THE EPOCH OF THE GREAT INVENTIONS
§ 1. THE SUDDENNESS OF THE REVOLUTION AND ITS IMPORTANCE--The change
from the domestic system of industry which has been briefly sketched in
the previous chapter to the modern system of production by machinery
and steam power, was sudden and violent. The great inventions were
all made in a comparatively short space of time, and the previous
slow growth of industry developed quickly into a feverish burst of
manufacturing production that completely revolutionized the face of
industrial England. In little more than twenty years all the great
inventions of Watt, Arkwright, and Boulton had been completed, steam
had been applied to the new looms, and the modern factory system
had fairly begun. Nothing has done more to make England what she at
present is--whether for better or worse--than this sudden and silent
Industrial Revolution, for it increased her wealth tenfold, and gave
her half-a-century’s start in front of the nations of Europe. The
French Revolution {158} took place about the same time, and as it was
performed amid streams of blood and flame, it attracted the attention
of historians, who have apparently yet to learn that bloodshed and
battles are merely the incidents of history. The French Revolution also
succeeded in giving birth to one of the world’s military heroes, and a
military hero naturally excites the enthusiasm of the multitude. But
the French Revolution was the result of economic causes that had been
operating for centuries, and which had had their effect in England
four hundred years before, at the time of the Peasants’ Revolt. These
economic causes have been rather kept in the background by modern
historians, and it was hardly to be expected that they should recognize
the operation of such causes in England; more especially as their
effects were not accentuated by political fireworks, but were even
partially hidden by subsequent events resulting from these effects. Men
were blinded too by an increase in the wealth of the richer portion of
the nation, not even seeing whence that wealth proceeded, and quite
ignoring the fact that it was accompanied by serious poverty among the
industrial classes. Nor did historians perceive that the world-famous
wars in which England was engaged at the close of the last century
and up to 1815, were necessitated by England’s endeavour to gain the
commercial supremacy of the world, after she had invented the means of
supplying the world’s markets to overflowing. Economic causes were at
the root of them all. We shall discuss later the connection between our
foreign politics and our industry; at present we must adhere to the
subject of the development of that industry by the great inventors.[46]
{159}
[46. There was an Agricultural Revolution as important as the
Industrial one, but it is best to treat it separately. I have done so
in Ch. vi.]
§ 2. THE GREAT INVENTORS--The transition from the domestic to the
factory system was begun by four great inventions. In 1770 James
Hargreaves, a weaver of Standhill, near Blackburn, patented the
spinning-jenny--_i.e._ a frame with a number of spindles side by side,
which were fed by machinery, and by which many threads might be spun at
once, instead of only one, as had been the case in the old one-thread
hand-spinning wheel. Hargreaves first used this “jenny” for some time
in his own house, and was at once enabled to spin eight times as much
yarn as before. In 1771 Arkwright established a successful mill at
Cromford on the Derwent, in which he employed his patent spinning
machine, or “water-frame,” an improvement upon a former invention
of Wyatt’s, which derived its name from the fact that it was worked
by water power. A few years later (1779) both these inventions were
superseded by that of Samuel Crompton, a spinner, but the son of a
farmer near Bolton. His machine, the “mule,” combined the principles of
both the previous inventions, and was called by this name as being the
hybrid offspring of its mechanical predecessors. It drew out the roving
(_i.e._ the raw material when it has received its first twist) by an
adaptation of the water-frame, and then passed it on to be finished and
twisted into complete yarn by an adaptation of the spinning-jenny. This
invention effected an enormous increase in production, for nowadays
12,000 spindles are often worked by it at once and by one spinner.
It dates from the year 1779, and was so successful that by 1811 more
than four and a half million spindles worked by “mules” were in use in
various English factories. Like many inventors Crompton died in poverty
in 1827.
These three inventions, however, only increased the power of spinning
the raw material into yarn. What {160} was now wanted was a machine
that would perform the same service for weaving. This was discovered by
Dr Cartwright, a Kentish parson, and was patented as the “power-loom”
in 1785, though it had afterwards to undergo many improvements, and did
not begin to be much used till 1813. But the principle of it was there,
and it was one of the most important factors in the destruction of the
old domestic system. For at first only spinning was done by machinery,
and the weavers could still do their work by hand in the old methods;
and indeed they continued to do so till a comparatively recent period,
and many old people in Northern manufacturing districts can still
remember the old weaving industry, as carried on in the workmen’s own
houses. But the improvements on Cartwright’s invention did away with
the hand-weaver, as the others had abolished the hand-spinner, and the
old form of industry was doomed.
Its death-blow, however, was yet to come. Wondrous as were the changes
introduced by the machines just spoken of none of them would have
by themselves alone revolutionized our manufacturing industries.
Power of some kind was needed to work them, and water power, though
used at first, was insufficient and not always available. It was the
application of steam to manufacturing processes which finally completed
the Industrial Revolution. In 1769, the year in which Wellington
and Bonaparte were born, James Watt took out his patent for the
steam-engine. It was first used as an auxiliary in mining operations,
but in 1785 it was introduced into factories, a Nottinghamshire
cotton-spinner having one set up in his works, which had previously
been run only by water power. Of course the enormous advantages of
steam over water power became immediately apparent; manufacturers,
especially in the cotton trade, {161} hastened to make use of the new
methods, and in fifteen years (1788–1803) the cotton trade trebled
itself.
§ 3. THE REVOLUTION IN MANUFACTURES AND THE FACTORIES--Although these
machines of which we have just spoken were intended at first for use
in the manufacture of cotton, they rapidly extended to that of woollen
and linen fabrics. It is impossible here to describe all the various
modifications and adaptations that were thus made; we can only refer to
the general features of the great change. The most remarkable of these
features was the sudden growth of factories, chiefly of course at first
for spinning cotton or woollen yarn. The old factories, had perforce
been planted by the side of some running stream, often in a lonely
and deserted spot, very inconvenient for markets and the procuring of
labour; but necessarily so placed for the sake of the water. Those of
my readers who know Yorkshire or Lancashire fairly well may remember
how frequently in the course of some long country walk near Bradford,
Halifax, Leeds, or Manchester, they come upon the ruins of some old
mill, crumbling beside a rushing stream, a silent relic of the old days
before the use of steam. How wonderful must the first rude inventions
have seemed to the workers in those old factories, as the strange new
machinery rattled and shook in the quiet country hollows, and the becks
and streamlets ran down to turn the new spindles and looms that were to
revolutionize the face of agricultural England. But the old water-mills
gave way to others worked by steam power, and now it was no longer
necessary to choose any particular site for the works. So the new race
of manufacturers made haste to run up steam-factories wherever they
could. “Old barns and cart-houses,” says Radcliffe, “outbuildings of
all descriptions were repaired; windows broke through the old blank
walls, and all were {162} fitted up for loom-shops; new weavers’
cottages arose in every direction.” The merchants too, who did not run
factories on their own account, but merely purchased yarn, began to
collect weavers around them in great numbers, to get looms together
in a workshop, and to give out warp themselves to the workpeople. And
now the workers began to feel the difference between the old system
and the new. Formerly they used to buy for themselves the yarn they
were to weave, and had a direct interest in the cloth they made from
it, which was their own property. They were in fact economically
independent. The new system made them dependent upon the merchant or
upon the mill-owner. At first, it is true, they gained a rise in wages,
for the increase in production was so great that labour was continually
in demand, and every family, says Radcliffe, brought home forty to one
hundred and twenty shillings per week. But this did not last very long.
The new machinery soon threw out of employment a number of those who
had worked only by hand; it enabled women and children to do the work
of grown men; it made all classes of workers dependent upon capitalist
employers; it introduced an era of hitherto unheard-of competition. The
coming of the capitalists had become an accomplished fact, and with
it began again the exploitation of labour. Of this we shall speak in
another chapter. Other national changes now demand our attention.
§ 4. THE GROWTH OF POPULATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NORTHERN
DISTRICTS--The two most striking facts of the Industrial Revolution
are the great growth and the equally great shifting of the population.
Before 1751 the largest decennial increase of population had been about
5 or 6 per cent. But for each of the next three periods of ten years
the increase became rapidly greater, till in 1801 {163} it was 14 per
cent. on the previous ten years, and reached even 21½ per cent. in
the period 1801 to 1811. This last was the highest rate ever reached in
England, and is more than double that recorded in the census of 1881 or
1891. The population of England had been under 8,000,000 in 1760; by
1821 it had risen to nearly 12,000,000; and at the present moment it is
certainly nearly treble that number.
At the same time, the great migration to the North, already begun
before the Revolution, was now accelerated and completed. The Northern
counties, which in the Middle Ages had, as we saw, been comparatively
deserted, now became and have since remained the most populous and
flourishing of all. The centres of the new factory system were in
the North, and thither flocked the workers who had formerly been
distributed over England in a much more extensive manner, or who had
clustered round the great Eastern and Western centres of industry,
which before 1760 had excelled the other centre, the West Riding,
in prosperity. But now this was changed. Before the Revolution, the
Eastern counties, more especially about Norwich and the surrounding
districts, had been famous for their manufactures of crapes,
bombazines, and other fine, slight stuffs. In the West of England
the towns of Bradford-on-Avon, Devizes, and Warminster had been
manufacturing centres noted for their fine serges; Stroud had been
the centre of the manufacture of dyed cloth, and so had Taunton been,
for even in Defoe’s time (1725) it had 1100 looms; and the excellence
of the Cotswold wool had done much for the industry of the district.
These two centres and their productions, then, were far more famous
than the third, the West Riding, including the towns of Halifax, Leeds,
and Bradford, where only coarse cloths were made. The cotton trade
{164} of Lancashire, too, had previously been insignificant, for it
was only incidentally mentioned by Adam Smith, though Manchester and
Bolton were then, as now, its headquarters. In 1760 only 40,000 persons
were engaged in it, the annual value of the cotton manufacture was
comparatively insignificant, while in 1764 the value of our cotton
exports was only one-twentieth of our woollen, and only strong cottons,
such as dimities and fustians, were made. But now the cotton cities of
Lancashire and the woollen and worsted factories of Yorkshire greatly
surpass the older seats of industry in wealth and population, while
the cotton export has risen to be the first in the kingdom, and the
vast majority of the industrial population is now found North of the
Trent. These great industrial changes were the direct consequence of
the introduction of new manufacturing processes. For the use of steam
power in mills necessitated the liberal use of coal, and hence the
factory districts are necessarily almost coincident with the great
coal-fields, as will be seen from the appended map.[47] Moreover, the
coal industry had been developed almost simultaneously with the growth
of manufactures, and indeed one reacted upon the other. It will be
convenient here to mention the improvements made in coal-mining and in
the iron trade.
[47. In this industrial map it will be seen that we have
(1) corresponding to the Yorks coal-field, manufactrs. of woollens,
&c., cutlery, &c., lace & hosiery, machinery.
(2) corresponding to the Lancs. coal-field, manufactrs. of cotton.
(3) corresponding to the Staffs coal-field manufactrs. of pottery and
hardware.
(4) corresponding to the S. Wales coal-field smelting & iron
industries.]
[Illustration: MAP OF ENGLAND]
§ 5. THE REVOLUTION IN THE MINING INDUSTRIES--I have mentioned in a
previous chapter that the development of the vast natural resources of
our country as regards coal {165} and iron was retarded by the lack of
steam power (p. 137). But with the steam-engines of Watt and Boulton a
new era dawned upon coal-mining. In 1774 Watt, after vainly advocating
his invention, entered into partnership with Matthew Boulton, a
Birmingham man, and their new engine soon produced a vast change in
the manner of pumping water from the mines, just as it also produced
other changes in every manufacture dependent upon the use of coal.
Steam power was used not only to clear the mines of water, but also in
sinking shafts, where formerly entrance had often been made only by
tunnelling in the side of a hill. It was used too in bringing up the
coal from the pit, and in many other necessary processes. The result of
this application of steam power was soon seen in the general opening up
of all the English coal-fields, and the consequent further growth of
towns like Newcastle, Sheffield, and Birmingham, whose industries now
depend so greatly upon a large supply of coal.
With the great output of coal came an immediate revival of the iron
trade, which it will be remembered had greatly declined about 1737 and
1740, for as coal was not available wood had to be used as fuel, and
the consequent destruction of forests, especially the Sussex Wealden,
had caused legislative prohibitions. The scientific treatment of iron
ore in the various processes of manufacture had indeed been improved,
but nothing much could be done without coal. This was seen for instance
by an ironmaster, Anthony Bacon, in 1755, who obtained a lease for 99
years of a district at Merthyr Tydvil, eight miles long and five broad,
upon which he erected both iron and coal works. In 1760 Smeaton’s
invention of a new blowing apparatus at his works at Carron, near
Falkirk, did away with the old clumsy bellows; and the other inventions
of Cranage (1766), of Onions (1783), and of Cort {166} (1784), for
which separate treatises must be consulted, brought the manufacture of
iron almost to perfection. Whereas about 1740 we produced only some
18,000 tons of iron annually, and had to import at least 20,000 tons;
we produced in 1788 as much as 68,000 tons, and the production has
gone on steadily increasing to the present time, when our export alone
amounts to four and a half million tons of iron and steel annually.
§ 6. THE NATION’S WEALTH AND ITS WARS--Of course these discoveries of
new processes in procuring coal and making iron enormously increased
the wealth of England, and at the same time entirely changed the
conditions of industry. For they helped on the textile manufactures by
providing any amount of fuel and machinery, and all these together gave
employment to a population that seemed to grow in accordance with the
need of the nation for workers. The new textile and mining industries
supplied England with that vast wealth which enabled her to endure
successfully the long years of war at the close of last century and
the beginning of this. The Industrial Revolution came only just in
time, for after the repose of 1763 to 1792, during which this silent
Revolution matured and took root, England engaged in a struggle which
she certainly could never have supported without a far greater national
wealth than she possessed in the first three quarters of the eighteenth
century. And as it was, the year 1815 found a large portion of her
people in poverty and distress, and the industrial classes suffered
heavily from the taxation which the war imposed. But owing to her
industrial development the war left England at its close, in spite of
all her troubles, the foremost nation of Europe in economic matters,
and consequently in all other matters also. As is the case with most
modern wars, this great war originated in economic causes, even {167}
to a certain extent in economic mistakes, but it had important effects
upon industry and was largely affected by industrial considerations.
Hence we must consider it rather more closely.