In Our Time - The Industrial Revolution

Episode Date: December 22, 2010

In the first of two programmes, Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Industrial Revolution.Between the middle of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth, Britain was transformed. This was a revolution, but not a political one: over the course of a few generations industrialisation swept the nation. Inventions such as the machine loom and the steam engine changed the face of manufacturing; cheap iron and steel became widely available; and vast new cities grew up around factory towns.All this had profound effects - not all of them positive - as an agrarian and primitive society was turned into an industrial empire, the richest nation on Earth. But why did this revolution take place here rather than abroad? And why did it begin in the first place?With:Jeremy BlackProfessor of History at the University of ExeterPat HudsonProfessor Emerita of History at Cardiff UniversityWilliam AshworthSenior Lecturer in History at the University of Liverpool.Producer: Thomas Morris.

Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk, forward slash radio four. I hope you enjoy the program. Hello, between the middle of the 18th century and the early years of the 19th, Britain experienced the most significant transformation in its history. This was a revolution, not a political one. Within a few generations, industrialisations swept the country.

Rural communities lost precedence to factory towns as the population tripled, and enormous cities developed around manufacturing centres. The focus of the economy moved from farming to textiles and iron, aided by technological developments such as a steam engine. But this revolution went much deeper than the invention of a few machines. It changed society here and abroad forever. The political economists, the social reformer Arnold Toynbee wrote, The Industrial Revolution isn't only one of the most important facts of English history,

but Europe owes to it the growth of two great systems of thought, economic science and its antithesis socialism. But what caused the British Industrial Revolution? Why did it happen here? With me to discuss the Industrial Revolution are Jeremy Black, Professor of History at the University of Exeter, Pad Hudson, Professor Emeritus of History at Cardiff University, and William Ashworth, Senior Lecture in History at the University of Liverpool.

Jeremy Black, this can't be dated precisely, unlike many other revolutions 17, 18, and I, or however it is. But can you give us some of the head, line facts about it. Yes, the Industrial Revolution in most cases would be seen as gathering pace in the middle and later decades of the 18th century

and then moving to a much higher rate of activity in terms of volume in the 19th century. There's a big difference between the situation by say the 1760s, 1770s, when you've got the population rising, when you've got important sectoral developments in, for example,

textiles, and the situation earlier in the century. Earlier in the century it would be mistaken to say there's no change but England, Britain the British Isles in the 1700s 17, 1720s was coming out of the little ice age agricultural productivity was increasing

but still relatively low the population was not rising significantly and there were no major changes in industrial sectors at that point what would you say it was a headline effect as it were to headline we're doing two programmes on this one this week and one next week What's the headline effect of the Industrial Revolution?

It is to transform the relationship between human beings and the world in which they live. And there is no accident that this is called the Industrial Revolution rather than an industrial revolution. There had been significant changes in the history of the human species earlier, which could be seen as industrial revolutions, but nothing on this scale or transformative quality. You say in the notes that I've read of yours a major turning point in human history, it's quite a clone. Yes, so I think it is a major turning point in human history, 1850 and even more 1900, you have large parts of the leading sectors of the world in which the majority of the population live in urban areas. They are involved in no way in economic activities directly related to the land. There is a situation in which what you will know is that change is occurring. Prior to roughly the mid-18th century, history had been essentially cyclical. You have a situation in which the productivity of the

of the economy and indeed demographics are going in patterns but not with a transformative change, not with some quantum leap forward. And I think that that really changes from the mid-18th century. And of course we're now seeing, you'll be discussing it later, a second industrial revolution possibly of the same scale in East Asia. So before this took off the Industrial Revolution, can you give us some brief outline sketch of what this country was like?

I mean, basically agrarian, but on your own time. Beginning of the 18th century, you've got just over 5 million people in England and Wales. You've got some towns, the most significant, of course, being London, but the majority of the people live either directly on the land or their economic activity is very much related to the processing of products from the land, wool, for example. You have got life expectancy, which is relatively modest. You have got a situation, which I think is the most important of all,

which is that you don't, most people do not envisage significant change. If you're living in 1720 and you are 20, you are not going to expect that there will be significant change in the world around you by the time you're 50, or should you live to it, the world you're 70. The condition of modern life, which is totally different in which I think comes from, in large part, industrialisation and changes related to this,

is that we know, looking ahead, that whatever happens, we are not going to be the same as we are now. It may be less good, it may be better, but it will certainly be different. And that characteristic of modern life is change. And that pre-life, the expectation was famine. That was regular. And going through a cycle of poverty for most people, that too was expected.

As late as the early 1740s, there are people who are suffering famine conditions in England and Wales. William Ashworth, can we talk about trade at this point, just pre the Industrial Revolution? What were we doing with internal and international trade? By 1750, Britain had fulfilled at least one of its objectives, and that was to usurp the Dutch as the world-leading-trading nation. London had eclipsed Amsterdam as the warehouse of the world. It also had become a financial centre, and sold services such as shipping insurance.

So it's a very wealthy place. It had grown to something like 600,000 people, and about a quarter of the population of London were somehow connected with trade one way or another. What were we trading in, principally? Absolutely. I'll come back to that point because I want to juxtapose it with the state of manufacturing at that time as well.

I would compare it as being mediocre at this stage. What? Manufacturing. Manufacturing. However, the fact it's mediocre by this stage is pretty startling because in 1700, there was only one real competitive, mature industry and that was wool. But by 1750 you've got the growth of paper, soap, silk, candles, leather, all the...

A number of industries have emerged and become much more robust. So something interesting has happened between 1,700 and 1750 to make that happen. And I will come up to form of point, but really we need to know the context, or the listeners need to have a bit of the context behind that. And what I normally do is start with the Spanish and Portuguese empire.

Oh, good. Feel free. Start with them here. Okay. That's crucial because all of a sudden, after the 16th century, a great deal of capital in the shape of bullion is injected into the European economy. Nations like England, the Dutch, the French, look at the Spanish and Portuguese success and think, we want a bit of that. So they start colonising, hoping to find their El Dorado. They don't, of course. but what they can do is plug into the Spanish and American economies, or empire.

What that means is taking Barbados, for example, and using that as a depo for slaves to feed into the Spanish Americas. And that's important because England obviously gets involved in the slave trade, firstly really because of the Spanish and Portuguese Americas, because the mining in those areas are done by black African slaves, especially after 90% of the population is wiped out due to European disease. Now, why is that so interesting? It's not just about the capital coming back into Europe,

but the bullion, particularly silver, makes possible trade with Asia. Asia, India, China don't want anything Europe makes. They make enough, they're in many ways more industrialised at this point. But we want their cottons. We want their, particularly Indian cottons, which is the global textile. We also want the porcelain from China. We don't make things like that.

So it provokes the growth of staple products being grown in the colonies now, such as sugar, tobacco. Then combined with these Asian products, a kind of consuming mentality. Mentality emerges in Europe, thanks to this trade. And also Europeans get worried. We need to make these products. We need to imitate them somehow.

This is Maxingberg's argument of innovation. through imitation. So that's one component that's important during this period. Excuse me. The other thing is, how then did Britain in 1750 get to the stage? What's going on? Well, all this trade is mixed with religious wars is leading to a very volatile Europe.

You need a lot of money to fight wars. You need the tax base to finance those wars. By the 1700s, the landed gents in Britain are getting fed up with the burden lying on the land tax. So somehow the shift has to go elsewhere. Thus it goes to manufacturers. So the excise becomes the most important tax on manufacturers by the seven years war.

It's something like nearly 60% of all revenues to service expensive war. And that's coming from domestically produced manufacturers. And this is a key point that have been protected. Copying the French, what William Cunningham called Colbertian, in parliamentary Carbertianism, they've erected really high tariffs, and thus they can nurture industries to tax via the excise. So that's the sort of platform for what became the Industrial Revolution.

That's a manufacturing revolution getting underway because of what you bring in, the world trade, slaves across there and getting bringing stuff back, which makes it having silver back, because we're raiding silver, buying it to be enabled to trade with Asia, because that's the only thing they'll take from us, silver. And so that's what you're saying. and that makes us a leading trading centre in Europe, in the banking and in the port and so on.

So that's where we are with that, Pat Hudson. We're coming into the Industrial Revolution according to, I know there's a bit of Fodge at the dates here and everywhere, but we talked about 1750-ish to 1830-ish. And for the sake of this programme, that will kind of do, give or take 10 years either end. And there's a second one. And the centre of this,

William has mentioned wool but the industry is the textile manufacturing. Can you bring that into the discussion? Certainly. Well the dark satanic mills of the Industrial Revolution itself didn't come out of a clear blue sky. William has painted the picture of

international demand and national demand for textiles. Textiles being a global commodity, cotton in particular. But in this country, for most of the 18th century, wool was dominant. There was a lot of manufacturing of all sorts of consumer goods going on in the 18th century, including the early 18th century, in increasing varieties.

Most of it was done in rural households and in urban workshops. Women and children, as well as men, worked long hours for wages in mass production, long before the factory. And increasingly, all the, although there was manufacturing all over the country, there was a trend in the 18th century that started before the classic period of the Industrial Revolution of regional specialisation in different types of products.

In the textile industry, as is fairly well known, this regional specialisation particularly focused on West Riding of Yorkshire, in the case of Wollens, the most successful region in the 18th century in woolen production at the expense of earlier successful regions in the West Country and East Anglia. And later in the 18th century,

mid-18th century to later, linen and then cotton in Lancashire were specialised. And of course the regional specialisation encouraged a large amount of infrastructural development in these regions. Machinery making, even hand machines, mercantile facilities, financial services, and so these regions developed a critical mass really.

And as the extension of working for wages took place, particularly in textiles, people in rural households were able to afford to set up households earlier in life, young people, the access to wage earning. And this meant that they could marry earlier, form new households, have more children. and this put a pressure on population increase. This is partly why it accelerated from the mid-18th century onwards.

Also, working for wages, encouraged proletarianisation. In other words, landlessness, less dependence on agriculture. This was part of the great structural shift that characterised the Industrial Revolution, structural shift in occupations, where the majority of people in agricultural occupations at the start of the century, about two-thirds of the working population were in agriculture, in 1700, by the end of the century, only one third. That stayed roughly similar as we move into the 19th century.

So proletarianisation, wage dependency, and of course more people working for wages in the textile industry meant that they were entering the market for their everyday needs, other manufactured goods. And this encouraged the whole market for other sorts of manufacturers. I think we've got a good context from the three of them. but if I were to say to you, from the three of you, have a great context about where this is coming out of.

What if I, to really, to come back to the Industrial Revolution, the causes are endlessly debated, but if I were to say what were the three main causes, I mean, my history teacher used to think there were three main causes for everything, so it's branded on me, and that's what it is. What would you say? What would you say? I doubt if I could stick easily to three. But we must get away from the idea that this was caused by a wave of garranted,

or by the peculiar inventive ability of British science or scientists or inventors. Why? I want to talk about that later. You're all, you're not giving this blood that's due in my view, but never mind. We'll get that in a minute. Why must we get away from it? Well, it's characterises... I mean, all these wishy-washy stuff going on. Actually, people invented stuff, those made things, those things made other things happen. And you keep denying it. Oh, it's all to do with the broad sweep of history. People invented things that had not been there before, which enabled things to happen, which had not happened before. We're going to come to that. What's about your causes? Well, if we're going to come to that, fair enough. But can I say that that really does characterize nationalistic accounts of the period? Well, I would defend it around the modern nationalistic account.

With a peculiar sort of emphasis on British genius or the superiority of the British as a race, this characterised some really almost racist accounts of the Industrial Revolution, which thankfully have now disappeared. And can I say, can I say, please allow me to say this. I think that if we look at the environment, the peculiarly propitious resource endowments of the country and its geopolitical political position and state policy, then I think we'd knock into touch the idea

that these inventions were the main cause. Now, the resource... Jeremy wants to get a nap on. It's interesting. The part of the world that is most similar geopolitically as Japan, an island group off a major continental landmass. Japan does not have industrialisation in the 18th century. It doesn't have coal.

Wait a minute, I was about to say it doesn't have coal. But again, I think Melvin's point is correct. You cannot think of any Japanese inventor or entrepreneur in the 18th century applying a set of new scientific ideas in order to produce major changes in technology. This is why we have to look at the environment. and the resource environment and state policy and politics. If we go to coal looking at the resource environment, England is peculiarly well placed in terms of easy access

and relatively cheap coal. And this is, you know, in terms of any comparator nation or area of the globe. Hold on. Look, I didn't want to rally, but when you start talking about my arguments as racist, that is really not on. I didn't say that people are not. That your arguments were.

I said that some of the earlier arguments were that entered the popular... You rush in about coal. The reason we got coal because there's inventions. Because they worked out a way, ingeniously, they didn't work out anywhere else, to clear the water out of the mine so that we could mine deeply,

instead of the shallow mining we'd bring in the 16th century, which hadn't produced much coal, we could go to the deep coal, which is very good in the processing of iron. So that was an invention which led to the help. There wasn't. Before steam engines were spread around. There wasn't a coal it too much sulfur in it before then.

Right, William. Well, I know you're going to probably bring up the subject later, but I think in defending Pat over coal, something like 80% of, if not more of the world's coal, was produced by Britain in 1700. So it was at quite a mature stage, and yes, it was accessible far more than most other countries, certainly like the Yanksy Valley in China.

Belgium's the only other comparable place where coal was accessible. France, no way. Germany at this point, no way. So why steam, why Britain, why 1700 is a good question. And you're precisely right, because it makes sense to build a steam engine where there's cheap fuel. And that's exactly what happens, the steam engine first practically made by Newcomb in 1709. But yes, here's a defence of you as well a little bit, Melvin, if you like. He's drawing upon natural experimental philosophy in the sense that the knowledge is there,

that the atmosphere has weight, and it's precisely that atmosphere acting on the piston onto a vacuum that works the Nukomium engine. So that's a good example, perhaps only one example, perhaps more, that I can think of science being applied in a practical way. Can I try and link entrepreneurs, people of invention, and a wider culture? Thomas Jefferson, when he comes to London, he goes and meets James Watts' partner, Matthew Bolton. They go to the New Albion Mill, an enormous, at that stage, the largest manufacturing site in Britain. And Bolton, who shows him round, says to Jefferson, who incidentally also goes to the great Soho works of what in Birmingham.

He says to Jefferson, what I sell here, sir, is what every man wants. I sell power. Now, the interesting thing is, you cannot think of any visitor to China of that period. Think of the McCartney mission in the 1790s for which we have reliable evidence. anybody being told anything like that. It's partly that there are these men of ability, but it's partly also that there is a political culture, a social culture, if you like, you used the phrase yourself,

enlightenment earlier, a culture in which people believe that you should change things. You should apply knowledge for change. And I think that's really important. Whereas many other cultures in the world, and this isn't a racist point, it's a point that notes the dominance of cultural conditioning. Many other cultures in the world do not believe in the,

and the value of change and do not believe that the purpose of knowledge is to apply it to obtain change and I think that's really crucial in Britain. Can I come up to Pat and come back to the textile industry, but the inventions there, the Hargreaves, spinning genie, and the spinning mule, what effect did they have?

Well, they speeded up production. Hargreaves spinning Jenny. I mean, the first major thing was a small thing was the flying shuttle, but that was hugely important enabling much wider pieces of cloth to be produced at much greater speed. Hargreaves spinning Jenny at first was a great boon for the domestic industry because with limited numbers of spindles up to about 16, it could be incorporated in people's homes and didn't upset the traditional way of producing.

But larger jennies with more spindles had to be housed in factories or large workshops, and this created a lot of labour unrest. And in fact, Hargreaves himself was a subject of two major disturbances where his workshops were raided and his machinery destroyed. How did this increase the quantity of manufacture and how did this bring on what we call the Industrial Revolution, these inventions? Well, they increased the productivity of labour in spinning.

This put pressure on weaving. Arkwright, at Hargreaves and later Samuel Crompton, their inventions in spinning put a lot of pressure on the hand-weaving industry. At first, this was expanded enormously in numbers of people doing hand-weaving in their homes. Crompton's mule meant that something like the work of two to 300 single spinners could be done by one machine, this sort of type of multiple. and the breakthrough, if you could call it a breakthrough, came with the invention of a power loom in the 1780s,

Reverend Edmund Cartwright. But it was many decades before the power loom actually became obviously superior to the hand loom. It was a very slow business, as with many inventions, of needing a shower of microinventions after the big macro invention in order to get those big inventions working. So the inventive genius of these few Brits that are so often talked about

and so prominent in the popular imagination and in most stories of the Industrial Revolution, that had to fall on fertile ground in terms of the tinkering, the applications, the tacit knowledge, the skilled workforce who were used to manufacturing, particularly in textiles, albeit on hand tools,

who could then adapt these machines, and it was the same in steam, to make them workable. In fact, the steam engine wasn't made fully workable and efficient until well into the 19th century. The 500 or so steam engine sold by Bolton and Watt had an average horsepower of about 14. They weren't the giants of the industry.

Just a second about it. Or a popular imagination. Well, they were, I don't know, everything you do is very curious, really. And, you know, you know, more. 20 times, 100 times more than I do. But you just keep, as it were, dodging away from the fact that these things had to be invented. And then, of course, they were tinkered around with,

and then, of course, there was fertile ground. But are you saying that it didn't matter because there was coal, because there was trade, because it was whizzing around the world, because then this would have evolved anyway. Or are you saying, you seem to be sort of denying that people turned up, mostly they left school when they were about 14,

mostly there were in north of England and Scotland mostly there were men of an inventive turn of mind there were nothing to do with the Royal Society which was booming away at the time it had no part at all in this it wasn't scientific but it was an extraordinary capacity that they developed they were competitive one with the other

they knew each other they vied with each other they helped each other now and then and that was actually I can't get away from the fact maybe I'm just a lone voice here if the three of you outvote me okay Jeremy's putting his finger up index finger at that you're not alone

Well, you asked me the question, and I was waiting for you to finish before answering, so could I come in first, please? The point I'm making is that things don't get invented and applied and innovative unless there's a market. And you asked me earlier for three causes of the Industrial Revolution. I didn't get beyond the first. I've got to spread out the time between the three of you, perhaps. Can I just say that if you want the third major one that I've so far left out, it could be population increase, it could be capital accumulation,

it could be a number of things, lots of debates have gone on. But the third one for me would be the mercantilist policy of the state. And I would say that the British Industrial Revolution was the only industrial revolution that was done with so much state intervention and control. Protection of markets, naval aggression, naval defence, which turned into aggression. Britain fought 11 wars in the 18th century, four of them against the Dutch, four big naval wars,

won a massive world market. So that long before the advantages or the competitive advantages of the major innovations of the Industrial Revolution came into play, long before the price of cotton fell because of technological invention, British manufacturers were able to be sold in protected markets at home and in the colonies, And this gave them, you know, a great Philip in terms of the success, the profitability,

and getting people into the idea of more people into those sectors, entrepreneurs, then creating bottlenecks of supply because of the demand, and then pressure on invention. Invention doesn't come out of the blue. But can we have some other people coming into this discussion? You know, create steam engines just for the fun of it. Right. We need... Well, sometimes they do.

I mean, you... I would like to put... Can I move to put a different... Can I move to the big drivers which are steam and coal and the machines there? I think we've had... I mean, the point has been very well made, but I think we should explore this other point a bit more. So let's talk about...

Yeah, I think that in the case of steam and coal and also something we haven't mentioned, canals, I think all of those and canals actually helped to create a new geography within Britain. In all of those, I think that Clearly there are background, important social factors, but there is also the role of entrepreneurs, both inventors, the people that take part in incremental change,

and also the people that put capital in, which I think is very, very important. And you mention coal. I mean, coal is centrally linked to canals. Why do people start improving an existing river network very significantly? It is so that they can move coal more readily. As far as steam engines are concerned, Newcomen, who incidentally enough comes from near where I live,

in Devon, Newcommon's atmospheric steam engine does make a difference to the mines in Cornwall, which are an important source of minerals. They are then improved by a number of inventors, entrepreneurs, of whom James Watt is the most famous. By the end of the century, you have over 2,000 steam engines in the British Isles. Now, there are two ways of looking at it. On the one hand, you might say, well, that's nothing compared to what you're going to get by 1900 or even 1850, and that's true. But on the other hand, those are 2,000 steam engines that weren't there a century earlier. And every single steam engine is important not just for what it does in its particular local site,

but also because it is an icon of change in that area. And I think that's very significant. This encourages people. You mention young people as entrepreneurs. People could see the possibility of change. I think that's really very significant. And I think in a way, invention or application of ideas becomes cumulative, as a result of that.

William, can you take us into the business of iron and steel and coal and how that's developed? I was hoping to get back into the role of knowledge, but okay. No, it's interesting. It's interesting. What the role of knowledge? Yeah. Can I just dabble with that to begin with? You do what you want.

Only because I think what's happening in this programme is you see how emotive it is. And in some ways, the question has become politicised. Why is that? Well, I think that there's a sense that all history is present history. And there's a kind of sense today that you need free markets, free minds to be creative.

And that association with British Industrial Revolution, why Britain first, because it was freer than the rest. And thus cultivated... Nobody on this programme has suggested that. But the historiography suggests it. So you get this kind of critique from Ludwig von Mises in the early 20th century,

in his critique of socialism. You get it canonised in Walt W. Rostow, stages of economic growth, non-communist manifesto, which precisely uses Britain, British Industrial Revolution as a blueprint for developing countries. It's an alternative to collectivism and state-driven industrialisation. So what is the key to economic growth? It's genius.

It's intelligence. What do we mean by that? We mean, really, science. And where is that happening? 18th century Britain is where creative science is being applied. That has become embedded. However it's dressed, terminology is used to hide it behind cultural terms, that's what they mean. Now, let's go

with that. Let's look at the history of geography. What is the trajectory? It normally starts with Sir Francis Bacon, who kind of creates a scientific method, if you like, of induction. It culminates in a utopian, baconian utopia in the Royal Society, where Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton formalised experiment, replication being crucial. But as you rightly said, The Royal Society does nothing over the 18th century to aid mechanical and technological development. So where does it happen? Well, the current argument is it happens in the marketplace. Newtonian experimental philosophy is diffused through Masonic lodges, through coffee houses,

it gentlemen lecturers running up and down the country, preach teaching mechanics. I don't agree with that, by the way. Why are we wasting time in it then? There isn't a long much time. The fact is that these people, these people, people up in the... I think I don't know. I mean, they are not part of the Royal Society. They're not taking on Newton's ideas.

They're not reading Principia. They're working with limited machines of limited... And they're working out ways to make them better. And then the machines almost take over because they become so much better. Then you get Arkwright coming in. You get the development of the factory system, which on the scale that they start to introduce it,

is a new thing, a massively new thing. Factories in China now are sort of still based on Arkwright's factory system. And this, it seems to me, despite all the conditions around Pat, I understand that, despite all the fertility and the possibility, if these people hadn't invented these things, my case is that it might not have happened. Now, this is nothing to do with heroic, chauvinistic, it's to do it, I think, the way it works. But in Europe, I mean, arguably, science, pure science, was more developed in Europe.

And there was just as much tinkering. and can I say a lot of the inventions that Britain developed and made better during the Industrial Revolution were not British inventions at all. I mean, the Jackard drawloom was very important. The chlorine bleaching of cotton, without which the cotton industry wouldn't have taken off in the way it did, both of those were French developments. The atmospheric engine was not pioneered here initially. I think stories that depend as you want them to

on some notion of British prowess in science and innovativeness or inventiveness actually do a disservice to what was happening in the rest of Europe which was equally if not more so affected by the Baconian and Newtonian science by enlightenment thinking by the idea that the human condition could be improved by innovation and technology. You know, none of that was peculiar to Britain. What was peculiar to Britain was cheap coal relative to labour, which encouraged a huge array of heat-intensive industries,

such as sugar refining, which was linked to the Atlantic trade and slaves, soap boiling, the iron manufacture paper-making, all those things, pottery and China, all those things took off because of cheap coal. and none of them used coal for steam power. This was just the heat-intensive industries. You know, with old technology, not new technology at all. New products maybe and modifications of old technologies,

but nothing big and new, just coal. Well, you've just... And more so is the mercantilism, but I'll let you get back in on coal. No, I'm just saying you've totted up all the few things that came from you. Why have you never bothered to tot up the things that happened in this country? This isn't me being Germanistic. trying to get the story right. Why did the Germans come to this country and study, excuse me, and study what we'd been doing in the Industrial Revolution and take it back

to that country? Why did the Americans do the same? If they've been pottering along about the same as us, we're not talking about science in that sense, and you know we're not. We're talking about inventiveness of a particular kind, which is not innate to this country and so on. But nevertheless, it made advances at a particular time in a particular way, with all the advantages of being an island, therefore coastal trade, development for canals, as Jeremy said, and coal and so on and so. But there was

a cluster of men who took it further, and they took it in a direction which a lot of people imitate, even though, of course I know the things trickle in from all over the place. No river is formed that little stream's coming in. We all know that. But the mainstream, I would still maintain, and I'll say it for the last time,

came from those northern counties and from bits of Scotland. Yes, I mean it's very interesting. You make the point of traveller, I agree with you entirely here because I've done several books on travel in the 18th century. In the 18th century there are some industrial plants in the continent that are visited. The clothworks at Aberveill, for example, are visited by tourists. But on the whole, people do not go and look at industrial plant on the continent.

What instead you get is a flow of people who are interested in applied science and engineering coming to look at industrial plant in Britain, particularly, as you say, going to the north of England. And it's quite striking here. the images that are created, the images not just in their mind, but also in some of the great paintings of the age, for example, the Lautenberg paintings of Colbrookdale. These are paintings of a new industrial landscape, which it's very difficult to see elsewhere in the world at that stage.

And it's rather as if people now would travel to China to see vast developing new factories. People are doing that. It affects their imagination in the late 18th century in Britain. So I would agree with you. view, I think there is something different and distinctive about change in Britain at that point, and contemporaries understand that. Well, I'm not denying there's something distinctive and different about change.

I mean, the Industrial Revolution occurred in Britain. What I'm arguing about is some identification of this process with a peculiar genius of British inventors. I mean, Calico printing, which was at the heart of the success of British cotton exports was something developed in India and copied from the Indians in a British market which denied access for Indian cottons. You know, this was developed, and there are so many other inventions and gadgets and other things that aren't peculiarly British. It doesn't, it's not a big point, but what I would like to sort of get over is that the

popular imagination about the Industrial Revolution, that it was just a question. question of a few great British men, you know, is not sufficient. It's not sufficient of an understanding of what's going on. I think that's fair enough. William, what do you want to say? Sorry, I'd spoil myself. I can't sport it. What we like to follow you or ever know. I'll go with you, Pat, and continue with cotton. I mean, that is an interesting example because

the importation of cheap Indian canicos during the late 17th and into the early was leading to tension with the woolen industry who lobbied hard, along with the silk, the growing silk industry, to ban imported calicos from India. So in 1701, they ban imported-printed calicoes. However, you can still import plain calicoes, hence a whole printing industry develops around the fact you can copy, imitate the original printed calicoes

by innovating and copying around them. And then they ban all... Calicoes in 1721. By then it's too late. There's a big printing textile industry. They turn to other forms of textiles like Fustians, like Fustians, which you can die and again copy the Indian textiles. Why does mercantilism work in Britain and not elsewhere? That kind of legislation is not unusual. You can find the same kind of legislation in Denmark.

You can find it in all sorts of countries in Europe. Let me finish. What is interesting is not, and again, going back to Pat's point, it's not just that the British state is in favour of industry. that's absurd. So is every state in Europe in the late 17th, early 18th century. It's not just that the British state has an empire. So as we know, the French, the Dutch, the Spaniards and the Portuguese, it's not just that the British state goes to war.

What is interesting is that the context is often similar in the European countries. There are differences. Coal is a difference. That is important. But there are also differences because of the way in which the political culture in Britain is taken advantage of by particular groups and in specific milures. Now you can try and underwrite that if you like,

but there is a quantitative and qualitative difference in economic change and industrialisation in Britain in the 18th century compared to not just the rest of Europe, but also Protestant Europe. Can I just quickly two answers to that? Firstly, credibility and the excise. The fact is there's no other country in Europe that has something like the excise, which remember accounts for 60% of all revenues by the Seven Years' War. Britain has the biggest national debt in Europe

because lenders are trust, trust the British state to pay their taxes back. And they do that because they trust the tax on manufacturing. There's no other country that has that. Absolutely not. That absolutely does. And you've got to remember as well. But it doesn't originate. It helps.

By 1819, the national debt that's lending to government by British financiers, landowners and actually foreign investors, is three times national income. It's £850 million. It's astonishing compared with any other part in the world. And all of that money, together with the taxation, between 1680 and 1815, national income multiplies about three times. Taxation rises 17 times.

The British are the highest taxed population in the world. How does this go back to the machines? And certainly in Europe. Because all this money is. used to prosecute and to extend a trade, global trade. And it's not a seat Napoleon. And that is to do with markets. No, it's not. It's fighting. There's a desperate war for survival against revolutionary in Napoleonic France.

You don't get people sitting there in 1795, 97, 1805 saying we must defeat Napoleon to extend trade. They want to defeat the French because they are desperately aware that they're desperately afraid of what will be the effects on Britain of the French taking over, of pro-French people taking over. Well, that might be the case in the Peninsular War, but most of the wars in the 18th century were trade wars through and through. Don't forget the biggest industrial complexes in the 18th century are the dockyards. Absolutely. But not just in manufacturing.

Not just in Britain. You see, this is the interesting thing. It is not just in Britain that you have sites like that. The interesting point is not state support. State support exists in other countries. The question is why in Britain, Do you get other milliers developing in which there is also, as Melvin's been talking about, in which there is also industrial activity?

On the whole, the British canal system is not like the French canal system or the Prussian or the Spanish ones, which are state-built canal systems, which do not lead to massive industrial activity. The interesting thing about the British canal system is the finance behind it is raised privately and reflects particular economic drives in specific areas and particularly the use of coal. And if you are going to have a state-driven industrial revolution, it would not have occurred in Britain in manufacturing terms.

It would have occurred on some of the continental countries, which are much more state control. Sadly, really sadly, because it's been fascinating. Robust, I think, is of Edwardwick News. But I have to say thank you to Pat Hudson, Jeremy Black, and William Ashworth. We have part two of this programme next week. We'll talk about the bit more about the consequences and the legacy. Thank you very much for listening.

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