INVENTIONS & INVENTORS OF THE
​INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Before the innovations of the Industrial Revolution most production depended on water, wind or human energy. The businesses that existed at this time were called cottage industries. Cottage industries were an early stage of economic development in society in which workers produce a limited amount of goods in home-based businesses.

By the mid-1700’s, new methods of production were being developed across Europe, especially in Great Britain. One key to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Britain was the revolution in agriculture that greatly increased the amount and variety of food produced. The change was referred to as the Agricultural Revolution and led to several innovations, including:

• ​Charles Townshend’s discovery that fields did not have to be left fallow if farmers would rotate the crops they planted in a field, allowed more food production.
• Jethro Tull found a method of planting seeds that was better than the random scattering which made crops a tangle of crops and weeds. Tull developed a seed drill which planted the seeds in straight rows.

Jethro Tull

The Agricultural Revolution set the stage for the Industrial Revolution. It led to increased food production and improved people’s diet and health and led to a rapid increase in population growth. With an increased population and lessened need for workers in the fields due to the increased production, it freed up many to leave the farms and move to the cities looking for work. The advances of the Agricultural Revolution and the impacts it had on society would ultimately lead to many of the other innovations of the Industrial Revolution.

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One such industry that benefitted greatly from the innovations of the Industrial Revolution was the textile industry which is concerned with the production of cloth or clothing. The following had a profound effect on life during the Industrial Revolution:

• In 1733, the clockmaker John Kay invented the flying shuttle, which replaced the handheld shuttle used in weaving. His invention sped up the weaving process and allowed for faster production such that weavers were outpacing spinners.
• In 1764, James Hargreaves, a carpenter, developed a way to speed up spinning. He did this by attaching several spindles to a single spinning wheel. Using this spinning jenny, as it was called, a person could spin several threads at once.
• In 1769, Richard Arkwright developed a spinning machine, called the water frame, that could hold up to 100 spindles and was capable of producing strong yarn. The machine replaced the need for manual labour and enabled the production of inexpensive spun cotton by the use of moving water from a creek or river. It was important at the time because cotton was used for clothing and other everyday items.
• In 1784, Edmund Cartwright designed the power loom, which he built for use in 1785.  The device mechanized the loom and sped up the process of textile manufacturing.
• In 1793, the American Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin - a machine that automated and sped up the separation of cottonseed from the short-staple cotton fiber. The invention helped the British cotton industry because it increased the production of cotton and made it cheaper.

Infographic

The development of the steam engine would also have a profound effect on society and the overall Industrial Revolution. The following made dramatic advances in the development of the steam engine and putting it to other uses during the Industrial Revolution:

• The first steam engine was created by Thomas Newcomen in 1712.  Newcomen produced items for tin mine owners who often complained that they were struggling to deal with flooding in their mines. Traditional methods of removing water from the mines were slow, and hard work. Newcomen realized that he could help the tin mine owners. He developed a pump engine that used a piston in a cylinder; it was the first of its kind.
• In the 1760’s, James Watt improved on and perfected the design first produced by Thomas Newcomen.  In 1764, Watt was given a Newcomen steam engine to repair. He started working on it and soon realized that it was inefficient. As a result, Watt wanted to improve the design. He was successful, and found a way to prevent steam from escaping from the engine by adding a separate condensing chamber. Watt patented his new steam engine design, and it paved the way for other mechanical design work. 
• In 1807, Robert Fulton used steam power to create the first steamboat.  His invention revolutionized travel and trade throughout Europe and in Britain in particular.  The steam boat allowed more goods to be shipped by canal and waterways which furthered the impacts of industrialization.
• In 1814, George Stephenson, utilized the steam engine to develop the first steam train.  Similar to the steam boat, the steam train increased the ability of industrialized nations to transport people and goods long distances.  This allowed industrialized nations, such as Britain, to move goods to market and to transport raw materials into factories.

Newcomen Steam Engine

James Watt

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As the Industrial Revolution continued it led to many other inventions in other areas of society, including: communication technologies, transportation methods, and the overall methods of production.

• ​​Discoveries in the field of electricity improved communication technologies. In 1866, the first underwater telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean was successfully installed, and ten years later, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.​
• In the late 1800’s American Thomas Edison produced an amazing array of inventions. Among them were the phonograph and the incandescent light bulb.
• In 1886, German scientist Gottlieb Daimler devised an internal combustion engine that was fuelled by gasoline and could power a small vehicle. His invention was one of the biggest advances in transportation technology since the development of the steam engine. Daimler would use his engine to create one of the first automobiles.
• An improvement in production was the introduction of the assembly line by Henry Ford in 1914. On an assembly line, the complex job of assembling many parts into a finished product was broken down into a series of small tasks. It sped up production and reduced costs as each worker was only required to install one or two parts at their position on the assembly line. Ford would use the assembly line to speed up the production of automobiles in his factory in Highland Park, Michigan.

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CITE THIS ARTICLE

AUTHOR

• Elias Beck

TITLE

• 'Inventions and Inventors of the Industrial Revolution'

WEBSITE / PUBLISHER

• ​History Crunch (historycrunch.com)

URL

• ​https://www.historycrunch.com/inventions-and-inventors-of-the-industrial-revolution.html#/

LAST UPDATED

• ​March 24, 2022

FIRST PUBLISHED

• January 7, 2016

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INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION RESOURCES

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