- Join over 1.2 million students every month
- Accelerate your learning by 29%
- Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month
The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution is a potentially misleading term; it does not refer to a single, dramatic event but instead to a series of changes and developments over many decades. Britain was transformed from an agrarian economy where most lived off the land and society was dominated by a narrow political and social elite to an urbanised nation where the majority of the population were employed in manufacturing or industry. For roughly two hundred years between the 18th and early 20th centuries, there was an explosion of ideas and inventions that profoundly altered working practices and methods of production. The landscape became dominated by mills and factories and cities grew rapidly, with many social problems resulted from the vast influx of workers and their families to create densely populated metropolises. The revolution in production methods was accompanied by hundreds of thousands of miles of new transport systems, including canals, roads and railways that facilitated trade and improved communication. The changes were powered by both steam and coal, which replaced wood as the fuel of choice for the industrial age.
Industrial Revolution Essays
Read about the Industrial Revolution in more depth using our student essays.
The First Industrial Revolution, as called in the narrower sense the revolution of coal and iron, started in Britain in the manufacture of textiles in the middle of seventeenth century. It implied...
One of the most controversial issues of British Economic History is the living standards during the industrial revolution.
One of the most controversial issues of British Economic History is the living standards during the industrial revolution. Pessimists against optimists oppose their ideas about whether the
Much negative and positive speculation has been said about the Industrial Revolution since its birth in the late 18th Century in Britain. The revolution was a...
Richard Arkwright was the founder of the factory. He was the first person to invent a machine that used a different form of power other than...
The Industrial Revolution was the result of interrelated changes, which transformed agricultural economies into industrial ones. The immediate changes
This exhibition put on show to the world Britain's wealth and inventiveness, displaying consumer goods and machinery from its great manufacturing cities. It showed that...