Machines
Machine that revolutionised the textile industry
The Spinning Jenny
The main source of power for spinning and weaving before steam engines
Water Wheel
The invention by Henry Bessemer (1856) that made steel production cheaper and faster
Bessemer Converter
The revolution accelerated this movement of people from rural areas to towns
Urbanisation
Least expensive workforce for machinery operation
Child labourers
Edmund Cartwright’s 1785 invention that mechanised weaving, dramatically increasing the speed of cloth production
Power loom
This domestic system of making cloth at home was gradually replaced by factory production
The cottage industry
He patented the telephone in 1876, letting people speak over wires for the first time
Alexander Graham Bell
The cheap, crowded multi-storey housing that sprang up in factory cities
Tenements
Typical working hours per day for factory labourers in the 1830s
12-14 hours
This 1801 loom attachment used punched cards to weave intricate patterns and later inspired computer programming concepts.
Jacquard loom
One environmental side-effect of coal-powered factories, still an issue in major cities today due to modern machinery/vehicles
Smog
The 1804 vehicle that became the ancestor of modern railway design
The steam locomotive
This crop failure (1845-52) drove mass Irish migration to industrial Britain
Potato famine
The term for a fine deducted from wages to punish workers for mistakes or lateness
Docking
The 1786 breakthrough by Andrew Meikle that used rotating beaters to separate grain from husks ≠ saving about 25 labourers’ work
Threshing machine
A raw material whose abundant supply helped Britain industrialise first
Coal or iron ore
The Scottish engineer who made crucial improvements to the steam engine’s efficiency in 1776
James Watt
Approximate life expectancy (±5 years) in Manchester slums c. 1840
29 years
The dangerous job of opening and closing ventilation doors in coal mines, often done by children
Trapper
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
Britain’s textiles were a major export to this large colony, causing de-industrialisation there
India
The 1794 device by Eli Whitney that sped up cotton cleaning in America
The cotton gin
The new time-keeping system introduced by railway timetables to synchronise clocks nationwide
Standard time (railway time)
Total weekly wage (± 5 shillings) earned by a skilled male cotton spinner in 1840 Manchester
25 shillings