Industrial Revolution

In 1817, during a period of economic hardship following the war with France, a motley crew of stocking-makers, stonemasons, ironworkers and labourers from a Derbyshire village attempted an uprising against the government. It was swiftly and brutally suppressed. Susan Hibbins tells the story of England’s last attempted revolution.

This year marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Industrial Revolution in what is now a quiet Shropshire town as well as the 200th anniversary of the death of one of Britain’s greatest industrialists, Matthew Boulton. Ross Reyburn reports.

Commentators have tended to play down the importance of London as a business and industrial centre since 1500, argues Theo Barker, and in the process have distorted the saga of Britain’s economic rise and fall.

Peter Furtado visits the new National Waterfront Museum in Swansea, the museum of Welsh industrial and maritime heritage.

Kenneth J. Baird examines change and continuity in 19th-century British social history.

Was Richard Arkwright really the mechanical genius of the Industrial Revolution? Karen Fisk questions his record as Britain’s first cotton tycoon.

Edward Royle explains how labels were used in early industrial Britain for propaganda rather than description.  

Richard Cavendish unthreads the history of this Worcestershire museum.

Ralph Houlbrooke traces back the distinctive roots of the modern family.

Gertrude Himmelfarb considers why and when poverty ceased to be a 'natural' condition and become a 'social' problem in the Early Industrial Age.

Roderick Floud continues our special feature on the Industrial Revolution with a look at the impact of industrialisation on the British people.

R.J. Morris begins the second part of our special feature on the Industrial Revolution, asking what were the effects of the Industrial Revolution on class and class consciousness in Britain?