Machines
Before and After
Inventors and inventions
Impact and change
Working life
100

Machine that revolutionised the textile industry

The Spinning Jenny

100

The main source of power for spinning and weaving before steam engines

Water Wheel

100

The invention by Henry Bessemer (1856) that made steel production cheaper and faster

Bessemer Converter

100

The revolution accelerated this movement of people from rural areas to towns

Urbanisation

100

Least expensive workforce for machinery operation

Child labourers 

200

Edmund Cartwright’s 1785 invention that mechanised weaving, dramatically increasing the speed of cloth production

Power loom

200

This domestic system of making cloth at home was gradually replaced by factory production

The cottage industry

200

He patented the telephone in 1876, letting people speak over wires for the first time

Alexander Graham Bell

200

The cheap, crowded multi-storey housing that sprang up in factory cities

Tenements

200

Typical working hours per day for factory labourers in the 1830s

12-14 hours

300

This 1801 loom attachment used punched cards to weave intricate patterns and later inspired computer programming concepts.

Jacquard loom

300

One environmental side-effect of coal-powered factories, still an issue in major cities today due to modern machinery/vehicles

Smog

300

The 1804 vehicle that became the ancestor of modern railway design

The steam locomotive

300

This crop failure (1845-52) drove mass Irish migration to industrial Britain

Potato famine

300

The term for a fine deducted from wages to punish workers for mistakes or lateness

Docking

400

The 1786 breakthrough by Andrew Meikle that used rotating beaters to separate grain from husks ≠ saving about 25 labourers’ work

Threshing machine

400

A raw material whose abundant supply helped Britain industrialise first

Coal or iron ore

400

The Scottish engineer who made crucial improvements to the steam engine’s efficiency in 1776

James Watt

400

Approximate life expectancy (±5 years) in Manchester slums c. 1840

29 years

400

The dangerous job of opening and closing ventilation doors in coal mines, often done by children

Trapper

500

Samuel Crompton combined features of the Spinning Jenny and Water Frame to create this 1779 machine that produced fine, strong yarn ideal for muslin

Spinning mule

500

Britain’s textiles were a major export to this large colony, causing de-industrialisation there

India

500

The 1794 device by Eli Whitney that sped up cotton cleaning in America

The cotton gin

500

The new time-keeping system introduced by railway timetables to synchronise clocks nationwide

Standard time (railway time)

500

Total weekly wage (± 5 shillings) earned by a skilled male cotton spinner in 1840 Manchester

25 shillings

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