5.4. The Industrial Revolution.

5.4.1. By the middle of the XVIII century industry began to use coal for changing iron ore into good quality iron or steel. This laid the foundation for the Industrial Revolution. This made Britain the leading iron producer in Europe. Increased iron production made it possible to manufacture new machinery for other industries. In the middle of the century other countries were buying Brit­ish uniforms, equipment and weapons for their ar­mies.

5.4.2. The industry most often associated with the Industrial Revolution is the textile industry. A series of extraordinary innovations reduced and then replaced the human labor required to make cloth. British inventor John Kay created a device known as the flying shuttle, which partially mechanized the process of weaving. The British inventor and industrialist James Hargreaves had invented the spinning jenny, a machine that spins a number of threads at once. The most important results of these changes were enormous increases in the output of goods per worker. A single spinner or weaver, for example, could now turn out many times the volume of yarn or cloth that earlier workers had produced.

5.4.3. James Watt, a laboratory assistant from Scotland, developed a new type of steam engine. At first the engine was used only for stationary work, but later on it was modified by George Stephenson to drive locomotives. In 1825 the first railway was built. The development of technology was advanced further by outstanding engineers like Isambard Brunel. He was responsible for building more than 1,600 km of railway in the West Country, the Midlands, South Wales, and Ireland. His approach to engineering was always creative. Brunel Junior is best remembered for his outstanding contribution to marine engineering. Later in life, he designed three huge ships. The Great Eastern built in 1858 is probably the most well-known of the three. It was the largest steamship in the world in the second half of the XIX century.

5.4.4. The social consequences of the Industrial Revolution were dramatic and far-reaching. English society was breaking up into 2 basic classes – the owners of factories (the capitalists) and the workers (the proletarians). While the owners gained profits the working conditions were terrible and the wages were very small. Hand-workers were losing their jobs to the new machines. The enclosure movement created an abundant labour supply. Thousands of peasants became landless and ruined and were forced to migrate to the growing towns where they were consumed by the growing industry.

Lecture 06 the victorian age, long and glorious

6.1. The Victorian Age (1837 – 1901).

6.1.1. As a result of the in­dustrial revolution, Britain became the workshop of the world. British factories were pro­ducing more than any other country in the world. Having many colonies, Britain controlled large areas of the world. The British had a strong feeling of their importance. Queen Victoria is associated with Britain's great age of industrial expansion, economic progress and, especially, the growth of the colonial empire. At her death, Britain had a worldwide empire on which the sun never set. It was during the mid-1850s that the word “Victorian” began to be employed to express a new self-consciousness, both in relation to the nation and to the period through which it was passing. In 1851 Queen Victoria opened the Great Exhibition of the Industries of All Nations in the Crystal Palace in London. The aim of the Exhibition was to show the world the greatness of Britain's industry. The exhibition was a triumph.

6.1.2. The Victorian Age knows many outstanding personalities who contributed to the development of the nation. They are great engineers like Isambard Brunel, public figures like Florence Nightingale, travelers like David Livingstone, and a great number of world-class artists. For example, the Victorian era produced an amazing number of popular novelists and poets. Perhaps the most famous authors of this time were Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, the Bronte sisters — Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

6.1.3. Advances in science were prominent, too. During the Victorian age, Michael Faraday's and James Maxwell's work led to the practical application of the electric power. Biologist Charles Darwin developed the theory of evolution through natural selection, which radically influenced modern science and thought. Indeed, it was a pioneering breakthrough. Surgeon Joseph Lister introduced antiseptic surgery in the 1860s which helped reduce mortality during operations.

6.1.4. During the Victorian Age Britain was at its most powerful and self-confident. Many famous traits of the British mentality, such as snobbery, conservatism and imperial outlook, humbug and hypocrisy appeared. From the early 1850s to the early 1870s, almost all sections of the population seemed to be benefiting from relative prosperity. It was during these years, when great individual creative power was tapped, that Victorianism, perhaps the only “ism” in history attached to the name of a sovereign, came to represent a cluster of restraining moral attributes — “character,” “duty,” “will,” earnestness, hard work, respectable comportment and behavior, and thrift. Yet despite their widespread appeal, all of these Victorian virtues were subjected to contemporary criticism.