Britain’s Industrial Revolution began around 1780 and brought about a radical change from an economy based on farms to one based on factories. Before the revolution, British main industries were carried on in small units and workshops: the woollen industry, for example, was based on families spinning wool [I 1] [I 2]in their houses (cottage or domestic system). The factory system caused a real transformation of the country.
Several factors interacted to produce the Industrial Revolution, like demographic changes due to population growth. The Industrial Revolution relied on a growing population that provided increasing numbers of consumers and workers for factories. More people looking for work helped keep down wages and led to low prices and higher profits.
The expansion of the industrial population brought the rise of the factory town especially in the North. Many people moved to towns to find work. Several factory owners built houses for their workers near their work places (houses had no water supply or sanitation). Living conditions were in general poor and working conditions were very dangerous.
The increasing industrial system required more and better roads and a network of canals to bring raw materials to factories and send finished products to market: this phenomenon is often described as the Transport Revolution.
A deep transformation also affected the rural areas. The spread of enclosures and technical innovations caused an Agricolture Revolution which went on together with the Industrial one and was linked to it. Land was bought by great landowners, enclosed with fences and cultivated more quickly thanks to the new machines. Many peasants moved to towns to join the class of industrial workers.
Before the Industrial Revolution, the urban working class didn’t exist in British society. The consciousness of being part of a working class originated in a number of different organisations and groups which gave origin to the Trade Union Movement . Because of terrible working conditions, workers began to form trade clubs or associations to look after their interests.
By the end of the18th century trade clubs were joining together into larger combinations. Their aim was to obtain better working conditions and higher wages, thus having the role of a trade union. But the employers associated combinations with revolutionary activity and forced the Parliament to declare them illegal in 1799-1800. They were finally legalised in 1824.
