Lesson 3: Britain in Transformation
The Textile Industry
At the same time that coal mining and iron manufacturing were making such rapid progress, the textile industry was also changing the methods of production and, in turn, English society. Labor costs had been halved by the invention of Kay's “flying shuttle” in l733, the first of the inventions by which the textile industry was transformed.
During the same year, the invention of a spinning machine by Wyatte and Paul redressed the gap between spinning and weaving. A remarkable advance occurred in l765 when Hargreave's “spinning jenny” completely completed the balance, for it allowed enough thread to be produced for the weavers. A single worker could now operate a number of spindles to produce several threads at one time.
The move away from cottage industry to the factory system was further hastened in l769 with Arkwright's invention of a frame that could produce cotton thread hard and firm enough to produce woven fabric. English cotton mills began to proliferate in Lancashire and Yorkshire.
In l805, Scotsman Patrick Clark developed a cotton thread that was to replace linen thread on Britain's looms. In l779, Samuel Crompton devised his spinning mule, another landmark in the industrial revolution.
James Watt patented his double-acting rotary steam engine in l782. It was used to drive machinery of all kinds, beginning two years later at a textile factory in Nottinghamshire.
Women and children now left their homes and their spinning wheels and looms to work in the mills, at first furnished by the rapidly flowing streams of the North, but more and more powered by steam.
With the steam engine replacing animal, wind, and water power, the Golden Age of domestic industry was over. Sporadic riots against the employment of the new machinery did nothing to halt their proliferation.
The decline of domestic industry produced a shift in the way industry was financed. The factory system was responsible for the development of the joint capitalist enterprise that became such a powerful force in the nation's economic affairs. There seemed no end to industrial progress.
