The Industrial Revolution changed England and the world forever. It took place between about 1700 and 1900, and - so the simple explanation goes - it
turned Britain into a tooled-up, factory-powered ‘workshop of the world’. But there was plenty more to the Industrial Revolution than
just factories and machines. It certainly didn’t happen overnight, and its roots go even further back than 1700.
In fact, many historians reckon the Industrial Revolution was not just one revolution, but a series of revolutions. A bit like a complicated machine: it had lots
of different moving parts, and each of these parts was like its own revolution. New revolutionary technologies and inventions meant that products could
be made by machines rather than by hand. Eventually, steam engines powered these machines with coal instead of natural resources
like wind, water and animals – a kind of energy revolution. Transport was revolutionised too - first with canals and
improved roads, and later with steam-powered trains and ships. There was a consumer revolution, as people in England and elsewhere started
to replace durable, homemade goods with cheaper, mass produced alternatives. Britain’s population grew from 6.5 million in 1750,
to 10.5 million by 1800. By 1850, it had doubled to 20.8 million, and more than half of those people were living in cities.
