Tag Archives: Industrial Revolution

Richard Arkwright, Cromford and the Birth of the Modern Factory System

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Richard Arkwright, Cromford and the Birth of the Modern Factory System

Ancient civilizations knew a thing or two about inventing stuff to make life easier, but it wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution came along that things could be made in large enough quantities to supply the needs of a growing population – and it was all down to mass production using processes made possible by technical advancements and a new industrial manufacturing system.

The man who is regarded as the ‘Father of the Modern Factory System’ is Richard Arkwright who was born on 23rd December 1732 in Preston, Lancashire, a county that was to benefit enormously from his involvement in the invention of a water-powered spinning machine. Up until then, spinning cotton was a cottage industry where people worked from home – and this was more than 200 years before Covid 19 came along.

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Originally posted 2022-07-15 17:14:12.

Birmingham’s Canals

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Birmingham's Canals

Following on from my previous posts about Birmingham’s involvement in the Industrial Revolution, its location in the centre of England had its advantages and disadvantages. Being close to the Black Country’s coal and iron reserves was one of the main reasons why metalworking happened here in the first place, but transporting these raw materials to the foundries and workshops, and then delivering the finished goods to consumers, was hampered by the terrible road conditions which were little more than muddy tracks. The answer was to build canals and transport everything by barge.

Canals weren’t a new phenomenon of course. They had been in existence since ancient times, often for irrigation purposes, but also to connect major river courses. In Britain, the first canal was built by the Romans to connect Lincoln with the River Trent to facilitate access to York, but the 11-mile long Fossdyke was constructed over flat and marshy land, and quite different from the landscape which engineers were faced with during the Industrial Revolution.

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Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter

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Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter

If you’ve been following my previous posts about how Birmingham became the Workshop of the World, you’ll know how the absence of restrictive guilds, the knowledge of enlightened nonconformists, and the demand for skilled labour in the small metal trades were all contributory factors in Birmingham’s population increase which soared from around 5,000 in 1700 to over 23,000 by 1731. To meet this extra demand, the Colmore family, one of Birmingham’s wealthiest, obtained a private act of parliament which allowed them to sell off part of their Newhall Estate as separate plots of land, and this area of Hockley is essentially the Jewellery Quarter today.

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Birmingham’s Lunaticks and the Golden Boys

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Birmingham's Lunaticks and the Golden Boys

In my previous post we saw how Birmingham gradually evolved from a small Anglo-Saxon hamlet into a prosperous 18th century market town, but life in rural England was about to see a rapid change.

Up until the 18th century, England’s shires had steadily got on with everyday life by growing crops or perhaps keeping a few sheep to spin their fleeces into wool. Agriculture and cottage industries were the main source of income for most people outside of major urban areas, but it wouldn’t be long before Birmingham and the surrounding area would also become a major urban area – all thanks to its impact on the Industrial Revolution.

To explain why the Industrial Revolution began in Britain I would need to write a book, and to explain why the Midlands was at the forefront of this revolution, I would need to write another one, but I’m going to attempt to cover both in just a few paragraphs by introducing you to Birmingham’s Lunaticks and Golden Boys.

To put things into perspective, it’s generally agreed that the Industrial Revolution began around 1760 and actually came in two phases: The first, which focused on textiles, steam power and iron, lasted until around 1840, and the second, with advancements in steel making, electric power and chemicals, lasted roughly between 1870 and 1914.

It didn’t just happen overnight obviously, but was a result of a gradual change in the way people started to think about the world around them. The Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries saw established religious thinking challenged by people such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton, to name but a few, but the thirst for knowledge wasn’t just confined to astronomers.

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