Wyatt L.T. III The Industrial Revolution

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These important trends contributed to the growth of a large con-

sumer-oriented society in the 18th century, one that would only

increase in size and consumption levels as the Industrial Revolution

progressed. The expansion in population in the 18th century also

resulted in the creation of a large number of new family and household

arrangements and thus a stimulus for more goods and products. In

many cases the former family enterprises began to shift from produc-

ing goods that it consumed itself to the production of goods that others

might purchase. The ensuing consumer revolution occurred because

the desire to acquire such goods and products became a prerogative

not only of the wealthy but of all classes of society. It appeared in Great

Britain first because the class lines of that nation were more blurred

and social mobility was more possible than in other countries of

Europe. Furthermore, the growth of literacy and the ability to be influ-

enced by advertising and the printed word made more of an impres-

sion at an earlier date in Great Britain. Women and children began to

find employment opportunities less tied to agriculture as the economy

expanded in the 18th century, and more discretionary income became

available. While it is true that necessities continued to dominate pur-

chasing habits, there is evidence that income was increasingly available

for the pur chase of wants in addition to needs. As one example, the grow-

ing number of trade catalogues by the 18th century illustrates the variety

of new and improved products from the booming British textile industry.

Clothing certainly was a prime commodity, but apparel also stimulated

accessory items such as buttons, belts, hats, shoes, handkerchiefs,

gloves, etc. Not only did a variety of items appear for the first time, but

they also began to be marketed by such distinctions as for women or

men and by size, color, etc. In addition, the rise in demand created a

corresponding increase in producer goods as manufacturers and busi-

nessmen purchased items such as machinery, tools, engines, and other

forms of equipment for their firms and enterprises and, as a result,

stimulated the growth of associated and subsidiary industries and

enterprises. In this regard, the acquisition of producer goods increased

the production and quality of consumer goods and also fueled growth

in consumer demand.

Another example of the growth of consumerism was the increas-

ing consumption of luxury items such as tobacco, sugar, tea, chocolate,

and coffee. In 1660, the American colonies shipped 9 million pounds

of tobacco to Europe. That number had risen to 225 million pounds

on the eve of the American Revolution. In the last quarter of the 17th

century, tobacco imports into Great Britain doubled. Sugar trade

imports to France doubled in the years 1698 to 1733. In the 1770s,

sugar made up 60% of Great Britain’s imports from the American

The Way We Were

colonies and nearly half of France’s imports. In the 1670s, almost no

tea was imported into Great Britain, but a half century later it was

9 million pounds and by 1750 amounted to 37 million pounds.

These

commodities created an insatiable demand in the European populace

and changed social habits and patterns. For example, in the early

1700s England had an estimated 2,000 coffee houses, and within four

decades almost every country town boasted at least two coffee houses.

The first cafes appeared in Paris at the turn of the 18th century, the first

coffee house in Berlin in 1714, and eight Leipzig establishments in

1725. Coffee houses became the local spots for men to gather, smoke,

read the latest newspapers, imbibe, and converse on important topics of

the day. The public sphere now gained greater visibility and acceptance

and attracted the attention of an ever broadening spectrum of society.

Conclusion

At the dawning of the 18th century, Europe was in a position to

embrace and exploit the rapid changes that had prepared for the com-

ing Industrial Revolution. The dark days of the early modern era, ones

that had been filled with death, uncertainty, and dislocation, had

become a distant memory. Although life for many persons at the lower

end of the economic and social spectrum remained a significant strug-

gle, Europeans were poised to move from a rural society and economic

foundation that had long been characterized by want and survival on

the margin to one that was more urban and industrial and offered

growth and hope for the future. Population had surpassed its 14th cen-

tury levels and surged rapidly by the 18th century because of increased

food supplies, healthier diets, and declining death rates from disease

and plague. The increase in population brought about the beginning of

a sustained shift of people from rural areas to the cities. These urban

areas grew in size and composition, particularly in northern and West-

ern Europe. New and complex economic and social organizations

occurred as the upper, middle, and lower classes evolved and devel-

oped fresh and distinctive characteristics. The cities, to be sure, were

challenging and often dirty and dangerous places to live and work, but

the energy and opportunity that awaited its residents promised unlim-

ited potential. At the same time, Europe experienced an intellectual

revolution that broke down ancient thought patterns about the pur-

pose and utility of science and technology and emphasized a coopera-

tive relationship between the two disciplines. The growth of new

scientific inquiry and its growing partnership with technology ensured

that the spirit of innovation and inventiveness became key ingredients

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

that fueled the Industrial Revolution after 1750. The explosion of over-

seas trade and commerce led to the quest for colonies, raw materials,

and worldwide markets and in turn created new national and local fi-

nancial institutions and relationships that provided the capital invest-

ment opportunities for the enterprises that arose during the Industrial

Revolution. The cumulative result of these dynamic changes was the

growth of a consumer society that developed an insatiable appetite for

new products and behaviors that enhanced the lifestyle and standard

of living of the peoples of Europe. The rapidly advancing tempo of eco-

nomic development convinced many entrepreneurs and inventors that

past ways and old technology did not meet the demands of this new

environment. The stage was now set for the Industrial Revolution, that

momentous era that would accelerate these trends to levels heretofore

not seen.

Notes

1. C. M. Cipolla, Before the Industrial Revolution: European Society and

Economy, 1000–1700 (New York: W. W. Norton and Co. Inc., 1976), 256.

2. S. M. Beaudoin, Problems in European Civilization: The Industrial

Revolution (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 203), 71–77; L. Hunt.

T. R. Martin, & B. H. Rosenwein, The Making of the West: Peoples and

Cultures, 2 vols. (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s), 2: 581–585.

3. Beaudoin, Problems in European Civilization, 73.

4. Pulse of Enterprise, 51.

5. Hunt, Martin, & Rosenwein, The Making of the West, 2: 621–629.

6. U. Eco and G. B. Zorzoli, The Picture History of Inventions (New

York: MacMillan Company, 1963), 195–196; P. Stearns, The Industrial Revo-

lution in World History (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), 17–19.

7. Beaudoin, Problems in European Civilization,75–76.

8. P. Deane, The First Industrial Revolution, 183–185, 191.

9. C. Hill, Reformation to Industrial Revolution: The Making of Modern

English Society, 1530–1780, 2 vols. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1965), 1:

146–148.

10. Beaudoin, Problems in European Civilization,75–76.

The Way We Were

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CHAPTER 3

THE AGRICULTURAL

REVOLUTION IN GREAT

BRITAIN

The ‘‘Agricultural Revolution’’ as a stimulus to the Industrial Revolu-

tion remains a much-debated topic. Some historians consider the label

a misnomer that contributes to the myth that dramatic and far-reaching

agricultural changes in the 18th century influenced to no small degree

the launching of the Industrial Revolution. Other scholars have argued

that the agrarian developments beginning in the 16th and 17th centu-

ries and reaching fruition in the mid-1700s did indeed provide a solid

foundation upon which industrial growth could be sustained until the

late 19th century. This debate essentially is centered on whether one

supports an evolutionary or revolutionary interpretation of the rela-

tionship of agricultural developments to the onset of industrialization.

Despite the persistence of criticisms over the use of the term Agricul-

tural Revolution, the fact remains that by 1750 significant political,

economic, and social changes and the adoption of new farming techni-

ques related to crops and livestock significantly boosted agricultural

production, fed Great Britain’s growing population with a smaller

agrarian work force, and helped in some degree to prepare the way for

the Industrial Revolution.

Until the middle of the 18th century, agriculture was the most

basic technology of Western society, and on its success rested the sur-

vival and continuity of the communities that it supported. The land-

scape had long been characterized by fields that lay open and uniform

all the way to the horizon broken only intermittently by hedges, stone

walls, fences, or clusters of trees. The typical scene at the turn of the

18th century revealed several groups attempting to survive off the

land. There was a patchwork of small plots marked out by small

boundary stones. Larger holdings were usually not continuous but

rather scattered around the agricultural district. The small tenant farm-

ers and cottagers who worked such land more often than not had

the right to graze their few animals and gather firewood on the large

expanse of common land throughout the countryside. Below these

groups were the poorest families owning no land but who eked out a liv-

ing by farming whatever parcel they could work in the commons where

they built their shacks. By its very nature, agriculture had remained a

very conservative endeavor, rarely entertaining changes that might cre-

ate risk to traditional practices and thereby reduce yields. Thus, for

more than a millennium following the fall of the Roman Empire, basic

agricultural practices had remained virtually unchanged and provided

little more than subsistence for the population. The important modifica-

tions to agricultural techniques that did appear in the Middle Ages such

as the iron-tipped plow, the three-field system, the use of heavy manure

for fertilizer, and the cultivation of narrow, rectangular strips had indeed

increased yields, but these changes generally remained within the scope

of the long-established cooperative village community.

Beginning in the 17th century, several major developments paved

the way for the agricultural transformation that occurred in Great Brit-

ain. Europe once again experienced favorable climatic conditions that

persisted well into the 18th century, a trend that proved beneficial to

the newly emerging farming practices and techniques that greatly

enhanced agricultural productivity. Furthermore, political develop-

ments occurred in Great Britain that, after the Restoration of Charles II

in 1660, gave impetus to agricultural changes that appeared over the

next century. Parliament took action to free larger landowners from

their previous heavy dependence on the monarchy, allowing them to

gain absolute ownership of their estates. The last feudal tenures were

abolished, and the government began to rely on revenues from excise

taxes rather than taxes on land, a burden that fell increasingly on

the poor. These shifts in land tenure and revenue collection served to

free up capital so that larger landowners could make long-term plan-

ning and investment the cornerstone of their estate management. As a

result, many of the historical agrarian relationships between land-

owners and their tenants, already in the throes of a long, visible

change, eventually evaporated and the market place emerged as a

major impetus for growth and prosperity.

The changes on the land occurred slowly and gradually until the

middle of the 18th century. Because of the fixed amount of British land,

the only means to provide larger returns from the farms was to squeeze

additional output from the existing land or to cultivate land previously

seen as inadequate for agriculture. The classical economists of the 18th

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

century—Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Thomas Malthus— all con-

cluded that sustained growth was not possible, as the state of agricul-

tural productivity was static because the land needed to feed a growing

population would eventually run out. This view centered on the notion

that the food supply of a nation was directly proportionate to the

amount of available arable land. It is understandable that this opinion

was arguable in their eyes in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

However, it did not materialize because the massive changes wrought

by the transformation of British agriculture proved more than

sufficient to nourish its booming population.

What new approaches and practices stimulated these significant

changes to British agriculture? It should be emphasized that during the

late 18th and early 19th century, no radical agricultural inventions set

the stage for the transition. The improvements that did occur were

merely within the scope of existing technology, such as a modification

of the moldboard on the plow to bury weeds, the introduction of the

all-iron plow by the end of the 1700s, and then, shortly thereafter,

interchangeable parts for plows. Rather, the significant development

was that British landowners employed aggressive management and

investment techniques. British farmers increased the land acreage

under cultivation by reclaiming wetlands and cultivating lands previ-

ously not farmed. The British were certainly influenced by the Dutch

example in the 17th century but took the approach to significantly

greater heights. Many powerful and influential landowners aggres-

sively pursued the consolidation of smaller, dispersed plots into larger

ones. In many cases, livestock raising and the growing of crops became

intertwined pursuits. Grain production more than doubled in the pe-

riod 1600 to 1800 and new fodder crops appeared, and both trends

meshed to support livestock through the winter months. The survival

of additional livestock resulted in more manure for fertilizer and thus

more enriched land and higher yields. In addition, selective animal

breeding became an obsession, and the size and quality of herds

increased significantly and provided further nutritional advances for

the populace. These advances in agriculture found their impetus in the

changing organization and ownership of the land brought about by a

trend known as the Enclosure Movement.

The Enclosure Movement

This enclosure movement, or the consolidation of smaller agrar-

ian holdings into larger estates, was not a new phenomenon in the

18th century. Some enclosures had occurred in the 1200s and again in

The Agricultural Revolution in Great Britain

the 16th century. In fact, Sir Anthony Fitzherbert’s 1523 work Boke of

Husbandrie observed that the latest agrarian trends were better suited

to consolidation of larger tracts of land rather than the smaller farm

estates common in his day. These earlier enclosures involved a rela-

tively small number of land holdings and had little relationship to

meeting the subsistence needs of the populace but rather focused on

the production of wool for the growing textile and leather industries.

However, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the pace of enclosures quick-

ened and the ancient pattern of small land holdings began to wane rap-

idly as more acreage fell into the hands of larger landowners. This

group comprised a successful and confident class of individuals who

had become wealthy through trade or political office and desired the

social status that came from the ownership of land and the old landed

aristocracy which had begun to reassert itself by the first half of the

18th century. In reality, these landowners had formed a successful mar-

riage of agrarian and urban means and were a secure and enterprising

agricultural capitalist class. These men sought profits by increasing

production for the growing agricultural market. A substantial amount

of capital was required to meet the demands being placed on farm pro-

duction through the use of new agricultural techniques and practices.

Thus, these groups took advantage of low interest rates and on occa-

sion mortgaged their estates to acquire the capital to purchase addi-

tional land, an approach that was beyond the means of the smaller

land owners.

Until the late 18th century, enclosures generally consisted of pri-

vate contractual agreements between proprietors. If one or more larger

landowners obtained property rights in an area, substantial pressure

might be placed on the many small land holders to sell their property.

Enclosures accelerated in the period 1730 to 1750 as cheaper food pri-

ces encouraged some of the yeomen farmers to sell their small holdings

to those large landowners and use the profit to set up leasehold farms

or become involved in the growing manufacturing enterprises. By

1770, the situation had become increasingly difficult for the poorer

cottagers who farmed only a few strips of land in the open fields and

supplemented their income by working part-time as laborers for their

wealthy neighbors. They might be granted some tiny plot as the land

was restructured. But their previous ability to graze cattle in common

areas or to gather wood for fuel disappeared as waste lands increas-

ingly became the property of larger land owners. On the fringe of these

groups were the squatters who secured their livelihoods through

wage earning, poaching, begging, and at times thieving. As the enclo-

sure movement gained momentum, particularly after 1770, this group

found their rickety abodes torn down to place more land under

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

cultivation, and they ended up on the periphery of society, unskilled,

and frequently unemployed and relying on the government to provide

minimal subsistence through poor law administration. Many contem-

porary observers who chronicled the enclosure movement in the 18th

century praised the trend because, in their opinion, it further subordi-

nated the lower agrarian classes, forced them into perpetual labor, and

denied their economic independence. For example, In 1732 Robert

Walpole advocated a tax on salt, not candles, because such a levy

would force the poor to work since they made their own candles. Such

a view, while difficult to comprehend today, was the acceptable norm

for the elites of the 18th century, who had little sympathy for the plight

of the lower classes and looked how best to meet their interests of

personal and national wealth.

After 1640, the government did not attempt to check the trend to

enclose the land. All questions regarding enclosure fell to the interpre-

tation of property rights under the provisions of common law. Natu-

rally, this development led to a weakening of the position of the small

and tenant farmers in relation to the more influential large land hold-

ers. Beginning in the early 18th century, more aggressive parliamentary

action spurred on the enclosure movement. From 1727 to 1844, Parlia-

ment passed 4,000 acts approving the enclosure of 7 million acres of

land. Over the next half century an additional 1,000 parliamentary acts

enclosed 1 million acres more.

During the early period of parliamentary involvement, Parliament

generally did not work out the specific details of an enclosure act but

rather left those provisions to the sponsors once it had passed. How-

ever, the large number of enclosure requests that occurred in the 18th

century forced Parliament to pass the first Public General Act in 1801

in order to refine the procedures and save that body’s time. Later the

General Enclosure Acts of 1836 and 1840 permitted landowners to

enclose land without referring the proposal to Parliament as long as a

majority (consisting of both numbers and value of the land) opted to

do so. The last major act in 1845 amended the earlier ones in order to

protect the interests of smaller landholders. For the most part, each

enclosure act appointed commissioners whose role was to administer

the process. This General Enclosure Act of 1845 appointed permanent

commissioners who drew a salary. These commissioners had the

authority to award enclosures without submitting legislation to Parlia-

ment and to allocate plots deemed as fair equivalents of the previous

open lands and common rights.

That is not to say that those affected, the small farmers, cottagers,

and the like, had no recourse. For example, in the period 1730 to 1839

in Surrey County, 101 enclosure bills were sent to Parliament and only

The Agricultural Revolution in Great Britain

fifty gained passage. While this is a higher percentage of failed legisla-

tion than found in most other counties, the statistics highlight that

opposition did exist and was not necessarily meek. Some persons

sought to modify only portions of the legislation to gain personal

advantage in the bill, while the more serious opponents filed counter

petitions. In Surrey County, some twenty-five counter petitions were

filed against the enclosure proposals. These tactics might cause a new

bill to be introduced or delay a decision on the original proposal, per-

haps for years. Such opposition potentially was fraught with several

challenges. At least one person amongst the group would have to be

literate enough to read and understand the bill and explain it to fellow

dissenters. Such opposition might lead to the hiring of a lawyer to rep-

resent their views. In addition, someone might be required to travel to

London and spend perhaps weeks in the capital while the bill was

being debated, an expensive and sometimes fruitless endeavor requir-

ing substantial sacrifices for the group of farmers opposing the bill. So,

in theory the small farmers and cottagers might have a free decision to

make when the pressure arose to enclose lands in their community.

However, it is obvious that no matter the outcome of legislation or per-

suasion, opposition might incur the ire of those powerful landlords

who sought enclosure in the first place and result in the loss of com-

mon rights, increased expenses for rents and fertilizer, and perhaps

even a voluntary departure from the village. In the end, 21% of British

land had been affected by enclosures, two-thirds of the total arable

land and one-third waste or common land.

New Farming Techniques

The enclosure movement made a dramatic impact on British agri-

culture. The enclosures resulted in a period of land reclamation that

opened up thousands of new acres for the growing of crops. This recla-

mation included the draining of wetlands, the opening up of waste-

lands and moorland for cultivation (perhaps as much as 30% of arable

area of Great Britain from 1650 to 1800), and continuing deforestation,

a trend that reduced British woodlands, although differently from

county to county, from 10% of the land in the 14th century to just 5%

in the early 1800s. The enclosure movement also introduced new crop

rotation practices, stimulated regional specialization, and resulted in

an increase in agricultural output. The real impetus for many of the ag-

ricultural changes came about as a result of the wave of agricultural

techniques and advances led by energetic large landowners. Of particu-

lar importance were the innovations in Norfolk. The so-called Norfolk

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION