Age of Industrialisation

Class: X Subject: Social Science (History)

Two paintings.

Industrialisation:
Production of goods with the help of machines in factories. The first
industrialized Nation-Britain.

Features:
Handmade goods to machine made goods in factories, cottage to factory, large
scale production, started in England in later parts of 18th Century. In course of
time, it affected all systems of production.
1.0 Before the industrial Revolution (Proto-Industrialisation)

• Proto industrialisation refers to the early phase of industrialisation

in Europe and England where production was mainly done by
hands.
• Production in 17th century, artisans worked for merchants to
produce goods, artisans took raw material from merchants for
production. Their cottages functioned as a factory.
• Association of producers, trained craft people-maintained control
over production, restricted entry of new traders. This period saw
the coming of factories.

• Merchants moved to towns.

➢ The urban guilds and trade guilds were very powerful. These
were associations of producers who trained the crafts
people., regulated the prices and maintained control over
production.
➢ The new entrants were barred from entering the guilds.
Thus, the entry of new European merchants into the trade
was restricted.
➢ Rulers gave monopoly rights to the guilds to produce and
trade in specified products. It was, therefore, difficult for
new producers to find space in the towns.

• Artisans in the countryside agreed to work for the merchants.

➢ This was the time when open fields were disappearing and
commons were being enclosed.
➢ Many villagers had small plots of lands which could not
provide work for members of the household.
➢ By working for the merchants, they could remain in the
countryside, cultivate their small plots of land.
➢ Income from proto-industrialisation supplemented their
meagre incomes from cultivation. They could make full use
of the family labour resources.

1.1 Coming up of factories:

• Early factories in England came up by the 1730s.

• First symbol of the new era was cotton.
 In Britain value of raw cotton import,
✓ 1760 – 2.5 million pounds
✓ 1787 – 22 million pounds.

• Many factories sprang up in England

• A series of inventions took place in the form of carding, twisting,
spinning and rolling.
• Richard Arkwright created the cotton mill.

1.2 The pace of Industrial change:

Phase One
➢ Cotton and metal industries grew at a dynamic pace.
➢ With expansion of railways in England, demand for iron and steel
increased.
➢ By 1873 Britain was exporting iron and steel worth about 77
million pounds, double the value of its cotton export.

Phase Two
➢ New industries did not completely displace traditional industries.
➢ Less than 20% of workforce was employed in factories.

Phase Three
➢ Ordinary and small innovations were done in non- mechanised
sectors like food processing, glasswork, furniture, etc.,

Phase Four
➢ Technological changes were slow to occur as industrialist feared
using machines.
➢ Repair of machines was costly and were not as effective as
claimed.
➢ Steam Engine.
✓ Newcomen produced Steam Engine.
✓ Jameswatt improved the steam engine and patented the
new engine in 1781.
✓ At the beginning of the nineteenth century, there were no
more than 321 steam engines all over England.
2.0 Hand labour and stream power:

• In Victorian Britain there was no shortage of human labour.

• In many industries the demand for labour was seasonal.
• Range of products could be produced only with hand labour.
• There was a demand for intricate designs.
• Handmade products symbolised refinement and class, better and
careful finishing.
• Countries with labour shortage keen on using mechanical power.

2.1 Life of the worker:

• Abundance of labour affected the life of workers badly.
• Hundreds of people tramped to cities for work.
• Many waited for weeks and stayed under bridges or in night
shelters.
• Seasonality of work made the situation worse.
• Miserable conditions in the cities.
• Increased wages could not cope with the price rise.
• Fear of unemployment made workers hostile to new technology.
• Women labours protested against the introduction of the Spinning
Jenny.
• Introduction of railways opened greater opportunities.
• Employment opportunities opened up after 1840s.

3.0 Industrialisation in the colonies: Textile industry was the centre of

industrialization in India.

3.1 Age of Indian textiles

• Indian silk and cotton dominated international market.
• India had a vibrant sea trade through Surat and Hoogly.
• Finer varieties of cotton from India were exported.
• Indian merchants and bankers involved in export trade network.
• European companies broke this network by securing concessions
and monopoly rights to trade.
• Old ports of Surat and Hoogly declined.
• Credit dried up and bankers became bankrupt.
• Bombay and Calcutta ports flourished.
• A vibrant sea trade operated through pre-colonial ports.
3.2 What happened to weavers?

• East India Company appointed “Gomasthas” to collect supply from

weavers.
• Weavers lost bargaining power and lost lands for settling loans.

Gomasthas:

The Gomasthas were paid servants whose job was to supervise weavers,
collect supplies and examine the quality of cloth.

➢ The aim of the East India Company behind appointing gomasthas

was to work out a system of management and control that would
eliminate competition, control costs and ensure regular supplies of
cotton and silk.
➢ Soon there were clashes between the weavers and the gomasthas
who began ill-treating the weavers.
➢ They did not allow the company weavers to sell their produce to
other buyers. Once an order was placed, the weavers were given
loans to purchase the raw material. Weavers who had accepted
loans from the company had to hand over the cloth they produced
to the gomasthas only.
➢ The weavers were forced to sell their goods to company’s officials.
When the American Civil War broke out and cotton supplies from
the US were cut off, Britain’s demand for raw cotton from India
increased.

➢ Reasons for clash between Gomasths and Weavers.

➢ Gomasthas were outsiders, with no long-term social link with
the village.
➢ They were arrogant, marched into village with sepoys and
peons and punished weavers for delays in supply- often
beating and flogging them.
➢ Weavers lost the space to bargain for prices and sell to
different buyers.
➢ The price they received from the Company was miserabley
low and the loans they had accepted tied them to the
company.
3.3 Manchester comes to India:

• Beginning of nineteenth century marked the decline of Indian

textile exports.

➢ Imposition of import duties on Indian textiles to protect

Manchester Goods.

• British industrialists persuaded the East India Company to sell

British manufactures in Indian markets.
• Cotton weavers in India faced following problems,

➢ The local market shrank, because the market was flooded

with Manchester goods.
➢ They were machine made and cheap and weavers could not
compete with them.

4.0 Factories come up:

• Industries were set up in different regions.

• First cotton mill came in Bombay in 1854.
• The first jute mill came up in Bengal in 1855.
• The Elgin mill was started in Kanpur in 1860.
• The first cotton mill of Ahmadabad was set up in 1861.
• By 1874 the first spinning and weaving mill of Madras began
production.

4.1 The Early Entrepreneurs.

Development of industries in India in the second half of the 19th century.

• The British in India started exporting opium to China and took tea from
China to England.
• Many Indians also became part of this trade by providing finances,
procuring supplies and shipping consignments.
• Having earned through this trade many Indians wanted to establish
industrial enterprise in India.
Indian Entrepreneurs.

• In the late 19th century, many Indians who earned through China
trade became successful industrialists like Dinshwas Petit and
Jamsetjee N. Tata, built huge industrial empires in India.
• Seth Hukunchand a Marwari businessman, set up the first Indian Jute
mill in Calcutta in 1917. He had also traded with China.

Benefits of industrialisation on the society.

• The standard of living of peasants and artisans in countryside improved

as they started working for the merchants.
• People migrated from rural areas to urban areas as most of the factories
emerged around towns.
• A new class of the working people or bourgeoisie was emerged which
created a Modern Western Society.

Managing agencies in India before the First World War.

• Bird Heiglers & Co.,

• Andrew Yule.
• Jardine Skinners & Co.,

Functions of Managing agencies.

• These agencies mobilised capital

• Set up joint stock companies and managed them.
• In most cases Indians provided the capital, while the European
Companies made investments and took business decisions.

Contribution of Early Industrialists of India.

• They developed a vision of establishing industrial enterprises in India.

• When opportunities of investment in industries came, they invested
their accumulated wealth and set up factories.
• Built industrial empires in India.
 • Entrepreneurs like Dwarkanath Tagore showed way to many traders
who later became successful industrialists. He himself set up six joint
stock companies from 1830 to 1840.

4.2 Where did the workers come from?

• Increase in demand for workers

➢ 1907 – 5,84,000 workers in Indian factories.
➢ 1946 – 24,36,000 were working in factories.

• Where did the workers come from?

➢ Most workers came from the districts around industrial regions.
➢ Peasants and artisans who couldn’t find work in village migrated
to industrial centres in search of work.
➢ In 1911 50% workers in the Bombay cotton industries came from
Ratnagiri, Kanpur mills got most workers from Kanpur.

• Jobbers – functions and challenges.

➢ Industrialists employed jobbers to get new recruits.
➢ Jobber was an old and trusted worker of factory.
➢ Jobbers got people from their villages, ensured them jobs.
➢ Helped workers to settle in the city and provided them money in
the time of crisis.
➢ Jobbers became persons with authority and power.
➢ They began demanding money and gifts for the favour they did
and started controlling the lives of workers.

5.0 Peculiarities of industrial growth:

• Indian entrepreneurs survived despite tight economic controls

imposed by the British government.
➢ Indian entrepreneurs started setting up industries, they avoided
competing with Manchester goods, in the Indian market.
➢ The early cotton mills in India produced coarse cotton yarn, rather
than fabric because yarn was not an important part of British
imports to India.
➢ When yarn was imported it was of superior quality.
 ➢ The yarn produced in the Indian Spinning mills was either
exported to China or used by the handloom weavers in India
which maintained the demand and supply.

• Series of changes affected the pattern of industrialization in India by

the early twentieth century.
➢ Swadeshi Movement – the nationalists mobilised the people to
boycott foreign cloth. Industrial groups pressurised the
government to increase tariff protection and grant concessions.
➢ In 1906 the export of Indian yarn to China declined. The
industrialists shifted from yarn to cloth production.
➢ First World War – Since British mills were producing war materials
to meet war needs, exports to India declined. Indian mills had a
vast home market to supply.

• First World War and Indian Industrial Growth.

➢ British mills were busy with war production to meet war needs.
➢ This resulted in decline of Manchester imports into India.
➢ Indian factories were called upon to supply war needs. Ex: jute
bags, army uniforms, Saddles etc.,
➢ New factories were set up and old ones ran multiple shifts.
➢ This created more employment opportunities.
➢ Industrialists consolidated their position and captured home
markets.

• After the war.

➢ Manchester could never recapture its old position in the Indian
Market.
➢ Unable to compete with US Germany and Japan.
➢ The economy of Britain crumbled after the war.
➢ Cotton production collapsed and exports of cotton cloth from
Britain fell dramatically.
➢ In colonies industrialists consolidated their position and captured
home markets.
5.1 Small scale industries predominated:

• Post-War Indian Economy.

➢ About 67% large scale industries were located in Bengal and
Bombay.
➢ Labour forces in registered factories,
✓ 1911 – 5%
✓ 1931 – 10%
➢ The rest worked in small workshops and household units.

• Reasons for increase in handloom cloth production.

➢ Technological changes – introduction of Fly shuttle. This increased
productivity per workers, speeded up production and reduced
labour demand.
➢ The coarser cloth was bought by poor and finer varieties bought
by the rich.
➢ Rich could buy even when the poor starved. Ex; famine did not
affect the sale of Bnarasi or Baluchari saris.
➢ Mills could not imitate specialised weaves.

6.0 Market for goods:

Advertisements made products appear desirable and necessary. They tried to

shape the minds of people and create new needs. They tries to persuade the
customers and buyers by using such advertisements as would appeal Indians.

➢ Made In Manchester – this made customers to feel confident about

buying the cloth.
➢ Images of Gods – Images of Indian gods gave diving approval to the
goods being sold. Images of Krishna and Saraswathi were intended to
make the manufacture from a foreign land appear somewhat familiar to
the Indian people.
➢ Historical Figures – were used to create respect for the products and
spread the message that the goods produced or used under such
personalities can never be questioned for their quality.
➢ Calendars – printing calendars to popularize their products unlike
newspapers and magazines. Calendars were used even by people who
could not read. They were hung in the tea shops and in poor people’s
homes, just as much as in offices and in middle class houses.