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121 pages

English

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The English Industrial Revolution was a triumph of ingenuity and invention. New sources of power, better manufacturing methods and expanding transport systems brought fantastic changes affecting every walk of life. Man and machine worked side by side to produce iron, coal and cotton cloth on a scale never before imagined. In this easy-to-follow and carefully researched book, Stan Yorke explains the machines and processes that helped to create our industrial world, using drawings and diagrams by his son, Trevor. Four major industrial areas are examined: the waterwheel as a source of power in mills and foundries; the steam engine which made power available to a variety of manufacturing industries; the mechanisation of textile production making cloth for all a reality; and iron, which revolutionised bridge construction and made the railways possible. There are now over 500 museums related to industry in the British Isles and information on where to find them is contained in the book.

Sujets

Histoire

Reino Unido

United Kingdom

History of Europe

Great Britain

History

Royaume-Uni

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Publié par	Countryside Books
Date de parution	03 octobre 2005
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781846748684
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0224€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION EXPLAINED
Steam, Sparks and Massive Wheels

STAN YORKE
First published 2005 © Stan Yorke 2005 Reprinted 2007, 2012
All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without the prior permission of the publisher:
COUNTRYSIDE BOOKS 3 Catherine Road Newbury, Berkshire
To view our complete range of books, please visit us at www.countrysidebooks.co.uk
ISBN 978 1 85306 935 2
Photographs by the author Line illustrations by Trevor Yorke
Produced through MRM Associates Ltd., Reading Typeset by CJWT Solutions, St Helens Printed by Information Press, Oxford
All material for the manufacture of this book was sourced from sustainable forests .
C ONTENTS
I NTRODUCTION
SECTION I
A B RIEF H ISTORY
Chapter 1
S ETTING THE S CENE
Chapter 2
S CIENCE R EPLACES D OGMA
SECTION II
S TARS OF THE S HOW
Chapter 3
W HEELS FROM THE P AST
Chapter 4
M ATERIALS OF O UR D REAMS
Chapter 5
P OWER OF A T HOUSAND H ORSES
Chapter 6
C LOTH FOR A LL
SECTION III
T HE S UPPORTING C AST
Chapter 7
A GRICULTURE
Chapter 8
C OAL
Chapter 9
C ANALS AND R AILWAYS
Chapter 10
F ACTORIES
Chapter 11
B UILDINGS
SECTION IV
R EFERENCE
M USEUMS AND S ITES TO V ISIT
S TATISTICS
N OTABLE I NVENTIONS AND E VENTS
G LOSSARY
I NDEX
Introduction

T he words ‘industry’ and ‘revolution’ are strange bedfellows. The first might well conjure up huge pistons, spinning wheels and hissing steam but to most people these days it is, alas, a rather vague term. The second probably brings images of war and sadness based on the oft-told stories of the French Revolution. So what happened here in England that earned itself this strange label?
Generally taken as the period from 1750 to 1850, the Industrial Revolution was, in fact, the application of better manufacturing methods and new sources of power and materials to long-established products. This simple description is, however, far too mild; the changes were truly amazing and affected every walk of life. Someone from the 12th or 13th centuries could have wandered around England in 1700 and would not have felt lost. They would have been impressed with the improved river navigations, better housing and greater academic knowledge, but little else. But taking someone from 1700 and putting them down in, say, 1850 would have been like space travel!

A summer’s day in late Victorian England. The Black Country Living Museum .

The reception and entrance to the North of England Open Air Museum, Beamish .
Interest in this unique 100-year period has slowly reawakened in recent years, often spurred on by TV documentaries. There are now over 500 museums related to industry in the British Isles, from small sites open just a few days a month to superb modern displays using all the latest visual techniques to tell their stories. Many original machines and processes survive from the Victorian period, plus many examples of processes that have changed little since the 16th century. Where the story becomes slightly misty is how this vast industrial world started, but enquire how the machines and processes actually work and you will find the mist has turned to darkest fog! It is not that we don’t know, it is simply that the detail is buried in lofty volumes that can make rather heavy reading. This book tries to bridge the gap by explaining some of the background and workings of the machines without getting too complex.
Today, so extensive is our knowledge that we can make almost anything. Driven by a world of marketing, we expect a continuous flow of new products, each better than or different from its predecessor. In reality, though, very few are really new; instead they are simply the result of applying new manufacturing techniques and materials to old ideas. It is slightly unnerving, when looking back at our industrial history, to find just how many basic ideas belong to a time that is not just a decade or two ago but several centuries earlier.
In the first section of the book, I sketch in the historical background to the revolution to show that this was a steady accumulation of knowledge and skills and not at all a sudden step change. In Section II I look in detail at four major industrial areas that are well represented in our museums and see how the basic machines work and how the processes were developed.
Section III examines some of the other areas involved in supporting the vast expansion, not necessarily in the direct line of the revolution, but vitally interwoven into it.
Finally, Section IV gives some ideas for finding more information, and lists some of the larger multi-subject museums – along with some surprising statistics.
If your image of an industrial museum is dark, dusty and boring, then prepare to be pleasantly surprised. Hopefully, this little book will contribute to your enjoyment.
Stan Yorke

Cast iron bridge and pump house resting at peace with the world, just outside Coventry. A classic example of items from the Industrial Revolution now surrounded by modern-day housing .

The winding house for the Middleton Incline on the Cromford and High Peak railway. Though the line is long gone, the steam engine inside is still working .
S ECTION I
A B RIEF H ISTORY
C HAPTER 1
Setting the Scene

T he history of industry is a fascinating world of interdependent discoveries and processes, which developed almost independently from – indeed, one could say, despite – the more familiar world of kings and queens and politics.
To most of us the word ‘industry’ conjures up factories producing cars, processed foods, furniture and so on. Add the word ‘heritage’ and our eyes turn misty with romantic thoughts of the Victorian era, ornate brass-covered pumps and engines, dark satanic mills and mines. But to find the roots of the Industrial Revolution we must look much further back than the Victorians, indeed practically all the real inventing was over by the start of that worthy reign.
We know that the Egyptians were spinning and weaving flax to produce linen at least 4,000 years ago. Glass making is known to date from a similar period. By 100 BC the waterwheel had been devised and mechanised grinding of flour started. So good was the Romans’ grasp of technology that by the 3rd century at Barbell, near Arles, in southern France they had constructed a flight of eight pairs of waterwheels spaced down a 65 ft slope. The water came from a reservoir, which, in turn, was fed by aqueducts in typical Roman fashion. The sixteen grind wheels produced enormous quantities of flour – enough for 80,000 people. Thought to be the largest ‘industrial’ complex in the Roman Empire, it was made special by its supply chain. Grain was brought to Arles not just from the surrounding area but by ship from as far away as Egypt. The flour was then sent north hundreds of miles to feed the Roman armies of occupation. This was, in fact, the basic factory operation that we are all familiar with today.
Here in England, once the Romans had left, we went through a period of enormous turmoil. Wars, invasions and plagues instilled a rare mix of character that possibly made us more able to accept change than many other European nations. Despite the overlay of kings and their armies raging around, ordinary life continued, as did the spread of the technology of the day. A hint of this comes from the Domesday Book written around 1085 where over 6,000 waterwheels are recorded, most employed in grinding corn for flour.
The main activity after agriculture involved wool, and this was centred on Wiltshire with smaller areas in East Anglia and Yorkshire. English wool was much sought after and we exported almost all we could produce, creating very rich families who left their mark in the form of some beautiful churches. So valued was English wool that it constituted the ransom for the return of Richard the Lionheart.
Weaving and cloth production were carried out in the home using a vertical loom, a slow and labour-intensive process. The horizontal loom arrived, like many ideas at this time, from the Continent, sometime in the 1300s, as did the windmill, which joined the waterwheel as a second source of power.
By the dawn of the 15th century we can see the slow start of new thinking and invention, though still governed by religious dogma and the belief in the ideas of Aristotle, both of which discouraged practical experiments.
Clocks had also arrived from the Continent, used solely to regulate ecclesiastical rituals, there being as yet no need for time-keeping as we think of it. These devices, however, introduced the idea of mechanisms using gears and springs, and by the 1500s had developed into watches and clocks that we would easily recognise today.
This spread of knowledge led to an increase in the demand for books throughout Europe, although they were still only produced by scribes, who copied by hand onto parchment. As the years went by, worn out linen, now widely available, was collected to make paper. Initially this was a job done by those who previously collected bones for fertiliser – hence, the rag and bone man.
Paper made this way was much cheaper than parchment, resulting in a less expensive book, but this just helped the demand for written works to grow and soon scribes couldn’t keep up. It was this shortage that drove the search for some form of automatic writing machine and by the late 1400s the problem was solved. Printing using movable typeface had been invented and, at a stroke, it transformed laborious hand copying into an industry that introduced a new concept – rapid distribution of news. Its effects were to be far reaching and way beyond the aspirations of those who sought to improve the hand copying process. Brought to these shores from Bruges by William Caxton in 1476, within four years there were printing works in four English towns. All printing was still controlled by the Church until 1557 when Henry VIII formed the Stat