EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 1

Technology, Modernisation & Industrialisation

• Industrialisation: the Rise of Modern Industry

• The Industrial Revolution: its several facets

• Central Role of Technological Advance– Energy and Raw Materials for Industrialisation

• Industrial change:– Steam power– Iron and steel– Textiles– Contributions from other industries

• Why was the Industrial Revolution British?

EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 2

Industrial Revolution: the rise of modern industry

• “The Industrial Revolution” – a sequence of events starting in 18C marked by the expansion of industries organised along capitalist lines

• Precisely where did it occur and when?

• What distinguishes the industries that expanded?

• What caused the IR?

• What was so profound about the IR?

• Is the I.R. a useful concept?

EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 3

Four views of the Industrial Revolution

Mokyr identified 4 `schools’ of, or approaches to the I.R.:

1. The Social Change School

2. The Industrial Organisation School

3. The Macroeconomic School

4. The Technological School

EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 4

Technical change in the Industrial Revolution

• Distinguish between invention and innovation

• Allen’s argument (2009, ch 6):

– Relative input prices determined the new technologies

• Landes `three principles’ (Unbound Prometheus, p. 41):

1. `substitution of machines ... for human skill and effort’

2. `substitution of inanimate for animate sources of power’

3. `use of new and far more abundant raw materials’

EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 5

Sequence of events in Britain: a sketchSequence of events in Britain (Allen’s synthesis):

• Demographic catastrophe (Black Death) from 1348/50

• Commercial expansion to Asia and the Americas, from early 17th century

• Cultural developments favour invention and innovation

• Institutional change supports enterprise & wealth accumulation

EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 6

Mineral Sources of Energy & Raw Materials

• Wrigley’s thesis: Advanced Organic replaced by Mineral Based Economy

• Advanced organic economy: plant sources of energy & raw materials

• Mineral based energy economy: coal for energy, iron & coal as raw materials

• But Wrigley’s account is not the whole story

The Role of Science

• Allen emphasises two applications– Steam power → Steam engine– Clockwork → Gears (and engineering)

• Basic scientific advance was mostly continental

• But British technology benefited, albeit indirectly

EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 7

EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 8

Steam power

• Steam engines: external combustion engines

• Major invention: Newcomen’s `beam engine’, c1712

• Minor (and not so minor) inventions, include:improved fuel efficiency; high pressure engine

• Railways: expansion after c1830 (Liverpool-Manchester line)

• Later developments: compound engine, steam turbine

EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 9

Iron and steel• Smelting:

blast furnace production of pig iron from iron ore

• Refining: reduce carbon content of pig iron– `Forge’ pig iron into wrought (malleable) iron

• Steel: “a superior variety of iron”, has more carbon than wrought iron

EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 10

Textiles (1)• Four processes: preparation, spinning, weaving,

finishing

• Traditional sectors (in late 18C): wool, linen, silk

• New sector: cotton, small scale; rapid growth from 1760s

• Kay’s flying shuttle (1733): raised weavers’ productivity

• Spinning inventions were major labour-saving innovations

• Weaving: hand-loom dominated until 1830s/40s

EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 11

Textiles (2)

• Cotton industry:– “the wonder industry of the Industrial

Revolution” (Allen)

• Traditional textiles: innovations adopted but more slowly

• Cloth processing: expansion of the garment trades

EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 12

Contributions from other industries (briefly)

• Machine tools: advances in accuracy of manufacture

• Mining, especially coal became a major employer

• Chemicals (mainly used in textiles industries)

• Gas lighting: initially in Germany & France, then further developed in Britain

• Ceramics & glass: Britain followed continental innovations

Why was the Industrial Revolution British?

• Mokyr (2009): economic impact of Enlightenment ideas

• Allen (2009): “growth of the urban, commercial economy drove the economy forward in the centuries before the I.R.” (p.106)

• Clark (2007): “reproductive advantage of the rich”, “… economic success has a very important genetic component”, a Darwinian survival mechanism

EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 13