industry

[hanbo1865]

Where did the Industrial revolution start?

[iainwheeler]

The industrial Revolution started in Ironbridge, Shropshire. I live there so I know! It was an ideal place as it had all available resources close to hand and transport in the form of the River Severn.

They learnt how to smelt iron from Coke rather than from wood and thus got better results. For more info try the "Enginuity" website. or try Blists Hill Museum.

Hope this helps.

[henneth]

The Industrial Revolution started in Britain. Where specifically is open to debate as indeed are the causes. The natural resources of the island, the fact that Britain left the Napoleonic Wars relatively unscathed, the Enclosure Acts and the Protestant Work ethic, whereupon Quakers (ever present around Ironbridge) and the like really did work harder than most of their Catholic bretheren, or so some historians would have us believe. Sadly, none of them seemed to be working for British Leyland in the mid 1970's!!

Likely locations for the birth of the Industrial Revolution are Cornwall and Devon. The latter being the birthplace of Thomas Newcomen and the former being where his steam powered beam engines were first operated. Later with improvements by James Watt these machines were also used in Birmingham and later throughout the Black Country. Early factories can be found in Derbyshire including Sir Richard Arkwright's mill in Cromford. He is known in every school book as the 'Father of the Factory System' so that little valley can be included as a candidate alongside Ironbridge Gorge as the place where it all started.

Best to leave it to a number of events around the country rather than specifically pointing to a wet Saturday in Dudley at 2.30pm, 240 years ago.

[jno]

way before the Napoleonic wars though, henneth (Battle of Waterloo was 1815)

[henneth]

Point taken, jno, but Waterloo and events of the decades before and after are important.

The Napoleonic Wars began in the last decade of the 18th century. Granted, many innovations had been introduced and the period of Industrial take off is generaly regarded as being around 1775 to 1790 but as Britain was involved with the war with France the Industrial Revolution would not have gathered momentum if this country was on the losing side.

Firstly, Britains navy and merchant fleet survived the war and their overseas markets remained in place. As Napoleon failed to invade, thus his judicial system and laws were not imposed in the country. Investors, such as the Rothschilds, looked to the victorious side and ploughed money into new ideas and Britain continued to prosper, entering what some Historians call the Second Industrial Revolution in the 1850's and 1860's.

I admit that this isn't answering the original question on where the Industrial Revolution started but it serves to illustrate the debate on the "when, where and how" that still fascinate people today.

[gary baldy]

An almost impossible question to answer really because no one woke up on morning and said "Lets have an Industrial revolution' it evolved over a long period - but if you had to pin point it to one place I'm with iainwheeler. Other contenders would be Cromford (first factory system) and Manchester (first industrial city). I'm going to say Manchester cos thats where all the small events came together to create a whole - (and i'm from Manchester - no bias you understand)

[Octavius]

Very difficult to pinpoint. It began in England with the introduction of steam power (fueled primarily by coal) and powered machinery (mainly in textile manufacturing).

Since Arnold Toynbee coined the phrase 'Industrial Revolution' in 1882, most economic historians have emphasised the rapidity of British industrialisation during the period 1780-1830. However, many agree now that industrialisation took centuries, rather than decades. Its roots stretched back into the 17th century, or even earlier. Of particular significance were the establishment of new, long-distance trading links and technological and organisational changes in both agriculture and industry.

By 1800, industrialised manufacturing was to be found everywhere, from the capital cities of London and Edinburgh to provincial ports such as Glasgow and Bristol and expanding villages such as Birmingham and Manchester.