The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

Chapter Sixteen
The workshop of the world
The industrial revolution
Kate Clark
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY
The industrial revolution, and its causes, is a topic engraved on the heart of every schoolchild.
The great takeoff into sustained growth, during which Britain was transformed from a sleepy
agricultural economy into the first industrial nation, has been a topic of endless fascination, not
least to those economists interested in finding out how other nations might undergo a similar
transformation, or how Britain might reverse its current decline. Studies of the industrial revolution
have in general been dominated by economic historians whose primary interest is large-scale,
macro-economic transformations based on statistical measures of economic indices. Only recently
have social historians and historical geographers begun to look more closely at the idea, asking
not only whether or not a revolution took place, but also whether small-scale social, domestic or
local sources of evidence might not be as useful a source as macro-economic indicators.
Archaeology, unfortunately, has played a relatively minor role in this debate, perhaps because
the subject is by its nature empirical and local and therefore unfashionable, or perhaps because in
its early stages the archaeology of the industrial period, whose serious study is a very recent
phenomenon, has been more concerned with identifying sites than considering the wider historical
implications of the data (Clark 1987). It is probable that as mainstream archaeology focuses on
these later periods, it will contribute to the wider study of the industrial revolution.
The nature of the industrial revolution
Few historians agree on the dating, origin, causes and nature of the industrial revolution, but
most would accept that during the period between the middle of the eighteenth century and
perhaps the second quarter of the nineteenth century, Britain underwent an economic and social
transformation.
Agricultural output per hectare increased, as did the amount of land in cultivation; the first
was as a result of changes in methods of husbandry and crop rotation, the latter following
enclosure of the former open-field system. Coal replaced wood as a fuel, and steam replaced
water as the predominant source of power for industry, making possible manufacturing on a
much greater scale than had hitherto been viable. A ‘wave of gadgets’, as the historian T.S.Ashton
has called it, swept Britain, with innovations in the manufacture of textiles, in the construction of
canals, in iron smelting and puddling, in the use of iron in construction, the manufacture of