Chapter 3: Cotton, Iron, Coal, Canals

Question 1

Where was the growth of the Cotton Industry due to technological advances and improved methods of Industrial organisation most profound?

Answer 1

Lancashire, where the factory stem and power-driven machinery were most commonly found.

Question 2

What was the domestic system of production (cottage industry)?

Answer 2

Small scale operations, used to produce wool and linen. Carried out in people’s homes or small workshops, by means of a spinning wheel and a hand-loom.

Question 3

What were the weaknesses of the domestic system of production?

Answer 3

The processes were slow and lacked quality control, and production was limited, allowing little prospect of expansion.

Question 4

How did the cotton industry start to grow?

Answer 4

There was an increased import of raw cotton.

Question 5

What were the advantages of cotton clothing? What were the impacts of these?

Answer 5

It was cheaper, more comfortable to wear and easier to wash. For these reasons, cotton manufacturing was quickly established in two areas- Lancashire and Lanarkshire

Question 6

Where was an abundance of raw cotton shipped across from?

Answer 6

The West Indies, where British merchants and traders had a dominating influence on both production and export.

Question 7

How did the canal industry impact the cotton industry?

Answer 7

A canal system connected cotton factories to the ports and to other towns for redistribution.

Question 8

What was Arkwright’s water frame?

Answer 8

Developed in 1769, heralded the start of the factory system of production and revolutionized the industry.

Question 9

What was Samuel Crompton’s ‘Mule’?

Answer 9

Developed in 1779, a cross between the water frame and Hargreaves’ ‘Spinning Jenny’. It produced exceptionally high quality yarn that was both strong and fine. Once harnessed to water power, its use became widespread in factories and by the 1820s was acknowledged as the most important invention in spinning.

Question 10

What did the mechanisation of the spinning process result in? How did Edmund Cartwright set this right?

Answer 10

It left the weaving process behind. The industry could not function efficiently while this imbalance persisted. In 1789, Edmund Cartwright designed a power loom which was operated by steam power. Industrialisation had entered a new phase and by 1820, the cotton industry was fully mechanized and the balance was set between spinning and weaving.

Question 11

How did the developments in the manufacture of cotton give a vital boost to the iron industry?

Answer 11

As new cotton mills were built to accommodate bigger and more sophisticated machines, and massive water wheels were designed to generate the power to run them, demand for iron increased?

Question 12

How did the output of pig iron rise?

Answer 12

68,000 tons in 1788 to 250,000 tons in 1804.

Question 13

Why were Iron foundries built on the edge of coal fields?

Answer 13

To access their essential source of fuel cheaply and easily.

Question 14

Where did the Iron industry become concentrated? What were the effects of this on those areas?

Answer 14

Four main areas where there were supplies of both coal and iron ore: the Black Country, South Wales, South Yorkshire and Clydeside. As a result, many small villages in those areas like Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales quickly developed into large industrial towns with growing populations.

Question 15

How did the growth of both the cotton and the iron industries depend on coal?

Answer 15

Coal replaced wood as a fuel in iron smelting and was mined in huge quantities to provide fuel to power steam engines in the factories.

Question 16

How was coal essential for the process of industrialization?

Answer 16

It provided cheap fuel for any manufacturing process that required heat.

Question 17

How did the output of coal increase?

Answer 17

Seven million tons in the 1780s to around fourteen million tons by 1812.

Question 18

How was the canal industry essential for Industrial growth?

Answer 18

An efficient means of transporting raw materials to factories and manufactured goods to a wide market was essential for continuing Industrial growth.

Question 19

What was the main development in the transport industry?

Answer 19

A network of canals were constructed across the country and the 1780s saw the height of the canal era.

Question 20

What did the development of the canal industry enable?

Answer 20

Heavy and bulky goods could be transported more cheaply and easily than by road or river and new areas were opened up. Industrial centres were linked to sources of raw materials such as coal fields, markets and sea ports. Fresh agricultural produce could be carried by canal to the newly-expanding towns and centres of population.

Question 21

Why were canal companies attractive investment opportunities?

Answer 21

It was in the interests of entrepreneurial businessmen like the potter Josiah Wedgwood to invest as they needed canals to transport their own goods.

Question 22

What were the shortcomings of canals?

Answer 22

They were difficult and expensive to construct, could only follow limited route, froze in winter and were slow to operate.

Question 23

How long was the canal age?

Answer 23

Canals facilitated the process of industrialization at its most crucial period of development. However the canal age spanned approximately 70 years from 1759 was short-lived.

Question 24

What was the canal age superseded by?

Answer 24

The railway age in the early nineteenth century, which had its beginnings transporting coal a short distance from the pit-head often to the coat, for conveyance to the nearest factory or industrial town.