Industrial Revolution Timeline

  • Richard Arkwright

    Richard Arkwright
    in 1767, a breakthrough came when a Lancashire entrepreneur, Richard Arkwright (1732–92), devised a simple but remarkable spinning machine. Replacing the work of human hands, the water frame made it possible to spin cotton yarn more quickly and in greater quantities
  • James Watt

    James Watt
    James Watt invented the steam engine in 1776. He was an English craftsman who made machines. He noticed that steam had so much strength that it could move very heavy loads if it was harnessed in the right manner.
  • Thomas Malthus

    Thomas Malthus
    Thomas Malthus was an English economist and demographer best known for his theory that population growth will always tend to outrun the food supply and that betterment of humankind is impossible without strict limits on reproduction.
  • George Stephenson

    George Stephenson
    George Stephenson is often called the father of the modern railway. As a civil engineer of railway routes and a mechanical engineer of rails and locomotives during the industrial revolution, he transformed transport. Stephenson was self-taught as an engineer.