Allen, R. (2009). The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective, Ch. 6:
Why was the industrial revolution British?
Question
● Why did Britain have the industrial revolution and not others?
Important points
● Defining industrial revolution: a period of rapid and sustained technological change affected
citizens and labourers massively.
● If the paper finds what the breakthrough of progress of inventions we may be able to explain
the Industrial revolution.
● We will analyse what inventions were used in Britain, when they were useful for Brits but
nowhere else and then how they developed into global useful technologies.
● Macro/micro inventions- Macro inventions are ones that radically changed factor proportions,
substituting energy and capital for labour. These, were only cost effective in Britain due to
high labour costs. Micro inventions are ones that improve macro inventions and their
advance. These made macro inventions (steam engines, cotton mills) more cost effective and
spread the industrial revolution around the world
● Britain had success in the early modern economy giving rise to expensive labour & cheap
energy. This gave the British a great incentive to innovate technology that substituted capital
for labour. High wages also meant innovation was economically viable. Also high wages
meant education could be bought and increasing likelihood of innovation
● Transfer of knowledge/info was essential: steam engine made through ideas of 17 th century
natural philosophers.
● R&D was useful to implement the idea thought of. This was made easier by inventors either
getting patents or royalties on their products: made possible by strong British law to uphold
intellectual property.
● Macro inventions were needed – but a large part played was micro inventions, developing
inventions such as the steam engine further to make it commercially viable.
Methodology
● He plots a graph price of labour relative to capital using daily wages of labourers divided by
rental price of capital in midlands.
● Plots a graph of building wage rate to price of energy(using cheapest source available), in
early 1700s.
Result
● He finds that labour to capital prices are ~50% higher in Britain than Strasburg and Vienna in
1730.
● Price labour relative to energy is much higher in UK: Newcastle has a relative value of 5
compared with Beijing of 0.2, Paris 0.5. The low cost of coal was a decisive factor. This gave
incentive to substitute coal for labour in UK
Why was the industrial revolution British?
Question
● Why did Britain have the industrial revolution and not others?
Important points
● Defining industrial revolution: a period of rapid and sustained technological change affected
citizens and labourers massively.
● If the paper finds what the breakthrough of progress of inventions we may be able to explain
the Industrial revolution.
● We will analyse what inventions were used in Britain, when they were useful for Brits but
nowhere else and then how they developed into global useful technologies.
● Macro/micro inventions- Macro inventions are ones that radically changed factor proportions,
substituting energy and capital for labour. These, were only cost effective in Britain due to
high labour costs. Micro inventions are ones that improve macro inventions and their
advance. These made macro inventions (steam engines, cotton mills) more cost effective and
spread the industrial revolution around the world
● Britain had success in the early modern economy giving rise to expensive labour & cheap
energy. This gave the British a great incentive to innovate technology that substituted capital
for labour. High wages also meant innovation was economically viable. Also high wages
meant education could be bought and increasing likelihood of innovation
● Transfer of knowledge/info was essential: steam engine made through ideas of 17 th century
natural philosophers.
● R&D was useful to implement the idea thought of. This was made easier by inventors either
getting patents or royalties on their products: made possible by strong British law to uphold
intellectual property.
● Macro inventions were needed – but a large part played was micro inventions, developing
inventions such as the steam engine further to make it commercially viable.
Methodology
● He plots a graph price of labour relative to capital using daily wages of labourers divided by
rental price of capital in midlands.
● Plots a graph of building wage rate to price of energy(using cheapest source available), in
early 1700s.
Result
● He finds that labour to capital prices are ~50% higher in Britain than Strasburg and Vienna in
1730.
● Price labour relative to energy is much higher in UK: Newcastle has a relative value of 5
compared with Beijing of 0.2, Paris 0.5. The low cost of coal was a decisive factor. This gave
incentive to substitute coal for labour in UK
