The Age of Industrialisation- 1 Flashcards
what do associate industrialisation with?
we associate industrialisation with the growth of
factory industry. When we talk of industrial production we refer
to factory production. When we talk of industrial workers we
mean factory workers. Histories of industrialisation very often begin
with the setting up of the first factories.
what is the phase of proto-industrialisation?
Even before factories began to
dot the landscape in England and Europe, there was large-scale
industrial production for an international market. This was not based
on factories. Many historians now refer to this phase of
industrialisation as proto-industrialisation.
what did merchants in europe do in the 17th and 18th centuries?
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, merchants from the towns
in Europe began moving to the countryside, supplying money to
peasants and artisans, persuading them to produce for an international
market. With the expansion of world trade and the acquisition of
colonies in different parts of the world, the demand for goods
began growing.
why couldn’t merchants do trade in towns? what restricted them?
But merchants could not expand production within
towns. This was because here urban crafts and trade guilds were
powerful. These were associations of producers that trained
craftspeople, maintained control over production, regulated
competition and prices, and restricted the entry of new people into
the trade. Rulers granted different guilds the monopoly
right to produce and trade in specific products. It was
therefore difficult for new merchants to set up
business in towns. So they turned to the countryside.
why did the poor peasants work for the merchants
In the countryside poor peasants and artisans began
working for merchants. As you have seen in the
textbook last year, this was a time when open fields
were disappearing and commons were being
enclosed. Cottagers and poor peasants who had earlier
depended on common lands for their survival,
gathering their firewood, berries, vegetables, hay and
straw, had to now look for alternative sources of
income. Many had tiny plots of land which could not
provide work for all members of the household. So
when merchants came around and offered advances
to produce goods for them, peasant households
eagerly agreed.
how did working for merchants benefit the farmers?
By working for the merchants, they
could remain in the countryside and continue to cultivate their small
plots. Income from proto-industrial production supplemented their
shrinking income from cultivation. It also allowed them a fuller use
of their family labour resources.Within this system a close relationship developed between the town
and the countryside. Merchants were based in towns but the work
was done mostly in the countryside
explain the process of producing cloth in proto-industrialisation period by clothier?
A merchant clothier in England
purchased wool from a wool stapler, and carried it to the spinners;
the yarn (thread) that was spun was taken in subsequent stages
of production to weavers, fullers, and then to dyers.
why was london called finisheing centre
The finishing
was done in London before the export merchant sold the cloth in
the international market. London in fact came to be known as a
finishing centre.
This proto-industrial system was thus part of a network of
commercial exchanges. explain
This proto-industrial system was thus part of a network of
commercial exchanges. It was controlled by merchants and the goods
were produced by a vast number of producers working within
their family farms, not in factories. At each stage of production 20
to 25 workers were employed by each merchant. This meant that
each clothier was controlling hundreds of workers.
what was the first symbol of a new era?
The first symbol of the new era was cotton. Its production boomed
in the late nineteenth century. In 1760 Britain was importing 2.5
million pounds of raw cotton to feed its cotton industry. By 1787
this import soared to 22 million pounds. This increase was linked to
a number of changes within the process of production.
what were the changes that took place in cotton production
A series of inventions in the eighteenth century increased the efficacy
of each step of the production process (carding, twisting and
spinning, and rolling). They enhanced the output per worker, enabling
each worker to produce more, and they made possible the
production of stronger threads and yarn.
explain richard awkrights contrubution to cotton production? how did his invention impact the industry?
Richard Arkwright
created the cotton mill. Till this time, cloth
production was spread all over the countryside and carried out within
village households. But now, the costly new machines could be
purchased, set up and maintained in the mill. Within the mill all the processes were brought together under one roof and management.
This allowed a more careful supervision over the production process,
a watch over quality, and the regulation of labour, all of which had
been difficult to do when production was in the countryside
how did england landscape change in 19th century
In the early nineteenth century, factories increasingly became an
intimate part of the English landscape. So visible were the imposing
new mills, so magical seemed to be the power of new technology,
that contemporaries were dazzled. They concentrated their attention
on the mills, almost forgetting the bylanes and the workshops where
production still continued.
explain the first phase of industrialisation in england
First: The most dynamic industries in Britain were clearly cotton and
metals. Growing at a rapid pace, cotton was the leading sector in the
first phase of industrialisation up to the 1840s. After that the iron
and steel industry led the way. With the expansion of railways, in
England from the 1840s and in the colonies from the 1860s, the
demand for iron and steel increased rapidly. By 1873 Britain was
exporting iron and steel worth about £ 77 million, double the value
of its cotton export.
explain the second phase of industrialisation in england
the new industries could not easily displace traditional
industries. Even at the end of the nineteenth century, less than 20 per
cent of the total workforce was employed in technologically
advanced industrial sectors. Textiles was a dynamic sector, but a
large portion of the output was produced not within factories, but
outside, within domestic units
