage workers could draw
supplementary income from agriculture, or more landless people had to be engaged, which meant paying a
higher wage. The traditional peasantry had been disrupted, but further multiplication of numerous small
holdings was necessary for the rise of cottage industry. The wages of industrial workers in France,
Flanders and Central Europe, were lower than in England, so that these areas had a competitive
advantage which could be overcome only by structural innovation or mechanization.
The 18th century witnessed a major technological breakthrough in England. It became the richest nation in
Europe by 1800, when its agriculture was being transformed, its overseas trade was expanding. its financial
system was becoming more sophisticated and flexible than that of other countries, and the wages of its
workers were higher than those of the workers on the continent. The expanding trade and extending
markets increased demands, which put a strain on the productive powers of Great Britain, which was a
relatively small country. Unless production could be increased without incurring massively increased costs,
expansion could not continue. Most sectors of the economic activities—agriculture, mining and metallurgy
—were affected.
Technological changes are greatly dependent on organizational factors and the factory system did not take
place in areas where putting out merchants predominated. The putting out merchants who operated within
limited areas, were interested in maintaining their hold on direct producers. According to Takahashi this
cutting off of the small producers from the market, and this monopoly of the market by the putters out,
clearly blocked the road on which the direct producers were independently progressing as commodity
producers, and becoming capitalists. Britain differed from her competitors in the early 18th century,
because of the low cost access to some raw materials especially coal and wool, the ability to shift
productive resources towards industries with relatively expanding markets, and most important, the firm
linkage of her industrial sectors with each other, and with a highly efficient commercial and foreign sector.
The 18th century British colonial trade did not grow more rapidly than that of France. But in Britain, the
lowered transactional costs and access to foreign markets stimulated the domestic industry, which
responded immediately because agricultural developments lowered food prices at the same time as they
released labour, and provided raw materials to industry. The industrial elements needed for the future
growth, and present in many regions of Europe, were in England embedded in an economic structure that
made merchants and industrialists sensitive to the opportunities of market, consequently England's
economy was best poised for a rapid growth in the next century.
After 1700, textile manufacture expanded in the West Riding to the cost of the West Country and East
Anglia, because Yorkshire specialized in cheap fabric, and because it possessed numerous natural
resources and sufficient cheap labour as well. In West Country and East Anglia, manufacture was
dominated by greater clothiers who dispensed wool to artisans and their families, while in West Riding, it
was always a man of small capital who acted as a purchaser of raw materials and seller of finished
material. Moreover, cloth exports from Yorkshire were not monopolized by London wholesale dealers as in
the West Country and East Anglia. Production in West Riding was handled by an active group of merchants
drawn from the rank of cloth manufacturers of Leeds, Wakefields and Halifax. The rise of independent
entrepreneurs was not hindered in the Midland countries by the putting out merchants, for landowners,
middlemen and weavers with small amount of capital could work their way up to become petty industrial
capitalists and could employ technological improvements. This somewhat symbiotic relationship between
the merchants and the manufacturers, helped to clear the path for the eventual breakthrough of the
capitalist mode of production. In contrast in some areas of Europe, where there was an advanced stage of
proto-industrial expansion and the direct producers depended totally on the 'putting out system' there de-
industrialization took place as in Flanders and Silesia.

Trade and English Foreign Policy

Between 1700 and 1780, the English shipping doubled and trade nearly as much. There was a shift from
European markets to colonial markets, a result of government's deliberate policy, e.g. the removal of all
export duties on British manufacture and corn, though important industrial raw materials still had to pay
duty. It was also aided by the British control of the seas. The landlords who dominated the government also
realized the vital importance of the English trade. The slave trade which brought great prosperity to the
British, was an essential part of the triangular imperial trade, which grew up under the Navigation Acts.
Slaves were bought with British exports and then transported in British ships. Slave labour prevented the
draining of England's population to the plantations. Jamaica was England's main base for English slave
trade. The Royal African Company was founded after the Restoration, to oust the Dutch from the monopoly
position they had acquired in slaving, as a result of their seizure of the Portuguese ports on the West
African coast.
The first Dutch war opened India and the Far Eastern trade to the English merchants. The second Dutch
War opened West Africa and the slave trade to the English. The ending of the monopoly of the Royal
African Company in 1698, along with the increasing demands of the sugar plantations in the West Indies,
led to a rapid extension of the British slave trade. The great prosperity of Liverpool and Bristol in the 18th
century, was based largely on this trade. By the War of Spanish Succession, England won the coveted
Asiento (1713)—the monopoly of supplying slaves to the Spanish American Empire which France had
hoped to secure for her merchants by annexing Spain. After the Treaty of Utrecht 1713, England replaced
Netherlands as the greatest slave trading nation in the world. The South Sea Company was started by the
Tory government in 1711 to trade with the Spanish America (slave trade especially) after the conclusion of
peace.
After 1730, the parliament granted 10,000 pounds per year for the construction of forts on the Gold Coast
for the protection of slavers. Pitt's own strategy in the Seven Years' War was to protect slaving interests, so
Senegal and Gorea, were captured in 1758. The slave trade was the most profitable of all branches of
English commerce. There were divisions within the commercial interests in the 18th century as there had
been in the 17th century. The West Indies and the Eastern India interests and slave traders were keen on
war. The landed interest allied with the clothing interests in supporting the Peace of Paris (the Seven Years'
War). They preferred to retain Canada rather than the sugar island of Guadeloupe. The clothiers saw the
advantages of the North American colonies as markets at a time when Europe was trying the shut out
English cloth. Exports to North America nearly tripled between 1744 and 1758. The Peace of Paris was a
turning point in England's colonial policy, because from then, a greater emphasis was to be put on colonies
as markets rather than as sources of raw materials. The rapid growth of population in North America from
200,000 to two million between 1700 and 1770 meant an increase in the import of English commodities
such as guns, axes, buttons, leather goods and household goods by ten to twelvefold.
The English wars of the 18th century led to the acquisition of new territories and new markets, while the
English armies stationed there added to the demands. The prosperity of English iron manufactures, which
was an important feature of the 18th century economy, depended greatly on American markets, production
for the market led to a new division of labour in the metal industries. The West Africa and Indian demand
for cotton manufacture, affected production.
The essential pre-requisites for Industrial Revolution were large and stable colonial monopoly markets. The
conquest of India was for the possession of such markets of English cotton, since the West Indies declined
in importance from the mid-18th century, as a result of the absentee planters and the slaves there, who
offered no significant market for English manufacturers. The traditional West Indies colonies supplied raw
materials to be processed for re-export which were non-competitive with the products of the home industry.
So the new empire in India was seen as an indefinitely expanding market for English manufactured goods.