Industrial Revolution

By Mike_Vic

  • First Central Bank established in England

  • Period: to

    Industrial Revolution

  • Thomas Newcomen invented the first productive steam engine.

  • John Lombe starts his silk factory

  • James Kay invented the Flying Shuttle, a simple weaving machine.

  • James Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny, which allowed one worker to spin eight spindles

  • Richard Arkwright invented the water frame, which hooked up spinning machines to a water wheel.

  • James Watt patented his revision of the steam engine, featuring a separate condenser.

  • Samuel Crompton invented the spinning mule which combined spinning and weaving into one machine.

  • Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations.

  • Watt adapts his steam engine from a reciprocal to a rotary motion.

  • Edmund Cartwright invented the power loom, which, after 1800 was powered by new steam engines. Replaced the flying shuttle.

  • Henry Cort invented highly successful iron refining techniques.

  • Arkwright changes his huge factories over from water power to steam engines.

  • Combination Acts make it illegal in England for workers to unionize in order to bargain for higher pay or better working conditions

  • 10 million tons of coal mined in Great Britain.

  • Richard Trevithick drives the Cornish “puffer” steam powered locomotive down the street of Camborne, England.

  • Luddite Rebellion begins.

  • Parliament passes law making it illegal by penalty of death to destroy industrial machines.

  • 14 Luddites hanged in Manchester after a rushed one-day trial.

  • George Stephenson patented a steam engine locomotive that ran on rails.

  • Stephenson commissioned to construct a 30-mile railway from Liverpool to Manchester.

  • Stephenson’s Rocket wins the speed contest on the new Liverpool to Manchester railroad. 51 miles of railroad track in Great Britain and the entire world.

  • Sadler Committee investigates child labor in factories and issues report to Parliament.

  • Poor Law created “poorhouses” for the destitute.

  • 106,000 power looms operating in Great Britain.

  • Friedrich Engels publishes his observations of the negative effects of industrialization in The Condition of the Working-Class in England.

  • British government sets up the General Board of Health to investigate sanitary conditions, setting up local boards to ensure safe water in cities.

  • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto.

  • 10,000 people die in three months in London from Cholera epidemic.

  • 6,031 miles of railroad track in Great Britain.

  • Public Health Act gives government responsibility to ensure public health for housing and sewage.

  • Education Act made school compulsory for children up to age 10.

  • 90% of all ships in the world are built in Great Britain.

  • 35,00 miles of railroad track in Great Britain

  • This Factory Act raised the minimum work age to 12 years old.

  • 236 million tons of coal mined in Great Britain.

  • Education Act made school compulsory for children up to age 14.

  • English government mandates and funds compulsory education for all citizens through age 18.