The rapid growth of industrialisation after 1780

History · AS: The Industrial Revolution in Britain, 1750-1850 (exams to Nov 2026). The idea in plain words, the rules to remember, the mistake to avoid and a worked example, written and checked by Mega Lecture.

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The idea

After 1780 growth became much faster. The main change was the factory system: workers and machines gathered in one building, under one employer, working fixed hours. Arkwright's mill at Cromford was the model.

Watt's rotary steam engine meant machines no longer depended on rivers, so factories could be built in towns near coal. Coal and iron became the base of the economy: coal for steam power, iron for machines, rails and bridges.

Railways after 1830 moved goods and people quickly and cheaply and created huge demand for iron, coal and labour. Markets also grew, at home through a rising population and abroad through trade and lower tariffs.

Rules to remember

Cromford Mill (1771): Arkwright's water-powered cotton mill, the pattern for the factory system.
Watt's rotary motion (early 1780s): steam could turn machinery, not just pump water.
Cartwright's power loom (1785): began the mechanisation of weaving.
Abraham Darby (1709): smelted iron with coke instead of charcoal. Henry Cort (1783 to 1784): puddling and rolling made good wrought iron in large amounts.
1830: Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened. 1838: steamships crossed the Atlantic under steam power.
Free trade: Huskisson cut import duties in the 1820s; Peel repealed the Corn Laws in 1846.
Britain had coal and iron ore close together and close to the sea and navigable rivers.

Common mistake

Do not confuse Darby and Cort. Darby used coke to smelt iron (pig iron); Cort's puddling and rolling turned pig iron into wrought iron.

Worked example

Why did the building of railways help industries that had nothing to do with transport?

Rails, locomotives and bridges needed large amounts of iron, and engines burned coal, so both industries expanded.
Building the lines employed many labourers, who spent their wages on goods.
Cheaper, faster carriage lowered the price of raw materials and widened the market for finished goods.

Answer: Railways raised demand for coal and iron, created jobs and cut transport costs, so they stimulated the whole economy.

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