The Industrial Revolution began 100 years earlier than expected

The Industrial Revolution began 100 years earlier than expected

It’s time to go back to school; Scientists have now collected enough evidence to confirm that the Industrial Revolution began much earlier than previously thought.

Currently, history books mainly refer to 1750 as the birth year of the Industrial Revolution. Industrialization began in England, and eventually spread to the rest of Europe around 1850. However, scholars are now pushing back on this. Scientist Lee Shu Taylor contributed to the study. “In this study, we classified and mapped centuries of employment data,” he explains. This shows that we need to rewrite the history books. We have discovered that the real shift (from agriculture, ed.) to manufacturing goods occurred 100 years ago. For the research, scientists created an interactive website called www.economypast.org.

Nation of makers
The results of this research result from a research project that has been ongoing for more than 20 years called: The occupational structure of Britain 1379-1911. The ultimate goal of this research project is to provide a complete picture of changes in employment over the centuries. In this research, scientists looked specifically at the period from 1600 to 1800. The lion’s share of the data comes from more than two million wills and estates. In general, these documents often contain three important elements: the place of residence of the deceased, the profession he or she practiced, and the year in which he died. In addition, 2.5 million baptismal certificates from the 19th century were also examined; Hence it was also necessary to record the father’s occupation on the baptismal certificate.

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A number of interesting conclusions can be drawn from the study results. The most important conclusion of all is that the major shift from the agricultural sector to the secondary sector occurred primarily between 1600 and 1700 – and thus did not begin only in 1750. For example, the proportion of British men working in agriculture declined dramatically in the 17th century: in 1600, 64% of all British men were employed in the agricultural sector, and in 1740 this proportion was only 42%. At the same time, there is a trend where many men are turning to jobs that mainly involve the production of goods. For example; In 1600, 28% of all men worked in the secondary sector, while in 1700 this percentage rose to 42%. Shaw Taylor adds: “Our database shows that the economy suffered a shock in the seventeenth century due to the massive proliferation of companies. The United Kingdom was already a nation of makers in 1700.

Workplace
However, half of these businesses were spread across hundreds of households in rural areas. “In addition to village artisans, there were large networks of weavers living mainly in the countryside,” explains scholar Shaw-Taylor. These weavers worked for nearby merchants, where they were supplied with wool and the merchant then sold the finished products in the local market. At that time, these types of industries were very similar to enterprises without machines, so they were spread over hundreds of households. Eventually, these industries increasingly began to produce goods for the international market.

Some of these networks have grown into larger workshops. These workshops then moved to northern England, as there was enough coal to power steam engines. These movements were not without consequences for the places from which people moved. By 1750, the vast majority of southern and eastern England had lost their existing industries, often forcing local villagers to return to the agricultural sector. As an example, the study cites the Norfolk area, where around 1700 about 63% of men had jobs in industry. Over the next century, this proportion would eventually fall to 39%, while at the same time the number of men in the agricultural sector would rise from 28% to eventually 51%.

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Manufacturing decline
The research findings are important because they greatly influence the timeline for the Industrial Revolution. So scholars essentially point out that there was a shift of existing industry to northern England – and that these shifts often led to deindustrialization locally, causing many workers to return to the agricultural sector. In addition, the decline of domestic manufacturing also had another consequence: many women ended up staying at home. For example, scholars estimate that about 60% to 80% of women in 1760 had a job at a local business. By 1851, this percentage had fallen to 43%. According to Shaw Taylor, this proportion would not recover until around 1980.

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