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00:04In the hundred and fifty years from the beginning of the 18th century, a revolution transformed
00:10the way we think, work and play forever.
00:22This was the industrial revolution and it started here in Britain.
00:31Until then, most people lived as they had done for generations, an agricultural existence,
00:38defined by the harvests and the seasons and ruled by a small political and social elite.
00:48But as the 18th century progressed, an unprecedented explosion of new ideas and new technological
00:56inventions transformed our use of energy, creating an increasingly industrial and urbanized country.
01:07Hundreds of thousands of miles of roads, railways and canals were built.
01:15The tunnel is four times longer than the longest tunnel built anywhere in the world.
01:22Great cities appeared and scores of factories and mills sprang up.
01:28Our landscape would never be the same again.
01:32Soho was one of the very, very first factories in the world.
01:35It certainly was the making of the modern world.
01:40Together, they made Britain the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth.
01:47Ruler of the largest empire in history.
01:51The 18th century was absolutely crucial to the history of Britain and the history of the entire world.
01:58The transformation set in motion there helped to make the world in which we all live today.
02:04And I want to ask two fascinating questions.
02:08Why did the industrial revolution happen and why did it happen in 18th century Britain?
02:34I've spent 30 years studying the industrial revolution and its impact on the world around us.
02:41And I think remarkably that the key that helps explain this extraordinary period is to be found on these windswept
02:49shores.
02:51Look at this.
02:53This is a really impressive piece, massive piece of sea coal.
02:57From the beach here at Seton Carew in the northeast of England.
03:01And that comes from the North Sea out there, from the seams at the bottom.
03:06Britain's very, very fortunate.
03:08Much of it is on top of this stuff and the seams of it are very close to the surface
03:13and easily worked.
03:15And thanks to that, coal kick-started a revolution in 18th century Britain.
03:21A revolution that transformed not only the country, but the world itself.
03:29Until then, wood had been the main source of energy in Britain.
03:36It supplied the fuel for homes and small industries.
03:43But as the population grew, so did the demand for timber.
03:49As forests were cut down, wood had to be carried further to reach the towns.
03:55It was bulky, difficult to transport and therefore expensive.
04:01Britain needed a new source of fuel.
04:05Coal.
04:08It increasingly became clear that coal was a much more potent form of power, providing up to three times more
04:17energy than wood.
04:18For the first time in human history, we began to harness the planet's mineral wealth for fuel and power on
04:27a massive scale.
04:33In Britain, coal was abundant and easily mined.
04:38It was expensive for other European countries to transport their supplies of coal to market.
04:44Carrying it ten miles overland from the pit head doubled the cost.
04:53Whereas here, the mines were near the sea, so ships could carry coal cheaply to the most important market, London.
05:07The demand for coal led to deeper and deeper mines being dug.
05:12But the problem was that the deeper you went, the more likely it was that the mines would flood.
05:18As a result, in order to exploit this wonder fuel, it was necessary to find a way to pump water
05:25out of the mines.
05:26Now, initially, people used horse-driven pumps like this one, and it's pretty good for getting water out to a
05:33depth of about 90 feet.
05:36But that still left a lot of coal lower down.
05:39Whoever could produce an effective way to extract this coal was going to make a lot of money.
05:49The profit motive drove the industrial revolution.
05:55It motivated practical men, like Devon ironmonger Thomas Newcomen, to try to solve the problem of flooding mines.
06:06In 1712, he designed an engine which could harness the power of coal to make steam and drive a water
06:13pump.
06:13And this is it, the world's first commercially successful steam engine.
06:18It did the work of 20 horses and pumped water from hundreds of feet below the ground, making it both
06:25possible and economically viable to mine from greater depths.
06:31But his machine burnt tons of coal, so its location was limited to pit heads, where coal was virtually free.
06:40The machine itself was highly inefficient, but it made it possible to unlock the great potential of coal.
06:48The consequences of this were extraordinary.
06:51Britain now had seemingly inexhaustible quantities of cheap energy.
06:59But Britain's industrial growth didn't just depend on its geology.
07:04Coal, after all, had been around for millions of years without sparking the industrial revolution.
07:12What else accounts for Britain's great transformation?
07:19Part of the reason that Newcomen was able to develop his invention was because of the intellectual climate in Britain
07:25in this period.
07:27There was a prolific exchange of scientific and technological ideas that contrasted markedly with the situation across most of Europe.
07:41In Britain, scientific ideas didn't suffer censorship by church or state, as happened in many European countries.
07:52Over the previous 100 years, a cascade of scientific breakthroughs had swept across the country.
08:01Sir Isaac Newton was able to explain the force of gravity for the first time.
08:08While Robert Boyle showed that air and gas had physical properties.
08:15The established Christian view of a world ordained by God was now challenged by one which conformed to scientifically proven
08:23principles of nature.
08:25An explanation of the world which prized evidence above dogma.
08:30This was known as the age of reason.
08:37Travelling lecturers fed a thirst for scientific knowledge.
08:41And you can see that in this painting, one of my favourites.
08:44It's by Joseph Wright of Derby.
08:45It's 1766.
08:47And what it shows is a small group, including these children here, with this wonderful lighting of these wrapped faces,
08:54looking at an orrery, which is this device which shows you how the solar system works.
08:59And it's really quite wonderful because you've got innocence, you've got enthusiasm, and you've got a society that is confident
09:08in its understanding of the world.
09:10And indeed, 15 years later, William Herschel, a British based astronomer, discovered Uranus, the first planet to be discovered since
09:19classical antiquity.
09:21And this helped to make the British feel that they were at the cutting edge of knowledge.
09:29Now there emerged a growing movement of people trying to find a practical application for these new discoveries.
09:38Running in parallel with this extraordinary increase in the understanding of the world around us, came a new development, the
09:45idea of practical knowledge.
09:47In this, men of action and men of ideas came together in what was to be called the Industrial Enlightenment.
09:59Across the country, from the prestigious Royal Society in London, and in countless provincial coffee houses, industrialists and scientists, often
10:09from very different backgrounds, met to share their ideas and observations.
10:16They unleashed a wave of free thinking and creativity.
10:24In the West Midlands, the Lunar Society was set up in the 1760s, so named because its members met at
10:31the full moon, which lit their way home in an era before street lamps.
10:38One member, Erasmus Darwin, a doctor from Litchfield and the grandfather of Charles Darwin, was amazingly prolific in his intellectual
10:47explorations.
10:50In this letter, he suggests a way to measure the volume of air a person could breathe, using an animal's
10:56bladder.
10:58He also drew up plans for an advanced multi-mirrored telescope, and even a flushing laboratory.
11:07Most importantly, Erasmus Darwin was aware of the Newcomen steam engine, and he was fascinated with the transformative potential of
11:15steam power.
11:16And here in his sketchbook, he outlined machinery that could be created with steam.
11:22And the one that really fascinates me is this one, the steam chariot, which is the precursor of the steam
11:30-powered road vehicles of the 19th century.
11:33And on the other page, we have a steam-powered rotary wheel designed to drive pieces of machinery.
11:42Groups such as the Lunar Society allowed these creative men the intellectual freedom to think the unthinkable, and to come
11:50up with astonishing new ideas and inventions.
11:56A leading member was Matthew Bolton, the son of a small-time buckle maker.
12:01Marriage into the local gentry brought money, and that enabled him to invest in building up his industrial holding, and
12:08also into ownership of a fine house, Soho House.
12:12It was here that he met James Watt, a self-taught scientist from the west of Scotland.
12:17And the exchange of finance and ideas between the two men was to help transform the Industrial Revolution.
12:25Behind the house in Birmingham, Bolton had set up a workshop, called the Soho Manufactory, to make small metal goods.
12:34Initially, he powered it with water from nearby Hockley Brook.
12:38But in 1766, a drought stopped the water wheel, and production ground to a halt.
12:45Bolton realised that if a source of cheap, reliable energy could be harnessed, it would free production from the vagaries
12:52of the climate, and his profits would increase.
12:55So he decided to investigate switching to steam.
12:59As a result, his friendship with James Watt became crucial.
13:05Watt wasn't just interested in the science, he was also concerned with the practical application of knowledge.
13:10And you can see this in his drawing here of his so-called kettle tests.
13:15In these, he set out to try and understand the mechanics of steam power.
13:21And the reason for his interest is that Watt was determined to make the most efficient steam engine yet produced.
13:30Five years before he met Bolton, Watt had been given a model of the Newcomen steam engine to repair.
13:37He soon realised that if the engine could be made more efficient, then its use would no longer be restricted
13:43to the coal mines, with their huge reserves of cheap fuel.
13:49After much experimentation, Watt came up with a new design, which he thought would revolutionise the supply of power to
13:56industry.
13:58But he had neither the money nor the engineering expertise to build it.
14:05However, in 1767, he visited Birmingham, home to several small metal workshops like Bolton's.
14:13And therefore with a highly skilled workforce, capable of realising his designs.
14:24Jim Andrew has spent his career studying the engineering genius of James Watt.
14:29Was Birmingham good for him? Good for the steam engine?
14:32Very good, because they got a lot of wumph. They got up and got on with things. That was the
14:36first point.
14:37Secondly, they had skilled men who were used to being fairly flexible in what they would tackle.
14:43And so in this case, right from the start, they were producing the small, accurate components.
14:49And that had to be made accurately. Otherwise, the great advantage that James Watt was looking for wouldn't happen.
14:55And he felt that as he came to Birmingham, Mr Bolton would push him on with the engine to get
15:01it into production.
15:09As a result, within a few years, the Soho Manufactory built Watt's expansive steam engine.
15:16It produced the same amount of power as the Newcomen engine, but on a quarter of the fuel.
15:26The Watt Bolton team didn't stop there. They continued to make incremental improvements to their engine.
15:34Within three years, they had designed the Smethic canal pump.
15:39Well, the great improvement with this engine was the steam emission valve.
15:42And they introduced that to reduce the waste of steam by running steam into the engine for too long in
15:48the stroke.
15:49You only wanted enough steam to make the complete stroke and not to have steam left over at the end.
15:55Initially, it produced an 18% improvement in efficiency and proved what could be achieved.
16:03From then on, manufacturing was released from the constraints of natural power.
16:09Soho became the first steam-powered manufacturing plant in the world.
16:14It was a new kind of workplace.
16:17No longer were men, women and children producing goods piecemeal in their homes.
16:22From now on, they toiled on production lines in great cathedrals of labour.
16:28The lives of workers were transformed for generations to come.
16:33Sally Hoban is a historian of the city of Birmingham.
16:38So I've got here a painting of the manufacturing works at Soho.
16:42Would you describe this as sort of one of the first factories?
16:45I would, absolutely.
16:47It's a large building. It would have been a hive of enterprise.
16:50Thousands of workers, men, women and children working in all those different rooms in the factory.
16:54And if you can imagine as well the noise and the industry in the face, very much like you can
16:58hear in the background here.
17:00It must have been a fantastic place.
17:02This was world famous.
17:03And when visiting dignitaries in the late 18th century came to England, they would stop off in Birmingham specifically to
17:10see Matthew Bolton's marvellous manufacturing.
17:12It was that famous.
17:13I would definitely say that Soho was one of the very, very first factories in the world.
17:17Sort of the idea, we take the factory for granted, but it actually starts in a specific place in a
17:22specific period.
17:23It does.
17:24The making of the modern world.
17:25The making of the modern world.
17:31Now the great and the good made enlightenment tours.
17:37Not just to London, Paris and Rome, but also to Birmingham.
17:49They came to see and learn how the town's entrepreneurs were producing a wider range of goods more cheaply than
17:57ever before.
18:01Mr Harvey sold the finest swords.
18:08Mr Harris boasted of telescopal or portable toasting forks.
18:17And Mr Betts offered saws of every description.
18:25Also on offer were coach harnesses.
18:33And weighing machines.
18:37Manufactured in the first style.
18:40In the best materials.
18:42On the most approved principle.
18:47The famous Mr Taylor was using the latest steam powered machinery.
18:52To manufacture tortoiseshell and mother of pearl buttons for the leaders of society.
19:00The production of countless thousands of these small items.
19:04Hammered out in the workshops of the Midlands.
19:07Was at the heart of the industrial revolution.
19:12Of all the treasures manufactured here.
19:15It's these delicate little objects.
19:17Which really capture my imagination.
19:21In the late 18th century Birmingham was most noted for objects such as this.
19:26That we call Birmingham toys.
19:28And by that we don't mean the cuddly variety.
19:30We mean articles usually made of metal.
19:32Used for personal adornment.
19:34So to be carried about the person.
19:36So here we have a snuff box.
19:39A Birmingham snuff box.
19:40And how it works is you would just open it up.
19:44And then you would offer the snuff.
19:46To somebody to take.
19:48However, this is a little bit of a clever one this one.
19:51Because it also has a secret compartment.
19:54So if you really liked the person you were talking to.
19:57You could give them a lot more of your snuff.
20:01So these are called Miser's snuff boxes.
20:04I'll show you this next.
20:05This is very exciting now.
20:07This is absolutely exquisite.
20:11This little fish here.
20:12See he's reticulated there.
20:13It's really rather wonderful.
20:14So what this is.
20:16It's called a vinaigrette.
20:17And how it works is that.
20:19If you're an 18th century gentleman.
20:21Like Matthew Bolton.
20:22And you were at a business dinner.
20:24Or doing some business outside the home.
20:26And you were sitting next to somebody.
20:28That perhaps didn't smell very nice.
20:31Didn't clean their teeth.
20:32Didn't really clean in the 18th century.
20:34You would pull this out of your pocket.
20:36And then when they weren't looking.
20:38Open up the top.
20:40So can you see that there's a perforated layer in there.
20:42Well inside there would have been some sponge.
20:45Soaked in orange oil.
20:47So you could very carefully have.
20:50Had a little sniff.
20:51And then quickly put the top back on.
20:52And put it back in your pocket.
20:53Before they noticed.
20:55And literally thousands and thousands of those were made.
21:03In the century from 1700.
21:06Birmingham went from being a small.
21:08Metal working town of 7,000 people.
21:11To a city nine times the size.
21:14The third largest in the kingdom.
21:16After London and Bristol.
21:19And all this was down to the exchange of ideas.
21:23Revolutionary new technology.
21:25And the successful harnessing of energy.
21:28Epitomized by the story of James Watt.
21:31And Matthew Bolton.
21:34Watt and his team in the West Midlands.
21:36Didn't just improve the efficiency of the steam engine.
21:39And pat themselves on the back.
21:41Instead they continued to search for design improvements.
21:45And this quest for improvement.
21:47Was a characteristic of the British industrial revolution.
21:51Leading in the 19th century.
21:53To railways.
21:54Steamships.
21:55And the world of factories.
21:57The industrial revolution was well underway in Britain.
22:09It's remarkable to consider.
22:11Just over a hundred years before Watt's great invention.
22:15Britain was devastated by civil wars.
22:18As men fought to free themselves from an absolute monarch.
22:22The execution of Charles I.
22:25And the later regime change known as the Glorious Revolution.
22:28Created a liberal economic and political climate.
22:39By the 18th century.
22:40The British Parliament had won much greater independence.
22:44From its monarch.
22:45Than in any other European great power.
22:48And this political liberty.
22:50Paved the way for the industrial revolution.
22:55Britain was a parliamentary monarchy.
22:57And what that meant was that it was Parliament that passed the laws.
23:00And Parliament that controlled expenditure.
23:03And this helped to ensure political stability.
23:06Political stability in which the rule of law was fundamental.
23:10And that encouraged the pursuit of scientific breakthroughs.
23:14As people set up businesses and sought profit.
23:22To appreciate the significance of Britain's political system.
23:26You only have to look at the situation in its great rival France.
23:29A country twice the size of Britain.
23:32With mineral wealth and home to some of the finest scientific minds.
23:39But it had an absolute monarchy.
23:41Founded by Louis XIV.
23:43Which wielded great control over economic and political life.
23:49The story of how the French attempted to develop steam power.
23:53Reveals the fundamental weakness of their political system.
23:58The authorities in Paris wanted to use steam to help solve one of its most pressing problems.
24:04How to pump water to the rapidly expanding city.
24:09Many French engineers responded to the challenge.
24:12Amongst them the Perrier brothers.
24:14Initially they tried and failed to steal Watts' latest designs.
24:18So as a result in 1779.
24:21They ordered two of the very latest Watt and Bolton steam engines from Birmingham.
24:26To be built here.
24:28On the banks of the River Seine at Shio.
24:31And next door.
24:32They had constructed an engineering works.
24:34In order to build the large steel components that were required for steam engines.
24:43The Perrier brothers didn't just want to copy the design of the Watt Bolton steam engine.
24:48They wanted to improve on it.
24:51But despite a decade of trying.
24:54They failed.
24:55Because in France there wasn't the free exchange of ideas needed for innovation to flourish.
25:03The absolute monarchy had centralized scientific innovation on the Académie de Science.
25:13Here the leading scientists were assembled to investigate thoroughly and finally to grant approval to the latest ideas.
25:21Sounds a good idea.
25:23But in practice it was a bureaucratic nightmare.
25:29Professor Eric Briand is an historian of French science.
25:34In the French system you are not only an inventor but you are working for the kingdom.
25:38And the monarchy had organized an Academy of Science.
25:43The mission of it was collecting scientific and technological innovation.
25:49Checking everything.
25:50And then publishing a description of it in order to make this information public.
25:57But this process was very long.
25:59It took more than one century for some of those publications.
26:04The French state's attempt to regulate scientific progress slowed innovation and stifled the advance of industrial progress.
26:14In contrast to Britain, individuals were not free to come up with an idea, find a financial backer and build
26:21a machine.
26:23Would James Watt have found it harder to have taken forward his innovations with the steam engine had he been
26:29French?
26:29Certainly, he would have spent time to have approval, to show that the machinery was okay in all details and
26:38fitting to get the official recognition.
26:42As a result, French businessmen found it hard to exploit the latest inventions and to harness them for profit.
26:49Furthermore, they had little incentive to do so.
26:54Behind this industrial inertia was a French court stuck in an increasingly obsolete world view.
27:02Put it like this. Imagine that all the wealth in the world is represented by this pie.
27:08The French government in the 18th century believed that this pie was finite.
27:14They had a share.
27:16But if they wanted a larger share, then what they had to do through conquest is grab it from other
27:23countries.
27:25But what if you believe that the amount of wealth in the world is not finite?
27:30Then, in fact, you can create all sorts of numbers of pies.
27:36Gosh.
27:37Well, thank you again.
27:39In Britain, this idea developed in the late 18th century.
27:44People believed that through new industrial production, they could create untold wealth, that there would be more pies.
27:51And the British government believed that it was its responsibility to ensure that this occurred.
28:00Mm.
28:02That is excellent.
28:11London, the capital city and greatest port of the age, was at the heart of this radical idea that new
28:17wealth could actually be created.
28:22The new businesses of the Industrial Revolution needed money, and lots of it, if they were to expand successfully.
28:30And the British government saw its role as being to encourage the accumulation of the required capital.
28:41Here, on the Thames, the centre of trade, of politics and of government, British political and commercial elites were closely
28:48entwined.
28:50Whereas in France, the aristocracy gave very little support to mercantile interests.
28:55In Britain, in contrast, the more pragmatic aristocracy was willing to adapt to the often self-made men who made
29:03up the mercantile leadership.
29:04And in particular, they supported the control of the oceans and the protection of Britain's lucrative trade routes.
29:13Britain's foreign and defence policy was different from that of France and Spain.
29:20Whereas our continental rivals concentrated on building huge armies to fight and seize land on mainland Europe,
29:27Britain spent much of its government revenue on building up the Royal Navy to protect and encourage private traders.
29:36As a result, from the start of the 18th century, Britain was the naval superpower, with the largest fleet in
29:42the world.
29:43A situation that lasted until the Second World War.
29:52This maritime power enabled the British trading empire to expand and flourish throughout the 18th century.
30:12There was one place above all others able to generate the wealth needed for the huge capital investment required for
30:20the Industrial Revolution.
30:26This was the West Indies.
30:30And central to their defence was the island of Antigua.
30:37Strong forts, bristling with cannon, protected the coastline of this strategic outpost.
30:43And the most important position was over here, English Harbour, the Royal Naval Base.
30:49This impregnable position guarded the unimaginable wealth that Britain got through trade with the Eastern Caribbean.
30:57And denied it to anyone else.
31:07Dr. Reg Murphy is the head of Antigua's Royal Dockyards National Park.
31:13English Harbour is a natural, beautifully protected harbour.
31:16It's deep water, very narrow entrance, highlands all around, easy to protect the fleet when they're in here.
31:22So you can bring the fleet in here during hurricane season and they're totally safe.
31:26Very few islands have a facility like this or harbour like this.
31:29At any given time, you'd have had between 8 to 15 ships in here.
31:32And while they were here, they could take the opportunity to do repairs.
31:36When you think about it, a wooden ship in tropical waters, you get sea worms, you get rot, you get
31:42dry rot, you hit coral reefs.
31:44You're in battle half the time with privateers and pirates and enemy people.
31:48You need to do repair on your ships, especially if you're going to make it back across the Atlantic where
31:52you have no support.
31:52Once the British had a naval base at English Harbour, how effective was it at keeping the French at bay?
31:58Well, in the big picture, I think it was very effective because you have a standing fleet all the time.
32:04There's no harbour like this in any of the French islands.
32:06So the French fleet mostly went back to France every year, which gave, again, an advantage to the British.
32:13The Royal Navy played a vital role in expanding the trade of the Empire, the source of the funding for
32:20the British Industrial Revolution.
32:25In the mid-18th century, old colonial rivals, France and Spain, were vanquished in the great naval victories of the
32:33Seven Years' War.
32:35Britain now benefited from the greatest trading empire the world had ever seen, bringing goods not only from the West
32:42Indies, but tobacco from North America, spices from India and tea from China.
32:56A commitment to free trade had been a principle of British government policy since 1688.
33:07In Britain, the Glorious Revolution led to an economic liberalisation in which most commercial monopolies were abolished.
33:15As a result, merchants could invest money and take profit as they wanted, with very little government intervention.
33:22Now, in France, in contrast, the government fiercely held on to its monopolies.
33:27And as a result, entrepreneurship was suffocated.
33:37And entrepreneurship was at the heart of the British economic success in its colonies.
33:45In the West Indies, business was centred on plantations.
33:52Today, the empty mills remain.
33:59As do some of the great houses in which their owners lived.
34:07This is Herbert's plantation, once home to Admiral Lord Nelson's wife Kitty.
34:18Here, in its elegant first floor drawing room, the rich British owners were cooled by the breezes from the Atlantic.
34:26Testament to the life of luxury and elegance enjoyed by a small white elite.
34:38But all this wealth was created at terrible human cost, with the exploitation and suffering of millions of slaves.
34:50The British government's support for free trade enabled slave traders to buy huge numbers of slaves from some African rulers
35:00who were all too willing to sell them for transportation across the Atlantic.
35:10Once in the Caribbean, the slaves were treated as a natural resource to be used and exhausted in the quest
35:16for maximum profit.
35:21The Tranquil Vale plantation is home to a grim reminder of those days.
35:37Conditions for the slaves were absolutely unbearable.
35:41Indeed, many of them lasted no more than three years.
35:45This is a dungeon carved out of the rock for reculcitrant slaves and there were tiny slits for light and
35:55ventilation.
35:56Even today, when the door's off and we've got more light coming in, it seems absolutely vile.
36:03Well, what it must have been like at the time, a kind of living tomb.
36:10Well, I have to say, you know, as a historian, I've written on the slave trade and this quite takes
36:17my breath away.
36:18There are things that documents cannot really prepare you for.
36:30During the 18th century, it's estimated that just under two and a half million slaves were transported by the British
36:39across the Atlantic.
36:43And this is where many of them ended up.
36:48Sugarcane, this was the crop that slaves were forced to work and it was a very difficult crop to work.
36:54But it was also crucial to the prosperity of Britain's West Indies colonies and played a major role in the
37:00economy of the Empire as a whole.
37:03Indeed, by the 1790s, sugar was Britain's leading import.
37:12From the West Indies and across the Empire, valuable commodities, including tobacco from Virginia and rice from Georgia, poured into
37:21London.
37:22Some was destined for British consumption, but the rest was bound for the markets of Europe.
37:29This huge trade generated billions of pounds for the country at today's rates.
37:46So what happened to the wealth that went into Britain's coffers?
37:50Well, much of the profit from sugar and the other fruits of empire became capital that was invested in the
37:56development of Britain's industries.
37:58And the products of these industries, some of them came back to the plantations of the West Indies.
38:04Here we have the remains of a sugar mill and the steam engine from Glasgow that powered it.
38:15By the end of the 18th century, British industry was exporting manufactured goods worth over two and a half billion
38:22pounds today across the world.
38:30This was a small cog in the great circle of growth that made up the British Industrial Revolution.
38:41This explosion of wealth flooding into London created its own financial revolution.
38:47New institutions like banks and the stock exchange were established, which allowed people to invest in and profit from newly
38:56emerging businesses.
39:04All this new wealth dramatically improved the lifestyles of much of the population.
39:17Gross domestic product more than doubled during the 18th century.
39:22And for the first time, many people had extra money to spend.
39:31As the wealth of the country increased, so did that of the rapidly expanding middle class.
39:36And the middle class needed something to spend its money on.
39:39And this provided entrepreneurs up and down the country with opportunities to make money by selling them things.
39:51The appetites of this growing section of the population were whetted by the arrival of a completely new range of
39:58luxuries from across the great trading empire.
40:06Tea came from China and it was sweetened by sugar from the West Indies.
40:13Their consumption introduced a new and more opulent lifestyle into polite society.
40:20It required a whole new range of household equipment.
40:29We've got here a painting of 1567 of the Brook family having dinner.
40:34And we can see here that there are actually very few implements on their table.
40:40In fact, it's largely a case of pewter plates.
40:44Now the contrast is very clear with this painting by Richard Collins, two centuries later, of a family having tea.
40:52And you can notice there's an absolute cornucopia of tea-making equipment here.
40:58There's a tea pot with its burner.
41:02There's a tea caddy.
41:04There's a sugar bowl open to show the sugar.
41:08There's a plate with teaspoons on.
41:11There's a hot water jug.
41:14And we have a slop bowl in order to put the tea leaves in.
41:19All of these goods had to be designed and produced and they were designed and produced in Britain.
41:25And this consumer revolution helps to drive industrialization.
41:34For me, there's one entrepreneur above all others who understood the opportunities presented by this growing consumer market.
41:43Josiah Wedgwood.
41:50He was brought up in a family of potters in North Staffordshire and inherited only 20 pounds from his father.
41:57But his genius for creating and then satisfying consumer demand made him one of the richest men in the country.
42:06Wedgwood appreciated that the middle classes could not be relied upon to understand that they actually necessarily wanted these new
42:14fangled goods being manufactured across Britain.
42:17And therefore, he had to persuade them to buy them, indeed to desire them in their households.
42:22And to that end, he became one of the fathers of what we today call advertising and marketing.
42:31For centuries, most families' household goods were made by local artisans and bought at local markets.
42:40By the start of the 18th century, shops were beginning to be opened in London and other large cities.
42:46But Wedgwood, working with his marketing guru, Thomas Bentley, unveiled a new concept.
42:55They opened the first purpose-built showroom in London's fashionable West End in 1774.
43:03Wedgwood and Bentley understood that women would be the prime purchasers for their ceramic wares.
43:08And to that end, in their showroom in Greek Street in London, they had a grand parlour in which the
43:14customers would be greeted and would meet and chat.
43:17And then they would be taken round the showroom to see the great new products that were coming through from
43:23the factories.
43:25Wedgwood led the way in the shopping revolution.
43:29Within a decade, Oxford Street alone boasted 153 shops.
43:35Foreigners who came to London marvelled at the range of goods on offer.
43:41But for true success, Wedgwood realised his pottery needed to be of a consistently high standard and to be known
43:50beyond his London showroom.
44:01His break occurred in 1765 when Deborah Chatwin, lady-in-waiting to Queen Charlotte and a member of the Staffordshire
44:09aristocracy,
44:10asked among the local potters who could make a tea service for the Queen.
44:14It involved a new technique, rebinding gold gilt to glaze.
44:21Wedgwood's genius was to understand the power of marketing.
44:26Many of the practices we see around us today were introduced by this remarkable man.
44:32He believed if he could win the Queen's patronage for his wares, then all society would follow.
44:39So he spent months experimenting with different methods of gilding until he was satisfied.
44:45The Queen ordered a set and it became known as Queen's Wear, one of Wedgwood's most successful products.
44:52And I've got a cup here. It's absolutely exquisite.
44:55But the gilt was applied with honey in order to make the gold more pliable.
45:00And when the honey came off, so did the gilt. But it's still a lovely cup.
45:14Wedgwood understood how to appeal to the social aspirations of the middle classes.
45:20Now they too could drink tea from the same China as the Queen.
45:31Wedgwood knew that Stater sells pots. So on all his invoices, he put potter to Her Majesty.
45:38And as more royals bought his pots, so he added them to his invoices.
45:44So in this one, we also learn that he's potter to their Royal Highnesses, the Duke of York.
45:49That's the grand old Duke of York who marched his men up and down the hill.
45:52And also to the Duke of Clarence. That's the future William IV.
45:56With such patronage, there was no problem about selling his pots.
46:04The consumer revolution created both a huge opportunity and a problem for manufacturers.
46:12The potential to increase trade was there.
46:15But at the beginning of the 18th century, the difficulty of getting raw materials to their workshops
46:20and the finished products to the market was obvious.
46:24In the 16th and 17th century, the road system was very bad.
46:29Parishes were responsible for maintaining the highway within their boundaries.
46:33But the problem was that if you lived in one parish, say the parish of Stoke over here,
46:38and you knew that your neighbours in the next door parish, parish of Leek over here,
46:43just weren't maintaining their roads. In fact, that they were a pothole nightmare.
46:47Why should you maintain your road on your side of the boundary?
46:51Because all it was going to do was lead to the terrible road on the other side.
46:54The result was an absolute nightmare for travellers.
47:00Once again, Parliament was willing to legislate to support trade.
47:05In 1706, it passed an act which allowed local businessmen to build and run permanent turnpike roads.
47:14In return, they could charge travellers a toll for using their road,
47:18and some of the money would then be spent on maintaining it.
47:21Other turnpike acts soon followed.
47:29Nowhere was the need more pressing than in North Staffordshire.
47:33Here, the potteries would become one of Britain's greatest industrial centres.
47:37But when Wedgwood and his fellow businessmen first set up their factories,
47:42there were no reliable roads to bring in raw materials.
47:48And mules had to carry fragile ceramics to market in panniers.
47:54Unsurprisingly, a third of the wares were broken along the way,
47:57pushing up the price of the surviving pieces.
48:03In 1763, Josiah Wedgwood brought a transport revolution to Staffordshire.
48:09Thwarted by the problems of getting his goods to market,
48:12he petitioned Parliament to build a turnpike road
48:16from his potteries at Burslem over there to the Red Bull on the London Road.
48:22This map shows the route that was proposed,
48:25a route that was to join the potteries to the national road network.
48:32From 1706, the length of turnpike roads increased from a mere 300 miles
48:37to an incredible 15,000 miles just 70 years later.
48:43And they didn't only connect big cities.
48:46They also created an extraordinarily comprehensive trading network
48:50between small towns like Stoke and nearby Utoxeter,
48:55increasing the movement of goods and ideas around the country.
49:01In France, in contrast, the government, and not local businessmen,
49:06decided where to build the roads.
49:08As a result, they connected military rather than industrial centres.
49:16As the roads improved in Britain, so journey times decreased.
49:20Further stimulating the economy.
49:24But it was the next great advance in transport technology
49:27that truly enabled Wedgwood and his ilk to expand.
49:31The impact is still in the landscape to this day.
49:35These were the canals, the motorways of the 18th century.
49:41Once again, private entrepreneurs led the way.
49:44Wedgwood had noted that the canal, built by James Brindley
49:48to bring coal from the Manchester coal fields to the River Mersey,
49:52reduced its cost by half.
50:00He thought a canal connecting his potteries in Stoke-on-Trent
50:04could bring clay from the Mersey and flint for glazes from the River Trent.
50:14Andrew Watts is a canal historian.
50:21To bring in the sort of materials that one canal barge would bring in with one horse and one man,
50:26would have taken at least 100 pack horses and mules in the 18th century.
50:30So if you can imagine the train of thousands, literally thousands of mules
50:35trudging into Stoke-on-Trent every day of every year,
50:39and also on crates on the backs of people being carried like a rucksack.
50:43It was all about improvement of trade.
50:46That was what the country wanted and that's what Parliament wanted.
50:53Wedgwood used his great powers of persuasion
50:56to garner the support of the North Staffordshire MPs and peers,
51:00and sent a petition to Parliament to set up a company
51:04to build the Trent and Mersey Canal.
51:09So enticing was the prospect of this new and efficient mode of transport
51:14that Wedgwood moved his main factory
51:18to land alongside the proposed route of the canal.
51:28But there was a problem.
51:29The route of the waterway took it through the rolling hills of Staffordshire.
51:36This difficult terrain demanded that Brindley undertake
51:40one of the greatest engineering feats of the time.
51:42See you later.
51:44The digging of the Harecastle tunnel north of Stoke-on-Trent.
51:55The tunnel is 2,880 yards from one end to the other.
52:00So that's well over a mile and a half getting off of two miles.
52:04Four times longer than the longest tunnel built anywhere in the world up to that point.
52:09And how did they build it?
52:10They built it by hand, picks, shovels and blasting powder.
52:14Using very basic surveying equipment they built it straight.
52:18That's very impressive isn't it?
52:19Really, really impressive.
52:20I mean I can see down here it's absolutely straight these tunnels.
52:24Took them seven years.
52:25Seven years.
52:26When they built the tunnel they mined the hill.
52:28They mined coal and they mined ironstone from the hill.
52:31To help paper the tunnel.
52:34How did they get through it?
52:35Well they didn't have an engine of course.
52:37No.
52:37They had to leg through the tunnel.
52:38Two men would lie on their backs on boards on the boat.
52:42With their feet on the tunnel wall.
52:45And they would walk the boat through.
52:47Roughly how long would that have taken?
52:48That would have taken them about two hours.
52:50Very hard work.
52:52Yeah.
52:58The Trent and Mersey Canal opened in 1777.
53:03Five years late.
53:05But within a few decades narrow boats were carrying over a quarter of a million tons of goods annually through
53:12the tunnel.
53:15By greatly reducing the cost of transporting goods to and from Stoke-on-Trent.
53:21The canal helped the potteries become one of the great ceramic centers of the world.
53:27And in the process made its shareholders, including Josiah Wedgwood, very rich.
53:33Look at that orange water.
53:35You know, I can't help wondering if I went into there whether I'd have any more hair left or any
53:40more hair growing.
53:40But you've got a free tan.
53:42Yeah, that was absolutely tremendous.
53:44There we are, how about that?
53:45That was tremendous.
53:47Right.
53:48Right.
53:49Oh, look at that.
53:54These canals were built across Britain, linking coasts and navigable rivers, and transforming the profitability of British industry.
54:07If I had to pick a symbol for the early industrial revolution, it would be the canal, which dramatically cut
54:14the cost of taking raw materials to factories and the finished goods onto market.
54:19The very existence of canals reflected the way in which the industrial enlightenment brought a whole range of technical skills
54:27to fruition, and also the capacity of Parliament to legislate for their very existence.
54:36By the time of the Great Exhibition in 1851, the seismic impact of the previous 150 years was clear.
54:47In the Great Halls of the Crystal Palace, 100,000 exhibits glorified the might of British industry and the ingenuity
54:56of British technology.
54:58In six months, over six million people came to see the great turbines which powered factories, looms which mass-produced
55:09textiles,
55:11and locomotive engines which sped across the expanding railway network.
55:18Even a lighthouse whose powerful lens could direct beams of light further than ever before.
55:26The exhibition was conclusive proof that Britain was now the mightiest industrial power in the world.
55:33It produced two-thirds of the world's coal and half its iron.
55:42For me, the Industrial Revolution encapsulates the reasons why Britain counts in world history.
55:49In the 18th century, there was a commitment to, an engagement with, the potential of the new.
55:55New ideas, new devices, new machines, new processes, which unlocked the resources of society,
56:02unlocked the resources of the country, and took Britain into a new world of activity and energy.
56:11The special combination of geological good fortune, the ascendancy of political liberalism and enlightened thinking,
56:20plus imperial power, meant change was more likely to begin in Britain than elsewhere.
56:27The Industrial Revolution happened because the economic conditions were right to ensure its sustained success.
56:35And finally, there was one important change that's still with us today.
56:41The conviction that the future will never again be the same as the past.
56:47For most of the past, people were essentially defined by their history.
56:52They looked back for their values.
56:54Most people did what their parents had done.
56:57This situation changed radically from the 18th century.
57:01New ideas and new machines made it possible to create the wealth,
57:05thanks to which people could conceive of a new environment, a world in which people lived in cities.
57:11It's no wonder that we call this transformation the Industrial Revolution.
57:17It set the world in which we now live.
57:20We are in the shadow of the achievements of those people.
57:31Tomorrow night on BBC HD, find out more about the age of steam and the railways with Dan Snow and
57:37Locomotion at 9.
57:39Stay with us now, though, for Newsnight next.
57:41Newsnight next.
57:42Newsnight next.