Industrial revolution - Simple explanation

Industrial revolution - simple explanation

The causes of the industrial revolution were: great increase in population and demand for pots, beer and clothes so there was a need for more efficient production. England changed from a farming to an industrial country and this caused: new technologies and inventions, the development of the factory system with new sources of power and transport. The most important inventions were the spinning machine (macchina filatrice) and the loom (telaio) that linked cloth manufacture to water and steam power. And thanks to James Watt’s steam engine (macchina che funzionava mediante la combustione e il vapore) the factories were built on coal and iron fields. There were also changes in transport to allow workers to go to work in a more efficient way: new waterways were built and road conditions were improved. Less work in the countryside led more workers in the town, which created ‘Mushroom towns’, small and overcrowded towns built near the factories to house the workers. But they were lacked of public services and polluted and this created diseases. Two new social classes began to emerge, entrepreneurs and the workers, both had no land and were not represented in Parliament. Workers were exploited, their working conditions were hard, indeed women and children were paid less and were easier to control, there were long working hours and monotony work. The entrepreneurs and workers became soon hostile enemies beacause the entrepreneurs were also the employers. There was another group, named The Luddites and didn’t like the working conditions, so they destroyed machines all over the England because they replaced human skills. The parliament tried to repress this with an act that allows arrest without trial to the man who were found destroying machines, silencing the freedom of expression (Magna Charta prohibited the arrest without trial).

Others informations

In the Napoleonic era the British navy dominated the sea with the great hero of the British navy was Admiral Horatio Nelson, the French army dominated the European continent. When the General Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed himself Emperor of France a series of war broke out between France and Europe like the ‘’Battle of Trafalgar’’ and the ‘’Battle of Waterloo’’, with British victories but that left England depressed with poverty and unemployment. The period between 1811 and 1820 is called the ‘’Regency’’, with George IV and his disinterest in government. During his reign trade unions were legalized and was created the Metropolitan Police. William IV succeeded his brother and his reign saw a new age of reforms. There were some acts, such as the Poor Law Act that gave the homeless lodgings and work in the workhouses but there homeless lived in bad conditions that they didn’t want to settle there. These workhouses were managed by parishes but by 1929, the workhouse system was abandoned, and many workhouses were converted into hospitals.