Introduction

Results of the Textile Revolution 

Historians of the Industrial Revolution have always emphasised the importance of the Textiles Industry.  In 1939, the economist JA Schumpeter wrote:

English industrial history (1787-1842) can be almost resolved into the history of a single industry. 

And in 1968, the British historian Eric Hobsbawn summed it up:

Whoever says Industrial Revolution says cotton. 

In the last lesson, you were asked to think about how the cotton industry was the perfect example of the traditional view of Britain’s ‘Industrial Revolution’ – with its great men, inventions, factories, sudden and sustained growth etc. 

For the ‘traditional’ historians, however, cotton was not just the exemplar of the Industrial Revolution, it was the first industry to industrialise – the pathfinder – indeed even the cause of the Industrial Revolution (see Source 1).

This webpage will allow you to investigate this idea.

After you have studied this webpage, answer the question sheet by clicking on the 'Time to Work' icon at the top of the page.

Links:

The following websites will help you research further:

The Textile Impact:

• Good webpage

• BBC Bitesize

• Impact of the revolution – YouTube video

1   Peter Moss, History Alive 3, 1968

Introduction (continued)

Rethinking the Textile Revolution 

Recently, some historians have suggested that maybe cotton was not so important a factor in the Industrial Revolution (see Sources 2 and 3). 

However, what do you think?  Source 4 is a list of twelve possible effects of the Textile Revolution for you to consider.

2   Phyllis Deane, The First Industrial Revolution, 1965

It is possible to exaggerate the direct influence of the cotton industry in the first industrial revolution.
• Raw cotton was entirely imported, so that the links in this direction were with non-British rather than British industries.
• It was a long time before cotton manufacture began to use much coal.
• The industry was highly localized to Lancashire so that it did not create a spreading demand for new transport and building facilities.
• To begin with, machinery was made of wood and was produced at the factories by factory labour, so it was not until the second quarter of the nineteenth century that a textile-machinery industry developed on any scale.

In short, the industry's links with other major producing sectors were quite limited and its effects on the rest of the economy were indirect rather than direct. Its remarkable expansion was not sufficiently powerful or widespread in itself to stimulate the English industrial revolution, though it was certainly an important part of it.  

3   John D Clare, The Age of Expansion, 1996

Production in the wool and cotton industries grew rapidly.  But this increase would have been no use if the manufacturers had not been able to sell the extra cloth they made.

The spinning and weaving inventions did not CAUSE the revolution in textiles, they ALLOWED it to happen.

4    Effects of the Textiles Revolution

a.  SIZE:
By 1851 the textiles industry (cotton, wool, linen & silk) comprised 21% of the working population and created 10% of the entire national income.  In 1871 the Factory Inspectorate found that 47% of the country’s 130,000 factories and workshops were engaged in the Textile Industry, which accounted for more than half the steam power capacity of British factories.  ANY industry so huge was bound to have a massive effect on the rest of the economy. 

b.  SOCIAL EFFECTS:
The invention of the power-loom was disastrous for the hand-loom weavers, who became very poor and overworked as they struggled to work as fast as the new machines.  The Textile Industry suffered from economic cycles of boom and bust, which created times of mass unemployment poverty and hunger.  Groups of disaffected people called ‘Luddites’ blamed the machines, and there were riots, attacks on factories and incidents of machine-breaking. 

c.  ENGINEERING and CHEMICALS:
The new machines – and the need to make and maintain them – created a whole new industry, the Engineering Industry, which later applied its skills to other industrialising sectors.  Also Bleaching and Dyeing helped create the Chemical Industry. 

d.  FACTORY SYSTEM:
An entire workforce had to be trained and disciplined to go out to work in the factories – a whole new way of ‘working to the bell’ (which you probably still do in your school) changed the way for ever how the workforce worked. 

e.  SPENDING POWER:
The price of cloth fell by half in real terms in the period 1770-1815, and then by 4% a year after that.  This allowed a better-clothed and healthier population, with more money in their pockets to spend on other things. 

f.  REDISTRIBUTION OF INDUSTRY:
The cotton industry was centred on Lancashire, the Woollen & Worsted industry on West Riding; the new Industrial complex set up on the coalfields of the north, leaving the south of the country behind.

g.  URBANISATION:
Whole new towns grew up around the new industry; Manchester (nicknamed ‘Cottonopolis’) tripled in size.  Liverpool became the main export port for both cotton and wool – it doubled in size 1770-1800. 

h.  TRADE UNIONS:
The Textile Industry created the first mass-employed workforce; it also treated them very badly.  One of the first large unions, the 1829 Grand General Union, was formed by Lancashire cotton-spinners. 

i.  EXPORTS:
Textiles accounted for a tenth of the national income and a massive 60% of Britain’s exports; this gave Britain a huge balance of payments surplus which benefited the economy as a whole. 

i.  LEGISLATION:
Poor working conditions, particularly for children, were first noticed in the factories, so the Textiles Industries were the first industry to be subject to inspections and rules about conditions (1832). 

k.  CANALS:
The Bridgewater Canal (1761) was built to take coals to Manchester, and the Irwell Navigation was extended after 1779 to take cotton from Manchester to Liverpool. 

l.  EXAMPLE:
The cotton industry was a model for the rest of the world – the assumption that wealth is created by large-scale industrialisation and production in factories.