Industrial Revolution

Question 1

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, how does Nick Crafts characterise Britain?

Answer 1

as a rich economy with a predominantly rural population, there was inequality but the economy had a surplus beyond basic subsistence

Question 2

Where was the pre-IR economic surplus located?

Answer 2

In the top 10%

Question 3

How does Crafts characterise data on the IR?

Answer 3

as “best guesses rather than hard facts”

Question 4

How can we describe the labour before/ early IR?

Answer 4

families divided their labour between different sectors, factory work was only beginning to replace cottage industry

Question 5

By 1840, what percent of industrial labour remained in cottage industry?

Answer 5

60%

Question 6

What did P. Mathias single out as the most important feature of an industrial revolution?

Answer 6

‘the fundamental redeployment of resources away from agriculture’

Question 7

How were pre-IR investments distributed?

Answer 7

39% to agriculture, 19% to transport, 19% to housing

Question 8

When did manufacturing investment exceed agricultural investment?

Answer 8

1820s

Question 9

What percentage of the population did London hold in 1700?

Answer 9

11%

Question 10

What role did the size of London play in the progress of the economy?

Answer 10

it ‘acted as a stimulus’ to the commercialisation of agriculture and to transport improvements

Question 11

What was the increase in income per head 1700-1760? When did it start to grow significantly?

Answer 11

0.3% pa, didn’t grow significantly until 1825-50

Question 12

What is the (broad) traditional interpretation of the IR?

Answer 12

That there was rapid growth from 1780+ (based on assumptions on missing evidence)

Question 13

What is the (broad) revisionist interpretation of the IR?

Answer 13

That industrial output growth is less than originally assumed (based on available evidence)

Question 14

What is an issue with studying data from the IR?

Answer 14

Even if we did have all data for all sectors, there would have had to have been an implausible rate of growth at 4% (1700s) and 6% (1800s)

Question 15

What was occurring domestically in the years leading up to the IR?

Answer 15

markets were becoming integrated because of falling transport costs, there was greater specialisation, and rising scale and efficiency of farms

Question 16

In what period were exports rising faster than GDP? Why?

Answer 16

1700-1760. Result of specialisation in international trade, and Long term changes on the supply-side

Question 17

How does Crafts characterise the early eighteenth-century economy?

Answer 17

‘characterised by quite considerable short-run fluctuations in output and employment’

Question 18

How can we characterise the eighteenth-century business cycle?

Answer 18

No regularity because of intermittent shocks such as war, exports dictated imports changes

Question 19

Where does Crafts claim there to have been ‘spectacular acceleration’?

Answer 19

In the cotton industry 1760s+

Question 20

What must be remembered when accounting for the rapid growth in iron and cotton?

Answer 20

These industries only accounted for 10% of industrial output even in 1770.

Question 21

What is clear if the data is allowed to speak for itself free of historians’ periodisation?

Answer 21

growth occurs 1700-1825, mo singled out short period such as the supposedly ‘decisive’ 1780s

Question 22

What can be said about pre/early technological change during IR?

Answer 22

Minimal impact to output, but does illustrate the pre-IR inventive activity

Question 23

What are four examples of technological advancements which occurred in the eighteenth-century?

Answer 23

Darby’s Coke Smelting (1709), Newcomen’s Steam Pumping Engine (1712), Watt’s Steam Engine (1763), Hargreaves’ Jenny (1768)

Question 24

What is a crucial quote from Nick Crafts on the IR?

Answer 24

‘The major transformation had still to come. Yet, by 1780 a start had been made.’

Question 25

Where is the historiographic focus on IR?

Answer 25

On how and why there was an increase in economic growth

Question 26

How did increased economic growth occur? (3 things)

Answer 26

Firstly, by a rise in growth of factor inputs higher than total productivity growth. Secondly, by increased inventiveness (which did not pay off until L18/E19th C). Thirdly, by the matched rise in capital and labour growth.

Question 27

How can we explain why there was economic growth?

Answer 27

Through an analysis of the interaction between capital, labour and investment inputs- and by considering this WITHIN rather than separate of economic structures.

Question 28

Why did Britain have notable savings and investment potential?

Answer 28

Because of a high national income with skewed distribution

Question 29

What can be said about investment by the Napoleonic Wars?

Answer 29

The investment rate was 2x the rate of 1700, moreover, the funding of the wars proves Britain’s economic capability

Question 30

What inhibited investment in the early IR?

Answer 30

legislative weaknesses in banking, finance, and companies

Question 31

What made attaining Joint-Stock / Joint-Stock with Limited Liability status hard to achieve and what was the effect?

Answer 31

The 1720 Bubble Act, and that LL status required parliamentary dispensation until 1755. Limited effect because there were alternative means

Question 32

What was the MAIN reason for low investment in the early IR?

Answer 32

the paucity of attractive and profitable projects

Question 33

What have historians often claimed about the increase in technological advancements?

Answer 33

Often claimed in the past that tech advancements are endogenous of the economic system

Question 34

Who claimed that ‘developments that were technically so simple can only be responses to social and economic conditions’? What can be said of this?

Answer 34

S. Lilley (1973). If this is the case, inducements to innovate must have been stronger in Britain than. on the continent

Question 35

Who suggested that there were tech advancements because of pressures to move away from scarce sources? What issue did they recognise in their own thesis?

Answer 35

F. Crouzet (1980s), he concedes that this is not a full explanation for why there were tech advancements despite it being treated as such in scholarly thought

Question 36

What is an example of it being easier to prove the economy’s impact in encouraging adoption of tech advancements rather than the actual invention?

Answer 36

Coke smelting, it was invented in 1709, but not widely used until the 1770s/80s

Question 37

Regardless of its invention and adopting timescale, what can be said of early industrial technological advancements?

Answer 37

It did create a base of expertise and allow people to realise the potential of advancements

Question 38

How, demographically, were high-income levels maintained?

Answer 38

1500-1750 restraints on marriage, and thus fertility, helped create higher income levels and avert from a Malthusian trap

Question 39

Which historians claimed that preventative checks of delayed and reduced marriage slowed down excessive population growth?

Answer 39

E. Wrigley and R. Schofield

Question 40

Regarding population, what change occurred during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries?

Answer 40

The economy became able to withstand demographic pressure because of an increase in investment and innovation

Question 41

What was the maximum level of population growth that could be maintained in Britain without encroaching on the living standards in the period 1550-1750?

Answer 41

0.5% pa was the highest population growth the economy could withstand

Question 42

In the early industrial revolution what role was played by the government / institutions?

Answer 42

The government increasingly effectively allocated resources, and economic and political institutions created adequate incentives and obviated market failures.

Question 43

Who claimed that self-interest based impulses to growth can always be found in studying the eighteenth-century economy?

Answer 43

E. L. Jones

Question 44

What type of political climate in the eighteenth century encouraged economic growth?

Answer 44

The lack of excessive tax and rent seeking, as well as the change in the balance of monarchical-parliament power following the Glorious Revolution

Question 45

What did O’Brien find in regards to eighteenth-century tax rates?

Answer 45

Between 1700-80, the tax rate was between 8.7-11.7% of the national income

Question 46

Where did the burden of taxation in eighteenth-century Britain largely fall?

Answer 46

Because of the taxation system’s reliance on customs etc, the brunt fell largely on consumption practice rather than production

Question 47

What 2 types of legislation encouraged economic development in the eighteenth-century to a great extent?

Answer 47

Parliamentary acts of enclosure and the Navigation Acts

Question 48

What has changed in the historiography regarding the perception of road transport?

Answer 48

Where it used to have been negated, we recognise that road transport was much more important than originally thought

Question 49

What is an example of the increase in road transportation during the industrial revolution?

Answer 49

London’s carrying trade increased 6 fold in the period 1715-65

Question 50

How many miles of toll roads were there by the close of the eighteenth-century? What did Albert (1983) say of them?

Answer 50

14,000 miles of toll roads, they were kept in a better state and could reduce transport costs by up to 30%

Question 51

In the early eighteenth century, what occurred in the agricultural industry which can be said to be imperative to P. Mathias’ thesis on necessary advents for an IR?

Answer 51

The release of labour needed from agriculture was met, while agriculture maintained its ability to meet demands of food in a time of rising incomes.

Question 52

What can we say about the perception of coming structural changes by the end of the eighteenth-century?

Answer 52

They were not readily predictable, but there had certainly been steps towards them.

Question 53

How do revisionists broadly interpret the industrial revolution?

Answer 53

Revisionists broadly interpret the industrial revolution as being gradual, continuous change with no watershed moment

Question 54

Who was the first to challenge the interpretation of the industrial revolution being radical rapid change?

Answer 54

S. Chapman in the 1930s was the first to challenge the rapid interpretation of the industrial revolution

Question 55

How can we show that S. Chapman’s criticism of the radical interpretation of the industrial revolution failed?

Answer 55

S. Chapman’s criticism of the radical interpretation can be shown to have failed because E. Hobsbawm in 1968 put forward the traditionalist interpretation once again

Question 56

Why did revisionists begin to support a gradualist interpretation?

Answer 56

Revisionists began to support a gradualist interpretation because of changes to the economic tradition which opened up the opportunity to analyse newly framed statistical data

Question 57

How have non-economic interpretations of the industrial revolution changed in the twentieth century?

Answer 57

Non-Economic interpretations of the industrial revolution have also moved to suggest more continuity then previously- demography with cultural reasons being continuous and social with the impact of the IR only heightening existing social practice (e.g. protest)

Question 58

What is the revisionist understanding of the end of the industrial revolution?

Answer 58

Revisionists understand the industrial revolution to have petered out rather than finished; arguing that the actors never achieved political and economic ascendancy nor continually committed to propagating economic growth (yet varying interpretations of IR call this interpretation into question)

Question 59

What is a contemporary source which suggests that the IR was understood to be rapid rather than gradual by the actual participants, thus undermining the revisionist thesis?

Answer 59

A contemporary source which suggests actors of the industrial revolution saw themselves to be experiencing rapid change is Robert Owen who in 1820 noted ‘rapid advancement’ occurring- this undermines the revisionist interpretation (and also stresses the important of qualitative evidence)

Question 60

What is the post-revisionist interpretation of the industrial revolution?

Answer 60

Post-revisionists such as M. Berg and P. Hudson suggest that the industrial revolution needs rehabilitating because growth and productivity was measured incorrectly by traditionalists and underestimated by revisionists

Question 61

Why are traditional interpretations of the industrial revolution now criticised so heavily?

Answer 61

Traditional interpretations of the industrial revolution are now criticised heavily because of their reliance on generalised, aggregate data which can be based on wide margins of error up to 60%

Question 62

What are the four areas outlined by M. Berg and P. Hudson which arguably underwent rapid change in the industrial revolution?

Answer 62

The four areas outlined by M. Berg and P. Hudson which underwent rapid change in the industrial revolution were (1) technological and organisational change exogenous of factories (2) female & child labour (3) regional specialisations (4) demographic development

Question 63

What can be criticised about N. Crafts suggestion of total factory productivity having slow growth even with agriculture?

Answer 63

N. Crafts suggests that TFP was 0.2% 1760-1801, 0.7% 1801-1831, and finally 1.0% 1831-60- but despite how gradual this was, it was able to withstand population growth and avoid a malthusian catastrophe

Question 64

What can be criticised about N. Crafts interpretation of manufacturing only being significant in the cotton industry?

Answer 64

Three criticisms of N. Crafts interpretation of the cotton industry being responsible for 1/2 of all manufacturing productivity gains can be made: (1) cotton was a small, atypical industry, (2) it assumes that factory innovation is exogenous of economic practise (3) it assumes that all investments were geared towards immediate growth

Question 65

What is one issue with studying the industrial revolution which cannot be mitigated by any historical perspective?

Answer 65

No matter the historical perspective, large areas of economic activity were considered informal and thus not recorded, or records no longer exist

Question 66

What is one interpretation staked by M. Berg and P. Hudson which cannot be wholly convincing or wholly unconvincing?

Answer 66

The interpretation of the industrial revolution developing from a collection of small firms is plausible, but there is little data to support it and vice versa

Question 67

What can be said about flawed assumptions of technological progress?

Answer 67

We must steer clear of assumptions that technological progress always leads to growth, and that growth always leads to production revolution: traditional and modern industry isn’t binary- there’s fluidity between their characteristics and mixes in each different factory

Question 68

How can we prove that technological progress isn’t always a production revolution?

Answer 68

Technological progress can be shown to not always be a production revolution in cotton manufacturing- steam powered spinning was used alongside hand weavers

Question 69

What do M. Berg and P. Hudson assert about modern and traditional industry in the industrial revolution?

Answer 69

M. Berg and P. Hudson suggest that the modern sector was bolstered by, and derived from, the traditional sector, not the other way around, and that these bipartite classification systems undermine the representativeness of historical interpretations

Question 70

What is an aspect of the industrial revolution which goes wholly ignored by revisionist historians?

Answer 70

M. Berg and P. Hudson suggest that revisionist historians completely ignore “IR’s” which occurred outside of manufacturing- this can be attributed to the definitional problem outlined by M. Fores

Question 71

What are the three problems of using total factor productivity?

Answer 71

TFP has three problems: (1) it is heavily affected by sectoral estimations (2) how can the IR be calculated on generalisations when factor allocation changes were key to growth (3) it uses restrictive assumptions such as neutral technological progress (i.e. determinism)

Question 72

Why is the claim of neutral technological progress flawed?

Answer 72

The claim of neutral technological progress staked by M. Fores, especially in micro-innovation, is flawed because it is deterministic- innovation is nearly always reactionary rather than preemptive

Question 73

What is an issue with national accounts of productivity?

Answer 73

National accounts of productivity have the issue of not depicting qualitative changes to input factors- e.g. training green labour or less working hours increasing worker output

Question 74

What is a nuance which needs to be considered more than it has been with regard to the redeployment of labour in the industrial revolution?

Answer 74

When studying the redeployment of labour in the industrial revolution, we need to consider that there may be a delay in how this changes effectiveness or productivity?

Question 75

What theories underpin assertions that the effects of aggregate shifts in the industrial revolution may not be immediately apparent?

Answer 75

The contemporary Ricardo’s Machinery Effect (1821) and the economist Hicks-neutral technical change both feed into assertions of aggregate change not having immediate effects

Question 76

What is a huge flaw in labour studies of the industrial revolution pre-1990s?

Answer 76

Contemporary, Traditional, and revisionist depictions of the industrial revolution all use too narrow a definition of the workforce- ignoring the full extent of informal employment of women and children

Question 77

What is an issue with the broadened definition of the industrial revolution’s workforce which is necessary nevertheless?

Answer 77

Although necessary, considering the employment of women and children is difficult because they were not granted the same rights or protections as male labourers- they are not in formal records or even wage books often

Question 78

Why is the study of women and children in the industrial revolution so important?

Answer 78

Studying women and children is important because, as they were cheaper, more expendable, and less protected, they were the first to have new input changes tried out on them

Question 79

What is an example of contemporary use of child labour?

Answer 79

Child labour was considered integral to effective cotton and silk production i.e. dexterity, nimble, etc

Question 80

When did female and child labour decline and why?

Answer 80

Female and child labour declined 1850+ because of legislation, trade unions, and the ideology of the male breadwinner

Question 81

How can the regional nature of the industrial revolution be shown and what does this say of national studies?

Answer 81

There was regional disparity in the industrial revolution- while generally wool output increased by 150% which seems modest for a ‘revolution’, Yorkshire’s account of output grew from 20% to 60%- more of a ‘revolution’

Question 82

Why should we look through a regional lens when considering the industrial revolution?

Answer 82

A regional lens allows a more nuanced and representative interpretation of the industrial revolution because it shows the specialisation which fostered competition and thus rationalisation which then helped national advancement rather than suggesting a macroeconomic implausible national programme

Question 83

Summarise E. Wrigley and R. Schofield’s interpretation of population change in the industrial revolution:

Answer 83

E. Wrigley and R. Schofield argue that despite population growth and lack of mortality crises, demographic behaviour did not change and remained rooted in the cultural nature of marriage

Question 84

What is a criticism of E. Wrigley and R. Schofield’s interpretation of population change in the industrial revolution?

Answer 84

E. Wrigley and R. Schofield’s interpretation of population change obscures regional variations which would be better shown via parish studies- but despite this the myth of national cultural cohesion persists in historiography

Question 85

What is the historiographical focus of 18th century population change and why?

Answer 85

The historiographical focus of 18th century population change is on fertility continuity rather than mortality discontinuity, although M. Berg and P. Hudson concede that urbanisation can obscure this

Question 86

What is an aspect of the industrial revolution which receives less coverage than economic and demographic explanations and outcomes?

Answer 86

Social change and social class also warrants analysis- such as the formation of working class culture and whiggish lassiez faire practise

Question 87

What must be said about the cultural outcomes of the industrial revolution?

Answer 87

Although the industrial revolution did have cultural impacts- such as Victorian preoccupation with health and the formation of working class culture- we can not suggest pervasive homogenous cultures to have developed like Marx claims

Question 88

What must be conceded when criticising traditional interpretations of homogenous cultural outcomes of the industrial revolution?

Answer 88

Although homogenous cultures did not develop out of the industrial revolution, the workforce in Britain was still remarkably different by 1850 versus 1750, and factories certainly still acted as symbols of the emerging society

Question 89

What does R. Hartwell query with regards to the industrial revolution?

Answer 89

R. Hartwell queries was the industrial revolution of the “industry” or the “economy”- historiography cannot agree

Question 90

Who suggests there to have been a take off period 1783-1802? Who criticised this?

Answer 90

W. Rostow suggested that there was a watershed moment 1783-1802, but P. Deane claims this to have been a dramatic simplification because the growth rate only increased from 1-2%

Question 91

What is an issue with E. Hobsbawm’s praise of railways as the highlight of the industrial revolution?

Answer 91

E. Hobsbawm’s praise of railways as the highlight of the industrial revolution is flawed because it was largely exogenous of “industry”- this is why it is so often referred to as the second revolution

Question 92

How does M. Fores characterise the “Industrial Revolution” and why?

Answer 92

M. Fores characterises the “Industrial Revolution as a myth rather than historical reality because of the varying understandings of what the IR is- suggests there was an ir but not IR, and that historians focus too much on their own abstractions rather than reality

Question 93

Who was the first person to use the term Industrial revolution?

Answer 93

A. Toynbee- an 1880s economist/academic, suggested Britain was the first to adopt Adam Smith’s system but that the political system accompanying it was flawed- is this what historiographic definitions should follow?

Question 94

What is a further definitional issue of the industrial revolution?

Answer 94

The industrial revolution’s ‘technology’ and ‘science’ are equally unclear in their multiple definitions

Question 95

What are the four meanings of “industry” which M. Fores has found in historical studies?

Answer 95

M. Fores found that “industry” could be considered four things: (1) as a sector of the economy (2) as the manufacturing sector (3) as the process of factories coming to dominate (4) as the production of non-traditional, modern life

Question 96

Who claimed that cotton accounted for 1/2 of all manufacturing output and what is the problem with this?

Answer 96

A. Musson claimed that cotton accounted for 1/2 of all manufacturing output, this holds issue because it is too narrow a consideration of “industry”- textiles were atypical

Question 97

Who suggests that the role of the Enlightenment and scientific revolution drove the industrial revolution and who disagrees with this?

Answer 97

J. Mokyr suggested intellectual culture to have led to the industrial revolution by creating the climate for it, but ARE. Allen suggests the opposite- and indeed M. Fores finds no direct points of contact between manufacturing and physics or chemistry

Question 98

What did M. Fores find regarding factories in the industrial revolution?

Answer 98

M. Fores suggests that rather than an Industrial Revolution, Britain underwent an urban evolution- he found that by 1840 the amount of factories was only 1/4 of P. Deane’s estimates

Question 99

Why does R. Allen claim Britain to have been the only country capable of having an industrial revolution?

Answer 99

ARE. Allen claims Britain was the only country capable of an industrial revolution because of its unique price and wage structure- suggests that other countries would only adopt advancements when they were perfected

Question 100

What are the two types of innovation which are recognised by historians?

Answer 100

Macro-innovations- i.e. the invention, and micro-innovations, what R. Allen calls research and development /

Question 101

Why did Britain’s unique price and wage structure help the innovation behind the industrial revolution?

Answer 101

Britain’s unique price and wage structure meant that there was incentive to invent in order to economise on high wages to save prices, and high wages meant that there was an ability to receive better education and training

Question 102

What is an example which proves that Britain’s unique price and wage structure was suited towards innovation?

Answer 102

Jacques Vaucanson’s 1740 fully automated silk loom was the ideal machine but was too capital intensive for commercial use; and an invention is only profitable to invent if it is profitable to use

Question 103

How can the example of Adam Smith’s pin factory show the fluidity of British innovation?

Answer 103

Adam Smith’s pin factory is evident in the Warmley Works of Bristol (est. 1750s) which used a Newcomen Steam engine rather than employing wheel turners as on the continent- this increased productivity and cut costs

Question 104

How can the profitability of the industrial revolution’s innovations be shown?

Answer 104

The Arkwright mill was more profitable in Britain than in France (40% rate of return versus 9% when a 15% rate was needed for it to increase profit margins)

Question 105

How can the importance of local-learning during the industrial revolution be shown?

Answer 105

Local-learning was a key aspect of innovation and technological change in the industrial revolution can be seen in the work of Messers Smeaton Watt and Trevethick in reducing coal consumption by 95% in steam pumping engines (1727-1860)

Question 106

Who are the two doyens for the endogenous and exogenous explanations of innovation in the industrial revolution?

Answer 106

The doyen for exogenous innovation is J. Mokyr with his study of intellectual culture, the doyen for endogenous innovation is R. Allen with his study of price and wage structures

Question 107

What was the traditionalist opinion of intellectual culture in the industrial revolution? Why is this an issue?

Answer 107

Traditionalist historians often negated the importance of intellectual culture in the industrial revolution, but this can be criticised because the Newcomen Steam Engine was preceded by a 1600s focus on atmospheric pressure, and indeed was invented in 1712- before the normal periodisation of the IR (is this Ricardo effect?)