Chapter : 2. The Age of Industrialisation
The Pace of Industrial Change
The Pace of Industrial Change :
(i) Main industries : Cotton and metal industries were the most dynamic industries in Britain. Cotton was the leading sector in the first phase of industrialisation up to the 1840s, but the iron and steel industry led the way after 1840s. By 1873 Britain was exporting iron and steel worth about $ 77 million, double the value of its cotton export.
(ii) Domination of traditional industry : The modern machinery and, industries could not easily displace traditional industries. Even at the end of the nineteenth century, less than 20 percent of the total work force was employed in technologically advanced industrial sectors.
(iii) Base for growth : The pace of change in the traditional' industries was not set by steam powered cotton or metal industries. it were the ordinary and small innovations which built up the basis of growth in many non-mechanised sectors.
(iv) Slow pace : Though technological inventions were taking place but their pace was very slow. They did not spread dramatically across the industrial landscape. New technologies and machine were expensive so the producers and the industrialists were cautious about using them. The machines often broke down and repair was costly. They were not as effective as their inventors and manufactures claimed.
James Watt improved the steam engine produced by Newcomen and patented the new engine in 1781. His industrialist friend Mathew Boulton manufactured the new model. But for years he could find no buyers. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, there were no more than 321 steam engines all over England. Of these, 80 were in cotton industries, nine in wool industries, and the rest in mining, canal works and iron works. Steam engines were not used in any of the other industries till much later in the century. So even the most powerful new technology that enhanced the productivity of labour manifold was slow to be accepted by industrialists.
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