Explain why England became the harbinger of Industrial Revolution. Also throw light on its social consequences.

Answer:

England industrialised first because a rare combination of advantages converged there: capital from commerce and empire, abundant coal and iron, an agricultural revolution that freed labour, political stability and a culture receptive to invention. The social consequences transformed British society utterly.

Capital and commerce

• Profits from colonial trade, the slave trade and empire supplied investment capital.
• The Bank of England and a developed banking system mobilised savings.
• A large protected colonial market absorbed manufactures.
• Insurance and joint-stock enterprise spread commercial risk.

Resources, labour and technology

• Coal and iron ore lay close together and near navigable water.
• The agricultural revolution and enclosure raised output and released rural labour.
• Inventions followed one another: the flying shuttle, spinning jenny, water frame and mule.
• Watt's improved steam engine of 1769 supplied power independent of location.
• Canals and later railways moved bulk goods cheaply.

Political and social conditions

• Political stability since 1688 and secure property rights encouraged investment.
• No internal customs barriers existed, unlike in continental Europe.
• A relatively open society allowed men of humble origin to rise through enterprise.
• Naval supremacy protected trade and secured colonies.
• Scientific societies and a practical, empirical culture encouraged innovation.

Social consequences

• Rapid urbanisation crowded workers into insanitary industrial towns.
• The factory system imposed harsh discipline, long hours and dangerous conditions.
• Women and children were extensively employed in mills and mines.
• A new class structure emerged, dividing industrial bourgeoisie from proletariat.
• Trade unions, Chartism and later socialism arose in response.
• Factory Acts, public health legislation and franchise reform followed the agitation.

Intellectual consequences

• Adam Smith's economics and later Malthus and Ricardo shaped policy.
• Marx and Engels drew their analysis from Manchester's conditions.
• Utilitarian reformers pressed for sanitary and educational legislation.
• Romantic writers protested against the dehumanising effects of the factory.

England therefore became the harbinger of industrialisation because capital, resources, labour, technology and political stability came together as nowhere else. As historians such as E.P. Thompson emphasised, the social cost was borne by the working class, whose response, in unions, movements and ideologies, shaped the politics of the next two centuries.