Free Sample Essays > European History
Was The Industrial Revolution in England Inevitable
the steam engine, this type of engine was quickly ¡®applied to other industries--to power railroad locomotives, ships, and later the first automobiles¡¯ (Patricia Ryaby Backer). Steam engines became the symbol of the industrial revolution.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century in England, the use of machines in manufacturing was already widespread. ¡®In 1762 Matthew Boulton built a factory, which employed more than six hundred workers, and installed a steam engine to supply power from two large waterwheels to run a variety of lathes and polishing and grinding machines.¡¯(Gerhard Rempel) In Staffordshire an industry developed and gave the world good cheap pottery; chinaware brought in by the East India Company often furnished a model. Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) was one of those who revolutionized the production and sale of pottery. From the year of 1700, the Staffordshire potters used waterwheels or windmills to turn machines, which mixed their materials. After 1850 machinery was used extensively in the pottery-making process. The price of crockery fell, and eating and drinking consequently became more hygienic.
The motives, ¡®which led to the technical progress of the eighteenth century, were many and varied¡¯ (H. Heaton 1933). Steam engines and coke fuel came out as aids to men. Shallow deposits of coal, tin, and copper were exhausted, yet existing pumps could not pull the water out from the low levers. If the pumping problem could not be solved all the pumps have to be destoried. And another big problem, which the ironmasters had to face, was the forests near iron deposits were cut up and the charcoal supplies became more and more difficult, so they must find a new fuel or abandon their factory.
Apart form that, ¡®inventive ingenuity was also stimulated by the hope of monetary reward¡¯. (H. Heaton) In the eighteenth-century opinion it was more tolerable for the inventor¡¯s claim for compensations. Even when some new rights challenged the patent rights, it was agreed that the inventor should be rewarded by some gift from the state or from some organizations set up to encourage innovation. Kings and parliaments protected or rewarded innovators, and some other organizations, such as the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, established in London in 1754, offered premiums, medals, and prizes.
The enthusiasms in technological innovation in that period caused more and more new technologies occur consequently. As a result, the industrial revolution became inevitable to take place.
To sum up, the industrial revolution was not just caused by an accident invention and it was sure to happen. Conditions created in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries gave birth to the industrial revolution. The accumulations of capital supplied enough money what were badly needed in the progress of establishing and running large-scale companies. The expansion of both domestic and overseas markets made it was possible to sell out the large number of products. The improvement of economic organizations improved the efficiency of production and [next page]