Innovations of the Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution involved innovation, capital investment and increased output:

Textiles

• James Hargreaves' Spinning Jenny (1764) and later Richard Arkwright's Water Frame (1769) and Samuel Crompton's Mule (1779) were spinning machines. Edmund Cartwright's Power Loom (1785) was a weaving machine. Many of these inventions were powered by James Watt's steam engines (1765).
• Large factories, eg Arkwright's Mill at Cromford, full of machines.
• [output: The amount of something produced.] increased 15-fold in the century 1815‒1914.

Iron and steel

• Abraham Darby smelted iron using [coke: A coal-based solid fuel.] (1709), Henry Cort's puddling process made wrought iron (1784), and Henry Bessemer's Bessemer converter (1856) and the Gilchrist-Thomas process (1879) made steel.
• Huge ironworks eg Richard Crawshay's Cyfartha works in South Wales, and John Roebuck's Carron Works in Scotland.
• Production of 'pig' iron increased 30-fold in the century 1815‒1914.

Coal

• Better coal mining techniques allowed deeper mines eg 'roof and pillar' working to support the roof, upcast and downcast shafts to provide ventilation, and the Davy Lamp (1815) to help prevent gas explosions.
• In 1914, the coal industry employed a million men in 3, 000 collieries.
• Production of coal increased 20-fold in the century 1815‒1914.

Steam power

• In around 1712 Thomas Newcomen built the first commercially successful steam engine to pump water out of mines.
• James Watt made steam engines much more efficient in the 1760s and 1770s giving huge savings on fuel. His other improvements meant steam engines could replace water and horse power in a wide variety of industries, which in turn allowed factories to be built anywhere.