The Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution is one of the most significant events in all of human history.  

It began in Britain in the 1700's and transformed the human experience.

Starting in the mid-18th century, innovations like the flying shuttle, the spinning jenny, the water frame and the power loom made weaving cloth and spinning yarn and thread much easier. Producing cloth became faster and required less time and far less human labour.

More efficient, mechanized production meant Britain’s new textile factories could meet the growing demand for cloth both at home and abroad, where the nation’s many overseas colonies provided a captive market for its goods. In addition to textiles, the British iron industry also adopted new innovations.

  1. The Industrial Revolution

Activity 1. Industrial revolution timeline.

Create an innovation timeline in your books.

Include the following information for each invention.

  1. The year and inventor

  2. The invention and the problem the invention solved

  3. An explanation of the benefits and uses

Include the following inventions in your timeline:

  • The Steam Engine in 1712

  • The Spinning Jenny 1764

  • The Watt Steam Engine 1769

  • The Morse Telegraph 1844

  • Bessemer Method - Steel 1855

  • Germ theory of Vaccines 1870

  • The Telephone 1876

  • The Lightbulb 1879

  • Plus one other invention!

Background briefing: The Agricultural Revolution

The Industrial revolution began in Britain, due in part to an increase in food production, which was the key outcome of the Agricultural Revolution.

Increasing scientific breakthroughs in farm management and machinery meant that farm owners needed less farm labourers to grow more food than they had in the past. Workers who were no longer needed on the farms moved to the city in large numbers looking for work in the new factories.

2. Living in the city

Moving to the City

A common feature of industrial cities and towns was the construction of inexpensive and poorly built row housing, intended for working-class people.  Wealthy factory owners and entrepreneurs constructed the homes for their workers but also used the homes as a means of making more profit. 

The lack of sanitation (No sewage) also led to the spread of diseases.  Since most homes did not have running water or toilets, people resorted to dumping their filth and waste into the street. This made the streets of industrial towns incredibly dirty places to live but also allowed communicable diseases including dysentery and cholera,  to spread easily from one individual to another. 

Activity 2. Living in the city visual guide

Create a visual guide to ‘Living conditions during the industrial revolution’

Use descriptions, images and  quotes to illustrate your guide.

Some things to include in your visual guide:

  • Why did people move to the city? (Hint: Jobs!)

  • Overcrowded housing - families crowded into a single room

  • Housing built of temporary materials with no piped water

  • No sanitation (sewage) or rubbish collection. Thrown into the street.

  • Air was polluted with open fires and coal smoke (from heating and cooking)

  • Disease outbreaks (including typhus and cholera) in the unsanitary conditions.

  • Newspaper cartoons from the time and quotes from the historical sources

3. Working in the industrial age

Factory workers faced brutal conditions in the early industrial factories. They worked 14 hour days in dangerous machines with no safety equipment. Children as young as 5 worked in mines and factories. Workers breathed toxic air, lost fingers or limbs in accidents, and earned barely enough to survive.

Reformers fought to improve workers' lives. Laws like the Factory Acts banned child labor, limited work hours, and required safety measures. Labor unions formed so workers could demand better pay and conditions. Activists like Elizabeth Fry and Robert Owen pushed for change and exposed the conditions in the factories.

Activity 3. Sources - Working in the industrial revolution

Analysing primary and secondary sources helps us develop an understanding of the period we are investigating.

  1. Always use full sentences and include the question in your answer

For example: ‘In the McKenzie diary entry (Source 1) the author is describing events that he experienced, making this a primary source …..'

  1. Use quotes, dates and descriptions of the source to support your response.

  2.  Ask yourself the following when analysing the source:

    1. What is the origin of the source?

    2. Who is the author/ creator of the source?

    3. Is the source credible?

    4. Does the source have a bias?

Source 1.  First person account — Sarah Gooder, aged 8 years, coal mine worker

'I'm a trapper (child who opened/closed a door in a mine shaft) in the Gawber pit. It does not tire me, but I have to trap without a light and I'm scared. I go at four and sometimes half past three in the morning, and come out at five and half past. I never go to sleep. Sometimes I sing when I've light, but not in the dark; I dare not sing then. I don't like being in the pit. I am very sleepy when I go sometimes in the morning.'

 Questions

  1. Use quotes to explain two conclusions that can be drawn from source 1 about conditions in the mines? (2)

Source 2.  A mine accident. From the Newcastle Courant, 30 May 1812.

On Monday afternoon one of the most terrible accidents on record in the history of collieries took place at Felling near Gateshead.  Nearly the whole of the workmen were below when a double blast of hydrogen gas took place, and set the mine on fire. … In the calamity, 93 men and boys perished.'

 Question 

Is Source C a primary or a secondary source?  Explain how you came to your answer.(2)

Source 3. A Commission of Enquiry. Britain since 1700. R. J. Cootes. 1982.

'The government appointed a Royal Commission on children’s employment in 1840.  Two years later it issued a report on underground workers in the mines.  The public was horrified to learn that women and girls carried baskets of coal weighing up to 150 kilograms on their shoulders, or dragged loaded trucks, on all fours, along narrow underground passages.'

Questions 

  1. Use information from the source to describe the work of children and workers in the mines? (2)

  2. How do you know Source 3 is a secondary source? (2)

Source 4: An inspector visits a mine. Quote from British Social and Economic History. B Walsh. 1997

'In April 1849 Robert Smith, mineral agent of Blaenavon Colliery, went down the pit.  He turned out 70 women and girls, as many as 20 … being no more than 11 or 12 years of age.  He has no doubt that since then many have gone back from time to time.  He gave notice that he would fine any man employing them again, and he has fined seven or eight from 5 shillings to 10 shillings each.'

 Question

  1. The women and girls were 'turned out of the pit' (i.e. not allowed to work there) and yet many would have gone back to work later.  Why would they do that? (2)   

  2. How do Source 3 and Source 4 show that the governments were attempting to make work safer in the coal mines? (4)

Source 5. Profit.

  1. Use evidence from the cartoon to explain the message in Source 5. (2)

  2. How does the information in Source 4 support the Cartoon in Source 5? (3)

  3. What are the strengths of a cartoon for an historian studying the Industrial Revolution? (3)

Activity 4. Empathetic writing activity

In History, empathetic writing involves putting yourself “in the shoes” of a person from the past and writing from that person’s point of view. In this way, you are asked to write in the first person (using “I”, “my” etc.) in order  to show that you understand how people lived, thought and felt at a certain time and place in history.

Using your knowledge of the Industrial Revolution, you are to produce a piece of empathetic writing in response to the scenario below.

Imagine that you are one of the following people living in an industrial town or city in Britain during the 1800s:

  • A piecer (usually a woman) or scavenger (a child) who works in a textile factory

  • A hurrier (child or woman) or a trapper (young child) in a coal mine

  • A man who works in a steel mill (or another type of factory)

  • Write an account of the Industrial Revolution from your chosen person’s point of view by considering the following questions:

    (a) How did you or your family come to be in this town or city and in your occupation?     

    (b) What is involved in your role in the industry you are employed in and what is your working life like?           

    (c) Where do you live and what is your life like away from your work?

    (d) How do you feel about your circumstances and what are the prospects for improvement?

Industrial Revolution Task