CBSE · Class 10 · Social Science · History: The Age of IndustrialisationDescribe the transition from the period of 'Proto-industrialization' to the establishment of the modern factory system in England.

Transition from Proto-industrialization to Factory System

\nThe history of industrialization is not just the history of factories. Before factories began to dot the landscape in England, there was a large-scale industrial production for an international market that was not based on factories. This phase is known as Proto-industrialization.

The Proto-industrial Phase

• Decentralized Production: In the 17th and 18th centuries, merchants from towns in Europe began moving to the countryside. They supplied money to peasants and artisans, persuading them to produce for an international market.
• Merchant-Artisan Relationship: Within this system, a close relationship developed between the town and the countryside. Merchants were based in towns but the work was done mostly in the countryside by peasant households.
• Production Process: A merchant clothier in England purchased wool from a wool stapler, carried it to the spinners, then to the weavers, fullers, and finally to dyers. The finishing was done in London before the export merchant sold the cloth in the international market.

The Coming up of the Factory

• Richard Arkwright’s Cotton Mill: The earliest factories in England came up in the 1730s, but it was only in the late 18th century that their numbers multiplied. Richard Arkwright created the cotton mill.
• Centralization of Production: Unlike the proto-industrial system where production was scattered in family farms, the factory brought all the processes under one roof and management. This allowed for a more careful supervision of the production process, a watch over quality, and the regulation of labor.
• Technological Innovations: A series of inventions in the 18th century (like the spinning jenny and the steam engine) increased the efficacy of each step of the production process. They enhanced the output per worker, enabling each worker to produce more and they made possible the production of much stronger threads and yarn. \nIn the early 19th century, factories increasingly became an intimate part of the English landscape. So visible were the imposing new mills that they tended to dazzle the contemporaries, making them overlook the small workshops and the proto-industrial units that continued to function.