Industrial Revolution - Innovations

Innovations

The commencement of the Industrial Revolution is closely linked to a small number of innovations, made in the second half of the 18th century:

• Textiles – Cotton spinning using Richard Arkwright's water frame, James Hargreaves's Spinning Jenny, and Samuel Crompton's Spinning Mule (a combination of the Spinning Jenny and the Water Frame). This was patented in 1769 and so came out of patent in 1783. The end of the patent was rapidly followed by the erection of many cotton mills. Similar technology was subsequently applied to spinning worsted yarn for various textiles and flax for linen. The cotton revolution began in Derby, which has been known since this period as the "Powerhouse of the North".
• Steam power – The improved steam engine invented by James Watt and patented in 1775 was at first mainly used to power pumps for pumping water out of mines, but from the 1780s was applied to power other types of machines. This enabled rapid development of efficient semi-automated factories on a previously unimaginable scale in places where waterpower was not available. For the first time in history people did not have to rely on human or animal muscle, wind or water for power. The steam engine was used to pump water from coal mines; to lift trucks of coal to the surface; to blow air into the furnaces for the making of iron; to grind clay for pottery; and to power new factories of all kinds. For over a hundred years the steam engine was the king of the industries.
• Iron making – In the Iron industry, coal was finally applied to all stages of iron smelting, replacing charcoal. This had been achieved much earlier for lead and copper as well as for producing pig iron in a blast furnace, but the second stage in the production of bar iron depended on the use of potting and stamping (for which a patent expired in 1786) or puddling (patented by Henry Cort in 1784).

These represent three 'leading sectors', in which there were key innovations, which allowed the economic take off by which the Industrial Revolution is usually defined. This is not to belittle many other inventions, particularly in the textile industry. Without some earlier ones, such as the spinning jenny and flying shuttle in the textile industry and the smelting of pig iron with coke, these achievements might have been impossible. Later inventions such as the power loom and Richard Trevithick's high pressure steam engine were also important in the growing industrialisation of Britain. The application of steam engines to powering cotton mills and ironworks enabled these to be built in places that were most convenient because other resources were available, rather than where there was water to power a watermill.

In the textile sector, such mills became the model for the organisation of human labour in factories, epitomised by Cottonopolis, the name given to the vast collection of cotton mills, factories and administration offices based in Manchester. The assembly line system greatly improved efficiency, both in this and other industries. With a series of men trained to do a single task on a product, then having it moved along to the next worker, the number of finished goods also rose significantly.

Also important was the 1756 rediscovery of concrete (based on hydraulic lime mortar) by the British engineer John Smeaton, which had been lost for 1300 years.