Editing Industrial Revolution (section)

==Causes==
[[File:Historic world GDP per capita.svg|thumb|Regional [[Gross domestic product|GDP]] per capita changed very little for most of human history before the Industrial Revolution.]]
The causes of the Industrial Revolution were complicated and remain debated. Geographic factors include Britain's vast mineral resources. In addition to metal ores, Britain had the highest quality [[coal]] reserves known at the time, as well as abundant water power, highly productive agriculture, numerous seaports and navigable waterways.<ref name="auto3"/>

Some historians believe the Industrial Revolution was an outgrowth of social and institutional changes brought by the end of [[feudalism]] in Britain after the [[English Civil War]] in the 17th century, although feudalism began to break down after the [[Black Death]] of the mid 14th century. This created labour shortages and led to falling food prices and a peak in real wages around 1500, after which population growth began reducing wages. After 1540, increasing precious metals supply from the Americas caused inflation, which caused land rents to fall in real terms.<ref>{{cite book |title=Agricultural Revolution in England: The transformation if the agrarian economy 1500–1850 |last=Overton |first=Mar |year=1996 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-56859-3 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780521568593 }}</ref>

The [[Enclosure]] movement and the [[British Agricultural Revolution]] made food production more efficient and less labour-intensive, forcing the farmers who could no longer be self-sufficient in agriculture into [[cottage industry]], for example [[weaving]], and in the longer term into the cities and the newly developed [[factory|factories]].<ref name="The Origins of the Industrial Revolution in England"/> The [[Colonialism|colonial expansion]] of the 17th century with the accompanying development of international trade, creation of [[financial market]]s and accumulation of [[Capital (economics)|capital]] are also cited as factors, as is the [[scientific revolution]] of the 17th century.<ref name="msn"/> A change in marrying patterns to getting married later made people able to accumulate more human capital during their youth, thereby encouraging economic development.<ref>{{cite book|author=Baten, Jörg |title=A History of the Global Economy. From 1500 to the Present.|date=2016|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=13–16|isbn=978-1-107-50718-0}}</ref>

Until the 1980s, it was believed by historians that technological innovation was the heart of the Industrial Revolution and the key enabling technology was the invention and improvement of the steam engine.<ref name="industrial10"/> [[Lewis Mumford]] has proposed that the Industrial Revolution had its origins in the [[Early Middle Ages]], much earlier than most estimates.<ref name="Technics & Civilization"/> He explains that the model for standardised [[mass production]] was the [[printing press]] and that "the archetypal model for the industrial era was the clock". He also cites the [[Monasticism|monastic]] emphasis on order and time-keeping, as well as the fact that [[medieval]] cities had at their centre a church with bell ringing at regular intervals as being necessary precursors to a greater synchronisation necessary for later, more physical, manifestations such as the steam engine.

The presence of a large domestic market is considered an important driver of the Industrial Revolution, particularly explaining why it occurred in Britain. In other nations, such as France, markets were split up by local regions, which often imposed tolls and [[tariff]]s on goods traded among them.<ref name="google11"/> Internal tariffs were abolished by [[Henry VIII of England]], they survived in Russia until 1753, 1789 in France and 1839 in Spain.

Governments' grant of limited [[monopoly|monopolies]] to inventors under a developing [[patent]] system (the [[Statute of Monopolies]] in 1623) is considered an influential factor. The effects of patents, both good and ill, on the development of industrialisation are clearly illustrated in the history of the [[steam engine]]. In return for publicly revealing the workings of an invention, patents rewarded inventors such as [[James Watt]] by allowing them to monopolise production, and increasing the pace of technological development. However, monopolies bring with them inefficiencies which counterbalance, or even overbalance, the benefits of publicising ingenuity and rewarding inventors.<ref name="industrialisation"/> Watt's monopoly prevented other inventors, such as [[Richard Trevithick]], [[William Murdoch]], or [[Jonathan Hornblower]], whom Boulton and Watt sued, from introducing improved steam engines, thereby slowing the spread of [[steam power]].<ref name="dklevine"/><ref name="mott-smith"/>

===Causes in Europe===
{{Main|Great Divergence}}
[[File:Microcosm of London Plate 017 - The Coal Exchange (tone).jpg|thumb|Interior of the [[Coal Exchange (London)|London Coal Exchange]], {{Circa|1808}}. European 17th-century colonial expansion, international trade, and creation of financial markets produced a new legal and financial environment, one which supported and enabled 18th-century industrial growth.]]
One question of active interest to historians is why the Industrial Revolution occurred in Europe and not in other parts of the world in the 18th century, particularly China, [[Indian subcontinent|India]], and the Middle East (which pioneered in shipbuilding, textile production, water mills, and much more in the period between 750 and 1100<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress|last=Mokyr|first=Joel|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1990|isbn=978-0-19-507477-2|location=New York|pages=40–44}}</ref>), or at other times like in [[Classical antiquity|Classical Antiquity]]<ref name="j-bradford-delong"/> or the [[Middle Ages]].<ref name="historyguide"/> A recent account argued that Europeans have been characterized for thousands of years by a freedom-loving culture originating from the aristocratic societies of early Indo-European invaders.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Uniqueness of Western Civilization|last=Duchesne|first=Ricardo|publisher=Brill|year=2011|isbn=978-90-04-23276-1|location=Leiden}}</ref> Many historians, however, have challenged this explanation as being not only Eurocentric, but also ignoring historical context. In fact, before the Industrial Revolution, "there existed something of a global economic parity between the most advanced regions in the world economy."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Vries|first=Pier|date=2001|title=Are Coal and Colonies Really Crucial?|journal=Journal of World History|volume=2|page=411}}</ref> These historians have suggested a number of other factors, including education, technological changes<ref name="google12"/> (see [[scientific revolution|Scientific Revolution]] in Europe), "modern" government, "modern" work attitudes, ecology, and culture.<ref name="The Industrial Revolution – Causes"/>

[[China]] was the world's most technologically advanced country for many centuries; however, China stagnated economically and technologically and was surpassed by Western Europe before the [[Age of Discovery]], by which time China banned imports and denied entry to foreigners. China was also a totalitarian society. It also taxed transported goods heavily.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Genius of China: 3000 years of science, discovery and invention|last=Temple|first= Robert|year= 1986|publisher = Simon and Schuster|location=New York }}Based on the works of Joseph Needham></ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Genius That Was China: East and West in the Making of the Modern World|url=https://archive.org/details/geniusthatwaschi0000mers|url-access=registration|last1=Merson|first1= John|year= 1990|publisher = The Overlook Press|location=Woodstock, NY |isbn= 978-0-87951-397-9}}A companion to the PBS Series "The Genius That Was China</ref> Modern estimates of per capita income in Western Europe in the late 18th century are of roughly 1,500 dollars in [[purchasing power parity]] (and Britain had a [[per capita income]] of nearly 2,000 dollars<ref name="iisg"/>) whereas China, by comparison, had only 450 dollars. India was essentially feudal, politically fragmented and not as economically advanced as Western Europe.<ref>
{{cite book |title     = The Wealth and Poverty of Nations
 |last      = Landes
 |first     = David
 |year      = 1999
 |publisher = W.W. Norton & Company
 |isbn      = 978-0-393-31888-3
 |url       = https://archive.org/details/wealthpovertyofn00land_0
}}
</ref>

Historians such as [[David Landes]] and sociologists [[Max Weber]] and [[Rodney Stark]] credit the different belief systems in Asia and Europe with dictating where the revolution occurred.<ref>{{cite book|first= David S.|last= Landes|date=1969|title= The Unbound Prometheus|publisher= Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge|isbn= 978-0-521-09418-4|pages=20–32}}</ref><ref name="Stark_2005"/> The religion and beliefs of Europe were largely products of [[Judeo-Christian|Judaeo-Christianity]] and [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] thought. Conversely, Chinese society was founded on men like [[Confucius]], [[Mencius]], [[Han Fei]]zi ([[Legalism (Chinese philosophy)|Legalism]]), [[Laozi|Lao Tzu]] ([[Taoism]]), and [[Gautama Buddha|Buddha]] ([[Buddhism]]), resulting in very different worldviews.<ref>{{Harvnb|Merson|1990|pp=34–35}}</ref> Other factors include the considerable distance of China's coal deposits, though large, from its cities as well as the then unnavigable [[Yellow River]] that connects these deposits to the sea.<ref name="professor"/>

Economic historian [[Joel Mokyr]] argued that [[political fragmentation]], the presence of a large number of European states, made it possible for heterodox ideas to thrive, as entrepreneurs, innovators, ideologues and heretics could easily flee to a neighboring state in the event that the one state would try to suppress their ideas and activities. This is what set Europe apart from the technologically advanced, large unitary empires such as China and India{{Contradictory inline|reason=India (like China) being a "large unitary empire" (unlike Europe) contradicts immediately preceding para., where (unlike China) India is "split up into many competing kingdoms."|date=May 2020|section=Causes in Europe}} by providing "an insurance against economic and technological stagnation".<ref>{{Cite book|title=The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia|last=Jones|first=Eric|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1981|location=Cambridge|page=119}}</ref> China had both a printing press and movable type, and India had similar levels of scientific and technological achievement as Europe in 1700, yet the Industrial Revolution would occur in Europe, not China or India. In Europe, political fragmentation was coupled with an "integrated market for ideas" where Europe's intellectuals used the {{Lang|la|lingua franca}} of Latin, had a shared intellectual basis in Europe's classical heritage and the pan-European institution of the [[Republic of Letters]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10835.html|title=Mokyr, J.: A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy. (eBook and Hardcover)|access-date=9 March 2017|isbn=978-0-691-18096-0|last1=Mokyr|first1=Joel|date=6 January 2018|publisher=Princeton University Press|archive-date=24 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170324152030/http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10835.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Political institutions<ref name="w248">{{cite journal | last1=North | first1=Douglass C. | last2=Weingast | first2=Barry R. | title=Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England | journal=The Journal of Economic History | volume=49 | issue=4 | date=1989 | issn=0022-0507 | doi=10.1017/S0022050700009451 | pages=803–832}}</ref> could contribute to the relation between [[Democracy and economic growth|democratization and economic growth]] during Great Divergence.<ref name="t824">{{cite journal | last1=Knutsen | first1=Carl Henrik | last2=Møller | first2=Jørgen | last3=Skaaning | first3=Svend-Erik | title=Going historical: Measuring democraticness before the age of mass democracy | journal=International Political Science Review | volume=37 | issue=5 | date=2016 | issn=0192-5121 | doi=10.1177/0192512115618532 | pages=679–689| hdl=10852/59625 | hdl-access=free }}</ref>

In addition, Europe's monarchs desperately needed revenue, pushing them into alliances with their merchant classes. Small groups of merchants were granted monopolies and tax-collecting responsibilities in exchange for payments to the state. Located in a region "at the hub of the largest and most varied network of exchange in history",<ref>{{Cite book|title=Maps of Time|url=https://archive.org/details/mapstimeintroduc00chri|url-access=limited|last=Christian|first=David|publisher=University of California Press|year=2004|location=Berkeley|pages=[https://archive.org/details/mapstimeintroduc00chri/page/n413 390]|isbn=978-0-520-23500-7}}</ref> Europe advanced as the leader of the Industrial Revolution. In the Americas, Europeans found a windfall of silver, timber, fish, and maize, leading historian Peter Stearns to conclude that "Europe's Industrial Revolution stemmed in great part from Europe's ability to draw disproportionately on world resources."<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Industrial Revolution in World History|last=Stearns|first=Peter|publisher=Westview Press|year=1998|location=Boulder, Colorado|page=36}}</ref>

Modern capitalism originated in the [[Italian city-states]] around the end of the first millennium. The city-states were prosperous cities that were independent from feudal lords. They were largely republics whose governments were typically composed of merchants, manufacturers, members of guilds, bankers and financiers. The Italian city-states built a network of branch banks in leading western European cities and introduced [[Double-entry bookkeeping system|double entry bookkeeping]]. Italian commerce was supported by schools that taught numeracy in financial calculations through [[abacus]] schools.<ref name="Stark_2005">{{cite book|title= The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success|url= https://archive.org/details/victoryofreasonh00star|url-access= registration|last= Stark|first= Rodney |year= 2005 |publisher =Random House Trade Paperbacks|location= New York |isbn=978-0-8129-7233-7}}</ref>

===Causes in Britain===
[[File:graph rel share world manuf 1750 1900 02.png|thumb|As the Industrial Revolution developed, British manufacturing output surged ahead of other economies]]
[[File:William Bell Scott - Iron and Coal.jpg|thumb|''Iron and Coal'', a mid-19th century portrait by [[William Bell Scott]]]]
{{Capitalism sidebar}}
Great Britain provided the legal and cultural foundations that enabled entrepreneurs to pioneer the Industrial Revolution.<ref>Julian Hoppit, "The Nation, the State, and the First Industrial Revolution," ''Journal of British Studies'' (April 2011) 50#2 pp.&nbsp;307–331</ref> Key factors fostering this environment were:
* The period of peace and stability which followed the unification of England and Scotland<ref name="David S. Landes 1969"/>
* There were no internal trade barriers, including between England and Scotland, or feudal tolls and tariffs, making Britain the "largest coherent market in Europe"<ref name="David S. Landes 1969"/>{{rp|46}}
* The rule of law (enforcing property rights and respecting the sanctity of contracts)<ref name="David S. Landes 1969"/>
* A straightforward legal system that allowed the formation of joint-stock companies (corporations)<ref name="David S. Landes 1969"/>
* Free market (capitalism)<ref name="David S. Landes 1969"/>
* Geographical and natural resource advantages of Great Britain were the fact that it had extensive coastlines and many navigable rivers in an age where water was the easiest means of transportation and Britain had the highest quality coal in Europe. Britain also had a large number of sites for water power.<ref name="David S. Landes 1969"/>
{{Quote box|width=24%|align=left|quote="An unprecedented explosion of new ideas, and new technological inventions, transformed our use of energy, creating an increasingly industrial and urbanised country. Roads, railways and canals were built. Great cities appeared. Scores of factories and mills sprang up. Our landscape would never be the same again. It was a revolution that transformed not only the country, but the world itself." |source = – British historian [[Jeremy Black (historian)|Jeremy Black]] on the BBC's ''Why the Industrial Revolution Happened Here''.<ref name="Black">{{cite news|title=Why the Industrial Revolution Happened Here|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pz9d6|publisher=BBC|date=11 January 2017|access-date=21 December 2019|archive-date=14 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414111229/https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pz9d6|url-status=live}}</ref>}}

There were two main values that drove the Industrial Revolution in Britain. These values were self-interest and an [[entrepreneurship|entrepreneurial]] spirit. Because of these interests, many industrial advances were made that resulted in a huge increase in personal wealth and a [[consumer]] revolution.<ref name="Black"/> These advancements also greatly benefitted British society as a whole. Countries around the world started to recognise the changes and advancements in Britain and use them as an example to begin their own Industrial Revolutions.<ref name="Kiely">Kiely, Ray (November 2011). "Industrialization and Development: A Comparative Analysis". UGL Press Limited: 25–26.</ref>

A debate sparked by Trinidadian politician and historian [[Eric Williams]] in his work ''[[Capitalism and Slavery]]'' (1944) concerned the role of [[slavery]] in financing the Industrial Revolution. Williams argued that European capital amassed from slavery was vital in the early years of the revolution, contending that the rise of industrial capitalism was the driving force behind [[abolitionism]] instead of [[Humanitarianism|humanitarian]] motivations. These arguments led to significant [[Historiography|historiographical]] debates among historians, with American historian [[Seymour Drescher]] critiquing Williams' arguments in ''[[Econocide]]'' (1977).<ref>"Eric Williams' Economic Interpretation of British Abolitionism – Seventy Years After ''Capitalism and Slavery''" (''International Journal of Business Management and Commerce'', Vol. 3 No. 4) August 2018</ref>

Instead, the greater [[liberalisation]] of trade from a large merchant base may have allowed Britain to produce and use emerging scientific and technological developments more effectively than countries with stronger monarchies, particularly China and Russia. Britain emerged from the [[Napoleonic Wars]] as the only European nation not ravaged by financial plunder and economic collapse, and having the only merchant fleet of any useful size (European merchant fleets were destroyed during the war by the [[Royal Navy]]{{efn|name="manufacturing"|The Royal Navy itself may have contributed to Britain's industrial growth. Among the first complex industrial manufacturing processes to arise in Britain were those that produced material for British warships. For instance, the average warship of the period used roughly 1000 pulley fittings. With a fleet as large as the Royal Navy, and with these fittings needing to be replaced every four to five years, this created a great demand which encouraged industrial expansion. The industrial manufacture of rope can also be seen as a similar factor.}}). Britain's extensive exporting cottage industries also ensured markets were already available for many early forms of manufactured goods. The conflict resulted in most British warfare being conducted overseas, reducing the devastating effects of territorial conquest that affected much of Europe. This was further aided by Britain's geographical position{{mdash}}an island separated from the rest of mainland Europe.

[[File:Thornhillvanda.jpg|thumb|''William and Mary Presenting the Cap of Liberty to Europe'' a 1716 illustration by [[James Thornhill]], depicting [[William III of England|William III]] and [[Mary II of England|Mary II]], who had taken the throne after the [[Glorious Revolution]] and signed the [[English Bill of Rights]] of 1689. William tramples on arbitrary power and hands the red cap of liberty to Europe where, unlike Britain, [[absolute monarchy]] stayed the normal form of power execution. Below William is the French king [[Louis XIV]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.oldroyalnavalcollege.org/data/files/english-ph-june-06-offical-new-30.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070626185300/http://www.oldroyalnavalcollege.org/data/files/english-ph-june-06-offical-new-30.pdf|title=Old Naval College|archive-date=26 June 2007}}</ref>]]
Another theory is that Britain was able to succeed in the Industrial Revolution due to the availability of key resources it possessed. It had a dense population for its small geographical size. [[Enclosure]] of common land and the related agricultural revolution made a supply of this labour readily available. There was also a local coincidence of natural resources in the [[Northern England|North of England]], the [[English Midlands]], [[South Wales]] and the [[Scottish Lowlands]]. Local supplies of coal, iron, lead, copper, tin, limestone and water power resulted in excellent conditions for the development and expansion of industry. Also, the damp, mild weather conditions of the North West of England provided ideal conditions for the spinning of cotton, providing a natural starting point for the birth of the textiles industry.

The stable political situation in Britain from around 1689 following the [[Glorious Revolution]], and British society's greater receptiveness to change (compared with other European countries) can also be said to be factors favouring the Industrial Revolution. Peasant resistance to industrialisation was largely eliminated by the Enclosure movement, and the landed upper classes developed commercial interests that made them pioneers in removing obstacles to the growth of capitalism.<ref name="dictatorship"/> (This point is also made in [[Hilaire Belloc]]'s ''[[The Servile State]]''.)

The French philosopher [[Voltaire]] wrote about capitalism and religious tolerance in his book on English society, ''[[Letters on the English]]'' (1733), noting why England at that time was more prosperous in comparison to the country's less religiously tolerant European neighbours. "Take a view of the [[Royal Exchange, London|Royal Exchange in London]], a place more venerable than many courts of justice, where the representatives of all nations meet for the benefit of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan [Muslim], and the Christian transact together, as though they all professed the same religion, and give the name of infidel to none but bankrupts. There the Presbyterian confides in the Anabaptist, and the Churchman depends on the Quaker's word. If one religion only were allowed in England, the Government would very possibly become arbitrary; if there were but two, the people would cut one another's throats; but as there are such a multitude, they all live happy and in peace."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bartleby.com/34/2/6.html|title=Letter VI – On the Presbyterians. Letters on the English.|last=Voltaire|first=François Marie Arouet de.|date=1909–1914|website=www.bartleby.com|publisher=The Harvard Classics|orig-date=1734|access-date=22 July 2017|archive-date=27 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210427015821/https://www.bartleby.com/34/2/6.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Britain's population grew 280% from 1550 to 1820, while the rest of Western Europe grew 50–80%. Seventy percent of European urbanisation happened in Britain from 1750 to 1800. By 1800, only the Netherlands was more urbanised than Britain. This was only possible because coal, coke, imported cotton, brick and slate had replaced wood, charcoal, flax, peat and thatch. The latter compete with land grown to feed people while mined materials do not. Yet more land would be freed when chemical fertilisers replaced manure and horse's work was mechanised. A workhorse needs {{convert|3|to|5|acre|ha|1|abbr=on|order=flip}} for fodder while even early steam engines produced four times more mechanical energy.

In 1700, five-sixths of the coal mined worldwide was in Britain, while the Netherlands had none; so despite having Europe's best transport, lowest taxes, and most urbanised, well-paid, and literate population, it failed to industrialise. In the 18th century, it was the only European country whose cities and population shrank. Without coal, Britain would have run out of suitable river sites for mills by the 1830s.<ref name="continuity"/> Based on science and experimentation from the continent, the steam engine was developed specifically for pumping water out of mines, many of which in Britain had been mined to below the water table. Although extremely inefficient they were economical because they used unsaleable coal.<ref>{{cite book |title=A History of Industrial Power in the United States, 1730–1930, Vol. 2: Steam Power |last1=Hunter |first1= Louis C.|year=1985 | publisher =University Press of Virginia|location= Charlottesville}}</ref> Iron rails were developed to transport coal, which was a major economic sector in Britain.

Economic historian [[Robert C. Allen|Robert Allen]] has argued that high wages, cheap capital and very cheap energy in Britain made it the ideal place for the industrial revolution to occur.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Crafts|first=Nicholas|date=1 April 2011|title=Explaining the first Industrial Revolution: two views|journal=European Review of Economic History|volume=15|issue=1|pages=153–168|doi=10.1017/S1361491610000201|issn=1361-4916|url=http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/44710/1/WRAP_Carfts_10.2010_craftsindustrial.pdf|access-date=9 December 2019|archive-date=8 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308065524/http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/44710/1/WRAP_Carfts_10.2010_craftsindustrial.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> These factors made it vastly more profitable to invest in research and development, and to put technology to use in Britain than other societies.<ref name=":0" /> However, two 2018 studies in ''[[The Economic History Review]]'' showed that wages were not particularly high in the British [[Spinning wheel|spinning]] sector or the construction sector, casting doubt on Allen's explanation.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Humphries|first1=Jane|last2=Schneider|first2=Benjamin|date=23 May 2018|title=Spinning the industrial revolution|journal=The Economic History Review|volume=72|pages=126–155|language=en|doi=10.1111/ehr.12693|s2cid=152650710|issn=0013-0117|url=http://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/materials/papers/14544/spinning-the-industrial-revolution-for-discussion-paper-series-final.pdf|access-date=9 December 2019|archive-date=19 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419172959/https://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/materials/papers/14544/spinning-the-industrial-revolution-for-discussion-paper-series-final.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Stephenson|first=Judy Z.|date=13 May 2017|title='Real' wages? Contractors, workers, and pay in London building trades, 1650–1800|journal=The Economic History Review|language=en|volume=71|issue=1|pages=106–132|doi=10.1111/ehr.12491|s2cid=157908061|issn=0013-0117}}</ref> A 2022 study in the ''Journal of Political Economy'' by Morgan Kelly, [[Joel Mokyr]], and [[Cormac Ó Gráda|Cormac O Grada]] found that industrialization happened in areas with low wages and high mechanical skills, whereas literacy, banks and proximity to coal had little explanatory power.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Kelly |first1=Morgan |last2=Mokyr |first2=Joel |last3=Grada |first3=Cormac O |date=2022 |title=The Mechanics of the Industrial Revolution |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/720890 |journal=Journal of Political Economy |volume=131 |pages=59–94 |doi=10.1086/720890 |hdl=10197/11440 |s2cid=248787980 |issn=0022-3808 |hdl-access=free |access-date=17 May 2022 |archive-date=17 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220517123743/https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/720890 |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Transfer of knowledge===
[[File:Wright of Derby, The Orrery.jpg|thumb|''[[A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery]]'' a {{circa|1766}} illustration by [[Joseph Wright of Derby]] depicting informal philosophical societies spreading scientific advances]]
Knowledge of innovation was spread by several means. Workers trained in a technique might move to another employer or be poached.<ref name="Landes">{{cite book |last=Landes |first=David S. |title=The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1969 |page=45}}</ref> A common method was the study tour, in which individuals gathered information abroad.<ref name="Mokyr98">{{cite book |last=Mokyr |first=Joel |title=The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700–1850 |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2009 |page=98}}</ref> Throughout the Industrial Revolution and preceding century, European countries and America engaged in such tours; Sweden and France even trained civil servants or technicians to undertake them as policy,<ref name="Mokyr101">{{cite book |last=Mokyr |first=Joel |title=The Enlightened Economy |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2009 |page=101}}</ref> while in Britain and America individual manufacturers pursued tours independently.<ref name="Allen82">{{cite book |last=Allen |first=Robert C. |title=The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2009 |page=82}}</ref> Travel diaries from the tours are invaluable records of period methods.<ref name="Landes"/>

Innovation spread via informal networks such as the [[Lunar Society of Birmingham]], whose members met from 1765 to 1809 to discuss natural philosophy and its industrial applications. They have been described as “the revolutionary committee of that most far-reaching of all the eighteenth-century revolutions, the Industrial Revolution.”<ref name="Dunn23">{{cite book |last=Dunn |first=Kevin |title=The Lunar Society of Birmingham: A Social History of Provincial Science and Industry |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1980 |page=23}}</ref> Similar societies published papers and proceedings; for example, the [[Royal Society of Arts]] issued annual ''Transactions'' and illustrated volumes of new inventions.<ref>{{cite book |last=Royal Society of Arts |title=Transactions of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce |publisher=Royal Society of Arts |year=1789 |page=12}}</ref>

Technical encyclopaedias disseminated methods. [[John Harris (writer)|John Harris]]’s ''Lexicon Technicum'' (1704) offered extensive scientific and engineering entries.<ref name="HarrisTech">{{cite book |last=Harris |first=John |title=Lexicon Technicum; or, An Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences |publisher=W. & J. Innys |year=1704 |page=1}}</ref> [[Abraham Rees]]’s ''The Cyclopaedia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature'' (1802–19) contained detailed articles and engraved plates on machines and processes.<ref name="Rees1802">{{cite book |last=Rees |first=Abraham |title=The Cyclopaedia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature |publisher=Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown |year=1802–1819 |volume=3 |page=15}}</ref> French works such as the ''Descriptions des Arts et Métiers'' and Diderot’s ''Encyclopédie'' similarly documented foreign techniques with engraved illustrations.<ref>{{cite web |title=Descriptions des Arts et Métiers |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9617696w |publisher=Bibliothèque nationale de France |access-date=2025-05-02}}</ref>

Periodicals on manufacturing and patents emerged in the 1790s; for instance, French journals like the ''Annales des Mines'' printed engineers’ travel reports on British factories, helping diffuse British innovations abroad.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Godart |first=Jean-Jacques |title=Annales des Mines et Observations sur l'Art de l'Ingénieur |journal=Annales des Mines |date=1798 |volume=1 |page=12}}</ref>

===Protestant work ethic===
{{Main|Protestant work ethic}}
Another theory is that the British advance was due to the presence of an [[entrepreneur]]ial class which believed in progress, technology and hard work.<ref name="Capital and Innovation: How Britain Became the First Industrial Nation"/> The existence of this class is often linked to the [[Protestant work ethic]] (see [[Max Weber]]) and the particular status of the [[Baptists]] and the dissenting Protestant sects, such as the [[Religious Society of Friends|Quakers]] and [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterians]] that had flourished with the [[English Civil War]]. Reinforcement of confidence in the rule of law, which followed establishment of the prototype of constitutional monarchy in Britain in the [[Glorious Revolution]] of 1688, and the emergence of a stable financial market there based on the management of the [[Government debt|national debt]] by the [[Bank of England]], contributed to the capacity for, and interest in, private financial investment in industrial ventures.<ref>Robert Green, ed., ''The Weber Thesis Controversy'' (D.C. Heath, 1973)</ref>

[[English Dissenters|Dissenters]] found themselves barred or discouraged from almost all public offices, as well as education at England's [[Oxbridge|only two universities]] at the time (although dissenters were still free to study at Scotland's [[Ancient universities of Scotland|four universities]]). When the restoration of the monarchy took place and membership in the official [[Anglican Communion|Anglican Church]] became mandatory due to the [[Test Act]], they thereupon became active in banking, manufacturing and education. The [[Unitarianism|Unitarians]], in particular, were very involved in education, by running Dissenting Academies, where, in contrast to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and schools such as Eton and Harrow, much attention was given to mathematics and the sciences – areas of scholarship vital to the development of manufacturing technologies.

Historians sometimes consider this social factor to be extremely important, along with the nature of the national economies involved. While members of these sects were excluded from certain circles of the government, they were considered fellow Protestants, to a limited extent, by many in the [[middle class]], such as traditional financiers or other businessmen. Given this relative tolerance and the supply of capital, the natural outlet for the more enterprising members of these sects would be to seek new opportunities in the technologies created in the wake of the scientific revolution of the 17th century.